Smith & Hawken: 100 Heirloom Tomatoes for the American Garden [Paperback]

Carolyn J. Male (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 1999

Preserved by families, collected by seed savers, passed around among farmers, heirloom tomatoes are now being sought out by more and more home gardeners as an alternative to the bland sameness of commercial hybrids. And happily, these growers are discovering that heirlooms are not only vastly more flavorful, but are just as hardy and easy to cultivate as the hybrids.

Dr. Carolyn J. Male, who has raised more than a thousand heirloom tomatoes, here presents 100 consistently top-performing varieties for North American gardeners. There are red tomatoes, yellow tomatoes, green, orange, purple, and even black tomatoes--like Black from Tula, with green shoulders and a dusky rose-black coloring. There are cherry tomatoes, too--try Martino's Roma, a paste with spectacular yield and built-in tolerance of blossom end rot. For every gardener, no matter how experienced, here's everything you need to know to grow and harvest tomatoes with real taste.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

This is a book for the true tomato snob who is not content with the ordinary red beefsteak weighing heavily on the vine at the end of summer. Yellow, pink, green, and orange tomatoes are all part of this guide to heirloom varieties, many of which are only available through catalogs or through an organization called the Seed Savers Exchange.

Author Carolyn Male favors heirlooms that have been passed down through families, not commercially created hybrids. She does not hesitate to be critical, calling some varieties mealy or bland, while others send her into epiphanies. Although she makes gestures toward guiding the novice, this is a book for either food fanatics or experts who move in the subculture of truly obsessed gardeners catering to gourmet cooks and specialty markets. Throughout the book, enticing photographs of freshly picked heirlooms remind the reader that grocery store tomatoes aren't really tomatoes at all, sitting sadly under fluorescent lights, losing their flavor and color. If only they had been born in a tomato snob's garden; then they would have been treated like royalty. -–Emily White

Book Description

Tomatoes have always been far and away the most popular plant in the vegetable garden, and today the class act among tomatoes is the heirloom varieties--those vegetables with a past that go back generations, their seeds preserved and passed down among families, friends, and dedicated farmers. And no one knows heirloom tomatoes like Carolyn Male, a biologist who's grown more than a thousand varieties in the last 14 years. Following the lush and practical format of 100 English Roses for the American Garden (with 57,000 copies in print), 100 Heirloom Tomatoes is a thorough how-to and a stunningly photographed field guide. It covers every facet of growing heirlooms, from selecting the right varieties for your zone and type of garden to timing and planting of seeds, transplanting, hardening off, staking vs. caging, fertilizing, and more. There's a section on how to become a seed saver and even how to do crosses that will lead to creating your own heirlooms. Then comes the tasty part: Aunt Ginny's Purple and Amish Paste, Redfield Beauty, Green Zebra, Georgia Streak and the Santa Clara Canner. Fluted, scalloped, flattened, or lobed--white, pink, red, orange, gold, or chocolate brown--sweet to tart, mild to strong, perfumed and fruity to dark and smoky--now these are tomatoes with real character.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 246 pages
• Publisher: Workman Publishing Company; First Edition edition (July 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0761114009
• ISBN-13: 978-0761114000
• Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 7 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (41 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #548,373 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

53 of 54 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thank you Dr. Male for 3 years of fantastic tomatoes!, April 7, 2003

By 

A. Ryan "Merribelle" (Westminster, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Smith & Hawken: 100 Heirloom Tomatoes for the American Garden (Paperback)

This is the book for anybody who has ever bitten into a store-bought tomato and wondered whatever happened to rich, juicy flavor. Three years ago I was asking myself that same question when I stumbled across Dr. Carolyn Male's 100 HEIRLOOM TOMATOES FOR THE AMERICAN GARDEN.

Written by an avid Seed Savers' Exchange member after she had grown more than 1,000 heirloom varieties of tomato, this book is an introduction to open-pollinated (as opposed to the unjustly popular hybridized) tomatoes for home gardeners. Dr. Male manages to discuss the historical and present significance of cultivating these heirlooms in a rational voice while yet relaying her passion for the flavorful heritage they represent to her. The field guide has full-page photographs of each kind with notes on their colorful origins, flavor types and everything else you could want to know about these personal treasures. Soon you will find yourself caught up in the mania to seek out the assortment of seeds that will yield tomatoes with character, lore and unbeatable taste.

