Tomato, Arkansas Traveler

Indeterminate.  We grow this tomato because its one we can count on to thrive as our garden gets hotter and drier with each passing season.  Arkansas Traveler is crack resistant, meaning it doesn't tend to crack grows through wet and dry periods.  Fruits are large and a pretty pinkish.

A bit of its story:

The modern Arkansas Traveler is an open pollinated, commercial heirloom bred by Joe McFerran at the University of Arkansas in 1968.  Joe bred Arkansas Traveler using traditional plant breeding methods to help farmers grow tasty, blemish-free tomatoes that remained crack resistant in the region's constantly fluctuating humidity.  At the time of its introduction, small family tomato farms and canneries were abundant in the South East.  Cracking tomatoes severely degraded the harvest of these small family businesses, and Joe wanted to help farmers succeed.  This is traditional plant breeding and university extension services at their best- using the publicly funded agriculture extension services to breed plants for the benefit of many small producers and their real-time needs.

'Arkansas Traveler', along with countless other heirlooms, gradually fell out of favor as the tomato market became more homogeneous- the idea being the tomatoes should be red (it is pink) and ship well.  Small seed companies and gardeners keep Arkansas Traveler and so many other tomato varieties in existence by continuing to grow and save seed from this variety.  Without that work these varieties would go extinct.  Today AT is a very popular and widely grown heirloom with many favorable traits that appeal to modern tastes and growing conditions.

This variety is named after a popular fiddle tune- The Arkansas Traveler.  In the fiddle tune, a wealthy traveler comes upon a rustic squatter's cabin in Arkansas where a fiddler and his family reside.  The traveler is lost, cold, and wet and needs food and shelter.  The fiddler says cheekily that he will feed the traveler when his fiddle tune ends.  The tune is circular and has no apparent ending, until the traveler surprises the fiddler by taking the fiddle and ending the tune himself.  Amused, the fiddler feeds and gives shelter to the traveler.  

We like to think of this folktale as showing how a savvy country person and sophisticated urban traveler found common ground in art.  We are optimists!

Germ Temp

Indoor Start

Germ Days

Frost Tolerant

Sun

Seed Depth

Plant/Row Spacing

65-85

4-6 w.

6-9 d.

No

Full

1/8”

24”/36”

Start seeds indoors 4-6 weeks before average last frost date. Plant seeds in sterile potting soil and provide 7-10 hours of direct light each day. Thin to the strongest plant per pot. Transplant 24"-36" apart in full sun, benefits from trellising. Harvest tomatoes at pink/red. Suitable for container gardens.

Seed specs:  Packet size- 30 min.