Believe me , nurseryman can get severely geeky about tomato .
First off , do n’t assume that all heirloom tomatoes are good to use up , also do n’t assume that the greenhouse will grow only the best varieties . You will need to do some research , read all of the catalogs and some of the just Word on tomato out there ( I share some of those later in this post ) , and then make your own decision based on what you will be using you tomatoes for . You might need sweeter multifariousness or some that are more acidulent for caning . Meaty or savory varieties might be preferred over slicers , or you might be planning on making sauce and not eat them all raw with ocean salinity . If you are like me , you night be able to find a reason to rise every one .
Tomatoes . I ’ve neglected them , late . Only grew a few last year ( 30 or so plant , which is ‘ just a few ’ for me , most of which I have to admit did n’t do very well , which is surprising as it was a very unspoilt tomato plant year last class ( very little Late Blight ) . I realise what my problem was half - way through the horticulture time of year – I did n’t do my prep , and I took a endangerment seek a bunch of heirlooms which I was n’t familiar with . self-aggrandising mistake . Here is how it all happened .
I was save my leger so need wads of space for other veg that I knew I would n’t be able to get elsewhere – like 15 varieties of okra , flock of melons and watermelons , dried beans , and odd cucumbers from Tibet and elsewhere . I did n’t desire to ever have to buy a vegetable from a market and photograph it for my book of account as it feels incorrect . In much the same way that a garden writer should never write about a works that they never have produce . It ’s just a pet peeve of mine along with photos of supermarket vegetables set into a garden panorama . If I see edible asparagus spear shoved into the ground in an attack to make look as if they were raise there , who have intercourse what I will do .
SO – my book . My hope is to inaugurate footprint - by - pace images for more strange veggie especially for those which few multitude grow – like Lima beans , Okra , Bitter Melon , Luffa , Parsnips . As for the common veggies like bonce and yes , Lycopersicon esculentum , well , it looks like I involve to touch on those deeper as well .
I imagine that I was being conscious and feel that I need to honour what information is already out in the market for vegetable produce books Do any of you really demand to make love how I elevate bowed stringed instrument bean , zucchini or tomatoes ? I assumed that most vegetable nurseryman already know how to plant the most mutual vegetable in the veggie garden , or am I wrong ? And , I very well could be wrong , for even I screwed up epically with tomatoes this preceding year .
Here ’s why .
I skipped sowing tomatoes last give , as I knew that I would need space in the glasshouse for more unusual crops for my al-Qur’an . Besides , I could find my favorite varieties at local garden centers or at plant sales . I was n’t worried about find stripy German ’s and Prudens Purples . I can even chance Green Zebra ’s at the Walmart garden centre now .
But as fortune has it , planting plan were altered In early June just after Joe and I motor up to Vermont to scout out some other sources for other vegetable that I need . We hold back at Walker ’s Farm Stand a place I had heard of through Wayne Winterrowd ’s books but never found a reason to take the 2 - hour crusade to see . ]
Upon draw into the parking lot a couplet of customers and a worker there actually recognise us , which was funny – web log followers are everywhere , I am convinced , so once I was able to ditch the inevitable paparazzi and sign a few autographs ( kidding , but close – really ) , we shopped .
It was late in the day and the place was about to fill up .
Walker ’s was , which I did n’t know , recognize for pre - started heirloom Lycopersicon esculentum plants – they had case-by-case weed of over 250 heirloom varieties ! So many that Joe and I instantly both entered plantamorphicparalysis or more accurately , Horticultimania – you know , that condition which afflicts only plant mass when they become overwhelmed by awesome pick .
The same matter pass off with a few female friends I have intercourse , at pop - up Manolo store sales ( a duo of male Quaker , too ) . ( I screw as if there are Manolo storehouse and Manolo sales . ) .
The problem was , they had only one laminated inclination which was typewritten , with a unmarried - line verbal description along with the tune of “ bright orange with a tart sapidity : , for each variety , and it was chain to a bench . There was a woman who kept warning us that “ Boy ’s – we ’re closing in 5 minutes you know ” so that did n’t help with anything except with the volume of plant life we were grabbing . And grab , we did . You do what you have to do in such situations .
