Thanks for the recommendation! Definitely will give it a try. If I may ask, where do you order the seeds from? They're not available via my usual supplier.
If you google a vegetable or flower variety name, the names of seed companies selling it will appear. One company which has
Principe Borghese is
Pinetree Garden Seeds, and I order seeds from them in most years.
Two excellent sources for tomato seeds are:
Totally Tomatoes and
Seeds 'n Such. I've ordered from both in the past. Both have huge selections of both heirlooms and hybrids.
I grow only hybrid tomato varieties. I've tried open pollinated/heirloom varieties and I get lush foliage but few tomatoes. I have found that modern hybrids bred for home gardeners taste as good as heirlooms, have superior disease resistance, and produce much better yields for me.
In the last 2 years, several new hybrid varieties have become available which are resistant to a disease called Late Blight, which is a problem here in the mid-Atlantic area. Last year I tried one of these new varieties called
Mountain Rouge, which is actually a pink beefsteak tomato despite its "rouge" name. The seeds are quite expensive, $6.95 for 10 seeds in the Totally Tomatoes catalog. The seeds are expensive because 2 crosses are required. One cross brings in late blight resistance, and the 2nd cross with the heirloom variety
Pink Brandywine is for flavor. It produced well, the flavor was delicious, and it continued to produce into the fall when late blight usually causes my larger tomato varieties to stop producing.
The problem with growing hybrids is that I can't save seeds, and some of my favorite varieties are no longer available.
I read an interesting (to me) book a couple of years ago titled
Epic Tomatoes: How to Select and Grow the Best Varieties of All Time by Craig LeHoullier. He did some tests in his own large garden and has tables showing the yields he got, and I think he also rated the flavor. He grew both heirlooms and hybrids. Sungold is one hybrid variety which always gets rated highly by everyone for flavor.