• Grabthar@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Yeah, that’s what I get through the winter, then I grow tomatoes in the summer. But there youbhave to be careful too. Some seeds end up being the same mass produced crap that industrial farms use. I heard years back that a university in Florida had developed a varietal that solved all conventional problems with tomatoes for the big corporate farms but still managed to prioritize the taste. You could apparently order seeds online. Always wanted to try that.

    • The_v@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Don’t bother, those varieties are still pretty bland. They were still bred for shipping AKA firmness. So they were very slightly better than the ones you normally find at the grocery store.

      • LetThereBeNick@lemmy.zip
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        2 days ago

        My county’s extension office does a spring fair where they sell about a hundred varieties of heirloom tomato seedlings. They’re not bred for grocery stores and are delicious

        • The_v@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          Eventually when I retire, I am thinking of doing a little backcross breeding on OP tomatoes. Pulling in all the modern disease resistance package into the older varieties would make growing them much easier.

          The hardest part is finding a pathologist to run the screens. I could also speed it up a bit with molecular markers but you can never completely trust them. You have to run the pathology screens.