Baker Creek Catalog Listings [Archive]

Gary

December 28th, 2006, 07:23 PM

William's Striped Tomato - Kentucky Heirloom

The story on this tomato came from my garden friends, Georgia and Rene' Emond; they have a small hothouse and grow both tomato and flower plants for sale in the community of Glendale, Kentucky. They also grow a few tomatoes for sale to the general public.
Their elderly neighbor use to garden but has been unable to for a number of years. He mentioned to Georgia that he found some tomato seed in his closet in a medicine bottle but had no idea as to what variety they were or how old they were; these were some he had grown in the past and saved seed.
Georgia took them and come spring was able to get several to germinate. That fall she shared seed with several folks including Merlyn Niedens when we were in attendance at the Appalachian Heirloom Seed Conservancy Fall Conference in October.
The summer of 2005 Merlyn grew them and took tomatoes to the Summer Festival where it won the "best" in taste! Baker Creek listed it in their 2006 and 2007 catalog.

William's Striped 85/90 days, a favrite at Farmer's Markets, large fruit of 1 lb or more, Very beautiful exterior and interior of red and yellow colors; it was the favorite of the tomatoes at the 2005 Heirloom Garden Show.

Gary

December 28th, 2006, 07:51 PM

Continued from above ---

When I attened the Appalachian Heirloom Seed Conservancy Fall Conference, someone shared a few seed of the Vinson Watt's Tomato seed with me. I plan to grow them 2007 season.
I thought you all might be interested in the background to this tomato variety.
Gary/Louisville

Man spent 50 years improving his namesake tomato
Andy Mead
McClatchy Newspapers
Sept. 13, 2006 12:00 AM

MOREHEAD, Ky. - "I'm known around here as the 'Mater Man," says Vinson Watts, sitting in his living room in front of a small vial of very special seeds.

Watts has grown German tomatoes and cherry tomatoes and those yellow and red Mr. Stripey tomatoes for years, and he has sold them off his back porch to friends and neighbors.

But people who know Watts don't ask for the varieties that everyone else has.

They ask for a Vinson Watts, a large, tasty, pinkish-flesh heirloom tomato that Watts has been growing and improving for 50 years.

Yes, 50 years.

Fifty consecutive backyard gardens that centered on one kind of tomato. Half a century of starting plants from seeds and saving seeds from the most flavorful and disease-resistant tomatoes to repeat the cycle the next year.

Bill Best, a farmer who is president of the Sustainable Mountain Agriculture Center, said Watts' work with his tomato has to be some kind of record.

"I've been collecting seeds myself for many, many years, and I've never known anything comparable," he said.

Watts, 76, a retired college administrator, is getting some attention on the golden anniversary of his tomato.

This year, in what turned out to be a surprise to Watts, Vinson Watts tomato seeds are being offered commercially for the first time, in the Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds catalog.
"I'm not making a penny on it - maybe I'll sue," Watts said, laughing.

Best had shared some Vinson Watts seeds a couple of years ago with Merlyn Niedens, a Southern Illinois seed saver whose passion is securing a future for family heirlooms by getting them out to the public.

"If someone's been working on something that long, it shouldn't be lost," Niedens said.

This winter, Best will begin offering Vinson Watts seeds on the Internet. Watts will receive a portion of the proceeds from those sales, Best said.

And there's academic interest in Vinson Watts, both the person and the tomato.

Watts recently was interviewed by Garrett Graddy, a University of Kentucky graduate geography student who lives in Menifee County.

Graddy is just getting started on a doctoral dissertation on agricultural diversity and the economic, ecological and theological aspects of seed-saving in Appalachian Kentucky and in Peru.

Watts grew up on Leatherwood Creek in Breathitt County during the Great Depression, when saving seeds from year to year was a necessity because no one could afford to buy new seeds.

That, coupled with his decades of work on the Vinson Watts tomato, made him a natural to be Graddy's first interview.

"He really had some interesting stories to tell," she said.

Watts got seeds for what would eventually become his tomato in the spring of 1956, when he was associate dean of labor at Berea College.

The seeds came from a man named Wilson Evans. Evans was from Virginia, and his family had grown the tomato there for years.

Evans told him he wanted to try other tomatoes, and he asked Watts to take over the annual regeneration of his family's tomato, to keep them pure and true.

For years, Watts called the tomato the Wilson Evans. He gave Evans a few plants each year. When Watts moved to Morehead in 1968 to become Morehead State University's first personnel director, he started sending Evans seeds.

The two friends argued for a while about what to call the tomato plant that was getting a little tastier and heartier every year that Watts selected only the best seeds to carry forward.

Finally, the tomato was different enough for a name change.

"I told him he had squandered the right to call it an Evans tomato, so it's the Vinson Watts tomato," Watts said.

For years, Watts' backyard in Morehead wasn't garden enough for him. He would grow all kinds of tomatoes in other yards and empty spots up and down the street.

In his own backyard, the only tomato he grew was the Vinson Watts.

Five or six years ago, because of failing health, he cut back to just growing in his backyard, which means he quit growing any tomato except for the Vinson Watts.

For the last three years, he had had to hire someone else to get his beloved plants in the ground.

"I look for a high school student who wants to do a little work, but not too much," Watts said.

He has emphysema; a tube supplies oxygen to help with every breath. He recently was hospitalized for intestinal surgery.

It has been hard on him not being able to turn the soil and put in seedlings.

"Bless his heart, he loves to garden," said Patricia Watts, who outranks the tomato because she has been married to Vinson for more than 53 years.

This year, 28 Vinson Watts plants grow beside sweet potatoes, corn and beans (including heirlooms called the Ida bean and the white cornfield bean).

They're showing late-summer wear and tear but are producing well.

When visitors came by recently, Watts wasn't up to taking them out to look at his tomatoes.

"I normally have a fall garden," he said. "I can't do that anymore, but I'll have tomatoes until the frost."
And he's saving some of the seeds for next year.

(Link to source for the article above.)
Man spent 50 years improving his namesake tomatoThat, coupled with his decades of work on the Vinson Watts tomato, made him a natural ... In his own backyard, the only tomato he grew was the Vinson Watts. ...
www.azcentral.com/home/garden/articles/0913tomato0913.html

Garden For 50 years, he has saved seeds from the best specimens of what eventually became the Vinson Watts tomato. (David Perry/Lexington Herald-Leader/MCT) ...
www.mctdirect.com/topics/topical_garden.htm?s=krtgarden%26page=8

Read the excellent articles on Heirloom Tomatoes and Heirloom Beans Sustainable Mountain Agriculture Center Inc.Sustainable Mountain Agriculture Center Berea, Kentucky.
www.heirlooms.org/