liveforgardening

I can’t find my favourite tomato


I’ve grown the tomato ‘Tornado’ for more than 20 years, but I can’t find a seed supplier now. Can you help me?

Everyone has their favourite varieties, particularly of tomatoes, and the number of heirloom or heritage varieties is vast. The seed can be variable in quality, though, particularly in old, open-pollinated varieties which need careful and costly maintenance to keep them pure.
I believe ‘Tornado’, an outdoor bush variety, was an F1 hybrid. As far as I can tell, it’s offered by very few suppliers nowadays.
I discovered online merchant eSeeds (www.eseeds.com) offering Suttons Tomato ‘Tornado’ at a ritzy £4.11 per packet. But when I searched Suttons own website, I couldn’t find the same variety. A conundrum! Could this be old stock?
An alternative outdoor variety, also quite old, is ‘Subarctic’. This one’s available from Nicky’s Nursery (www.nickys-nursery.co.uk) and was developed for our chilly, UK climate. I also used to grow ‘Sleaford Abundance’, which was a great outdoor cropper, but no-one seems to offer it now. A pity!

 

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