Sorry if we are overwhelming you with veggies. I hope you found ways to use all the produce.
I think this week I’ll talk about tomatoes. I find tomatoes one of the most challenging and rewarding veggies we grow. It is also the most costly.
We grow somewhere around 20 different varieties of tomatoes. Thirteen of these are heirloom tomatoes (all indeterminate); three are cherry/grape tomatoes; a couple hybrid, indeterminate red tomatoes; a determinate roma-type tomato; and a determinate red tomato.
What the heck are determinate and indeterminate tomatoes? The primary important difference is when the fruit is produced. A determinate tomato – as one would surmise from the definition of determinate: Having defined limits – produces its fruit over a short period of time. The bell-shaped curve of productivity is quite narrow. We grow a red determinate tomato so that one or two weeks during the season our members will be overwhelmed with tomatoes. Actually we don’t want you to be overwhelmed but want to provide you with an abundance that you can use to make sauces, canned tomatoes, etc. Our roma tomato is also determinate so it will also produce a lot over a short period of time.
All our heirloom tomatoes are indeterminate. We like indeterminate tomatoes since they provide us fruit over a longer season. This spreads out their tasty goodness.
We grow red, yellow, black (actually dark red), pink, and green tomatoes. Don’t let color be the judge as to the tomatoes ripeness. It is better to give the tomato a light squeeze. The more it gives the riper the tomato. Please don’t do this in the pick-up tent. Having 50 people squeeze the tomatoes turns them into tomato sauce. Also please handle them gently as you select the perfect tomatoes for your share; the one you pass over is someone else’s lunch. Once you have them at home you are free to squeeze them as much as you want.
We pick our tomatoes under-ripe. Why not let them ripen on the vine? If we did they would have to all be consumed on the day we picked them. Keeping tomatoes from spoiling is remarkably hard. You need to keep them around 55 degrees. This is not a temperature found in most homes. Putting them in the fridge spoils the flavors. Leaving them on the counter entices them to ripen. You are in a no win situation, except if you eat them as they ripen. So by harvesting them at the stage we call three-quarter-color you can eat them over an extended period of time. The flavor is hardly sacrificed since the flavor potential is so great. So check them daily and consume as they reach the appropriate ripeness.
Here are a few of our favorite tomatoes:
| Green Zebra: This is a stripped green tomato with a lot of flavor. It is fairly juicy so not the best for saucing. It is great on sandwiches, in a salad, or simply by itself. It will turn yellowish as it ripens. Don’t let it get too yellow or it will become mushy. |
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Yellow Brandywine: This is a delicious yellow tomato that typically ripens later in the season. It is quite sweet and tastes fantastic with blue cheese or blue cheese dressing. |
| Hungarian Heart: This tomato resembles a human heart in shape and flavor. Just kidding on the flavor part. It is pink and frequently quite large. The largest tomato we ever grew was a Hungarian heart that weighed 2.4 pounds! It is very meaty with very little seed cavity. BLT anyone? |
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Black Krim: This is the most tomato tasting tomato we grow. A strong flavor in a beautiful dark red container. Its shoulders will stay green so don’t wait for them to change to red. It also has a tendency to crack and heal as it grows so don’t let a few scars deter you from trying it. I love it on roast beef sandwiches. |
The tomatoes are ramping up. Hopefully these cooler days will keep them from all ripening at once!
So besides tomatoes what else will we have this week? I’m not sure. We spent all day today harvesting garlic and I haven’t had a chance to figure out what we’ll have but here is my best guess: tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, tomatillos, green beans, eggplant, squash, onions, cucumbers, sweet corn, beets, cauliflower, cabbage, broccoli and I suppose some other things I am forgetting. The summer squash seems to be slowing down. As are the cucumbers and broccoli. The sweet corn is coming on strong – we’ll have to assess whether to keep the share amount the same as last week or up it another ear or two. Fennel and kohlrabi are done until the fall. Garlic will be given out after we cure it for a few weeks.
Speaking of garlic, we have a LOT to harvest still. We figured out a way to use the tractor to make the process physically easier but it is still time consuming since we grow thousands of bulbs each year. So if anyone is looking for an excuse to blow off work and enjoy these beautiful summer days garlic is – in my opinion – the best excuse there is. Let me know if you’d like to lend a hand!
Also speaking of garlic, mark your calendars for this year’s Garlic Planting Extravaganza. It will be October 4th starting at 1:00 PM and going until the garlic is planted. Following the planting we will have some dinner and a bonfire. Rain dates are the 5th, the 11th, and the 12th. Hopefully we don’t have to reschedule any later than that.
I think the only other shares this week are FlowerShare and CoffeeShare.
A guy walks into the doctor’s office. A cucumber stuck in one of his ears, a garlic clove in the other ear, and a carrot stuck in one nostril. The man says, “Doc, this is terrible. What’s wrong with me?” The doctor says, “Well, first of all, you need to eat more sensibly.”