Chapter 41

DOMINGO

Giant tomato growers are always looking for new varieties of seeds with which they can grow bigger tomatoes and win contests. The ultimate goal is the world record for heaviest tomato. For giant growers it is all about weight. Dale Thurber has for years had an interest in heirloom tomatoes, and big tomatoes and, for that matter, tomatoes in general. One of his goals has been to preserve heirloom varieties. He makes these seeds available to growers at his web site, https://www.delectationoftomatoes.com/ .

Anyway, Dale, in his constant search for new varieties of tomatoes, somehow found that in 2007 Vincenzo Domingo had won the Great Long Island Tomato Challenge with a tomato that weighed almost four pounds. It was grown from a seed he had received from his brother in Sicily. After Vincenzo's win, others began to grow the seed with impressive results. Billy King grew a tomato over 3 pounds and in 2012 Hezekiah Wahl grew a 4.55 pounder using seeds from the "Domingo" line. Dale contacted Vincenzo and found that the tomato was a multi-generational family heirloom originally from Castellammare del Golfo, Sicily, Italy. Vincenzo, who gets the credit for having introduced this variety to North America, at one time grew 4 tomatoes on a single truss with a total weight of around 20 lbs.! Since the variety had never been named, it was decided by the Domingo family that the variety would be called Domingo. Sadly, Vincenzo passed away in Dec. 2014, but his tomato growing legacy continues with this variety which he and his family so willingly shared. Vincenzo would have been so happy to know that in 2019 a new world record tomato of 9.65 pounds had been grown from his variety, Domingo.