Arctic Fire is the story of how a good tomato can become lost to the seed trade.
Way back in 2010, we purchased seeds for Arctic Fire from the now closed Canadian seed company, Bow Seeds (well, sort of, we’ll explain). In their seed catalogue, it was billed as being part of the ‘Northern-Exposure-Extreme Seed’ series.
We sat on the seeds for a long time, almost 10 years!
At that point we were worried the seeds might not germinate, but they did, no problem. And Arctic Fire produced brilliant red beefsteak tomatoes that were medium to large in size (140g – 240g / 5oz – 8.5 oz). The tomatoes tasted great, produced early and were compact (about 2 ft) – ticking off all of our boxes.
Arctic Fire is usually the largest early tomato to ripen in our garden, year after year.
So far so good. But, why hadn’t we heard more about Arctic Fire? Say, from other seed companies or other growers. In 2020, no vendors were selling Arctic Fire and it wasn’t listed on any seed exchange sites. After some sleuthing, we found out that Bow Seeds had closed and there didn’t seem to be any further information about this variety.
Fast forward to 2023, we were still curious about Arctic Fire’s history and went back to the old Bow Seeds catalogues in our collection to see if there were any other details we had missed. And lo and behold there were.
The ‘Northern Exposure-Extreme Seed’ tomatoes had their own small section in the Bow Seed catalogue with information about how to purchase seeds. Here’s the part we overlooked. For Arctic Fire and the other tomatoes in the ‘Northern-Exposure-Extreme Seed’ section, customers were instructed to contact the creator of the tomatoes — Marketland Garden — in Bowden, Alberta (pop. 1,200) with their order:
“Request by mail along with cheque, money order or charge card with full information” to Marketland Garden… [address provided] This seed is not available by phone, or in any other location, nor can it be included with other orders from this catalogue.”
It looks like Marketland Garden developed at least 4 tomatoes. We have two more in our collection, a yellow cherry tomato called Arctic Sunspot and a red cherry tomato named Arctic Pot N’ Patio.
When Bow Seeds closed, Arctic Fire fell out of circulation. This happens a lot, as we are finding out, and worthy seeds that are carried by only one or two vendors are at risk of becoming lost.
For all of these reasons, we are excited to bring Arctic Fire back to the seed trade. We hope more people will consider growing Arctic Fire and give it a wider distribution.
_______________
How to Plant: Start seeds indoors 6-8 weeks before the last frost. Plant seed 5mm (¼ inch) deep. Keep moist. When true leaves appear, transplant to a larger container if needed. Transplant outside after the danger of frost has passed/later spring.