Although it has a truncated field guide format and flexible cover, 100 HEIRLOOM TOMATOES also serves as an excellent primer for general tomato culture. In the first 42 pates you will learn about selecting the right heirloom for your purposes, germinating and transplanting, common diseases and conditions, saving your own seeds, etc. Dr. Male looks at various standard schools of thought thoughout this section while presenting good arguments for her own practices.

I found this book to be one of the more honest examinations of tomato varieties, from Dr. Male's frank mention of both pros and cons down to the photos, which displayed typical physiological flaws alongside more perfect examples of the fruit and foliage. After growing and sampling for myself several of the tomatoes recommended here, I can testify that the descriptions are spot-on while leaving some room for differing climatic and cultural conditions. Dr. Male's degree in microbiology and her regular gardening magazine article contributions further reinforce her as a noted authority in this field. This is a guide that the home gardener can have confidence in.

Recommended for any home vegetable gardener and not a few specialty market gardeners besides.
-Andrea, aka Merribelle.

47 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Big juicy information book for tomato lovers, August 27, 2002

By 

Joanna Daneman (Middletown, DE USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Smith & Hawken: 100 Heirloom Tomatoes for the American Garden (Paperback)

I confess to a passionate love of growing tomatoes that goes back to childhood. And I have an equal love for the taste of those sun-warm, acid-sweet juicy fruits that make summer taste like summer. This year, finally moving to a tomato-friendly climate for the first time in two decades, I rushed to plant an heirloom tomato even in a container, before I could cultivate a true garden.

Heirloom tomatoes come from seeds saved by tomato enthusiasts who have done us all the huge favor of preserving varieties of tomatoes that taste great, look interesting (all kinds of colors) and far better than the F1 hybrid boring red globes palmed off by the average seed company. While F1 hybrid tomatoes are easy and reliable and very disease-resistant, they often lack that huge tomato taste we all remember from childhood. (These hybrid tomatoes do have their place, however. Some of the modern hybrids will mature in a very short time, thus are the only tomatoes you can grow in hostile climates like Germany and New England.)

This book has all the information I need for next year's adventure in tomato culture. It lists 100 heirloom varieties, gives their strengths (resistance to common tomato ailments, pleasing taste, form) and their weaknesses as well. In addition, Dr. Male provides the history of the variety, which is interesting reading. The pictures by photographer Frank Iannotti are not only mouthwateringly lovely, but they accurately show a typical batch of tomatoes from a given cultivar--not all the fruits are perfect, some have typical defects such as stitching, weird shapes and other oddities. This gives you an accurate idea of what to expect. I compared Dr. Male's description of Yellow Brandywine to my experience this year. Right on every point, and her explanation of "Blossom End Rot" (an ailment that produces soft black disgusting spots at the blossom end of the fruit) was excellent. I found out my tomatoes were stressed by our constant brisk winds here in Delaware, not a deficiency of calcium in the soil or water. I know now I must plant a variety that is not prone to this defect, because it is often breezy here.

The front section of the book is devoted to tomato culture, and is very complete, showing staking and trellises, saving seeds, transplanting starter plants, and more.

I rate this a big green THUMBS UP and will be salivating all winter as I plan my next tomato garden for 2003.

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars GREAT REFERENCE WITH REALISTIC PICTURES!, July 14, 2005

By 

Genie in Arizona - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Smith & Hawken: 100 Heirloom Tomatoes for the American Garden (Paperback)

While I was impressed with the exhaustive (yet lively) information
provided by Dr. Carolyn Male, perhaps MOST IMPORTANT to tomato
growers are the realistic pictures. Instead of 100 photos of
"perfect tomatoes" - you see the imperfections associated with
each variety: i.e. if the tomato is prone to cracking, green
shoulders, or catfacing... she tells you this AND provides
pictures! Two years ago, I was kicking myself for producing oddly
shaped and sometimes ugly heirloom tomatoes. Sure wish I had this
book back then.
If YOU plan to grow heirloom tomatoes... BUY THIS BOOK!!!