Baker Family Heirloom

[macmex]

Baker Family Heirloom is a tomato that I received in a seed swap, with a fellow named L.D. Baker of Tinley Park, Illinois in 1995, when we still lived in Mexico. I had contact with Mr. Baker through the National Gardening Association magazine. Apparently this tomato had been in Mr. Baker's family for quite some time. I attempted to grow it in Mexico in the high desert where we were living at that time. It flopped. However I did harvest one tomato and saved seed along with seed in the original packet Mr. Baker sent me. In 2003 I tried growing the it in New Jersey. It did beautifully and has been a main crop variety in our garden, ever since!

BFH is a heavy producer of delicious, red, tomatoes similar to Rutgers in appearance and flavor. I cannot distinguish between the two without cutting them open. Baker Family Heirloom has more locules (seed cavities) than Rutgers. Whereas Rutgers is a standard tomato, BFH is a true beefsteak. It also has very indeterminate growing habits. The plants are notable in the garden for their robust, bushy growth. They get pretty tall too. In a normal year each plant will grow up over the top of a five foot tomato cage and back down, touching the ground. I grow this variety with little pruning, only removing branches which get in the way. Baker Family Heirloom starts producing ripe fruit at about 80 days from transplanting.

Baker Family Heirloom fruit have a small core, making most of the fruit usable. It is excellent as a slicing tomato and also quite good for cooking. The fruit averages around the size of a baseball. It is easy to process a good amount of tomato in a short amount of time, using this variety.

Often, when I approach these plants, I am greatly impressed with their productivity. They look so impressive! Yet, because of their leaf cover, it is almost impossible to snap a picture which shows this. For some reason, what looks so impressive to the eye, does not get captured by the lense.

I am including the best picture I've managed, in nine years, for showing the productivity of Baker Family Heirloom. This year some of our goats reached through he garden fence, and defoliated a couple of my tomato plants. In this case, they exposed the fruit for a better picture!



I like this one about as much as I like Sioux. It is a better keeper, the skin being a bit tougher. Flavor is excellent. Lately, in the evening, my wife and I have been eating these, sliced with a bit of salt on them. We keep commenting to one another how wonderful these taste.

I would give one warning about this variety. I have grown it a couple of times without a cage. A cage, preferably a LARGE one, made of concrete reinforcing wire, is a must for this variety. Without a cage this variety produces a huge mass of snarled branches and most of the fruit is lost. It's simply too difficult to get in there and find it. A CAGE IS A MUST.

[duckcreekfarms]

I grew some BFH a few years back and don't remember much about it.. I slept since then. But I havae been goind through my seed found my BFH seeds and will try to get some planted this year.

[duckcreekfarms]

I thought I had some seeds of this variety but have failed to find any. If anyone has a few seeds to share I have a good trade list

[heavyhitterokra]

George,

I've got one of the best looking tomato plants I've ever grown right now. It was planted late, so it hasn't had a single ripe fruit yet. It's a Baker Family Heirloom plant and is covered with billiard ball sized, green fruits (a very welcome sight after the ripe tomato glut of late July and August).

It's kind of like my Climax Blueberries that get ripe a month after the blueberry glut of mid-June; they are a welcome sight after most other blueberries have played out.

I think it will probably be another two weeks before any of the tomatoes are ripe. That would be cool to have a Thanksgiving garden tomato. I don't know how long to expect them to produce, but if I wrap a green tomato in newspaper in late October, it might last that long?

Anyway, you slice it, Autumn tomatoes will be a happy accident. I'm excited about the prospects.

[heavyhitterokra]

Does anyone on this forum have a favorite tomato seed sowing date in mind for the 2019 growing season?

[macmex]

Ron, I don't have a good place with both light and warmth, so I start mine a tad later than many. I'm planning on starting just one or two tomato plants in this coming week. The rest will either be started around the first week of March or direct seeded in the garden.

[heavyhitterokra]

I've started my heirlooms as early as Martin Luther King Day in years past, but if we experience a late Spring, the way we did this year, my plants become too leggy for my liking before I can safely set them out.

[woodeye]

I had excellent germination on the Baker Family Heirloom tomato seeds this year. I gave most of the plants away, and my sister that lives in Del City sent me a picture of her first ripe Baker Family tomato this morning. Her plants beat my plants to the punch! Mine are weeks behind, but at least they finally have some baby tomatoes on them now. Anyway, here is the tomato in all its glory. Oh, my sister doesn't even eat tomatoes unless they are cooked, but hopefully she can still give me detailed results of the taste test...