Tuesday, August 07, 2007

tomato season

two green tomatoes
red cherry green cherries
Though my tomatoes are still mostly green, they are lovely looking fruits and they'll ripen soon. In the mean time, I'm sampling fresh local tomatoes. One problem with having my own garden is not being able to stock up on summer farmer's market produce because I have my own produce filling my counters. Until my tomatoes ripen, I figure I try some different heirloom varieties and see which ones I'd like to grow myself next year. Brandywine is my old favorite. What is your favorite tomato variety?

Solanum lycopersicum

9 comments:

sarahsvegetablepatch said...

Your tomatoes look wonderful! I wish I had so many green tomatoes on my plants!

Connie said...

I love Brandywine, too, but I also grow Red Brandywine, Caspian Pink and Pineapple, all heirlooms. I did a recent post on my blog about Pineapple, which is my husband's favorite.

Stratoz said...

this year's vote... Moskvich

Ali said...

Who can pick just one? I have different favorites for different uses, but for eating right off the vine, Sungold Cherries are a bite of heaven.

kathy said...

Sungold and pineapple sound wonderful. Next year I'm hoping to grow many new varieties. This year I have a Moskvich plant in my garden for the first time. It has lots of green tomatoes that I am really looking forward to. Glad to hear its a favorite!

Anonymous said...

I am growing Brandywine for the first time and just picked a few this morning! Otherwise, I have several favorites: Sweet 100 for a cherry tomato; Green Zebra, so tart and lemony (but my two plants died!!); and Mr Stripey, an orange tomato with green stripes, very flavorful, but low acidity.

An unexpected, but fortuitous twise to my tomatoes this year. I am in coastal VA, so I can plant relatively early. Some plants went in in early May. Then I was a bit under-the-weather and therefore didn't plant others til Memorial Day. Then I was hospitalized in early June, and planted the rest after that event. Staggering the planting has me harvesting plenty now, with others on the vine still green, and yet others just flowering -- so I will have a lovely extended tomato season! Janet

Anonymous said...

Ooops! The word after fortuitous should be twist, not twise!

Adekun said...

The problem with having tomatoes in the garden, is when I'm gardening, I can't help stopping to eat them.
Expect the varieties to be different here growing the popular momotaro and the ovoid iko - which is fantastic.

Anonymous said...

What I love about heirloom tomatoes is planting several different kind, and enjoying the variety of tastes and colors.

Every year I have different experiences with different varieties, so my favorites keep changing. I find Brandywine tastes great, but the plants are too fussy and not productive. Otherwise I always like Black Prince, Mortgage Lifter, Yellow Taxi, Matt's Wild Cherry as well as many others...

I've read there are about 4000 known varieties of tomatoes, about 1000 of which are considered 'interesting'. Think about that, if you just consider the interesting ones, you could grow 25 different tomatoes for 40 years and never grow the same tomato twice. How can you possibly choose a favorite from all of these? It's better to just enjoy the biodiversity for what it is...