Official 2010 Tomato List
I’ve finally planted my tomatoes and have a final list for the 2010 growing season. I was hoping to grow around 10 different types, but the wonderful selection got the best of me again. My final list includes 15 varieties (10 fewer than last year).
I’m growing some of the ones I grew last year and a few new varieties as well. Here’s the official list. New Varieties for 2010 are:
Goldman’s Italian American – Unique, beautiful and large tomatoes that have a squat, pear shape, being ribbed and pleated. These have a bloody, intense red color when ripe. Thick, red flesh is perfect for delicious sauces and preserves. Found at a Roadside stand in Italy, by Amy Goldman and named after her father’s grocery store in Brooklyn. This variety has good flavor, fresh or canned.
Winterkeeper – 10 oz. fruits, solid green until storage then turn a pale yellow outside and red inside.
Lemon Boy – A popular hybrid tomato, particularly with commercial growers, known for its uniform, lemon-yellow colored fruit which generally grow to about eight ounces. Borne in clusters, the fruits are a treat to the eyes and have a nice mild, sweet, tomato flavor. The plants are vigorous and are resistant to several common tomato pests so they are quite easy to grow. The vines also tend to be quite productive. Maturity: 72-75 Days, Determinate
Chianti Rose – Big, beautiful heirloom beefsteak with fabulous flavor: a cross of traditional pink Brandywine and an unnamed Italian variety. More tolerant of cool summers; crack-resistant. (from Renee’s Garden)
Super Bush Container Tomato – This scrumptious hybrid is specially bred for high yields of heavy fruits with juicy-sweet, rich tomato flavor on space-saving 3 foot plants. Perfect for pots and patio containers. (from Renee’s Garden)
Italian Pompeii – Tall and productive Italian hybrid vining variety, loads up early with heavy harvests of meaty, rich-flavored plum tomatoes for fresh eating or sauce. (from Renee’s Garden)
Amish Paste – This large, meaty heirloom was discovered in Wisconsin although it hails from the Pennsylvania Amish. It has a superior taste, brilliant with a nice balance of sweet and acid. Excellent fresh or in sauces.
Varieties that are the same as last year:
Principe Borghese – The Italian heirloom that is famous for sun drying. Small 1-2 oz. grape-shaped fruit are very dry and have few seeds. They have a rich tomato taste that is wonderful for sauces. Determinate vines yield clusters of fruit in abundance, perfect for selling in fresh markets and making specialty products. Determinate, 70-75 days.
Zapotec Pleated Tomatoes – (Lycopersicon esculentum) Rare/Traditional. Named for its creators, the Zapotec people of Oaxaca, the pink fruits are large, with ruffles like a pleated dress. They can be stuffed and baked like a bell pepper, or served raw. Sow seed in flats indoors and plant out in garden in 6-8 weeks when all danger of frost has passed. Plant in rows 24-36 inches apart. Needs trellising. Harvesting tips. Pick individual fruits as they ripen. When frost threatens, entire plant can be lifted, including roots, and hung upside down indoors to ripen remaining fruits. (Soil Temp. for Germ.: 70-85°F, Days to Germ.: 10-14, Plant Spacing: 2′-3′, Days to Maturity: 80-85, Full Sun/Moderate Water)
San Marzano Tomato – For canning, paste, and a killer spaghetti sauce, it’s hard to beat ‘San Marzano’, a sought-after heirloom from the Campania region of southern Italy. A highly prized Italian heirloom tomato for its fruit with firm pulp and thick skin, used in the concentrate industry as well as for canning ‘peeled’ tomatoes. This is truly the Italian standard for sauce and paste and a heavy producer. The fruit are long, often mistaken for large peppers from a distance. Fleshy with few seeds, often with ‘dry’ seed cavities, and with an authentic flavor that will take you back to Italy. A vigorous grower (we couldn’t believe the size of the harvests even in zone 5), vines start bearing later in the summer but then come on fast and furiously, producing heavy, 3½-inch-long tapered fruits in clusters of five or six. ‘San Marzano’ is low in sugar and acid, which gives it superior flavor when cooked. The vigorous plants are extremely prolific and produce until the first hard frost. Indeterminate, 80 days.
