Okay. Preliminary taste test results:
Matt's Wild Cherry: This is a cross between a currant tomato and a cherry tomato. The tomatoes are red, about ring-fingernail size, and grow in clusters. Good points: Intense tomato taste -- sweet, but with character. Bad points: They ripen one by one, so unless you had a row of about 20 plants you'd scarcely harvest a handful a day. They're definitely a snackin' tomato.
Amish Paste These are, despite the name, not really paste-type tomatoes. They're heart-shaped; juicy; have a real summertime-tomato flavor. Very good.
Sausage This variety has had the richest flavor so far -- good sweet/tart balance, almost a spicy aftertaste, very meaty interior. I'm looking forward to eating the rest of these!
Italian Climbing These tomatoes have been my big disappointment. The plants grow like gangbusters and are covered with sprays of oblong tomatoes...but the tomatoes themselves are tough and bland; nothing special.
Red Calabash Another disappointment; small, bland and mealy inside. They're a pretty tomato, though -- they're squat and somewhat ruffled, like a French pumpkin. They're nothing like the Purple Calabash tomatoes that I grew a couple of years ago, that really were the best tomatoes I have ever tasted.
More varieties to come...stay tuned!
10 comments:
Are you growing all of these??? :-0
[JC, whose Romas are still all quite green . . . :-/]
I'm growing some grape tomatoes, too, and now I understand why they're so expensive at the store, all those clusters, ripening at very different speeds.
J.C. Yeah -- I have one of each of most of them, thanks to my food coop and, of all places, Pamida, which had all sorts of heirloom tomatoes for sale this year. (And I got them on sale, which was even better.)
Emily: Several years ago I did plant about three or four currant tomatoes -- they're actually a different species than regular tomatoes, and the fruit are...well, currant-sized; very tiny. These were SOOOO prolific that it was hard to keep up with them -- the fruit would ripen in, like a day, and would even split, so I was picking them twice a day. I think I prefer them to the ones I have this year, but they are a very scraggly, rangy plant that needs room to roam, and I don't think a container would work with them.
Pimpia: I don't think anyone has called me "buddy" since I was five. But thanks. I think.
[My (non-Blogspot) blog isn't set up to allow pictures from those who post.
If it was, I'd be almost tempted to permit spammers who look like "pimppia" (or um, at least come with photos of someone attributed to be the same! *g*).
Almost. ;-/]
I still can't help but thinking that you, "Up North", must have some special Sun Will Shine Right Over My Garden dispensation, LC.
Oh well: picked two more zukes today, and my biggest cuke is now totally suggestive---which is to say it's almost Big Enough. For Eating. In My Salad. Chopped up into a wooden bowl salad, people! (Behave! ;-p)
I'm jealous. I still have a couple of weeks to go, and I'm dyin' for some tomatoes.
I'm even thinking of going to buy some from the local home-gardner guy around the corner. I'll probably give in and do it, tomorrow. Gotta have a BLT - and you can hold the L....
Okay, so, my Kimberlys came in first and were a nice flavor, tho small and thck-skinned.
Silvery Fir Tree does nicely in a big pot and bears early and heavily, but the flavor is thin and astringent.
Prudens Purple is large, nice, and ripened surprisingly early for me.
Aunt Gertie's Gold, a large, supposedly latish variety, is almost ripe (in fact, I've picked one to protect it from the !@#$$%& woodchuck) even though the Early Girls aren't even close yet.
Tigerella, a small saladette with yellow-and-red streaks, started to ripen early, tastes okay, is producing heavily, and looks stunning!
Happiest surprises for the year so far are the yellow cherry Blondkoepfchen and the red cherry Riesentraube. Both are very heavy-bearing and tasty, with Riesentraube just bursting with intense, sweet old-fashioned tomato flavor. And you gotta love those German names -- "Little Blond Head" and "Giant Bunch of Grapes".
Will try to stop by to report again when more still-ripening varieties come along.
J.C. Three cheers for substantial cucumbers!;-)
Bls: The problem with mine...they're so slow, and they're not that big. So at our house the tomatoes are more like hors d'oeuvres than the salad course.;-)
Fausto: Too bad about the Silvery Fir Tree...I'd heard that I might like them.
My first (and largest) tomato is just starting to yellow (surely that means that red is on the horizon? *g*)
And wonder-of-wonders: I now have a cantaloupe the size of a large walnut. Considering I didn't think ANY of the plants would survive, I'm terribly impressed (piling the garden chairs on top of the mounds seems to have done the trick, in keeping the deer OFF 'em!)
Anybody want some zucchini? ;-)
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