We have moved quickly from a glut of summer squash in June
to a glut of tomatoes in July. Actually, a lot of different vegetables came to
the table in July. We have already managed to get tired of corn on the cob.
When I realized what my wife (i.e. chief cook) was doing, the first thought to
pop into my mind was “cop out soup”. I had brought in new potatoes, onions,
peppers, corn, green beans, the last of the summer squash, and tomatoes. I
thought we had an understanding that since she was now retired, she would be
willing to process my garden produce… but like to tango, it takes two to have
an understanding. She had decided to “make soup” and everything along with beef
and broth was going into one super-sized slow-cooker crock pot. She was killing
seven birds (vegetables) with one stone by making soup. To me vegetable soup is
something you make and eat in winter. Anyway, it turned out I was surprised; with a
tall glass of iced sweet tea on one side and a plate of cold salted watermelon
on the other, a bowl of black peppered vegetable soup actually was a very
satisfying summer meal …correction, a whole week of savory summer meals, since she had made so much.
We froze some of it. Getting
back to the tomatoes, I planted some Celebrity variety tomatoes, a truly
prolific hybrid, to use as a standard of comparison for several heritage
tomatoes. Someday I want to find a really good heritage tomato and be able to
save my own seed. In general, hybrids (of which Celebrity is one of the best)
are considered to have better disease resistances and be more prolific, i.e.
more tomatoes per plant, whereas the heritage varieties have better flavor. I
started off by planting all the tomatoes like I had seen directions for
planting young trees…in large holes. I skimmed off the ryegrass cover crop and
laid that turf to one side. Next I dug out the hole to a depth of over a foot
and two feet in diameter, chopped some of last year’s tree leaves into the
bottom, and then replaced the ryegrass sod
inverted grass-side down into the hole to act as a sponge and hold water for
the roots when the August drought came.
I added a good soil/compost mixture with a handful of bone meal
thoroughly mixed in. I left the top three inches of the hole unfilled so I
would have a convenient watering basin. I stripped all but the top leaves off
the transplants and planted the stems horizontally with only the top leaves
above ground. I put a cage over the transplants and that was it. I believe the
bone meal really did the trick because we had many large (hand-size) green
tomatoes.
The
Cherokee Purple heritage tomato did not compare well on my soil to the Celebrity
hybrid. The Cherokees were large but very gnarled and knobby, tended to have
rot spots (most ended up on the compost pile) but did have a somewhat better
flavor than the hybrid. I won’t try Cherokee Purple next year, maybe Green
Zebra instead.
I
planted a heritage Chocolate cherry in front of the old Amish heritage
Brandywine thinking that a cherry tomato would have a small vine. Small tomato,
small vine…WRONG! The Chocolate cherry (also called black cherry, I believe)
had good flavor, better than the Celebrity hybrid; the tomato was about golf
ball-size and there were a gazillion of them…definitely the most prolific
output of the varieties. The huge vine was very invasive, covering much of the
Brandywine despite the fact that there was a two-foot space between the cages.
Still the Brandywine produced large well-shaped and good old- fashioned tasting
flavorful tomatoes. The chocolate cherry was early ripening and the Brandywine
was quite late to ripen. Since I am into organic gardening, I try to pick all
the large tomato varieties either opaque green or at first blush of red and
wrap them in newspaper to ripen in the house. If allowed to vine ripen, some
grasshopper or stinkbug will take a bite and rot will set in. Greenness is the
tomatoes own defense against most insects (but not the horned tomato worm). I
am interested in giving Brandywine another try next year.
Because
I was comparing several types of tomatoes, we ended up with a glut; what do you
do with all those tomatoes? Fried green tomatoes are delicious in June. We eat
a lot of BLT’s and fried ham and cheese sandwiches with big slices of red
tomatoes, tuna salad with tomato slice and also toasted cheese, mayo and tomato
in July. Tomatoes make a good side dish
just salted and peppered. Green tomato pie really does taste like apple pie. If
all else fails, MAKE SOUP!