Cherokee Purple – Given to heirloom tomato collector Craig LeHoullier by J. D. Green of Tennessee, it is at least 100 years old and was reported as originally grown by the Cherokee Indians. The fruits are large (twelve to sixteen ounces), dark pink with darker purple shoulders. Excellent complex flavor, slight sweet aftertaste, perfect slicer for tomato sandwiches! Try this one for real old-time tomato flavor. Indeterminate, 80 days.
Costoluto Genovese – The Costoluto Genovese tomato is an old Italian preserving tomato variety. It’s heavily lobed and often convoluted shape is indicative of early nineteenth century tomato varieties, but makes an oddity in today’s vegetable garden. The Costoluto Genovese’s stellar flavor is intense and acidic. Because of its odd shape, this tomato is best for sauces and pastes where the skin is removed. This indeterminate variety should be started indoors six to eight weeks before the last spring frost. Sow one-quarter inch deep in flats or pots, keeping the soil mix moist, not soggy. When several leaves have developed, harden off seedlings and transplant eighteen to thirty-six inches apart in the garden. Full sun. Has ribbed fruits, about 5 – 7 ounces, Indeterminate, 90 days.
Brandywine Tomato – 80-100 days, indeterminate – It is by far one of the best known heirloom tomato varieties. There is a lot of lore surrounding the ‘Brandywine’ category of tomatoes. Reportedly it is an old Amish heirloom, dating back to 1885 and named after Brandywine Creek in Chester County, Pennsylvania. The disease tolerant, regular leaf plants yield fruits that are red, globe shaped, and full of flavor.
White Beauty – Plant produces good yields of 8 oz creamy white tomatoes. Tomatoes are very sweet and meaty. It is creamy white inside and outside, with few seeds! Add color to gourmet dishes, or make a white spaghetti sauce! Creamy white, meaty and delicious, most about a half pound. Indeterminate, 85 days.
Sub-Arctic Plenty or World’s Earliest – One of the very earliest tomatoes, the compact plants produce lots of 2 oz red fruit. It one of the best for cool conditions and will set fruit in lower temperatures than most. It has even been grown in the Southern Yukon. Developed by Dr. Harris, Beaverlodge Research Station, Alberta, Canada. 49-59 days.
I started my tomatoes a few weeks ago and earlier this week I repotted them into larger containers. They’ve been living on the front porch and are thriving. It looks like the temps will get down into the 40’s one night later this week which means I’ll be carrying them all into the garage overnight. I might move my cold frame and put them in it so I don’t have to carry them in and out again.
What’s your 2010 tomato list look like?
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Liberating the Lawn
Last year I dug up a section on one side of the front lawn. I desperately need some full-sun garden space and I finally decided that I’ll grow a few vegetables in the front yard. After all I think a tomato plant can be just as beautiful as any other ornamental plant. Last spring I spent a few hours each day for a few weeks digging up the many sapplings that grew in half of it and the sod that grew in the other half.
Last summer I grew a cover crop of crimson clover in this new garden area to amend the soil (which is really bad, lots of clay). It was both beautiful and beneficial, the bees loved it (as did the deer when they found it).
This spring we worked up the soil and were pleasantly surprised by the great job one crop of crimson clover did for the structure of the soil. I planted onions in one section and the other will be filled with tomatoes, basil and peppers when the weather warms enough. I have now gained about 120-140 sq ft of full sun garden space. My tomatoes and onions should do wonderfully this year in the new sunny are of the garden. This fall I plan on using a cover crop of winter rye in this area of the garden to further improve the soil.
I have another area about 5 ft wide and about 20 ft long covered with a tarp to kill the grass so I can liberate even more lawn into edible and beneficial garden space. Each year the lawn gets smaller and the gardens get bigger.
Have you expanded your garden space recently to accommodate more edible plants?
