White Tomatoes?

I have been gardening for most of my adult life and my favorite thing to grow has always been tomatoes. A few years ago I began playing with heirloom tomatoes that ripen in colors other than red. I've always known there were yellow tomatoes and orange tomatoes, and last year I discovered black tomatoes and tomatoes that stay green when ripe. This year's new tomato color is White. This Spring when I wrote about the whitest of white tomatoes called White Tomesol there was quite a bit of interest. I think I even helped Baker Creek Seeds sell out of them. Not many places sell these seeds but I was still able to get some. I grew White Tomesol and Great White this year, and they are indeed pretty white.

As usual when I try a new color of tomato, I'm never quite sure when to pick them. I think I harvested some of them a bit early because when sliced they still had a bit of green color to them.

The flavor seems to be the same no matter how ripe they are. So what about the flavor? A little different from "red" tomatoes but not as unusual as I expected. The seed catalogs tout them as tropical tasting. I expected these white tomatoes to taste more like melon than the Kentucky Beefsteaks. Here's the odd thing; eating a whole white tomato slice tastes pretty much like a tomato, but if I take a bite out of the meaty part only - that is where the unique taste occurs. It took me a while to figure this out. Take away the gel and seed part and the meaty tomato part tastes kind of nutty and not at all like a tomato. As an entire package however, you are back to tasting like a tomato. strange.

There isn't a big difference in taste between White Tomesol and Great White, but the color of Great White is a bit more of a cream color.

If you are looking for a true white color tomato, White Tomesol is the one for you.

As for me and my family, the verdict is still out for whether or not we want to add white tomatoes to our permanent list. They are pretty cool and a great novelty, but maybe just maybe they are a little too weird for even me. After eating a few more it is possible that they will win me over. We'll see.

Do you think white tomatoes are too weird? Have you ever eaten one? I'm sure there is a better description of the flavor than I have given. I'd love to know what everyone thinks!

Tomatoes Galore and introducing Ky Beefsteak!

Wow have I been busy lately! I'm sorry that I haven't had enough time to post regularly. Its certainly not because I don't have anything to write about. The garden this year has done wonderfully! August has been the month of the tomato, and September promises to be as well.

We are now harvesting all of our tomato varieties. Many of them are heirlooms and they come in all different colors. My favorites continue to be Black Krim, Aunt Ruby's German Green, Brandywine Red and/or Pink and Kellogg's Breakfast Orange. I plan to post individually about each of these and about my new white varieties, Great White and White Tomesol.

Today's post is to introduce another orange tomato variety - Kentucky Beefsteak.

It is an heirloom that originates from the hills of Eastern Kentucky and it produces pretty big fruit. This one matches my big Brandywine at 1.8 pounds.

The reason I want to share Kentucky Beefsteak with you is because it is the most unique tasting tomato I have ever tried. I like it but it doesn't really taste like a tomato. This sounds strange but it almost tastes like a watermelon or cantaloupe. Even with its odd taste, it does pass my BLT test. You can't even see the bread under that giant tomato slice!

I guess It resembles a melon because it has an incredible water content. The meat part of the tomato is by far the juiciest I've seen. You can see the water content glistening in this closeup of the tomato slices:

It sure looks pretty but I'm not sure if it will make the cut next year. Each plant only produced a couple fruits and my family isn't eating them. I like them and I do live in Kentucky, so maybe they will make next year's team. We'll just have to see. Has anyone else grown or eaten these heirloom Kentucky Beefsteak tomatoes? If so, I'd love to know what you thought of them.

More talk of odd tomatoes to come soon!

Olympic Sized Pink Tomatoes and Purple Beans!

Matron at Down on the Allotment posted a very creative vegetable olympic rings logo, and asked which veggies in your garden are worthy of the olympics. She asked which ones are FASTER, HIGHER or STRONGER than any others? Well I'd like to add BIGGER to that list and nominate my Glick's Brandywine tomatoes and my Chinese Red Noodle Beans.

My brandywines are more than a pound each!

