They are different. BL8 Magnum came from a USDA seed bank purchase several years ago and I doubt it could be found anywhere. Magnum is commercially available; I purchased Magnum Beefsteak from Sample Seeds.

Can't stop thinking about my tomatoes. Normally I'd start them now but moving back to Minnesota soon, I wouldn't want to start them before moving of course, and also it would probably be too soon since the grow zone there is only 4 I believe. Heck, I'd say probably getting closer to 2 or 3 with the crazy temperature swings they've been experiencing in most of the midwest for a couple years now.

Just posted on another forum thread talking about the crazy weather this year. I won't be putting out tomatoes here until the first of May, when normally I could/would put them out around April 16th. April 15 last frost date for this area, but this year, I think we will have a very late hard frost.

Yeah I'll be very cautious when moving to a new place. Even if it seems ridiculously hot, it's better to set the plants out during the day in their pots than risk them freezing and not being able to do anything about it by planting them early. Can't trust the crazy temperature swings anywhere, much less in an extremely unstable continental climate like Minnesota.

Has anyone propagated tomato plants by rooting the suckers? I did a germination test on seeds of a tomato variety that my grandfather helped develop. The one seed I planted sprouted. No way am I going to toss the plant and I'm looking at 4 mos before I could possibly set the plant outside. So I think I'm going to grow it indoors. Thinking I could start the suckers as new plants. Not too concerned about getting the suckers to root, but I haven't propagated through suckers for tomato plants and not sure of the quality of the plant.

I did it once when I wanted to set some fall tomatoes. I pinched it off as soon as it reached about 5 to 7" long, then put it in water until little roots started, then planted it in soil. Since you are doing this with this heirloom tomato you might want to look for more info on how to do this. I know how you would like to preserve the heirloom that your grandfather? Developed.

How did the plant perform? Was it as strong as a typical plant? I've started rosemary from cuttings and didn't notice a difference but I haven't tried this propagation method with something that wasn't a woodier plant.

thommesM said:Has anyone propagated tomato plants by rooting the suckers? I did a germination test on seeds of a tomato variety that my grandfather helped develop. The one seed I planted sprouted. No way am I going to toss the plant and I'm looking at 4 mos before I could possibly set the plant outside. So I think I'm going to grow it indoors. Thinking I could start the suckers as new plants. Not too concerned about getting the suckers to root, but I haven't propagated through suckers for tomato plants and not sure of the quality of the plant.

Should be a good experiment.

I thought it was strong enough. I tried to pick the best looking suckers to try, but in your case, you might want to do as many as you can. I put aluminum foil over a wide mouth jar filled with water, punched narrow holes in the foil, and put the suckers in. The trick is to suspend the very end of the sucker into the water. I'm wondering, when you did the rosemary cuttings, how did you do them? Did you strip the end of leaves and use hormone/rooting powder on them before putting them in soil? Rosemaries are rather hard to do, so if you can do rosemaries, suckers should be easy for you. Why not try them with the hormone powder and the water? Double your success rate.

I didn't use a rooting hormone with the rosemary, though I think I have some laying around. I stripped the leaves off the lower part of the stems of rosemary and set them in some vermiculite until the stems started rooting. Had a really high success rate. I suspect the tomato suckers wont be that hard. Likely try them the same way or might try a variety of techniques. I saw the jar of water technique but I'm thinking the vermiculite would work too.

I actually got more seeds from my mother last weekend, but I've heard that suckers could be started but never really tried because by the time the plant has suckers, well, the garden is already planted. Different since this plant should be full size by the time it gets outside. Thinking of putting the plant in a canvas bag and growing it that way all season. I tried container planting last season and it worked OK but I didn't water enough.

Good luck! I'm glad to see you saving this rare heirloom. Let us know how it goes.

My tomato plants seem to have survived winter pretty well, are there any cons to using last year's plants?

Not sure if this will work.... this is my great grandfather's tomato plant. See how different it looks from a regular tomato plant? LOLOL sorry that's my warped sense of humor.

https://garden.org/pics/2020-0...

Technically speaking, tomatoes are perennials, but most people in more temperate climates that have winter freezes don't keep them alive. Also, it's supposed to be so hard for the tomato plant to produce so much fruit it wears itself out. What zone are you in? 9, 10, 11? There are a lot of California gardeners on this thread; they will be better able to answer this question. Hope they chime in on this.

I would say if you can keep it off the ground and give it a bit if Tomato food, go for it. My experience has been somewhat smaller fruit than first year, but I'm lax on the feeding.

Thanks, Carol.

Has anyone else had determinates produce all season long? I always hear people saying determinates are supposed to kind of produce a lot of fruit at once then die or stop producing, but mine have always just produced all season long, just significantly smaller in stature and less productive late season than the indeterminates. Never had one die or slow down on me a huge amount.

I don't usually grow determinates because I have had rather poor harvests from them. Indeterminates seem to do better in my area. I have noticed that a lot of what is marketed as extra early and early tomatoes are determinates. My results with these kind have been in the "bleh" category.

I have to say, Ca. gardeners are not a great example. We have so many different climates in this state.

I have tomatoes in my garden from last year plants.