Finding the seeds for many of them will be the main problem I think. Some are only available with membership to Seed Savers Exchange. Some can be found through various other trading forums (check out the tomato seed trading forum here too) but then the purity of the seed may become and issue.

Some will only be available from overseas seed vendors and then you run into international shipping of AG products issues plus heavy shipping costs and delays.

And for some you may never find any seeds. Tatian does a great job of listing sources for the variety if seeds are available.

Dave

PS: otherwise you just have to live long enough to do it. At 50 a year it will only take you about 50 years. :)

Haha yes...living long enough is a problem! lol I am in my 20's and we just moved to many acres of land so I could grow a lot more. I was being very pushy about it with my husband you see. So I will be able to grow much more each year. Finding the seed is an issue, and picking which ones each year is a fun problem to have. My first year I picked all pretty tomatoes and a lot of them were horrible. I did not like Green Zebra at all.
I didn't know there were overseas sources. I didn't even know it was legal to ship seeds across borders, so that is good to know. My grandmother is from Italy and she told me stories about our family stitching seeds in the hems of their dresses to get them through Ellis Island.
Just curious, how many have you grown? And how many were actually good to you? Any favorites you think I should try and search out?

I appreciate your responses Dave, You are always so nice to respond to everyone.

Lindsey

Ventmarin, a French database, has 13,937 varieties listed at the moment, but that includes old varieties which no longer exist, commercial hybrids you'd never be able to find seed for (unless you know a big grower in the right country), etc.

IIRC some of the German databases are slightly larger than Ventmarin.

I've been purchasing seeds from Tatiana's (she's in Canada, I'm in the US); I've also bought from Richter's, a great Canadian herb seed vendor. No problems. (I haven't tried any of the other Canadian tomato seed vendors.)

But don't try to send tomato seeds to Australia! (Though apparently the Dwarf Tomato Project has permission.)

There are one or two Italian seed vendors who have enough tomato varieties to be interesting; I haven't bought from them, but other Americans do. This is the only one I have a link for:
http://growitalian.com/

Start with the ones that ARE readily available before you have to worry about the ones that are not. Its real easy to get a collection of several hundred varieties without even trying. Ask me how I know. =)

I didn't realize there were over 13,000 tomatoes. Maybe I should just aim for a 1,000 types to start. :) I just don't want to miss anything good or interesting. Growing tomatoes is a such a neat hobby. Why can't tomato seeds be mailed to Australia, but allowed in other countries? Hmmmm?

suncitylinda- I was hoping to do a round robin tomato swap next year. I figure that would be a good way to take my 50 or so varieties I save seed from and turn them into more tomato varieties quickly. Whatever else "I have to grow" next year, I will buy. Is that how you got that many without going broke...or did you just go broke :)

Hobby is a much nicer word than obsession. :).
It starts so innocently. Next thing you know, you are putting in gardens any place you can. Or maybe it's just me. I was planning on trying a new type or two every year, but I keep finding ones that are keepers.
It is fun! Now if spring would just cooperate!

Lindsey, someone above referred you to Ventmarin in France, and yes he does list thousands of varieties but none are for sale.I use Ventmarin only for research purposes when I need to.

I wouldn't even bother with overseas seed sites unless you're conversant in French or Swedish or German and even if you use a translater my point is that there are plenty of varieties you can get here in North America that will last you for a very long time.

I'd like to see you change your focus from saying you want to grow them all to something like you'd want to find ones that you like, save seeds, maybe share them with others, etc,, but not a goal to grow them all.

You can't, no matter how old you get. LOL

There are maybe 15-20,000 known OP's, some heirloom, some not. About 7-10,000 are available commercially on this side of the pond. There are many persons from other countries who belong to various message sites and they have been wonderful in sharing such varieties with others, myself included.

You mentioned the 3,000 varieties person above, and yes, I've said that here before and there are other close friends who have grown even more than that.

You also asked how folks first got started with tomatoes.While I was up close and personal with tomatoes from about age 5 , will be 74 in June,since I was raised o n a farm where we had acres of them, and grew tomatoes wherever I was whether it was Rochester, NY, Denver, CO, I didn't start growing seriously until I moved back East from Denver in1982 when I then had all the space I needed at the old family farm.

Each year for many years I grew several hundreds of plants and varieties and that's how I got to know varieties. The more you grow the better you become at judging the worth of new ones, based on your experience with ones grown previously.

For many years I did a Wrong Varieties thread here at GW and it became very clear very quickly that more wrong varieties come from traded seeds as to the # that come from any comemrcial site. And that also depends on an individual site and if they produce their own seed, subcontract out or buy off the shelf or do a combo of those.

There are some great seed sites and IMO some terrible ones and if you do a search here you'll find lots of threads about seed sites.

You asked about Steve's Double Helix site in another thread here, and I answered,

But I don't know HOW many different varieties you've grown to date and I don't know anything about your ability to rogue out wrong varieties,etc.

For anyone just starting out with not much experience I think it's a good idea to grow the ones that are popular to get some experience. When you've grown about a 1000 then you can consider buying seed for the rare, hard to find ones. Just my own opinion here.