This one weighed in at 1.8 pounds - a monster!

They are not supposed to weigh that much so I don't know what happened. They sure are big and delicious!

Even crazier than that are these Chinese Red Noodle Beans:

These beans are two feet long!

Look at them growing on the trellis compared to the Kentucky Wonder Beans next to them.

I measured them and they really are 24 inch pods!

It was hard to measure them accurately because our kitten Maggie kept playing with them and pulling the beans away.

I'm not really sure how to eat these Chinese Red Noodle beans. I'm going to try some smaller 18 inch pods in stir fry or simply sauteed. The only problem is that Maggie may eat them all before I can cook them. :)

Glick's Brandywine and Chinese Red Noodle Beans; Veggies of Olympic proportions!

Great post idea, Matron.

Heirloom Pepper Plants Attacked!

Today I managed to plant out many tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, more potatoes, and peppers. Before I could get the peppers outside to harden off and then to be planted, they were attacked. I got them at the Baker Creek Festival. They were only inside under my lights for a few days when I noticed holes in some of the leaves and other leaves were outright missing.

There was a lot of damage but I couldn't tell what caused it. These were heirloom sweet bell peppers. I once wrote about pests being more attracted to heirloom tomatoes than hybrids. I guess its also true for heirloom peppers.

I just had to figure out what caused this devastation so I set up my new Cannon PowerShot G9 camera on a tripod with high speed motion detectors set to take a picture of the perpetrator overnight.

When I checked the camera the next day, I found this!

That's right, Macy - our pet cat was eating my precious pepper plants! There have been hundreds of plants in the basement under lights since Valentine's Day and she has never bothered anything before. These must be pretty sweet sweet pepper plants.

On the bright side, only one plant is damaged badly - the Chocolate Beauty Pepper. The others should still be okay even with holes in their leaves. I went ahead and planted them all out in the garden and we will just hope for the best.

As for Macy, after I scolded her a bit we made up and she apologized.

Of course I quickly forgave her since she is such a sweet kitty.

White Tomesol Heirloom Tomato: Excited, Upset, Exited!

When I wrote last month about the heirloom tomato varieties that I plan to grow this year, the white tomatoes got the most attention. I had several emails and comments about White Tomesol in particular. I think it drew the most interest because it is really white. Many other white tomatoes are more of a pale green. I picked White Tomesol specifically because it is so white in color and I was excited to see how it grows.

Finally I got my seed order from Baker Creek and wouldn't you know, there was a note that they were out of White Tomesol! They did give me my money back AND a free pack of Furry Yellow Hog tomatoes. Has anyone ever heard of Furry Yellow Hog?

Anyway, what would I do about this? I already told everyone that I would be growing White Tomesol! After searching the net a while, I finally found another seed company in the US that had it - Amishland Heirloom Seeds. I placed the order and waited impatiently. Today, they arrived!

In addition to the White Tomesol, I bought Glick's Brandywine from them. They also included a free pack of tomato seeds - Pink Flamingo Ukranian heirloom tomatoes. Of course I have to plant them too, but this is getting ridiculous! To recap, here is the list of the heirloom tomatoes I will be attempting in 2008 (in alphabetical order so as to not indicate favoritism):

Aunt Ruby's German Cherry Aunt Ruby's German Green Black Cherry Black Krim Brandywine Brandywine (Glick's strain) Caspian Pink Delicious Dixie Golden Giant Egg Yolk Furry Yellow Hog Great White Green Moldovan Green Zebra Kellogg's Breakfast Kentucky Beefsteak Pink Flamingo Ukranian Principe Borghese Prudens Purple and of course, White Tomesol!