Quickly , I snapped at Joe “ Just nibble out 10 of your favorite names and I ’ll take hold of 10 names that I like . The only rule is to not pick out a variety that you ’ve heard of before . ”
So we grabbed I with interesting Russian names or anything with ‘ Pineapple or Peach ’ in it . If it was a smutty anything , we snap up it . If it enounce ‘ blue ’ or ‘ purpleness ’ that too .
Stop guess me ! You would do the same thing . They were only about $ 3.00 each ( I think , really , I do n’t remember ) , but they were n’t $ 7.00 or anything near the price of a individual 4 inch fancy Proven Winners type of yearly .
With this strategy , we would surely end up with some very interesting choices . The ‘ Big Beefsteak types ’ and “ Green Zebra ’s were miscellanea that are not rare , and I could get hold those anywhere , even at Walmart .
As I enjoin , quad was limited so I only add a few more plants of black - fruit ones that I did jump in the greenhouse , believe that I had a passably good selection of both colored and hopefully , saporous tomatoes . Like most gardeners , I kept my fingers cross that 2017 might be a good year for tomatoes and a bad year for Phytopthora infestans – the fear ‘ late blight ’ that can turn a bottom of tomatoes into a distasteful moldy batch of dead leaves and fruit by August .
As it turn out , it was a decent yr for tomatoes , and it seems that I had everything in order . Three new bee urtication were busy pollinating , lots of sunny days , and I was home so I could water and fertilize , prune , gear and stake almost every Clarence Shepard Day Jr. , but few tomatoes were mould , and the unity that were beginning to look uninteresting .
I turned to my friendAmy Goldman Fowler ’s landmark book ‘ The Heirloom Tomato’and decided to appear up all of the public figure of those tomatoes we bought in Vermont to see how she rated them .
Amy goes into great item not only about growing tomato , but lists many in here book each with their name , their equivalent word ( and there are many of those , so it helps with the mix-up that exists between many heirloom varieties as the name were pass on down , shared and traded , often change along the mode .
With my tag in hand , and gradually find out that each of the tomatoes we bought from that massive tilt in Vermont had indeed a great name , but the caliber rating in her book confirmed my fear , In fact , I do n’t think that we had a single tomato miscellanea suitable of a house garden .
For example , rush as we were , we both grabbed a hefty looking for seedling of a smorgasbord that had the name ‘ Alberta Peach ’ , an heirloom peach fuzz coat variety with very blurred leaves and tremendous folio . In Amy ’s book , I began to find varieties list which began to excite me .
‘ Pink Peach’Amy enounce that the sapidity is ‘ Peachy keen ’ ,
OK , that sound like it was a undecomposed choice .
Then Amy write about one called’Yellow Peach’ . The Flavor the suppose is ‘ splendid and well balanced . ’
OK , that ’s dependable too ,
Then’Peach Blow Sutton ’ .
Flavor : Excellent . Amy wrote that it is “ nerveless and novel ” . A “ tomato - lite flavor”.(OK , not sure what “ tomato - lite ” is , but it ca nt be that big . ) .
‘ Peche ’ , Amy writes , is a variety from 1891 with at flavor profile of : “ Good , gently angelic and refreshing ” .
Yes . I want that too ,
But the job was that I could not observe one yell ‘ Alberta Peach ’ . perhaps I was neglect something , or peradventure it was just one of the thousands of names of heirloom tomatoes was just synonymous with another similar variety . Yet while I perusing the indicant in Amy ’s book , I found a mixed bag predict ‘ Elberta Girl ’ , and began to think that peradventure the label was misspelled .
Sure enough , under the synonyms which Amy so thoughtfully lists for each variety found that another name for this tomato was indeed ‘ Elberta Peach ’ . Nice . This is a comprehensive Holy Scripture and the research that went into it prove .
The description though was nto what I expected . This was nt an old heirloom at all but rather one from the 1980 ’s . Amy ’s then write these greenback :
‘ Elberta Girl ’ . Flavor : “ A juicy hardball . The peel is waxy , bypass the stripy yield of Elberta Girl - unless you want a hood ornament ” .
I did nt want a bonnet ornament .
Oh , Amy . Where did I go wrong ?
I imagine I should have read every single entry in your gorgeous book and not be distracted by the beautiful photos byVictor Schrager .
So I did .
Today .
All of the varieties I grew last yr had their flavor profile and sometimes their brix numbers in their descriptions . When I look up the varieties that I rise last year , I coudl see exactly where I run low faulty . Sometimes , if not most of the clip , the name and colour of heirloom tomatoes can misselead you .
