So do you prefer it to Polish Pastel? I grew PP this year, but in a new bed without chicken protection, so I'm still waiting to try it. The determinates that were supposed to be my canners didn't produce much either. (Floradade, Chico III, Healani and Rutgers.) Rutgers are small this year, almost like cherries. All of them were planted later than they should have been, so that may be part of it.

George, I'm glad you like Heidi. I've been singing its praises here for years. So far it is the most heat-tolerant and drought-tolerant paste variety I've ever grown, which isn't surprising since the original Heidi seeds were given to Carolyn Male by a student of hers (named Heidi Iyok) from Cameroon, Africa. It is a family heirlom passed down in Heidi Iyok's family. I chose to grow it because I figured any tomato that could tolerate the weather in West Africa surely would grow and produce here.

I also rarely have BER issues with it, it pretty much shrugs off diseases, and it even produced a crop in the horrible drought summer of 2011, as well as in every other droughty summer in which I've grown it.

Heidi is one of the first heirlooms I grew (probably the first heirloom paste) after moving here in the late 1990s, and I really had to hunt to find the seeds back then. Even though it was featured in Dr. Male's book "100 Heirloom Tomatoes for the American Garden", it's seeds were almost impossible to find commercially in the early 2000s. It, along with the seeds of many heirlooms, are much easier to find now than they were then. In her book, Dr. Male classifies it as a semi-determinate but I've always considered it a compact indeterminate based on the way it grows and produces here in our climate.

Amy, I found Polish Pastel to be a very poor producer here when I tried it in the mid-2000s. It produced so poorly that after trying it for two years, I crossed it off my list pretty quickly. Most paste tomatoes will produce well here most years, so I don't have much patience with the ones that don't perform.

Dawn

Polish Pastel did quite well for me as a fall crop. But it wouldn't set fruit until about now, when temps moderate some. The plants themselves are tough as nails. Heidi, on the other hand, is not only tough as nails, it also produces through the heat.

Thanks Dawn, for the great input!

Romas seem to do best for me, so I'm going to try Heidi next year based on y'all's recommendations. Thank you, George and Dawn.

Heidi strikes me as similar to Roma. But 1) it's indeterminate, at least in production, and 2) the fruit tastes better eaten fresh.

I agree, George. I like the fact that Heidi is worth eating fresh, which some Roma types are not. In the 1990s or maybe the early 2000s, I grew and really liked a hybrid paste variety named Viva Italia. It was the first hybrid paste tomato I'd ever had that was worth eating fresh, but I think Heidi is better (though not a hybrid). One of these years I need to grow them side by side to compare/contrast them. A lot of people grow Roma because that's what their family always grew, and I think it was the very first hybrid paste tomato back when it was introduced in the 1950s or 1960s, but there are better hybrids available now, and I still prefer the old heirloom paste varieties to the newer hybrid ones.

Macmex, where can Heidi Tomato seed be ordered? I find your information to be very interesting. I have grown Roma's & San Marzno but didn't get the production I was hoping for and they seem to have more Blossom End Rot worse.

I know Sandhill Preservation Center has the seed. I know others have it as well. Authereray, I will private message you.

I am interested in seed too.

I tried to message Authereray. But in order for me to do this, he has to be following me. Anyone who would like some seed, contact me privately, if you follow me, I'll follow you and then we can message. Also, if you go to the Green Country Seed Savers site you can message me there.

Interestingly, I don't recall Carolyn Male making much to do about this tomato. But then, she doesn't have her garden in a hot climate. This one shines in heat.

I grew Pink Bertoua last year (Baker Creek). It is also from Cameroon, also deals with heat. I wasn't crazy about the taste, I like my tomatoes sweeter. It puts out tomatoes bigger than a cherry but not what I would call slicer size. It was very prolific. If I was a breeder I would breed it to a bigger, sweeter tomato to try to get that heat tolerance.

I googled Heidi and Carolyn Male. Apparently Victory Seeds sells Heidi. They quote Dr. Male as saying it is remarkably disease tolerant and resistant to BER.

Macmex, Sorry I've not been checking my e-mails as often as I should may be I have it fixed now. I go over and check Green Country Seed Savers ever so often. I think you are doing a good thing to try save seed. My daughter lives in California and would give anything to own 10 acres to garden and have a few livestock, at least that is what she thinks.