To make my tomato growing production even more crazy, I will also be growing a number of hybrids. I love the heirlooms, but since there are pros and cons to growing them, I want to include some excellent hybrids too.
To make the list complete, here are this year's hybrid tomatoes:

4th of July Burpee's Supersteak Celebrity Early Girl Golden Girl La Rossa Lemon Boy New Girl Orange Blossom Park's Whopper Roma Siletz Sub Artic

In case you weren't counting, that's 33 different tomato varieties. Yikes! I know I should edit some out, but I could tell you a good reason for all of these. I wrote about why I grow so many different tomatoes last year when I thought 20 varieties was a lot. In a nutshell, some of these are early types, some are cherry types, some regular types, some beefsteaks, some paste types, and of course we have the many different colors to aim for.

I know, I know, call me obsessed. I wonder what my wife will say when I tell her that we are doubling the size of the vegetable garden to accommodate over 60 tomato plants.

It's an addiction, I know - but won't the White Tomesol tomatoes be cool? (the original reason for this post)

More Heirloom Tomato Discussion

Tomatoes are fantastic! They are always worth writing about. They are always worth discussing, especially if you are discussing heirloom tomatoes.

If you have visited this site before, you know that I am overly excited about trying new heirloom tomato varieties this year.

Last year I wrote about my observations on growing heirloom tomatoes. I listed the pros and the cons as I see them. You can read it here, but the quick version is that compared to hybrids, heirloom tomatoes can be more flavorful, more interesting and have a sense of heritage or history behind them. Unfortunately for many gardeners, they also are more susceptible to disease and pests and can have lower yields.

Well it seems that Patrick from Bifurcated Carrots disagrees with me. He wrote an interesting post refuting my observations. I have to say however, that he was very polite in his disagreement. Patrick is a gentleman. He is also very knowledgeable about vegetable gardening, so if Patrick writes that you're wrong about something, then it should be carefully read and considered. If you are interested in heirloom tomatoes, you should read Patrick's post.

He brings up some interesting points. One of which that I had not thought of before is that heirloom varieties by the same name sold by different companies are not equal. He explains how a variety needs to be "grown out" to perpetuate the desirable qualities of a variety. This means that as we gardeners read about which varieties work for others and which ones don't, it never means that we can expect the same results in our garden.

It is fun to find out what varieties others like, but maybe we should be focusing more on where they got the seed that worked well for them (and where the seed came from that didn't work).

So am I right or wrong about the pros and cons of heirloom tomatoes? I would have to say yes. The point is that gardening is a great activity. Writing about it is also great. We garden bloggers should continue to report on our observations about our gardening but beware over-generalizing - about tomatoes or anything else.

Most of all though, we should continue to experiment in our gardens and document things. We should continue to read from good sites like Bifurcated Carrots, and we should continue discussing things that we are interested in. Most of all, we should continue discussing heirloom tomatoes!

Heirloom Tomatoes for 2008

For years I grew only hybrid tomatoes. Then, a few years ago, I added the Amish Heirloom Tomato Brandywine. Wow, what exceptional flavor! I was hooked. Last year I expanded my heirloom tomato trials and now I have two new heirloom tomato favorites, Black Krim and Aunt Ruby's German Green (pictured below).

Not only had I discovered two new great tasting tomato varieties, I also found out that there can be great tomatoes in colors other than red!

I also tried other new heirlooms of different colors last year; Dixie Golden Giant (yellow), Prudens Purple, Kellogg's Breakfast (orange), Caspian Pink and Kentucky Beefsteak (orange). These varieties didn't do as well and I really only got to sample them. They at least earned a second chance for this year's season. Only the Brandywine, Black Krim and Aunt Ruby's German Green were successful. We did have a terrible drought last summer and as I documented in my post "Pros and Cons of Heirloom Tomatoes", heirlooms can be tricky to succeed with.

Below are the seed company pictures of these heirloom varieties.

The only heirloom that I tried last year that will not be invited back is Homely Homer. It was a fun novelty marketing tomato, but lacked in performance and flavor. I have to cut somewhere, don’t I?

So now for this year, 2008!

I absolutely loved last year's alternative colors with the ripe green and black tomatoes. This year I want to expand the tomato color pallet. Something new and cool that I discovered from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds is white tomatoes! I don't know about you, but I have never eaten or even seen a white tomato. I have to grow some in 2008. I selected the cultivars Great White and White Tomesol. Look how white the White Tomesol is!

