Tomato, Graham’s Good Keeper (Organic)
Solanum lycopersicum. Red Paste. 65 days. Indet.
An excellent variety for eating fresh, cooking, or use in sauce. Fat, oval, 4-6 oz fruit are firm, meaty, slightly juicy but not at all watery. Most tomatoes that are keeper varieties come on late in the season and don’t taste great fresh, but Graham’s Good Keeper is good right off the vine and matures earlier. Fruit are beautiful, resist cracking, and store well on the counter. Reported to be a very old variety, but no historical information is currently available. It is offered by one Canadian seed company but otherwise not commercially available in the US.
Sow indoors in flats with good potting soil as early as February, but no later than April. Keep warm and well-watered. Up pot seedlings into 4” pots once they have two true leaves. Transplant into the garden once danger of frost has passed.
Seed Saving
Collect seeds from ripe fruit by squeezing into a jar and add 25% more water. Wait a few days for mold to form. When seeds sink and gel-sac is gone, stir, add water, then decant and rinse to clean. Dry thoroughly. Tomatoes are mostly self-pollinating; isolation is not usually needed for seeds to be true to type.
Amy (verified owner) –
Where did you grow this variety? Southeastern US
We loved these little beauties. They were tastier than our classic Amish paste and produced ALL season long.
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Beth (verified owner) –
Where did you grow this variety? Washington
These are fabulous tomatoes! I’m one of those people who thinks the only good tomatoes are grown in NJ. I might be wrong about that.
The seeds have a high germination rate, and the fruit is delicious. So far I’ve only made tomato sandwiches, almost every day. We’ve had a short and cool/cold growing season in Centralia this year, but the plants continue to produce.
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