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First Harvest of 2010 Seeds Planted
I harvest my first vegetables from the garden yesterday of seeds that I planted this spring. We’ve been eating lettuce, spinach and a few other items from the garden for a month or two, but those were all planted last year or are perennials. I sowed some ‘Pink Beauty’ radishes and arugula on March 17 in the cold frame.
I’ve been watching them bulb up and finally I decided to pick a few yesterday for an afternoon snack. It’s been six weeks since I planted them.
I have been planting radishes every 3 weeks in hopes of having a nice harvest of them constantly this spring. I’ll be harvesting the arugula soon, I’m super excited about this as it’s my favorite green.
Have you harvested any veggies from seeds you planted this spring?
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The Elusive Morel
Several years ago Mr Chiots and I found our first morel. We’ve been gathering them and eating them or giving them away ever since. It’s always great when you can harvest from the wild that you don’t have to grow yourself, especially when it’s something as expensive as morels.
Last year the morels came out the day before we went on vacation, so we gave our harvest to my grandpa, who is a huge mushroom hunter. He’s even take vacations specifically for hunting mushrooms. Needless to say he was thrilled when we showed up with a pound and a half of them for free, no hunting involved on his part!
It’s kind of funny because so many people we know have secret morel hunting ground. They won’t reveal their spot to anyone. We’re lucky because we don’t have to go much farther than our backyard for our mushroom hunting adventures.
This past week was the week for morels here in our neck of the woods. We got a fairly good harvest, around a pound. I never pick them all, I always feel like I should leave a few for propagation. I also carry my harvest in a mesh bag, I’ve read this is the proper way to harvest mushrooms because then you disperse the spores when you walk around.
The morels paired perfectly with a venison roast and all those tiny onions from my garden (which happen to roast up perfectly when left whole). I roasted the venison and mushrooms with a good marsala wine, some homemade butter and homegrown garlic. You just can’t get any more delicious for a foraged meal! My parents joined us because a good meal is always better when shared with company, and my dad’s the one that took Mr Chiots hunting for the first time last year.
One of the things I’d love to learn more about is mushroom gardening. I love all kinds of mushrooms and would be a happy gardener if I could pick oyster, shiitake and lion’s mane mushrooms in my own back yard!
Do you hunt/grow mushrooms?
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The Art Weeds and Salad
This time of year salads are the vegetable of choice from the garden. Lettuce is particularly delicious since it loves the coolness of spring. Many of the wild spring greens are still tender and sweet and they can be added for more taste and texture. We’ve been eating our share of salads from the garden, although many of the greens that make them up I didn’t plant. Our salads include wild garlic mustard, and invasive weed that has is great in salads. We’ve also been adding some dandelion greens, some cardamine and a few wild violet leaves. I also love to add herbs to our salads, they not only add a wonderful flavor, but they add even more nutrition.
Wild flowers have been added as well, they add beauty and extra vitamins & minerals. Who wouldn’t want to eat a salad so lovely? These wild violets add extra vitamin C (for more info on the nutritional benefits of wild violets read this)
This salad included: mache (corn salad), garlic mustard, overwintered lettuce, lemon balm, blue stocking bergamot. The dressing was made with fresh chives from the garden, some white balsamic, a spoonful of dijon mustard, a spoonful of honey, olive oil, salt and freshly ground pepper. We topped the salad with wild violet blooms, which are very plentiful in our front lawn.
Dandelion greens can also be eaten, I’ve seen them for sale at Whole Foods for around $4/pound. Pricey considering most of us have them growing in our gardens. The blossoms can also be harvested and used for many things; muffins, jelly, wine and of course eaten raw on salads (make sure to remove green stem and bits, they can be bitter). For more info on the health benefits of dandelions check out this article.
With all these lovely healthy weeds thrown in, who wouldn’t want to eat these lovely salads? There are also many other edible flowers that you can add to salads, we like the starry white arugula blooms, nasturtiums add a slight peppery tang, pansies can be eaten as can many other flowering herbs. Any of these would be a perfect addition to cupcakes or tiny shortbreads as well. I’m thinking for my next tea party with my nieces I’ll have to make some wild violet cookies.
Do you ever harvest flowers and wild plants for your salad plate?
