I had a neighbor behind my place that gardened as well and that first year I noticed he had some big pink tomatoes growing. I asked him where he bought his seeds and he kinda laughed and said you can’t buy these. That’s when he told me the story about an old German man that had came from what he said the old country years ago and had brought these seeds with him. The old German had a goat farm out past my place. I never got to talk to him about these as he passed away shortly after I moved down there. And over the next few years all of the old timers that grew these passed away also.

I remember my neighbor telling me that they old timers all had a competition with these and tried to grow the biggest tomato every year. He said he once got a true 2 pound tomato. So as far as I knew I was the only one left growing these tomatoes.

So my goal was to increase the size of these tomatoes in time. It took about 18 years of only keeping seeds from my biggest tomato and I finally got a true 3 pound tomato. I actually got 2 of them that year that weighed 3 pounds. And I never removed tomatoes from my plants to make one grow. These 3 pounders were grown among a cluster of tomatoes. I could just never waste a good tomato.

I finally became known as the man that grew the big tomatoes. People would come to our little local store and asked the owner where to find me at. He would point them down my road and say look for the giant tomatoes growing on your left. I myself just wanted to out do what I grew the year before.But it was never just about the size. They have as good of flavor as I have ever had I think.

The Redmon Giant Tomato is a preserved tomato offered by Victory Seed Company.