What’s in a name?
We are unabashed fans of REAL tomatoes....not those sad red orbs you see in the grocery store right now
REAL TOMATOES
Grown in the DIRT
Brad’s Atomic Grape (left) Cherokee Purple (center) Start Roloise (right)
Juicy, meaty, sweet, savory, packed with flavor, colorful HEIRLOOM tomatoes!
Every year the most exciting part of planning our garden (no matter the size) is choosing the varieties of tomatoes that we are going to grow...and then paring down that list to a number that actually fits into the garden!
Poring over seed catalogs, reading the descriptions: each variety purported to be more beautiful than the last, with soul-stirring flavor...it fills our hearts with lust!
So, from deep in the bowels of winter, how is a poor tomato-starved soul supposed to choose from the endless dazzling array of varieties, sizes and colors?
Well, we are bringing back some of our favorites from last year, including:
Copia: a beautiful yellow variety with low acidity, great flavor and nice meaty texture. We love this one on a BLT or in a salad!
Japanese Black Trifele: a small pear-shaped tomato with gorgeous purple-red flesh and green shoulders. It has incredibly complex flavor - almost tastes as if salted - and extremely dense texture. This one is Jennifer's absolute favorite!
Plus, Cherokee Purple, Sungold, Green Zebra, Black Krim and more!
Japanese Black Trifele (left) Pink Berkeley Tie-Dye (right)
Plus, we are going to try some new varieties this year that have promise:
Pink Berkeley Tie-Dye Tomato: according to Baker Creek Heirloom seeds "10 out of 10 people liked the port wine colored beefsteak with metallic green stripes better than Cherokee Purple in a farmers market taste off." That's a bold statement - given that Cherokee Purple is one of the most beloved of all the heirloom varieties!
Brad's Atomic Grape Tomato: "The color (and flavor!) is a full-blown assault on the senses"....who can read that and resist?! Plus the photos are pretty wild!
Plus Sunrise Bumblebee, Sakura, Valentine, Rose de Berne, Paul Robeson,Black Cherry and more!
Now, just because a tomato tastes great and looks great doesn't mean it is a great candidate for the garden. Some tomatoes just aren't very prolific producers, or succumb to disease easily. Farmers have to weigh productivity, vigor and taste when deciding what to grow.
All tomatoes used to be heirlooms...
Many years ago you could only get a tomato when they were in season...usually from your own backyard garden or from a small farm in your town. Gardeners and farmers saved the seeds of their best tasting tomatoes to grow again the next year.
They were passed down like heirlooms!
As our food system became more centralized and began to rely heavily on distribution, tomato breeding became focused on:
Maximizing productivity
Ease of transport
Length of storage
Big industrial farms in warmer climates want to be able to produce LOTS of tomatoes from bullet-proof plants and then load them into containers and ship them to colder climates, arriving unblemished, ready for purchase and able to sit on a shelf.
This is how we ended up with those sad red orbs in the grocery store: they are hybrids that have been bred to work well in our modern industrial food system - but they don't necessarily taste like a tomato.
The old varieties of tomatoes fell by the wayside for a number of years, but backyard tomato enthusiasts kept their genetics alive and they became known as "heirloom" varieties. These are the varieties that we grow for you.
This is one of the beautiful things about eating seasonal local produce....
We don't have to worry about shipping tough tomatoes - we just want them to taste good!
We choose our tomato varieties for great taste. Do we worry about disease resistance? A little bit!
But we also employ growing techniques that help to discourage disease in our garden: watering infrequently but deeply, using drip irrigation, pruning our plants to maximize air flow.
Today was an exciting day...
...the first tomato seeds of the season were lovingly sown, and with them our hopes and dreams for a summer filled with the riotous colors and flavors of 22 different varieties of tomatoes!
But we have a secret...we're still cooking with good tomatoes in the deep dark of winter.
Last summer, Brian cut up lots of tomato "seconds" - fruit with bad spots - and put them in the freezer for a cold winter day.
You can too! One of the beautiful things about joining a CSA is having a steady supply of fresh wonderful produce that you can eat at the peak of ripeness....or put away for later when all of the veggies in the store are looking soooo sad!
If you have been thinking about joining our veggie CSA, but the thought of weekly produce seems daunting....think about the opportunity to put some veggies away for a cold winter day!
Plus, our CSA members get an exclusive invite to our mid-summer Tomato Taste-Off here at the farm!
You can learn more about our CSA by clicking the link below
I hope you enjoyed a little info on tomatoes and are as excited to eat these beauties as we are!
Cheers,
Jennifer & Brian
P.S. If your budget is anything like ours, paying for a whole season of veggies all at once might be a bit out of reach- we get it!
That’s why we offer payment plans!
Sign up for our CSA and then simply choose “offline payment” at check out. Then reach out to us by email to set up a payment plan that works for you. All we ask is that you make some kind of down payment and that you settle your balance by June.
Then you can sit back all summer long while the veggies roll in! CSA is a great way to put fresh vegetables up for use later in the year when they aren't readily available. So you can make that up front investment stretch a long long way!