Tag Archives: tomato

The Letter of the Day is L: “L” is for Lemon Yellow Limmony and Ladybug, a Delightful Cherry Tomato

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Limmony

One of my favorite yellow tomatoes. Much better than Lemon Boy in my opinion. A yellow orange tomato, Limmony is one of the first Russian varieties popularized in the US. An abundant Russian heirloom. Produces 4-5″ tomatoes. Unlike most yellows this one is loaded with lots of luscious, big sweet tangy flavors. 

Indeterminate

85 days

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Ladybug

This one is probably the prettiest and most photogenic of any of the cherry tomatoes I have grown. It also taste wonderful. Crack resistant and widely adapted! You’ll love the ease of growth and the sweet, sweet flavor of this charming new Cherry! Widely adapted to many parts of the country, Ladybug is a delight for Tomato growers everywhere! 

These little 1-ounce fruits are very resistant to cracking, the scourge of many a Cherry Tomato. They are ultra-sweet, with a good solids-to-gel ratio. And they arise by the hundreds on indeterminate plants! 

Indeterminate

65 days

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The Letter of the Day is K: “K” is for the Tomatos, Kellogg’s Breakfast and Kosovo

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Kellogg’s Breakfast

this is one of my daughter’s favorite tomatoes. Lovely, pale-orange fruits are solid and meaty throughout, packed with mild, superb-tasting flesh. A long-season producer of large, beefsteak-type fruits, up to 16 oz., with solid centers that have just a few seeds at the edges. We had 2 pounders one year. This is great tomato for both cooking and eating fresh. Indeterminate, 80-85 days

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Kosovo

This is another one that I love. Big oxheart shaped red tomatoes. Good flavor. This wonderful variety came from a former U.N. worker in Kosovo, who passed it down to Carolyn Male. Huge, deep pink heart-shaped fruit that has a sweet rich flavor and is very meaty while still being juicy. Production is excellent and the tomatoes are simply beautiful, but it is the delectable and intense tomato flavor that really makes this one special. Tomatoes can grow up to 1 pound, with ranges from 10 to 18 ozs. Indeterminate, 75-80 days

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for more information about these tomatoes, go to www.thetomatolady.com

The Letter of the Day is J: “J” is for the Tomato , Jetsetter and the Pepper, Jimmy Nardello,

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Jetsetter
Short season gardeners especially will be happy for this variety that doesn’t sacrifice size or flavor for early maturity. Tomatoes are at least 8 ozs. and often larger with really good, rich flavor. Yields are plentiful on vigorous plants that have lots of disease resistance. VFFNTA  Indeterminate, 64 days

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Jimmy Nardello
I love these peppers, they look fiery hot but they arent.

From the small village of Ruoti in the Basilicata region of southern Italy, this heirloom was brought to the states, and introduced in 1887. jimmy nardello

These are a popular frying pepper.

Growing 20-24″, these plants produce loads of long, thin peppers, up to 10″ long. 

The peppers are delicious and sweet. Cooked in a little olive oil, and grilled or fried, or chopped and used raw in salsas and salads. 

These peppers are perfect for pickling or drying.

 

The Letter “A” for the Ananis Noir Tomato and Alaku Sarga Szentes Pepper

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Ananis Noir

Ananis Noir on a kitchen scale weighing 2.2 pounds

Ananis Noir

The name of this tomato is French for black pineapple. It arose out of a planting of the Pineapple tomato in a Belgian garden.

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The fruit ranges from very large, as you can see in the picture, to medium. The color and flavor are totally different than that of it’s parent. The exterior is dark purple and green with pink-red splotches and a touch of yellow, while the inside is bright green streaked with pink. The hues bleed into one another reminding me of a piece of tie-dyed fabric. Not only is it pretty but the flavor is outstanding, sweet yet rich and delicious. These are arge plants and should be staked.. They are sure to wow your friends and neighbors. I would consider this a main season tomato.

 

Alaku Sarga Szentes – Sweet Pepper

I am growing this pepper for the first time. I saw it in the Baker Creek Seed catalog and since I love pretty colors and unusual shapes, I chose to offer it this year. From my website:

“This is a spectacular pepper from Hungary.  Pumpkin-shaped fruits are 3-4 inches in diameter, and are flattened and deeply ribbed, looking like little wheels of cheese. This pepper has sweet, incredibly thick walls that stay crisp. The compact, productive plants are loaded with bright yellow-orange fruits.

