I gave up on Burpee many years ago. One year they offered Red Brandywine F1, so I bought seeds and plants to take a look since I was ticked off.

Then they changed the name to Bucks County something or other, I don't remember the details.

For two years they put out a catalog of just so called heirloom varieties that for me was a catastrophe as to good information.

Then they went into bankruptcy, eventually got out of that and at one point I had a long talk with what's his name who took over Burpee and actually got some good history from him about Big Boy F1, Better Boy F1 and Teddy Jones, a parent of both and how John Peto left Burpee and took TJ seeds with him and started Petoseed.

Carolyn

I tried to edit my post above but a lot of garbage formatting appeared and all I wanted to say is that it's George Ball who bought Burpee and he's from the Ball Seed CO in Chicago and he had to divest himself of any interest in the family CO before he took over.

A couple of years ago I was sent a Burpee catalog and the ratio of space given to pictures vs text and variety info was about 10 to 1.

Then he bought out Shepherd's Seeds based in VT near me, or she sold it, I don't know where Ogden went, and the two catalogs now offer about the same although the descriptions often differ for the same variety. Sigh

Carolyn

Sigh, indeed.

I just wanted to follow up on the Burpee Brandywine Red variety. I harvested a fall crop of green, but starting to ripen (on the inside) tomatoes (we had an early frost). I have attached a picture of a ripe tomato after it ripened fully in my garage.

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I have also attached pictures of the skin. I always have trouble making a definitive determination, but does this look like yellow skin to you? I know it's tough to capture everything in a picture, but to me it looks clear (I also have the benefit of seeing it in person).

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The flavor is very strong and acidic as you might expect from a classical tomato. It was a little mushier than other varieties that ripened under similar circumstances. Since I didn't grow it side by side with Brandywine Pink it is hard for me to discuss flavor similarities/differences. Altogether the flavor was OK, but it seemed to be lacking balance and I found it a bit bitter. Maybe this is attributed to the non-ideal ripening conditions.