I really enjoyed Aunt Ruby's German Green last year so I also wanted to add more varieties that stay green when ripe. New for me this year will be Green Zebra and Green Moldovan. Green Moldovan looks neon even!

Another area that I want to expand is the heirloom Cherry Tomatoes. Last year I grew hybrids Sun Sugar and Gardener's Delight but no heirlooms. This year I will turn to Aunt Ruby again for Aunt Ruby's German Cherry. And since Black Krim was a hit, I will add a black cherry variety simply called Black Cherry.

Another odd variety that caught my eye was Egg Yolk. I don't know if it can be called a cherry tomato but it is a tomato the exact size and color of an egg yolk?! The other heirloom pictured above is Principe Borghese which I have grown before. Principe Borghese is considered the leading variety to use for sun drying.

So to recap, my complete 2008 Tomato Heirloom Team is:

Red:

• Brandywine
• Principe Borghese

Pink:

• Caspian Pink

Purple/Black:

• Prudens Purple
• Black Krim
• Black Cherry

Yellow:

• Dixie Golden Giant
• Egg Yolk

Green:

• Green Zebra
• Green Moldovan
• Aunt Ruby's German Green
• Aunt Ruby's German Cherry

Orange:

• Kellogg's Breakfast
• Kentucky Beefsteak

White:

• Great White
• White Tomesol

Wow! That is quite a list isn't it? A rainbow of delicious and interesting heirloom tomato excellence!

I'll keep you posted on how they all do throughout the 2008 season. I am really excited!

More Black Krims, and More Watering!

We have really been enjoying the Black Krim tomatoes. It may be my new favorite tomato. The Brandywines are coming on strong. I think they are determined to remind me why they are the current favorite. Here is a good picture to show the Blak Krim's unique look:

Here is a bowl of Black Krim slices next to a bowl of a sliced up Early Girl. Notice the drastic difference in color.

The vegetable garden is looking good again because we have been watering it day and night:

Unfortunately, now that the garden plants are greener and healthier than the surrounding plants, the deer are visiting!

I guess that's what gardening is - solving one problem after another. Why do we do it to ourselves? Oh yeah, its to get to see the beauty and eat the bounty!

Black Krim Wins For First Main Season Tomato!

We have picked over 100 Early Girl tomatoes so far from the extra-early planted tomatoes, but finally we had another variety ripen!

Black Krim, one of my new heirlooms is the winner for the earliest main season tomato.

I am growing over 20 different types of tomatoes this year, and a number of them, like Black Krim, are heirlooms.

So does Black Krim make the grade?

I'm not going to give it a exhaustive evaluation like Hanna at This Garden Is Illegal does with her Hanna's Tomato Tasting, but giving Black Krim a pass or fail grade, it passes!

I do have to report that Hanna's 2006 Tomato Tasting entries did inspire me to try more heirlooms this year.

So what are my observations about Black Krim so far? It IS a darker tomato, but it was difficult for me to tell when it was ripe.

I had two ripen at the same time and I think I may have left them on the vine longer than I had to. The shoulders were still pretty green though.

The plant is still fairly small, but seems healthy. After slicing the Black Krims, I noticed that they are pretty meaty and the outside ring is almost black.

As for the taste, they were pretty good. Far less acid than the Early Girls we have gotten used to (have become almost sick of). The flavor reminded me of the Amish Brandywine. I wish I had a Brandywine right now to do a side by side comparison. We ate both Black Krims in our taste test and all four of us in my family wanted more. I say that is the sign of a good tomato!

I will report more at the end of the season about yield and comparison with the other varieties. I wonder what variety will ripen next?

The Pros and Cons of Heirloom Tomatoes

This year I have decided to grow a number of open-pollinated Heirloom tomatoes.

These are my 2007 selections. The photos came from Totally Tomatoes with the exception of the Homely Homer photo, which may or may not even be an heirloom. Totally Tomatoes is where I bought most of this years seeds.

