I'm a farm kid. My father was 11th generation New England Yankee. My mother's family got here from Italy in 1910. But those differences aside, both my grandfathers were farmers. So every winter after the fields were cleared, the talk began about vegetable seeds - especially tomato varieties and their seeds. What tomatoes from seeds would we plant in the spring?
Both families lived within earshot of each other, so the uncles (all 10 of them) on both sides of the family used to hang out in our living room reading seed catalogs and debating the merits of various tomato types. The common wisdom was that we needed the traditional red tomato seeds for salads, sandwiches and making tomato sauce. Then we needed yellow tomato seeds that were low-acid. There are some people who can't eat seeds because of digestive illnesses so we always tried to have a few seedless tomato varieties. Then the uncles always got curious about the new brands and we always had to have a packet or two of new of the new tomato varieties. Those didn't sell that well but the uncles really wanted them!
Well I don't farm for a living any more, but I do have a garden and I still use that same philosophy in planning the tomato patch.
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I like to try growing exotic types. Had some success and always amazed at the varieties.