So, step back a bit and maybe reconsider your stated goal of growing out all there are, b'c not only is it not going to happen, but I think you should be growing for yourself alone and see how that goes first.

When someone asks me to list my 10 or 20, or 5 or ONE best variety I don't do it and can't do it b'c every season brings new varieties and perhaps new best ones,

Hope that helps,

Carolyn

linzelu100: re. shipping tomato seed to Australia, see this thread:
http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/tomato/msg0901410116943.html

I don't know how the Dwarf Tomato Project people manage, but I'm glad they do. [If you're not familiar with the Dwarf Tomato Project, they are creating new varieties -- better-tasting and different-colored dwarf tomatoes for people with limited space (think growing in pots on a high-rise balcony).

Anyway, to speed up development of the new dwarves, they grow two crops of tomatoes per year. So in the Northern Hemisphere's winter, several Australian tomato-lovers grow plants in their summer (also someone in the US Southwest who can grow in the winter).]

Here's their main page:
http://dwarftomatoproject.net/

harveyhorses - It has turned into an obsession. Sometimes I can't sleep because I can't settle my mind, thinking about all the types I am going to grow in the future years. My husband supports the habit, but he thinks I need an AA group. He says this is not normal. :)

missingtheobvious - I had no idea. How dreadfully boring.

International shipping of agricultural products is a world unto its own.

Just as there are states in this country that won't allow certain agricultural products to be shipped/imported into their state there are many countries, not just Australia, that don't allow import of them. The US also has restrictions and/or tariffs on some ag imports - in other words the restrictions work both ways.

So as you can see trying to grow ALL of them would be impossible for many reasons. Shoot even growing all the reds alone would be impossible. :)

Dave

Carolyn- I was hoping my question wouldn't be misconstrued, but I think it may have. I am not wanting to grow as many tomatoes as I can just for the sake of it. I am a greedy eater and I find the different flavor profiles so exciting. From one tomato to the next there is so much VARIETY! I grew up in NJ, city lifestyle and all the tomatoes looked the same, round and red. Probably Rutgers tomato. I had no idea there were striped tomatoes, green when ripe tomatoes, or white! Who would have guessed it...not me. One day I was having lunch with my grandmother who I adore and respect and she was on a Mansanto rant. I asked her what I could do about it since she said my generation is lazy and oblivious to what's going on and she told me to become a seed saver and protect a variety. Ok I told her, calm down I will protect one variety. She said she could die happy if I knew how to save seed from something and re-grow it. She gave me a Bakers Creek catalogue to pick one out and when I saw all the variety I was overwhelmed, in a good way, once I started growing and tasting...I was hooked. We even moved to a multiple acre lot so I could grow more. I just want to experiment with so much, finding what works for us. Plus, I do it all with my little girl. I plan on saving all the good seeds for her and passing them on to her- she won't have as much of a learning curve as I am having now. I will be able to help her. No one in my family grew food. All semi-recent Europe immigrants who lived in Philadelphia.

I usually buy from Bakers Creek, Seed Savers Exchange, Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, and then do online trading which I have had great success with.

The ones I save seed from regularly are:
Pink Brandywine
Purple Cherokee
Violet Jasper
Italian Heirloom (from SSE)
Emmy (from SSE)
Juane Flamme
Red Zebra
Riesentraube Cherry
Pearly Pink (My daughter really loves this bland tomato, my husband and I don't like it much!)

Ones I tried and didn't continue to save:
Green Zebra (yuck!)
Yellow pear
Black cherry (they taste great but ripped and molded a lot)
Beauty King

This year the new ones:
Jersey Devil
Beefsteak
Traveler
Dr. Wyches Yellow
Moonglow
Pineapple
White Queen
Aunt Ruby's German Green
Lemon drop
Sara's Galapagos
Isis candy Cherry
Blondkopfchen
Gypsy
Gold Medal
Rhoades (probably incorrect name)
Matina
Novogogoshary
Cour d'bue
Fantome du laos
Omar's Lebanese
Hawaiian Currant

Oh my I am so sorry for the length of this!

Lindsey

Oh and Carolyn, right now the trickiest part I am having researching is how to know if the tomato I have is labeled correctly. I read the descriptions, pull back the tomato skin, to check color, check how many seed pockets, leaf growth and such, but sometimes I think, and this may be way off, that people are just naming tomatoes an heirloom when it is already a named tomato. You know, to sound enticing. I could be wrong. I have noticed this feeling with one company.

I'm not sure how to tell if I have the correct Italian Heirloom tomato, from SSE, but I'm not complaining b/c I LOVE it! I bought it last year from SSE public catalogue. The picture they show has red round fruits. I have read a few descriptions on this forum from SSE members catalogue. SO I am not sure what happened to my 6 plants I grew, but they had all different tomatoes mixed on the plants...some were red, smooth and round, some were small and ruffled, some had a ruffled heart shape. It was really fascinating. And such sweet cooking tomatoes for sauce! Here is a picture. Now I want to try more heart shaped tomatoes.