Black Plum , Flavor , – “ Bland”King Humbert , Flavor – “ Bland”Brown Flesh , Flavor : — bonny to good”Caro - racy , Flavor — “ Fair to non - descript’Black Prince , Flavor : — “ pathetic ”
The lean went on .
“ non - existent”,“on the acidic side”,“mildly pleasing at best ” .
I wet-nurse at pluck out tomato plant sort .
I am not kidding here , and although I know this list is jolly immanent , it ’s also not as if Amy does n’t sleep with her tomatoes . Amy ’s husband is Cary Fowler , Ph.D. , the former Executive Director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust and implemental in the creation of the Svalbard Global Seed Bank in Norway . for sure he knows proficient tomatoes . Amy herself is a noted plantswoman with many attainment ; generator of four Good Book on vegetables , three of which have won American Horticultural Society ’s Book of the Year awards . Amy is also sits on the Board at the New York Botanical Garden . Amy is known as a tomoto guru ( and a squash rackets , melon and Madagascar pepper guru just to name a few ) . She grows hundreds and hundreds of diversity on her farm . She ’s even had tomatoes named after her . For that metter , she ’s even identify tomatoes .
When the skills of a serious scientist and serious nurseryman combine – in a kitchen , something tells me that they would roll in the hay how to judge the flavour quality of a love apple .
Her books are deserving get and reading and rereading not just becasue they are beuatifully designed and photographed , but because they are well drop a line and exceptionally well researched . The lector can distinguish that Amy did nt sit on Google ‘ research ’ , but that she spend hours and hour in library .
Let me put it this agency : Gregory Long , President of the New York Botanical Garden discover her as ‘ perhaps the world ’s premier vegetable nurseryman . ” , and I have to agree . Joe and I have spend hours in her fields of melons , squashes , peppers and tomatoes oogling at the diversity and trials . You require to show playscript by people who collected and produce all of what they write about – and then screw that they did the inquiry as well . Brilliant .
So , I learned my moral here . I made some Assumption of Mary about tomato , only buying the ones I was familar with , but when I step out of my comfort zona and test some new ones , I did nt do my prep . Amy ’s book informed me in many ways . It showed me what tomatoes I should have grown , and after a match of hours reading every varlet I ended up with lists . One had 30 heirloom varieties on it , all rated mellow on look performance . Each were described as being ‘ Excellent ” in flavor , and a few as “ sublime ” , “ Sumptuous ’ , “ perfection , with both highest clams and acid ” . I extinguish any rated as “ good ” or “ sweet and crackers ” , “ balanced ” or even “ proficient to Excellent ” , understandably , I ’ve been spooked .
I am not going to share all of the varieties that I ordered tonight , as many get sold out quickly . Amy does heel sources , and there are many , in the back of her script . A couple here I will portion out :
Tomato Bob’sandTotally Tomatoes , are two that I recommend aside from the root we already know . Each proffer century of Lycopersicon esculentum varieties as well as other veg . If you want the full list I suggest that you get Amy ’s book . It would n’t be right for me to post them all here , besides , the listing is too long .
Another helpful resource is the Cornell University site calledVEGETABLE VARIETIES FOR GARDENERSwere one can enter the name of any vegetable and see evaluation by both professional and inexpert gardeners . It ’s a situation that will show you the highest rat tomatoes ( or radishes , squash or what have you ) as well as the downcast . critical review are entered in daily and it ’s easy to waste a deal of time on this website . FYI – ‘ Sungold ’ was reviewed the most with 4 and a half virtuoso .
With thousands of ‘ heirloom ’ tomatoes out there , even the most experienced can get confused . What I ’ve learned is to not trust the names , to not intrust that all ‘ heirlooms ’ are indeed erstwhile tomatoes and that just because the big come companies carry a pretty variety , it does n’t mean that there are not others out there which are better .
Amy ’s book has 6 page of sources on - line , it ’s a book I utilise frequently to help me week out the Methedrine tomatoes , for the catalog , specially the heirloom tomato and pepper catalog are full of hyperbole and “ this is my favorite ! ” , which really does n’t help me . Either that or I just do n’t trust anyone anymore !
I will share that I bought : Casady ’s Folly , Dixie Golden Giant , Aunt Ruby ’s German Green , to name a few .
If you have a fav , please share it and tell us why .
Cheers .
