Heritage Harvest Seeds;

Ashleigh - One of my favorites of the season! Huge, meaty, red, delicious tomatoes produced in abundance! The largest was 3 lbs but most are in the 1-2 lb range. The fruit is gorgeous with old fashioned ribbing at the stem end. Neil Gillard originally introduced this tomato to Seed Savers Exchange and obtained it near Eganville, Ontario from the owners of the summer cottage he had been staying at for the last 25 years. They got it from their neighbour. It is originally from Lazec, Macedonia. Neil named the tomato after his niece Ashleigh. Indeterminate. (85 days from transplant)
ÂNew variety for 2010 $3.00 25 seeds

It is an excellent variety and I'm glad to see that there is at least one place where seeds are available. Neil sent it to me back in 2005 and I've distributed lots of seed for it and also listed it in the SSE YEarbook at one time, at least I thiink I did. LOL

I sent seeds for trial to Victory Seeds two years ago but Mike didn't have enough seeds to offer it last year so I'm hoping it will be offered there this year.

And I think I also sent seeds to Linda at TGS for trial but there is some lag time there b'c she has to subcontract out for seed production. So folks can look there in the future as well.

Another place to look soon is Glecklers Seedmen which is a revival of one of the first places that one could get heirloom seed from, going back to the late 40's and one of the places I first got heirloom tomato seed from in the mid-80's, and the grandson of the first owner is doing this and his mentor is his father who ran the business until 1994. There will be lots and lots of now hard to get tomato varieties there when he gets the website updated.

I agree that Ashleigh is meaty and tasty, but just as meaty and just as good tasting in my opinion are Chapman and Red Penna and Russian Bogatyr and Wes, to name a few, in my opinion.

Carolyn

Carolyn
Glad to hear Gleckers is going to be back - and still in the family - used to get seed there too - good news - seen any of the "lists" yet?

Glecklers Seedmen

I thought I'd do it as a link, but Adam still doesn't have any the new ones listed. What's there are just a few of the varieties they offered last year.

he was supposed to e-mail me when everything new was entered at the website, and expected that to be done this past week but I haven't heard from him and I can see why, b'c all the new varieties aren't there yet.

And I'm glad to find someone else who knew Gleckler's and knows what an important contribution they made to heirloom varieties of all kinds of vegetables and fruits for so many years, and why I'm so enthusiastic about seeing Adam revive the company/ Other than them, there was Jan Blum's catalog, she went out of business, and few knew about SSE that early on either, which started in 1975.

Carolyn

Here is a link that might be useful: Glecklers

Carolyn
I also know Tom Wagner does a lot of research and new breeding for potatoes and tomatoes somewhere in Washington I believe - under the old tater mater name - and of cource lectures etc - I heard a rumor he was going to start selling again or at least getting "new" varieties out there - have you heard anything

I've known Tom since 1990 and met him when I was doing a thingie for a large nursery in Pasadena and he was still living in Bakersville at that time and drove down. He spent the afternoon at a table where I was giving out advice on tomato varieties and signing copies of my book and then we went out for dinner and talked even more.

Tom has been saying he's going to release this and that ever since I've known him, so I don't have a good answer for you. I wanted him to release Verde Claro, a green when ripe one with a clear epidermis so it looks likes frosted grapes that I trialed for him b'c I liked it so much, and had suggested doing so at TGS so as to get his name out there again, but that didn't happen.

I guess the old adage time will tell is what it's going to be. ( smile) Up until now he's been the only one with some clear epidermis green when ripe varieties, not released, but this past summer two folks independently found a mutation of Green Doctors, which is a spontaneous mutation from the variety Dr. Carolyn, and the new one is now called Green Doctors Frosted and seeds will be available to both SSE members from a 2010 Yearbook listing, and the general public as well through a commercial site as well as a limited number of seeds at the message site where I do my annual seed offer now, although I used to do that here at GW before the other place started online.

Carolyn

Carilyn
I am not able to save seed due to limited space and isolation problems so never joined SSE - you can only get seeds if you are an active member - correct?

You can order from the public catalog. Officially you can't order from the yearbook.

DarJones

cool - many of the same varietiess - just diff because of cost?

I am not able to save seed due to limited space and isolation problems so never joined SSE - you can only get seeds if you are an active member - correct?

****

Correct. SSE members can make requests from those SSE members who list their varieties in the annual Yearbook. There are about 4500 different tomato varieties listed. There are two categories of SSE members, listed and unlisted, so one doesn't have to list varieties in order to request from the YEarbook but the suggested cost is a bit higher for unlisted SSE members.

You can go to seedsavers.org and read all about it.

There's also the Public Catalog, online and also available as paper, from which anyone can buy seeds, but for tomatoes there's only about 40 or so varieties available, but lots of other goodies.

I've listed hundreds of varieties in the Yearbook and have never used any particular isolation and have never bagged blossoms and out of all of those I can remember only about 10 that had crossed seeds from my saved seed.

The norm is for self pollenization with tomatoes but that also depends on where one lives and the kinds of pollinators and how many there are. At the top of this first page you can click on the FAQ link and scroll down to an excellent article, with pictures, about cross pollination.

I'd say that very few of the SSE listers do anything special and most who do say so in their introductory blurb as I now do since my good friend bags blossoms of the varieties she grows for me.

Carolyn

cool - many of the same varietiess - just diff because of cost?

****

As I said in my post above there are only about 40 varieties in the Public catalog but over 4000 in the Yearbook, and the cost of seeds from the Public Catalog isn't that much different from the suggested cost of seeds that are requested through the Yearbook, although it does depend on whether you're a listed or unlisted member as I also mentioned above.

Getting seeds from other SSE members isn't for everyone. While I encourage anyone who is interested in the preservation of OP varieties to support SSE with a membership, I do think it's best if someone has some experience growing the more popular varieties found at various seed sites we've discussed here and after that then maybe go for some of the more rare varieties.

I think folks need experience so they can better judge the worth of any one variety as well as knowing about pulling out wrong plants if crossed seed is sent, which does happen from time to time.

Carolyn

When you take the time to build "Isolation cages" around your tomato plants expecially around your Potato-leaved types you really don't don't have to worry about this . But then again a lot of members of SSE don't practice this and well,...You know.
I have never sent out crossed seed.
Growing Rare varieties are exactly like growing common ones.

Carolyn
sure would be nice to see some of Tom's new ones - he has brought us a few maters that have really been great for the heirloom and OP tomato - his Green Zebra got many restauranteers here in Calif to using Heirlooms again (and new restaurants trying them )when the interest in heirlooms had somewhat went into a stall some years ago - the Zebra was unique and still had flavors that were really liked - I may be biased but I think here in Calif he re-started the heirloom revolution with that tomato and now the restaurant industry here uses lots of them in high scale establishments - and more homegrowers also got onto the bandwagon as did local plant producers

I realize this is an old thread but if you're still looking for 🍅Ashleigh tomatoes🍅...
www.victoryseeds.com
👍🏼👍🏼