📌 Quick Summary (TL;DR): Mamie Brown’s Pink
- 🌍 Origin: A family heirloom from West Virginia, USA. It was introduced to the Seed Savers Exchange (SSE) in 1995 by Alice Brown-Mattes. The seed traces back to her grandmother, Mamie Brown, who grew it in the 1930s. The Russian lineage of this seed often traces through American collector Dale Thurber.
- 🌿 Plant Habit: Indeterminate. Grows to about 1.6 m (5.2 ft) tall.
- 🍅 Fruit Characteristics: Large pink beefsteaks that often take on a plump, blunt heart or “double heart” shape. Weight typically ranges from 300–600 g (10–21 oz). The flesh is very dense, meaty, and contains few seeds.
- 👅 Flavor: Generally described as sweet and balanced, though depending on growing conditions and soil, some growers report the flavor can lean toward being mild or a bit plain.
- ⏳ Maturity: Mid-season. Displays above-average to heavy yields.
A mid-season, indet. variety, bush height is about 1.6 meters (5.2 ft). The fruits are the most tender hearts, aromatic and tasty, meaty with a low seed count.
This variety is from Dale Thurber’s collection. Here is Dale’s description:
A family heirloom from Alice Brown of West Virginia. Alice Brown-Mattes named the variety in 1995. She preserved this variety thanks to her grandmother Mamie Brown, who lived in West Virginia. Alice got the seeds from her mother Louise, who remembers her grandmother growing this variety in the 1930s. Very beautiful, medium-sized, pink beefsteak fruits with good flavor and texture. Sweet and balanced taste, plump, rounded heart-shaped tomatoes. Great yield.
Indet, large pink beefsteak, weight 300-600g (10-21 oz), aromatic, very tasty, sweet. The history provided on the Seed Savers Exchange website shows that this variety was given to them by Alice Brown-Mattes in 1995. It was grown by her grandmother Mamie Brown, who lived in West Virginia. The seed came to Alice from Louise, Mamie’s daughter. Louise remembers it being grown in the 1930s.
Mamie Brown’s Pink.
An indeterminate slicer variety. The fruits are large pink beefsteaks, oblate, but at the same time they somewhat resemble double hearts (fused hearts). Dense, few seeds, the flavor is close to balanced, but a little plain. Grew in the greenhouse, yield was above average.
