kate's tomato tastings 2006
This post idea is blatantly stolen from Hanna but she did ask us to post our own so i am doing so. Not in as great a detail as she is doing, though, for which i thank her! The penny in each picture is for scale -- i could not find a quarter....
This is 'Cherokee Purple', currently my all-time favorite tomato. 'Purple' in tomato-speak seems to mean very dark pinkish-red. These are meaty and juicy and very very flavorful. They are, in fact, the veritable embodiment of what i think of as 'tomato'. This is the archetypical tomato that i have been searching for all my life.
That said, i am a little displeased with the quality of the seed that i got for these this year. I ordered most of my varieties from Baker Creek and i have been happy with all of them but this one. (in years past, when we lived in Virginia, i ordered everything from Southern Exposure.) The resulting Cherokee Purple plants were really kind of spotty -- most of them were true to what i know of as 'Cherokee Purple' but at least two plants (out of 12) are producing tomatoes which are not 'purple' enough. They are still tasty -- but even my dh (who is not particularly interested in gardening per se) said 'but these are not Cherokee Purple!"
So i am hoping that was an aberration, because all of the other tomatoes i got from them were fine.
These are 'Yellow Bell' that i ordered from Southern Exposure. They are extremely prolific and a favorite from many years of gardening in Virginia. Here in MI though i admit to some real disappointment. They are not anywhere near as sweet as they were in VA. In fact they are kind of tasteless, suitable perhaps for canning or yellow ketchup or a sauce -- but i swear i used to just pick them off the vine and enjoy them straight and they were my favorites, when we lived in the south. So maybe they really need the hot humid weather to be good. Of course we had hot humid weather in spades this summer (hotter than i remember ever in VA even!) so i don't know what is up with that. Maybe they need hot weather EARLY in the season. Anyway, regardless of my worry about blossom end rot earlier, i have these blasted tomatoes coming out my ears now. I do not think i will plant more than 2 plants of it next year.
New this year, here are the 'insurgent tomatoes', Rouge d'Irak...i try to stay away from politics on my blogs but when i read this description in the catalog of course i had to order these tomatoes:
Medium-sized fruit are finely flavored; good yields, too. This variety is endangered even in its own country, where saving seeds was made illegal under the "Colonial Powers" of the United States. Under the new law, Iraqi farmers must only plant seeds from "protected varieties" from international corporations. Is this our unique way of making democracy?
Don't know if that is true but if so it will not do....however the tomatoes unfortunately will not do either. They are even and globular and red and blemishless and produce wonderfully -- every visitor to my garden wants one. Half the time when you cut it open there is some rot inside. If there is no rot, it looks pretty but it still doesn't taste any good. I think this is a the great-grandchild of a Monsanto product masquerading as an 'Iraqi Heirloom'. Which brings up the question -- have the people at Baker Creek had much experience bartering for goods in Muslim/Middle eastern countries? Because i have tried this myself, and even with good knowledge of what i was buying i still got fleeced from head to foot (compared with the local economy). This is not an easy thing for westerners to do, the culture is totally different over there.
Brandywine. The ubiquitous heirloom -- when we were down in VA you could even get Brandywine plants at Wal-mart. I personally don't particularly like them, but i got a free packet with my Baker Creek order so i started a few plants. Other people do like them -- they are tasty and big and funny-shaped. It is a pink tomato, not quite 'red' but still very flavorful.
'White Currant'. These are lovely, though they are not 'white'. They actually start out whit-ish but if you leave them out there they turn properly yellow. They are very sweet, prolific and flavorful currant tomatoes and i am very pleased with them. Definitely a keeper.
Finally, at the last minute i went to a sale and bought two other tomato plants. One was mismarked and i have no idea what it is and it sucks anyway so never mind about that. The other is 'Black pineapple' which i totally love and will grow next year. It is beautiful -- color goes from green to deep purple on the same tomato, it is very flavorful (though a little on the 'green' side of tomato flavor) and the few i had grew nice and big...
