Montreal Tasty Tomato

The farmer got confused and messed up, but in the process created this mix of different varieties of tomatoes grown on our farm. Includes: Mémé de Beauce, Oncle Tom, Petit Moineau, Sun Drop, Téton de Vénus, Poil Blanc, Savignac, Plourde, Black Cherry and Black Ruffle. For diversity fans.

Package: 35 seeds

Indeterminate. 80 to 110 grams yellow and green fruits overlaid with dark green stripes. Sweet and juicy emerald green flesh, with slightly tart flavor. Beautiful and delicious in salads or stuffed with vegetables and cheese. Will keep its shape when cooked.   Package: 35 seeds

This dark pink tomato comes from the Lower Saint-Lawrence, more specifically from Rivière-du-Loup. The seeds come from Mrs. Francine Mailloux. She gifted some to René Paquet, who gave them to Michel Richard (Potager d'Antan), who then handed them to me. It is now our turn to share them with you! René describes this tomato as hefty and says that the indeterminate plant will have high yields of pink-fleshed red-skinned fruits. They will usually weight between 400 and 850 grams, but could be even heavier in some cases. To know more, please visit the Potager d'antan website (in French): https://potagersdantan.com/2018/10/17/la-tomate-rose-italienne/   Package: 30 seeds

Nice red fruits, almost round, about 10 cm long, but not very regular. Very good taste. The name allegedly comes from the fact that this variety had to withstand hail. These tomatoes were grown by Mr. Guy Bourgeois, a market gardener in Ste-Dorothée (Laval) in the 1950s and 1960s to be sold at the Bonsecours market, an old public market in the Old Montreal. A big thank you to his daughter Suzanne for sharing the seeds. We received them from René Paquet who got them from Antoine D’Avignon, a heirloom seed saving pioneer in Quebec.   Package: Around 35 seeds Picture: Philippe Panassié

At a Seedy Saturday in 2016, a lady came up to me and told me that her mother-in-law had a tomato variety called Mon Plaisir that stopped being available in seed catalogues for ages, but that she keeps growing year after year. We chat a bit and exchange contact informations. I end up forgetting about it until, a few months later, I receive a letter in the mail. Inside, a beautiful card containing a paper on which a dozen seeds were attached. The seeds of the lost Mon Plaisir tomato. This is what Mrs. Frappier told me when I reached out to her, after receiving her letter: "We use to order our seeds through the WHPerron catalogue, and another company. I think it was called Norseco. We were growing tomatoes in greenhouses in Abitibi, in Matamic close to Lasarre. It was the Frappier greenhouses (serres Frappier) in 1976. We grow a couple seedlings to sell, but it was mostly for vegetable production. I really like those tomatoes, they would make nice long cherry tomato trusses. We stopped producing in the early 2000s, and I had already been saving my own seeds for about 20 to 25 years because we couldn't find the variety in catalogues anymore. I really couldn't find it anywhere. I think it was replaced by either Sweet 100 or Sweet mignonne. I did taste it, but I definitely prefer Mon Plaisir." (Free translation) It is now our turn to share this discovery with you. A huge thanks to the Frappier family for preserving this variety.   Package: 30 seeds

Beefsteak or "cuor di bue" is the name of several tomato cultivars of Italian origin. The original Beefsteak is a variety of large tomato whose shape reminiscent of a bovine heart. Can reach a weight of 500 to 600 grams. Envelope: 30 seeds