More Tomatoes!

Some of the larger beefsteaks are starting to ripen now. that's a quarter on the cutting board to give you an idea of scale.


Left to right there is 'Evergreen', 'Gold Brooks' and 'Pineapple'. They weigh 6, 9 and 16 ounces respectively. I really like all of them but without tasting them side by side I might have a hard time telling you how they differ. 'Gold Brooks' seems to have relatively few seeds and is kind of dry for a beefsteak, almost like a big paste tomato. The sweet-acid balance seems about right to me. 'Evergreen ', like most green tomatoes, is a little more fruity-spicy as is 'Pineapple'.

Tomatoes!

Last year I grew a few tomato plants and felt like there were never enough tomatoes so I went overboard with them this year. I volunteered to head the seed starting team for Project Grow's heirloom plant sale and started several other varieties on my own at home. The first tomatoes are coming in now so I took a picture:

I don't have a very educated or experienced palate for tomatoes but for what it is worth, my comments follow.

From left to right - top row

Lemon Drop - these tiny yellow tomatoes are almost translucent and are super sweet. It is early and productive but cracks easily. Great for eating right in the garden.

Chadwick Cherry - seems like a standard cherry tomato to me. Fairly large, red - nothing more to say for now.

Gajo de Melon - this cherry has a fruity, melon-y taste I like but it also has a really thick skin I don't care for. On the other hand, the thick skin may help it resist cracking.

Nell's Green - a Project Grow introduction that didn't sell very well at the plant sale. That's a shame because I really like it! It has a bright, fruity taste similar to other green tomatoes like 'Aunt Ruby's German Green' but is earlier and seems easier to grow.

Second Row, left to right

Green Gage - I'm not crazy about this tomato. The texture seems mealy or mushy to me.

Cherokee Chocolate - is certainly striking looking and tasted...well...like a tomato is supposed to taste. This is not faint praise because I find some of the more popular heirlooms, like 'Kellogg's Breakfast' kind of bland.

Black Zebra - this is one of the prettiest tomatoes I've seen. It has the same dark orange-brown coloring as Cherokee Chocolate but with dark green stripes. The flavor of black tomatoes is usually described as "complex" or "smoky" or "winey". I would say this had more of a black tomato (different) taste than Cherokee Chocolate, but I didn't taste them side by side.

All for now but more varieties coming!

Project Grow's Heirloom Plant Sale

One of Project Grow's annual fundraisers is an heirloom plant sale. The sale is actually two events held in May. The first is over Mother's Day weekend as part of the Matthaei Botanical Gardens plant sale and the second sale is a Project Grow only event the following weekend in front of People's Food Co-op in Ann Arbor. The sale offers several varieties of basil and peppers, but it is mainly about heirloom tomatoes. The seed strains for these tomatoes are maintained by a hardcore group of Project Grow volunteers who are passionate about tomatoes. Each year they grow dozens of varieties and then save the seeds of their favorites. You can buy these locally raised and selected heirloom seeds at People's Food Co-op, or you can visit the sale and buy plants. Here is a list of the 51 varieties of tomatoes that will be available at this year's sale:

Cherry

Bicolor Cherry

Brown Berry Cherry
Gajo de Melon
Isis Candy
Lemon Drop
Nell’s Green
Peacevine Cherry
Snow White
Yellow Pear

Paste
Dunneaux
Hogheart
Orange Banana
Pirkstine Orange
Polish Linguisa
Purple Russian
Saucy
Speckled Roman

Saladette
Aviuri
Black Zebra
Cosmonaut Volkov
Costolutto Genovese
Ethel Watkins Best
Glacier
Green Zebra
Olga’s Yellow Round Chicken
Pachino
Stupice
Tiger’s Paw

Patio
Burpee Quarter Century
Macrocarpum Lutea
Pixie Red Rock
Principe Borghese
Red Russian

Oxheart
Aunt Astrida’s Latvian Oxheart
Cannestrino di Lucca
Orange Russian 117
Orange Strawberry
Ukranian Bullsheart

Beefsteak
Aunt Lillian’s Yellow
Aunt Ruby’s German Green
Berkley Tie Dye
Prize-winning Bicolor
Black Krim
Caspian Pink
Cherokee Purple
Coustralee
Evergreen
West Virginia Hillbilly
Kellogg’s Breakfast
Magnum
Pineapple

Heirloom tomatoes

I don't grow very many vegetables. This year all I grew were sugar snap peas, lettuce, kale and tomatoes. In 2007 I bought a number of heirloom tomatoes from Project Grow's annual plant sale. My favorite was 'New Brooks', a pinkish beefsteak. I liked it well enough to try saving the seed, something I have never done before. All I did was take some of the seeds and wipe them across a paper towel with my fingertip to remove the pulp and then let them dry for a day or two on the paper towel. Then I removed them from the paper towel and put them in a ziplock bag to be planted this spring.


I planted the seed expecting to get tomatoes like the parent, and some of the 'New Brooks' plants did produce large pinkish beefsteaks similar to the 'New Brooks' I had last year. However, some some produced golden yellow beefsteaks. They are both good but I actually like the gold better.




Something similar happened with cherry tomatoes. I have grown a number of cherry tomatoes over the years, usually hybrids like'Sun Sugar' or 'Sun Gold'. After awhile I started seeing volunteer tomato plants that produced small cherry tomatoes about the size of a grape. They tasted pretty good so last year when I saved the 'New Brooks' seed I saved some seed from the volunteer cherry tomatoes, too. Surprisingly, these seed gave me plants producing two very distinct cherry tomatoes.


The smaller one is about the size of a small grape and is a pale orangey-pink. The larger one is bigger around than a quarter, but smaller than a golf ball and is classic, deep tomato red. They taste very different, too. The larger one is sweet and tastes...well, like a cherry tomato. The smaller one is a little more tart and more fruity or citrusy. I keep eating one and then the other and trying to figure out what is different.


I asked Royer, Project Grow's heirloom seed guru, how he could explain this since he had told me a few years ago that tomatoes typically do not naturally cross pollinate. Royer said that 'New Brooks' is not a very pure strain and he had also seen some of the following generation turn up yellow.


At any rate, these unexpected results have made the whole idea of saving tomato seeds much more fun! I've already saved the seed from all 4 varieties but will have to wait until next year to see what they produce.