This rare variety was collected at a farmers’ market in Matrafured, Hungary, but deveoped in Szentes, Hungary.”

Try stuffing these with chicken salad or baking them with a hamburger, cheese, and rice stuffing.

Alaku Sarga Szentes

Alaku Sarga Szentes – What a lovely little pepper!

How Can You Tell if a Tomato Tastes Good?

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I am a participant in Quora and there was a question about how to tell if a tomato tastes good.  This was my answer: I have found that you can’t really tell definitively by the smell or the shape or the look of it how it will taste. There are a lot variables in what contributes to the quality of the tomato’s taste. Weather (hot or cold and how much}, watering (too much or too little), how ripe it is and most importantly, the variety.

 I have grown the same tomato from year to year and will have different results  each time. For instance, I grew a cherry tomato called Black Pearl and loved it the first year, but thought it was mushy and tasteless the second. Different growing conditions each year. When growing, i always recommend that you give it a few years since you may love it again.
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This is a tomato, that when you look at it, you wouldn’t think much of it. It is a golden green (which some folks thing is odd) when it is ripe and it is phenomenal in flavor. About the size of a golf ball, it bursts in your mouth with sweet juicy goodness and has a pleasant pop when biting into it. This variety behaves itself and would be great in a large pot (think half of a wine barrel) and the name of it is Green Grape.
 
 

The A to Z Blog Challenge

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I just signed both of my blogs up for the A-Z Challenge. Coming up with topics will be harder for my Flowerchild Designs blog than my Tomato Lady blog.

If you are at all interested in learning about different varieties of tomatoes I would suggest you follow my Tomato Lady blog. I have plenty of material for that one. I will showcase 26 tomatoes, possibly more for each letter of the alphabet. You will be amazed how many varieties there are.

Of course, i am convinced that some heirloom tomatoes are called different names while still being the same tomato. For instance, Hillbilly from Georgia may be the same as Old Flame from Iowa. Just called a different name. It depends on what region you live in. Families have been saving seeds of their favorites for many, many years. Color, markings, maturity date, taste and texture all contribute to identify the variety.

On the opposite side, I’ve grown Hillbilly for several years and each year, they are different. It depends on whether the seeds came from Tennessee or Arkansas. Brandywine is another that has different characteristics depending on the region it comes from and who grew it. Sudduth, Landis, Platfoot, Quiesenberry are all words used to describe the various strains. If you are intereseted in learning more about the Brandywine, here is a link to a site detailing the history written by Craig LeHoullier.

http://www.webgrower.com/information/craig_brandywine.html

I hope that makes sense. Hope to see you reading me!

Tomato Terms: What Does It Mean When I Say…Early, Main and Late Season?

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ImageSiberia This might be the earliest tomato ever – only 7 weeks from transplanting to table. Capable of setting fruits at 38 F on sturdy dark green plants. The fruits are bright red, 3 to 5 oz. and bunch in clusters. Also good for a patio. Determinate, 48 days

Along with these words usually comes a range of days in which you can expect to start eating tomatoes. (The days are from transplanting not sowing the seed).

Where I live, it can be colder in some areas than others. For instance, Deer Park, is about 10-15 miles north from Spokane. It has predictably colder weather and earlier frosts than we do. Their growing season is a lot shorter than ours and we aren’t geographically that far away. Cheney is colder plus they always have a lot of wind. Different growing conditions is a small area.

After reading my descriptions (www.thetomatolady.com) on my tomatoes or peppers, one of the things my customers ask is if it really will be ripe in 45 days or 60 days. I have to be honest with them and say I can’t give a definitive answer. There are so many variables involved in growing a garden. Weather, soil temps, amount of watering and fertilizing, where did they site the plant and variety.

The biggest one is  the weather, which we have no control over. Last June, it seemed like it rained avery day and was cold. That will keep plants sitting there, in the ground,  just waiting. (The only good thing about that is the plant is working on root development so that when it gets warm they have a good foundation to shoot up). I think I remember having a light frost in early June.

I would like to change my descriptions to early, mid, late and really late. It’s true that a Siberia or a Fourth of July will produce fruit before a late season variety such as Orange Russian or a Gold Medal.

