You Say Tomato, I Say Mortgage Tomato

(Photo courtesy Living on Earth)

This past Memorial Weekend, I bought and planted three different varieties of tomato plants, planning ahead for an August day when my BLT has a big slice or two of my juicy, homegrown tomatoes. I buy and plant different varieties to see which kind will produce the best, most tastiest tomato. It’s my own little horse race, tomato-style. This year’s selections were “Bonny Best,” “Arkansas Traveler” and the “Mortgage Tomato.” I never heard of the Mortgage Tomato, but I had to buy it because we’re doing this little mortgage product named Zillow Mortgage Marketplace and so, the mortgage theme was too good to pass up and besides, I could smell a blog post a mile away.

What is a mortgage tomato? I’ve regularly visited Jim Cronin’s Real Estate Tomato, and wondered if there was a connection. Jim Cronin joked that he’s turning into the mortgage tomato, but that was the beginning and end of any connection with Jim’s site. Onto Google for “mortgage tomato.” Voila! The first result was the Monticello Web site and it had the most concise and fascinating explanation of the Mortgage Tomato, which is actually named the “Mortgage Lifter Tomato:”

The Mortgage Lifter tomato was developed in the early 1930’s in Logan, West Virginia by a radiator repairman, M.C. “Radiator Charlie” Byles. Without any experience in breeding, he made a successful cross of four of the largest tomatoes he could find - German Johnson, Beefsteak, an Italian variety, and an English variety. Radiator Charlie sold the first seedlings of his new tomato in the 1940’s for one dollar each to customers who drove up to 200 miles for his famous plants that bore tasty tomatoes averaging two and a half pounds. With these sales, Charlie managed to pay off his $6,000 mortgage in only six years, and so the tomato was named Mortgage Lifter.

So there you have it — the story of the Mortgage Tomato. I’m sure people won’t drive 200 miles these days for a silly tomato — especially with gas prices so out of whack — but Radiator Charlie had a heck of a product that helped lift his mortgage free and clear. We could all use a mortgage lift these days, can’t we?