Best Keeper

[digitS']

I don't grow the ones that are named "Best Keeper" or anything like that.

Thessaloniki and if I'd waited 1 more day I could have claimed that it was taken off the vine, 7 weeks ago:

Another week wouldn't have been possible for several of the 6 that were still on the kitchen table a couple of hours ago.

Good Soup! Onions fried with cut up smoked sausage, dried basil, garlic salt, Maggi seasoning, turkey broth - run thru food processor - grated cheddar cheese & half 'n' half added and heated thru. Lunch!

Okay, it tasted a good deal more like the seasonings and sausage than the tomatoes but you knew they were in there by more than just the color .

Steve

 

[lesa]

Wow! That is a winner- I can't believe it!

 

[HunkieDorie23]

I don't grow the ones that are named "Best Keeper" or anything like that.

Thessaloniki and if I'd waited 1 more day I could have claimed that it was taken off the vine, 7 weeks ago:

http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h22/Digit_007/DSC00369.jpg

Another week wouldn't have been possible for several of the 6 that were still on the kitchen table a couple of hours ago.

Good Soup! Onions fried with cut up smoked sausage, dried basil, garlic salt, Maggi seasoning, turkey broth - run thru food processor - grated cheddar cheese & half 'n' half added and heated thru. Lunch!

Okay, it tasted a good deal more like the seasonings and sausage than the tomatoes but you knew they were in there by more than just the color .

Steve

Do you know how many times I add tomato paste to things just to get that little bit of tomato flavor? Not to mention vitimins. That is "Good Eats".

 

[Gardening with Rabbits]

Seven weeks, amazing!

 

[digitS']

Not this year, GwR.

DW started sauce making with a double batch over a month ago. I made the sauce several times a week with the 5 quart kettle. About 5 days ago, she ran all the rest thru the food processor. Couldn't even fill that 1 kettle but she could claim that we were "done."

No cream of tomato soup this year from ripe fruit left on the counter! I just don't understand that "industrial approach" to things. Well, I do but one develops a relationship with a couple of tomatoes after looking at them every day for several weeks . Then, the day that the 3 or 4 of you can't put off any longer . . . it's soup!

Thessaloniki was the 1st heirloom that I grew deliberately. It came after I learned that I'd been growing heirlooms all along! Yeah, I nearly always grew one called "Large Red Cherry." When I lived 500 feet higher in elevation, I grew "Sub-artic." When I moved from there to a lower elevation, I was in a hurry to grow "Earlianna." Who would have thought that these are all considered heirlooms?! I mean, they don't have names like Radiator Charlie's Mortgage Lifter, or Box Car Willy's, or Rainbow Amos . . !!

I didn't grow Thessaloniki because it is a good keeper. I grew it because a friend had it in his garden and I got seeds stuck on my shirt while sampling one . . . Naw, I'm kidding ! But, I did get a couple of tomatoes from him and saved the seed. I'm not sure how I should or shouldn't recommend it. It was a commercial variety in the 1950's, as I understand it. Brought from the Greek city by that name. It doesn't have much trouble with cracking, makes an attractive, red-orange tomato about the size of Early Girl or larger. Many of them will ripen in my garden .

Steve