Its excellent flavor and meatiness make Italian Heirloom one of the best dual-purpose tomatoes around. When I first grew this variety in the extreme drought of 2012, I thought I would never grow it again. Early on, it always seemed to look thirsty with its leaves often rolled and droopy. However later in the season, Italian Heirloom produced nice yields of large near-perfect tomatoes while other varieties suffered from extreme blossom end rot (a calcium deficiency that is worsened by drought). It turned out that my initial impressions were wrong, Italian heirloom had been coping with the drought stress while the others were chugging along as if everything were fine. I learned an important lesson in plant physiology that summer and thanks to Italian Heirloom we had plenty of canned tomatoes that winter. 85 days to harvest. Each packet contains a minimum of 50 seeds.
