Some years ago, I embarked on a tomato breeding experiment. “Recession Gold” is a Gold Medal x German Striped x Brandywine cross. It produces 1-2 lb. yellow and red slicers that are exceptionally sweet on large, indeterminate vines. It tastes like a German Striped, but has the higher productivity and more uniformly round fruits of Gold Medal. Average fruit size has been reduced from German Striped, but I would like to reduce it more.
My goals were:
- Improved productivity over German Striped and Brandywine
- Maintain rich, sweet German Striped taste
- Superior southern disease resistance (needs continued improvement)
- Reduce average fruit size to about 1 lb globular fruits (in progress)
I need gardeners, especially those in the southeastern U.S., to grow out plants and tell me if the seeds bred true to the stated characteristics for them to determine the stability of the cross. I grew out all my previous years last summer, and I am very happy with the progress made and believe a stable cross has been reached, but only growing out lots and lots of plants will tell for sure.
FREE seed packets will be available at the 2nd Annual Seed Celebration presented by the Tennessee Valley Community Garden Association at the Church of the Nativity in downtown Huntsville, AL on January 31st, 2014. I hope you can join us, and bring your own seeds to share and swap. Last year was a huge success, and this year should be even better. Local food, beer and wine will be provided and the keynote speaker starts at 7:15pm.
If you can’t make the event, I do have some seeds in reserve I can send out to blog readers. Drop me a comment below or email recessiongardening@outlook.com for details.
Recession Gardening 
I live in Kansas. Would love to grow these.
Please check your email, Dawn.
I’m interested in growing some of these. I’m in central Florida.
I sent you an email, Amanda.
I would love to try these in my garden in California. We’re switching to 100% organic/heirloom this year for the bees and I’m looking for new varieties to try. This sounds great!
I will send you an email shortly. However, this variety isn’t an heirloom — it’s brand new, although the parent stock is all heirloom varieties.
I am in North Carolina would like to try a new variety
Hi Karen, please check your email.
I’m not the best at tomato growing yet (last year was my first year trying) but I’d love to give your variety a try if you have some left! I’d only have room for maybe 5 plants. I’ll be at the seed exchange at the end of the month. 🙂
Kirsten, if you don’t get any at the swap, let me know and I will send you some. I have been slammed with requests today thanks to Facebook but I have 25 packets left, and the packets have 10 seeds each which is good enough for a couple of years for most gardeners. I hope that they grow equally well for the inexperienced, so input from newer gardeners is certainly welcome. (If you don’t want to risk missing getting some, go ahead and email me your address and I’ll mail them out.)
Oh, and I think I am serving soup at the seed swap, so please say hello!
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