I am a tomato fanatic. I love the taste of tomatoes! To me, organic garden vine-ripened fresh tomatoes are like candy is to a child. Not just any candy either. Tomatoes are like special Christmas candy that you can only get one time a year. When most people think of tomatoes, they think of plain red tomatoes. Possibly a beefsteak type. Today's "normal" tomatoes are hybrids that have been bred for disease resistance and good looks. I like the "normal" hybrid garden tomato very much. Let's think of it as the Christmas candy cane - special but common and abundant.

I don't know about you, but at Christmas when I was a kid I wanted more than just candy canes. There were always many other "special" candies like creme drops, ribbon candy, chocolate Santas, orange slices and more. By comparison, if you want "special" tomatoes, you need to grow heirloom varieties. There are so many different flavors and colors of heirloom tomatoes.

So what are the pros and con's of growing heirlooms?

Pros:

Exceptional flavor

Highly unusual and interesting

Sense of heritage and history

Cons:

Not disease resistant

Pests prefer them

Lower yields

The first pro is what I described above with the candy reference - superior and varied flavor! Last year I grew Brandywine, an Amish variety dating way back to the 1800's. Brandywine was by far the best tasting tomato I'd ever eaten! That's why I'm trying so many heirloom varieties this year. I'm growing another Amish variety, Dixie Golden Giant from the 1930's that is said to have "delicious, fruity flavor with few seeds." I also chose Caspian Pink, originally grown in Russia in the area between the Caspian and Black Seas. According to Totally Tomatoes, it was the only tomato that BEAT Brandywine in taste tests!

The 2nd reason to grow heirloom tomatoes is because some of them are very interesting! Look at the pictures of Aunt Ruby's German Green tomatoes, Kellogg's Breakfast, and Black Krim. Aunt Ruby's German Green is described as an "Heirloom green beefsteak with a deliciously sweet flavor that's enhanced by a spicy undertone." Okay, that's different. Totally tomatoes calls Black Krim "A most unusual novelty that is sweet and tasty".

The uniqueness doesn't stop at the tomato fruits either. Some heirlooms like Brandywine and Pruden's Purple have old-fashioned leaves that look more like potato leaves and tomato leaves. Here is one of my Pruden's Purple seedlings:

The third "Pro" is that it is fun to look up the origins of each heirloom variety. Each one has a special heritage of its own. There are varieties available from many different time periods and from all over the world. You may even be able to find a variety that is hundreds of years old from your home town! I am growing Kentucky Beefsteaks which are enormous orange beefsteaks that began right here in my home state.

Okay, enough of the "fun" talk of how great heirloom tomatoes are. Let's get into the "cons " or drawbacks of growing heirloom tomatoes.

First of all, true "heirlooms" are more than fifty years old and are still true to their parent plants. That means they have not been altered in any way like hybrids have. So the same thing that makes heirlooms great also make them very susceptible to disease and pests. Hybrid varieties many times have a series of letters after their names, like VFNT. This means the plants are resistant to verticillium and fusarium wilt, nematodes, and tobacco mosaic virus. Many heirlooms can be wiped out by these diseases. Hybrids are not necessarily bred to be resistant to insect or animal pests but it has been my experience that garden pests prefer the heirlooms (that's no surprise). My Brandywines last year were heavily attacked by Blister Beetles, Tomato Hornworms, and all of the low fruits were eaten by turtles.

The third drawback with heirloom tomatoes is that many of them don't produce as much fruit as a hybrid tomato plant. Mel Bartholomew of Square Foot Gardening" is always saying, "you only need to grow one tomato plant per person in your family". With heirlooms, I don't agree. When growing heirlooms, you should grow several plants as insurance against pests, disease and low yield. This is also why I am still growing 12 kinds of hybrid tomatoes.

So it comes down to exceptional flavor, being unusual and interesting with a sense of heritage versus being susceptible to disease and pests with possible lower yields. Do the pros outweigh the con's? For me they do. Bring on that yummy "candy-like" flavor! Bring on the strange and interesting qualities. Bring on the rainbow of colors!

