seedcorn
Garden Master
@Collector , he's a great gardener without even planting a garden. In fact, he seems to harvest more without a garden than he does with a garden. Only a southerner...
Show us your tomatoes
- Thread starter catjac1975
- Start date
Collector
Garden Master
I need to learn some of those mad gardening skills. I guess it's just a southern thang.
digitS'
Garden Master
Today, I'm going to advocate for something I had never done until last year: make tomato soup from vine-ripened tomatoes.
No really! I usually have these baskets/boxes of green tomatoes after frost. As they ripen, THAT's been when I have made soup. Split fruit during the season may not be discarded. In my steady use of tomatoes for pasta sauce, those maters are often on their way to the freezer. Three quart bags of sauce went that route last Sunday.
I tire of using the green tomatoes. I wanna tell ya, after slowly ripening on the kitchen counter - they don't have much flavor, especially if the process takes several weeks.
Soup: my first of the year was with seashell pasta and left over beefsteak (and beefsteak tomatoes
). Second was 2 huge tomatoes and only the addition of sour cream. Mmmmm
Steve
No really! I usually have these baskets/boxes of green tomatoes after frost. As they ripen, THAT's been when I have made soup. Split fruit during the season may not be discarded. In my steady use of tomatoes for pasta sauce, those maters are often on their way to the freezer. Three quart bags of sauce went that route last Sunday.
I tire of using the green tomatoes. I wanna tell ya, after slowly ripening on the kitchen counter - they don't have much flavor, especially if the process takes several weeks.
Soup: my first of the year was with seashell pasta and left over beefsteak (and beefsteak tomatoes
). Second was 2 huge tomatoes and only the addition of sour cream. MmmmmSteve
Nyboy
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Steve why don't you try pickeling some of your green tomatoes ?
digitS'
Garden Master
I am not a pickler, @Nyboy . My success rate in trying has been abysmal!
Besides, with pickled cucumbers, I only like dill. I don't know how that would translate from cucumbers to tomatoes ...
@HunkieDorie had a recipe for refrigerator pickles. Pretty good but I couldn't finish 2 quarts in the safe time allowed.
Steve
Besides, with pickled cucumbers, I only like dill. I don't know how that would translate from cucumbers to tomatoes ...
@HunkieDorie had a recipe for refrigerator pickles. Pretty good but I couldn't finish 2 quarts in the safe time allowed.
Steve
digitS'
Garden Master
I am going to say some nice things about hybrids. And, I've already mentioned a few ...
I'm not sure where the Jelly Beans came from but the much-loved Sungold and Sun Sugar are from Japanese horticulturalists. The story on the Japanese and tomatoes was that they weren't much appreciated a generation or so, ago. Then, they developed some new varieties. I, and many other gardeners, are sure glad they did.
Lemon Boy is a fairly old beefsteak hybrid. @marshallsmyth sent me seed for his de-hybridized Lemon Boy. We had a bad windstorm and that plant survived just fine! Produced well ... while others struggled through the remainder of the season. I was impressed but later wondered if its slightly more protected location wasn't the reason.
Marshall seemed surprised by my praise. Anyway, I bought Lemon Boy seed and grew his yellow beefsteak with those plants side-by-side for 2 seasons. The Lemon Boy hybrid did better. They are doing well again this year.
Early Girl is the most popular tomato in the US. It does well in my garden each year. Big Beef does, too! Do I like to be dependent on the seed companies? No. And ... I have other, open-pollinated varieties like Thessaloniki that run these hybrids good competition
.
Steve
I'm not sure where the Jelly Beans came from but the much-loved Sungold and Sun Sugar are from Japanese horticulturalists. The story on the Japanese and tomatoes was that they weren't much appreciated a generation or so, ago. Then, they developed some new varieties. I, and many other gardeners, are sure glad they did.
Lemon Boy is a fairly old beefsteak hybrid. @marshallsmyth sent me seed for his de-hybridized Lemon Boy. We had a bad windstorm and that plant survived just fine! Produced well ... while others struggled through the remainder of the season. I was impressed but later wondered if its slightly more protected location wasn't the reason.
Marshall seemed surprised by my praise. Anyway, I bought Lemon Boy seed and grew his yellow beefsteak with those plants side-by-side for 2 seasons. The Lemon Boy hybrid did better. They are doing well again this year.
Early Girl is the most popular tomato in the US. It does well in my garden each year. Big Beef does, too! Do I like to be dependent on the seed companies? No. And ... I have other, open-pollinated varieties like Thessaloniki that run these hybrids good competition
.Steve
valley ranch
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These are Olmeca
In Europe and Russia they are call Russo Bruno~ the Spanish get credit for developing these```They get purple when ripe```
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valley ranch
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ducks4you
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late and green this year
digitS'
Garden Master
Here is a nearly ripe Lemon Boy, the first on the plant.
Oh, there are been quite a few from a couple of other Lemon Boys but this plant was set out amidst the onions after several had been harvested as scallions. They were a couple of months old and it was about the 1st of July. I don't remember having done that before altho' I had several tomato plants go in very late in 2016. With a very warm summer, this one has had a chance to ripen on the vine. Because of the variety, it would only take a couple of days for the others in the photo to ripen on the kitchen counter. Not a bad choice for a "2nd crop" beefsteak.
There have been ripe Goliaths off this plant. BIG ... for my garden ... I didn't get my pocket knife in quite the right place but these must be about 3/4#. I'll have to harvest a LOT of green tomatoes if we go into 3 or 4 days of rain (blessed rain!) and a frost follows. Goliath tends to have an early ripe tomato or two, between Early Girl and Big Beef, and then just a slow, steady production.
Hybrids but I like having them and they play an important role in my garden.
Steve
Oh, there are been quite a few from a couple of other Lemon Boys but this plant was set out amidst the onions after several had been harvested as scallions. They were a couple of months old and it was about the 1st of July. I don't remember having done that before altho' I had several tomato plants go in very late in 2016. With a very warm summer, this one has had a chance to ripen on the vine. Because of the variety, it would only take a couple of days for the others in the photo to ripen on the kitchen counter. Not a bad choice for a "2nd crop" beefsteak.
These are Goliath.
There have been ripe Goliaths off this plant. BIG ... for my garden ... I didn't get my pocket knife in quite the right place but these must be about 3/4#. I'll have to harvest a LOT of green tomatoes if we go into 3 or 4 days of rain (blessed rain!) and a frost follows. Goliath tends to have an early ripe tomato or two, between Early Girl and Big Beef, and then just a slow, steady production.
Hybrids but I like having them and they play an important role in my garden.
Steve
