Fruit Color: Pink
Fruit Color: Purple
Harvest Timing: Late Season
Informational References:
• Email correspondence with Craig LeHoullier (2019-2021).
• Email correspondence with Chris Thompson (2021).
• Email correspondence from Mike Redmon on 12/28/2021:
"Mike Redmon here. Glad you are enjoying the tomatoes I have grown since 1992. Here is the story behind these tomatoes.
I moved to a small town by the name of Knob Lick, Mo back in 1991. I was a young man and wanted to grow my first garden of my own. I bought a little place of 3 acres that had some great soil and I started growing my first garden on my own. My parents were big gardeners and we grew up with mom canning everything.
I had a neighbor behind my place that gardened as well and that first year I noticed he had some big pink tomatoes growing. I asked him where he bought his seeds and he kinda laughed and said you can’t buy these. That’s when he told me the story about an old German man that had came from what he said the old country years ago and had brought these seeds with him. The old German had a goat farm out past my place. I never got to talk to him about these as he passed away shortly after I moved down there. And over the next few years all of the old timers that grew these passed away also.
I remember my neighbor telling me that they old timers all had a competition with these and tried to grow the biggest tomato every year. He said he once got a true 2 pound tomato. So as far as I knew I was the only one left growing these tomatoes.
So my goal was to increase the size of these tomatoes in time. It took about 18 years of only keeping seeds from my biggest tomato and I finally got a true 3 pound tomato. I actually got 2 of them that year that weighed 3 pounds. And I never removed tomatoes from my plants to make one grow. These 3 pounders were grown among a cluster of tomatoes. I could just never waste a good tomato.
I finally became known as the man that grew the big tomatoes. People would come to our little local store and asked the owner where to find me at. He would point them down my road and say look for the giant tomatoes growing on your left. I myself just wanted to out do what I grew the year before.
But it was never just about the size. They have as good of flavor as I have ever had I think. So they were actually unknown except for the locals for 30 plus years until I shared a picture on a tomato site I found on Facebook. I always wondered if there were people with my same enthusiasm for tomatoes as I have had all those years and now I have discovered a whole world full just by joining a tomato site.
I gave away so many seeds about 3 years ago. People messaged me from everywhere wanting them. I would tell them send me an envelope with a return stamp and I would send them some. Then it got to be a big hassle so I charged for them and still had people wanting them. I just kind of quit posting anything about them to step back for a bit. I work a full time job and also have a side business of making horse shoe projects so I stay very busy. Now I just grow them to enjoy eating. Sorry for such a long story but that’s where they started from."