THORBURNS TERRA-COTTA

Indeterminate, Regular leaf, early to mid season producing Bi - coloured Brown/Orange fruits averaging 8oz (225g)

Thorburn’s Terra-Cotta’ tomato is a very old American heirloom, that was introduced in 1893 by J.M. Thorburn & Company of New York. This tomato was almost forgotten, but in 1993 seeds of ‘Thorburn’s Terra-Cotta’ came into the Dr. William Wiys Weaver’s ‘Roughwood Seed Collection’ as a part of a parcel of seeds given to him while lecturing in Salem, New Jersey, USA. As Dr. Weaver writes, it was a ‘gift from an old farmer who was selling his ancestral property to a developer and wanted his heirlooms to find a new and safer home. Including Atlantic Prize and Turner’s Hybrid (aka Mikado), his gift was a treasure trove of South Jersey tomatoes that seemed to have fallen out of a time machine.’*

This is what Dr. William Woys Weaver writes about the history of this tomato:
‘When J. M. Thorburn & Company, New York seedsmen, went into bankruptcy in 1921 after being in business 119 years, most of the firm’s accumulated seed stock simply disappeared. Companies like Thorburn used to maintain vast seed libraries in order to dip into them for breeding purposes, thus the annual catalogues only reflected a much smaller list of things that were available for sale. Thorburn had access to some of the best seed collections in the world and used those connections to introduce unusual varieties not seen in other American seed lists. The firm introduced the Terra Cotta Tomato in 1893. In fact, it was featured in a chromolithograph that served as the frontispiece for the 1893 catalogue. (…) the tomato is unusual because of its colour. Thorburn claimed it was unique in many other ways too: flavour, keeping qualities, and a good shipper. The list of pluses was long and glowing. I had long assumed that the Terra Cotta Tomato was extinct like so many other unusual heirlooms from the 19th century, a victim of that 1921 bankruptcy sale that cleaned out the company’s assets overnight. Happily, I was proved wrong, but the road to genetic recovery was a bumpy one, and only now, some 19 years later, can I say with a degree of certainty that the unusual Terra Cotta Tomato still lives.’*

Can be grown outside as well as in a greenhouse.

Minimum 20 seeds per packet