I did not plant Heidi. But my Sungolds have produced heavily all summer and are still covered in tomatoes. I stopped watering them about two weeks ago and still have enough to share with my neighbors and the bunnies. Ha ha

Next year I think it's going to be only one Sungold instead of three.

Amy, Have you read Dr. Male's book? I highly recommend it. I haven't planted all 100 varieties mentioned in it, and she has re-introduced many more heirlooms since then (she had grown thousands of varieties), but I am having a lot of fun slowly working my way through it and trying as many of the varieties listed in the book as I can. I have grown about 60-65 of the varieties in the book so far, and some of the ones I haven't grown were not even available commercially when the book came out in 1999, but they are now. Maybe I'll eventually work my way through the whole book.

I've just about quit growing the smaller varieties like Porter and Principe' Borghese that produce so prolifically that I have to spend hours per day harvesting from those products during their peak productive period. It is just so much easier to harvest fewer, larger tomatoes than gazillions of little ones. I stopped growing Tess' Land Race Currant and many cherries for the same reason.

Heidi is available from several places, including Sandhill Preservation Center, Victory Seeds and TomatoFest. It is hard to save seed from it because it doesn't produce many seeds per fruit. I think this is why it has taken such a long time for it to become available.

George, I agree that Dr. Male hasn't pushed this tomato as hard as she has some others, but her climate is a lot different from ours. Still, it was in her book, which many hundreds of other heirlooms were not.

Authereray, I would have been happy with 3 to 5 acres. Maybe with 2-3 acres. I think 10 acres would sound appealing to someone who wants to move to the country, at least until they bought the land and moved there. : ) As I'm sure you know, the larger the property, the more upkeep you have to do, and ours requires more maintenance than I want to do any more.

stockergal, I love SunGold, but it surely will wear you out just trying to keep up with the harvesting all season long. When I get tired of picking them, I just leave them for the birds.

Dawn

Okiedawn, & Macmex,

I found a picture of Heidi tomatoes and the picture that showed looked sort of like it may be some kind of a landrace type, some look like plum tomatoes and others looked like a pear or Roma tomato. Is this a true likeness? I really don't care as long as they can take the heat and taste good. To me the Roma doesn't have much flavor, but that might just be me, the San Marzano's that I grew had a wonderful taste and made some of the best sauce, but Blossom End Rot was so bad most of them had to be thrown away. The Roma had it but not as bad. I agree with Okiedawn about liking a larger tomato for canning. One year I planted in the neighborhood of 100 large Cherry tomatoes and though they made more tomatoes than I could pick or give away it took forever to blanch and peel to can. I like the Porter tomatoes for the way they will keep making no matter how hot and dry it gets, 'fresh eating not canning', I grew both the original & improved a couple of years and ever since that time I have at least 3/4 volunteers every year so if the one's I plant don't make I still have some to eat. I will always be a fan of the Bradley and the Arkansas Traveler tomatoes as they can take a lot of hot dry weather and still make some.

The first year I grew Heidi I had some round and some which were like the original Porter, mixed in the batch. I saved seed of each variation, but separately. What I've grown out is the shape which you see in the bucket, at the top of this thread. I don't know if the variation in shape is normal. But what I've selected for is what you see in that bucket. It only took one season to arrive at this selection.

My Heidi tomatoes always have been plum tomato shaped just like the ones in George's bucket in the top photo. If you're seeing someone post photos of an off shape, it sounds to me that they are saving seed and not roguing out plants that produce tomatoes that are not true to the proper size/shape, and I suspect some of the seed they are using was cross-pollinated. When growing from saved seed, it is important to rogue out off-types by selecting for proper characteristics like George does or the variety a person is saving can morph into something else over time. When that happens, a person can lose the very characteristics that made a specific variety worth growing in the first place. That's my best guess as to why you saw photos of off-types that don't look like Heidi is supposed to look.

Because I use so many tomatoes in canning, I have been moving up to larger paste types for several years now, and one of my favorite large pastes is Speckled Roman merely because it is so huge and meaty. It also is sometimes sold as Spotted Roman or Striped Roman, and all three name variations seem to be the same variety.

