Biggest Tomato Contest 2020

My Boxcar Willie fruit have always been round, never looked like yours, and not nearly as big (maybe 8oz max). Yours looks like some kind of beefsteak variety.

Gosh sorry to heard about your ARGG!

They are absolutely delicious! We had some BLT last night Brandywine and ARGG.

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Supposedly there’s a few different tomatoes going around as Boxcar Willie. Several places list them as getting up to 16 ounces, and there seems to be general agreement that they “flatten out” when they are bigger. I’m not sure if mine is the legit one or an imposter. I grew it specifically for getting a good harvest of 8 ounce slicers, so I’m not super happy they’re getting as big as they are. If I wanted another bigger beefsteak I’d have planted another Hillbilly or Delicious. Here’s a thread from 9 years ago talking about different BCWs: Which is the REAL Box Car Willie?

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Delicious:

Siberian Honey:

German Johnson :

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Yeah, it’s strange, who knows what a real Boxcar is supposed to look like. It’s not a big deal to me as long as it produces and tastes good. If I remember right, the pic on my seed packet (I think it was Ferry Morse?) shows them to be round. Most of mine have never been bigger than a tennis ball.

I’ve noticed that my BW fruit tends to also fruit out on strigs, kind of like currants, although the fruit is much bigger, of course. There’s maybe 4-6 fruit on each strig.

@IowaJer started a thread about this-

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Yeah, tennis ball size is what I was wanting out of these. The vines haven’t done great compared to all my other varieties, so between that and the size if I ever try to grow BCW again it’ll be from a different seed source.

Nice tomatoes @Naeem! Which of those do you prefer taste wise?

German Johnson is better in tasting but if someone like sweet tomato they should try Siberian Honey.

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Would that happen to be the same as Siberian Pink Honey? I grew those for three years (not this year), thought they were a very good variety. They have the Russian name Rozovyi Myod. But, they were oxheart shaped, not beefsteak looking like yours.

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You are right , it is oxheart shape but look beefsteak due to picture angle. Middle picture is Rozovyi Myod.

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Okay, you’re right, I can see the shape. Guess it’s because it’s so big. Mine never were that large.

One thing I noticed about this variety is that the plant had a very droopy or weepy habit, so it never looked very vigorous to me, but that didn’t stop it from being a good producer. I’ve tried other Russian varieties that had a similar growth pattern.

It’s not a well known tomato, so I wonder where you got your seeds? I got mine from a guy in Ohio who sells a lot of Russian/European varieties.

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Broke my digital scale, so had to use the junky one. Not a winner, so it doesn’t matter anyway, but a good Paul Robeson.

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I got from a family friend.

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German Johnson . . . oops . . . on second thought. It’s a Boxcar Willie.
Broken off by storm. Would have been bigger! :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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OH! I just posted about the same thing on an old thread from last year. ‘REALie a Box Car Willie?’ - - - And I see a lot of other people have different shaped Willies too.

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An ugly-delicious Red Lithium.

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errrrr . . . maybe I should have said ‘different shaped Box Cars’? :thinking: :rofl:

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Yeah, I shoulda left it alone, but my inner Beavis and Butthead couldn’t resist.

Sorry.

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:laughing:

This one is only 1.5 pounds so not that large. I’ve had a few 3 pounders this year from other varieties. This is Cherokee Jumbo, a variant from Cherokee Purple that showed up in my garden about 10 years ago. There was a soft spot in the middle from fruit worm damage near the stem.

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Wow that is a beautiful tomato, even with the soft center. As big as yer plate!

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