Here's a list of the varieties I've transplanted so far this year: (Depp's Pink Firefly is shown here on the left and Andes, Maruskin Strain on the right.)
Marge's Plum: Red canning plum/paste variety. From Seed Savers' Exchange's Yearbook. I've never grown it, and no other grower has listed growing this variety in several years. An adventure. It has the typical wispy foliage of many of the Italian/Polish pastes, but is not quite as wispy as some. Not commercially available.
Russian 117: A gigantic red meaty oxheart, some to 1 pound. According to Tomato Growers Supply Company, it's very flavorful (most oxhearts are), and more productive than the average oxheart type. Stocky sturdy plants.
Yellow Cookie: Large golden oxheart, beautiful firm delicious flesh. Productive for an oxheart. From Neil Lockhart last year, Seed Savers Yearbook exchange. Not commercially available.
Depp's Pink Firefly: Large (some to 1 1/2 pounds) pink old-fashioned Kentucky variety. Potato-leaf plants. From Doc and Emily Coy of Louisville via Cecil R. Ison in 2001. Now commercially available from at least three sources, but in 2001 this tomato was being grown only by Dr. and Mrs. Coy. They had kept this strain going for many years - Depp's was grown in the Glasgow, KY area since roughly 1890 by Mrs. Coy's family.
Hartford: Large deep-ruby-red oxheart. Just beautiful - taste, production, ease of growth and sheer loveliness made Hartford a joy to grow last year. From Bill Minkey via SSY exchange. Not commercially available.
Mr. Tartar's German: Large red round to oblong fruit, excellent fruit quality and taste. From Bill Minkey. Not commercially available.
Granny Carville's Yellow Roma: Golden-yellow roma paste shape. Robust plants, productive. Pretty for pale sauces and preserves. Not commercially available.
Andes, Maruskin Strain: Elongated, highly productive, tomato-soup-red French paste/canning type. Unlike many pastes, excellent for fresh eating as well as canning. Large fruits to 12 ounces. Typical wispy leaf of many older paste varieties. Even the original strain of Andes is hard to find: this strain has been selected for 8 years for thinner skin, more complex taste, and larger size than the original strain.
Cherokee Green Pear: Green-at-maturity large pear. From Marianna's, the only source of this seed. Marianne Jones, the owner, found this sport growing in her Cherokee Greens.
Jaune Flammee: This workhorse beauty of the salad bowl has it all: bright golden-orange (the name means "Flaming Yellow") tomato, perfectly round and uniform to 5 ounces, highly productive, early - and a complex palate, nicely balanced ratio of sweet-to-acid flavors.
Peacevine Cherry: This unassuming, tasty little red cherry hides a secret. Higher in many vitamins than many other varieties, this tomato is extraordinarily high in vitamin C and gamma-amino butyric acid, a naturally ocurring body sedative. A Seeds of Change exclusive, but available elsewhere.
Italienne Noire: AKA Italian Black. From Bill Minkey via SSY. A small black canning paste/plum to 3 ounces. Very productive; strong vines resemble some of the frillier cherry tomato types. Not commercially available.
Lusignan's Special: A antique French variety of elongated paste / plum to 8 ounces. Just gorgeous sunset-red with a pink opalescence - makes for excellent fresh eating. Productive, sturdy, and now endangered. Originally from Bill Minky via SSY. Wispy foliage. Not commercially available; no growers listed in SSY 2009.
Verna Orange: Splendid orange oxheart to 1.25 pounds. Mango-colored, nearly solid flesh. Early for an oxheart, and divine ratio of sweet to acid. Cans well, beautiful orange juice, nearly seedless. Not resistant to late blight, but Verna (an Indiana heirloom) will produce well, faithfully, and early. Mildly tolerant of cold. Wispy, dark green foliage.
Rose Beauty: Beautiful, but NOT ROSE! RB is named for the Rose family of Estill County, from whence this splendid old-fashioned banana-cream-yellow beefsteak hails. Hugely productive, sturdy, fast growing vines. Lots of foliage cover to prevent sunscald on the pale fruits which develop a sweet pink blush on the blossom end at full maturity.
Ernie's Plump: Red-orange tomato shaped like an 8-ounce drawstring bag! Described as a large double pear by grower Marianne Jones, this is a workhorse in the garden. Vines tend to be short and stocky. Bears heavily; displays leaf-rolling when setting fruit.
Aunt Anna: Gigantic red beefsteaks purportedly from an Amish source in Holmes County, Ohio. Taste is fantastic, fair to good yield. Cage plants without suckering rather than staking.
Yasha Yugoslavian: Extra-large pink beefsteaks, from Yasha Crnkovic via Dr. Carolyn Male.
Calf's Heart: A smaller, blood-red oxheart with exceedingly tender flesh. Only available from Maria Stenger, a Hardin County, KY gardener/seedswoman from her eBay shop, Blue Ribbon Tomatoes.
Vinson Watts: Pink beefsteak fruit with a splendid taste for fresh eating (the best BLT on earth!); long vines, productive; Vinson Watts of Morehead, Kentucky, worked on this variety for more than 40 years.
Egg Yolk: From Baker Creek; this open-pollinated variety produces up to 30 pounds of addictive yellow tomatoes that look exactly like their namesakes. Strong plants, impervious to cold, heat, bacterial disease or drought.
Butler Skinner: Large, late, rose-red beefsteak grown by Winchester resident and jailer Butler Skinner. Beautiful plants that are nearly potato-leaf in structure - produces late but consistently. Not commercially available. First year to be available in SSY.
Britain's Breakfast: A large elongated bright red cherry tomato with a pointed tip. Extraordinarily productive, strong plants. Multiflora plants produce clouds of blossoms; a typical English "truss" tomato. Great halved and grilled as a side dish for poached, scrambled or fried eggs. Very hard to find commercially.