Speckled Roman

Macmex, Okiedawn,

I disremember what page the picture was on I just typed Heidi Tomato and that is what come up. I can never remember where I find something on a computer. I am not very computer or cell phone savvy. The ones in the bucket look a little like a Roma type. Okiedawn your Speckled Roman sort of look like the San Marzano in shape. My wife likes the Roma tomatoes and buys them at the grocery store. We throw all our scraps in the garden. A few years ago there were 2 volunteer tomatoes came up early and with stood a very hard freeze and kept growing so I moved them into a skip in a row and kept track of what they made. Those 2 plants made over 100 Roma type tomatoes. I didn't stake them up so they sprawled all over the ground. I have not been able to duplicate that. I don't recommend anyone keeping volunteer tomatoes but sometimes I get a pleasant surprise. There used to be an old lady who lived close by that kept a small raised bed garden in her back yard that she called her "Surprise Garden", she would throw all her vegetable scraps in this bed and in the spring she would just work and care for what ever came up. It was a lot of fun seeing what she would have in her garden ever year.

Macmex how do you plant your Heidi tomatoes in the garden? Do you do anything special when planting? How far a part do you space your plants in the row and how wide are your middles? I seem to never get them the same from one year to the next.

The Speckled Roman are very similar in shape to San Marzano but are much, much larger. That's why I like them. They're the largest paste types I've ever grown that have a true paste shape, versus some that are more round or more heart shaped.

I plant Heidi like all others, which require support. I use 5' cages. I generally plant my tomatoes 5-6' apart (plants, not cages at that distance). Most years I end up wishing I had put a bit more space between them.

My wife and I primarily use our tomatoes for tomato sauce. We've learned that we can simply cut out bad spots and blossom ends. With a typical round tomato I cut a little dish shaped cavity around the stem end, removing it. With Heidi and other paste types we just slice off the very end at the stem end. Then we at least cut the tomato in half, sometimes quarters and blend it up, dumping the juice into our crock pot to simmer until it is 1/2 the volume. At that point we can it as "sauce." Notice we don't remove the skins. It really makes almost no difference to remove them, at least, the way we use them.

We have a Vitamix food processor, which really breaks them down well. But at only 30-40 years of age the Vitamix needs some new parts (just don't make them like they used to). I can get the parts for about $50, and will do so. But for now, I've been using a regular blender. It does the job.

Macmex, thanks for the information about leaving the skins on the tomato's. I have always heard that they would get tough if canned but I guess if they are ground up fine enough they wouldn't be a bother. I also like the crock pot idea. I made sauce one year with San Marzano and had to cut off the Blossom End Rot just to have some, but I cut them up and ran them through a food mill to detach the skins and simmered the juice in a big pot all day, which took all the fun out of it. But the sauce was some of the best I ever made. I usually set my tomatoes about 2-3 ft. apart in the row but I think you have the right idea about the 5-6 ft. distance especially when drought hits like it does so often in this country anymore. My Grand Pa used to plant corn about 3 ft., so he could plow it in what he called cotton check pattern, according to him for dry weather. That is along with the row and then across the rows, it made a very pretty field of corn but it didn't produce as much as the corn fields do to day. Thank you again for your information.

I'd love to have a few seeds as well for next year - sounds like a great one!
Thanks, George :)

If I ever have large amounts of tomatoes to cook, I plan to use my electric turkey roaster. I have done tomatoes in the crock pot, unpeeled. I put them through the food mill afterward. I have also roasted them in the oven and then run them through a foodmill. (This is the quickest way). This year I used the Weston tomato press. The tomatoes were frozen raw, but processed down to much less space than whole tomatoes.

Macmex, When you cook the tomato sauce in your crock pot do you stir the sauce to keep it from sticking to the bottom and burning?? If so how often? I think I will try this method next time I can. I don't have a blender but I do have a food processor that I think might grind the tomatoes up fine enough to use the peels. The sauce would condense the amount of juice that we can and take up less space and also to where a little water could be added when making chili or soup, which is what we use our juice for anyway. Thanks' for the light bulb moment.

I almost don't stir. I set it on low and I stir "every now and then." Usually I'm at work or asleep during most of the cooking time.

Some crock pots are hotter than others. So experiment. Both of mine are hotter than average. So my low is another person's high.

Also, sometimes I can't get to the canning right when I wanted to. So I set it on "keep warm," which slows it down even more.

Most of the time I either have no lid on the crock pot or else It's in place, but askew, to let moisture escape more easily.