the tomato tastes like a tomato.

the watermelon tastes like a watermelon.

the pepper taste like a pepper.

War garden - you are so helpful when you pop in! Do us a favor and pop back out.

Never heard of any of them. Can you provide a link to info on them please? If this is the tomato you are talking about then I assume you know that many varieties produce fruit that size.

And "Indeterminate / Slicing Massive fruits weighing over 1 lb. deliver fantastic flavor to your table. An excellent cutting tomato, this monstrous fruit will yield wonderfully firm and juicy slices. Resistant to verticillium, fusarium and nematodes." sure sounds hybrid to me as no OP has all that resistance naturally. VFN resistance is a hybrid.

Dave

That's looks like the one. The Home Depot sells it online, with the packaging I have.

I'm familiar with lots of large tomatoes/watermelon/peppers. These Garden Leader Monster seeds have been being marketed in local stores around here in SW Idaho and eastern Oregon. I got the tomato for $1.99 at Bi-Mart in Ontario, Oregon (the packet says Ferry Morse, which is owned by Plantation Products). It says 70-80 days to harvest; indeterminate; plenty of 17oz fruit; no mention of disease resistance or hybrid/OP status. The watermelon was the same price in a similar Ferry Morse packet, which says they produce 2 fruits per vine; 20-30lbs each; oblong, striped fruit; 85 to 90 days to harvest. I don't have the pepper. I grew the watermelon in 2017, but I didn't keep track of which one it was, and I neglected to thin it to three plants; so, the fruits, if it produced were not anything like large. I might try it again in 2019 or beyond. I do plan to grow the tomato (not this year, though, unless I grow it in the shade or something).

I don't know about nematode resistance specifically (that's not terribly common in OP varieties; I think Atkinson has it, but I don't know others offhand, unless GLM is OP as they said), but there are numerous OP varieties with resistance to a number of diseases, some according to universities who bred them and such, and some anecdotal. F1 hybrids definitely more often have more resistances, and more often have resistances verified with more than anecdotal evidence, but there are some OP varieties out there with similar qualities with regard to disease resistance. Some even have it in the name, like VF Roma (granted, that's only two resistances; two is a lot more common than three, and any more than three really gets my attention). OP resistances that the varieties are said to have are often not mentioned by vendors, though (same for hybrid resistances). Walter is supposed to have all kinds of resistances (I don't know how verified or true any of them are). It would be understandably a whole lot of work to breed in and verify all those in an OP variety. I think there are at least two different Walter tomatoes, though (and one of them probably has very different qualities). Atkinson is supposed to have several resistances, too, including at least two rare ones.

It's perhaps possible that those OP varieties with reported resistance were F1 hybrids at the time, and kept the description after someone stabilized them, without re-verifying the resistance. So, you might be right. It's hard to say for sure.

Disease resistance doesn't necessarily mean it'll be vigorous, prolific, heat/cold-tolerant, all-season, early, etc., though.

"It's perhaps possible that those OP varieties with reported resistance were F1 hybrids at the time, and kept the description after someone stabilized them, "

Exactly. If coded with resistance they are stabilized hybrids. The VF Roma, the many Rutgers strains etc are good examples. Is a stabilized hybrid the same thing as a true OP variety? Not in my book. True OPs may show some tolerance for some diseses depending on growing conditions but they have no genetically coded resistance.

But it is really a moot point IF this is one of the many hyped claims or one of the name-changed varieties we see so often about varieties from less-than-reputable-sources. Not saying that is the case just that you have to look at the source of the seed and info. One big clue IMO is if the seeds and info come from one of the authoritative tomato sites and the ones you list aren't usually considered such but are known for less than accurate info.

Dave

Actually most of the middle aged commercial OPs had been developed and tested for diseases such as F V and N. Some of the other may or not have but testing is expensive and therefore not done for varieties with limited commercial use. There are a few modern OP tested but they are PVP protected.

I have no idea as to the source of the Garden Leader Monster series. Plantation Products sell them under several labels including Ferry Morse and McKenzie. Based on packet price I am 99.9% sure they are OP.

I grew Garden Leader Monster this year, 2022. I will not grow it again.

The seedlings were healthy and vigorous. So were the plants. Unfortunately, they were extraordinarily large vines with very little fruit, most of which arrived late in the season and too late to get large enough to even warrant picking the green ones to ripen after frost. I have a 140 day growing season. Other varieties grown in the same garden produced bushels of fruit.

The only good thing I have to say about this variety is that the ridiculously huge vines protected my first year artichokes from the summer heat.

I will probably have a great crop of chokes next summer.