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Gold Medal These are fabulous, reminiscent of Big Rainbow. A Ben Quisenberry tomato. Wonderful, 1-1/2 lb., yellow and red bi-color beefsteak tomato with pink marbeling in blossom end, thin skin and luscious sweet, well-balanced flavors. Indeterminate, 85 days

That being said, I have seen some early varieties (48-60 day) that are only about 2 weeks earlier than a 70-75 day tomato. There again it depends on a lot of variables.

It must be nice in the South where have you a longer growing season, if you have to wait longer to get them into the ground it’s ok because you won’t get a frost until November.

There are many ways you can extend your season. Some years  if you wait until all signs of frost are gone you won’t have any tomatoes. At some point you have to get them into the ground. Especially if you live in an area the gets an early fall frost.

I will discuss some ways in later posts

Tomato Terms: What Does it Mean When I Say . . . Heirloom?

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Many gardeners agree that heirloom tomato varieties boast greater flavor than the hybrids. After all, there is a reason they’ve been around for so long. In general I agree although I’ve had some tasty hybrids such as the cherry tomato, “Sungold” and “Sweet Treats” a larger pink cherry tomato, which is fabulous. 

While hybrid plants typically yield a crop that is uniform in both appearance and timing, heirlooms produce a “mixed bag” harvest. The harvest may come in less predictably, and produce size can vary greatly even on the same plant but it is still worth the real estate that they take up. Heirlooms, especially the larger ones, can be prone to cracking and cat facing which is not their most endearing quality but beauty is skin deep in my book. I have never found a beauty queen tomato, perfectly round, consistently red that can compare with a fat, juicy, sweet slice of, say, “Aussie” or “Rose” on my BLT!

Heirlooms typically come with a story that is as wonderful as the flavor. The Amish heirloom tomato Brandywine yields fruit with an unbeatable flavor in shades reminiscent of a glass of Cabernet. Mortgage Lifters paid off a man’s house in the depression years. Nebraska Wedding is an old Great Plains heirloom whose seeds were given to newly married couples to help them start their lives and start their farms together. Amana Orange takes its name from Amana, Iowa. Paul Robeson, a Russian heirloom tomato was named after the operatic artist who won acclaim as an advocate of equal rights for Blacks. His artistry was admired world-wide, especially in the Soviet Union. 

Tomato Terms: What Does it Mean When I Say . . .Heirloom

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Tomatoes in picture: Black Prince, White Queen, Aussie, Gold Medal, Black Truffle, Costoluto Fiorentino and others.

Whether you call them “Heritage” or “Heirloom”, these are still the varieites you will want to grow for taste. Heirlooms come from seed that has been handed down for generations in a particular region or area, and hand-selected by gardeners for a special trait. 

Heirloom vegetables are open-pollinated, which means they’re non-hybrid and pollinated by insects or wind without human intervention. How experts define heirlooms can vary, but typically they are at least 50 years old, and often are pre-WWII varieties. 

In addition, they tend to remain stable in their characteristics from one year to the next. What that means to you is that you can can save the seeds and if they don’t cross pollinate they will come true. Your “Aunt Ruby’s German Green” tomato seed will produce an “Aunt Ruby’s German Green” next year. Tomatoes are self pollinating and if you want to be relatively sure they haven’t “crossed the road” bag the flowers after you hand pollinate them or plant them away from other tomatoes. Remember that wind, bees and other things can pollinate the flowers. too

Many gardeners …to be continued

Tomato Terms: What Does it Mean When I Say . . .Hybrid vs. Open Pollinated

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Hybrid: These tomatoes are made from crossing two varieties which have characteristics that you want to save in their offspring such as earlier maturity, better yield, improved flavor and disease resistance. Good examples are Juliet, a beautiful, little red grape shaped tomato and Sungold, probably the best  cherry tomato that will ever pass your lips. (The tomatoes in the cover picture at the top of my blog are Sungold). Early Girl, Celebrity and Carmello are other hybrids. An F-1 Hybrid means it is the first generation between two different parents.

While you can save seed from it, be advised that it will not come back as the same thing you grew the first year.

Sometimes folks ask me if hybrids are GMO. They are not and I will devote a post on it later.

Open Pollinated: These are tomatoes that have the same parents as themselves. You can save seed and they will come true. All heirlooms are OP and have been saved for generations because of superior qualities like adaptability to a local area and flavor. Heirlooms are another post also.