And bring on the pests. I'm ready for a good old-fashioned battle of good versus evil. Heirloom tomatoes are worth fighting for. Wish me luck!

Heirloom Tomatoes - Brandywine, Prudens Purple & More!

Last year, I grew a lot of wonderful tomatoes!

As I told you before, my favorite was the Amish heirloom variety "Brandywine".The look of the plant and the fruit was quite different from the hybrid tomatoes that I was used to, and the taste was magnificent! Because of the success from last season's Brandywine plants, I have decided to experiment with growing many more heirloom tomatoes this year!

The ones on my A-list that I have ordered so far are more Brandywine, Prudens Purple, Kelloggs Breakfast and Aunt Ruby's German Green.

These pictures are taken from the Pinetree Seeds website, which is where I'm ordering them from. I'm also ordering Dixie Golden Giant, Black from Tula, Big Rainbow, and Cherokee Purple - all heirlooms.

I never used to grow heirlooms because I believed that it was too hard and I was unaware that there were so many different varieties. They are more difficult because they do not have any disease resistance bred into them. They have not been altered at all in fact. Heirlooms are true open-pollinated seed plants. You can actually save the seeds from heirlooms and grow them again year after year (which I do not do because I worry about cross-pollination). If you try to save the seeds of hybrids, they will not reproduce true to the parent plant, but hybrids are usually very resistant to diseases. The other draw back with heirlooms is that not as many tomatos grow on each plant as do the hybrids. Usually the heirloom plants are much larger even hence taking up more room. Last year I had a bit of a problem here because I did not stake or cage my Brandywine plants. I grew over 40 tomato plants and didn't get around to supporting all of them. I tried many different kinds of support as I discussed in "Tomato Cage Alternatives". (This was the post that had the most comments on, but unfortunately I lost them all when I had to re-do my blogs)

I plan to use the Florida "Stake and Weave" method this year to support the heirlooms. I will discuss that in greater detail later. As for now, I have to decide if I will try any other heirloom tomatoes this year. I welcome any suggestions or comments about heirloom varieties that anyone likes or dislikes. Last year I grew 20 different tomato varieties. This year I may top that mark with at least a third of them being heirlooms. I am very excited to find out what each one is like. Of course I will report back to you each step of the way!

Brandywine and Brandyboy Tomatoes

We are enjoying a wonderful tomato harvest!

I planted 20 different varieties of tomatoes this year, but my family's favorites are Brandywine and Brandyboy. Do any of you grow Brandywines? Brandywine is an Amish heirloom non-hybrid tomato. Because of that, you can save the seeds and get the same quality of plant next year. If you save the seeds of a hybrid plant, you are not guaranteed the same plant the following year. Yes, the plant will likely grow, but you might get poor fruit or different flavor from the parent. One problem with growing an heirloom, non-hybrid variety is that the look has not been altered, meaning the fruits are not uniform and sometimes downright ugly. They are also more susceptible to disease and pests.

See how funny some of them look. The ones in the back are not all the way ripe yet because we've found that if we wait until they are completely red to pick them, the critters beat us to them. We have had turtles and raccoons eat them. They have also been attacked by the tomato hornworm and blister beetles much more than the other varieties. The animals seem to be able to tell that they are non-hybrid. I guess they like them because they are more natural than the others.

Brandyboy is a newer variety that is a hybrid derived from Brandywine. As far as I can tell, it is very similar to Brandywine. Its flavor is not quite as good, but the tomatoes are more uniform and round. Both varieties are pretty big and compare with the beefsteaks in size. See my quarter reference.

I'll leave you with this picture of the beginning of my BLT from the other day. This is a Brandyboy. Notice the seed pattern is a bit different and there is much more "meat" in the center. It is so good I could almost eat a BLT without the B and L. Turkey bacon isn't quite as bad for me as regular bacon though, so why not enjoy the great american summer sandwich?

Trust me, it was delicious!