The Miss America Pageant of Tomatoes

So going into this years tomato buying, Barry and I have done a little research and were schooled by said delightful staff at Thorne Farm.  We now know the difference between indeterminate and determinate tomatoes.  Indeterminate will vine and keep producing fruit for as long as you keep picking but determinate have a definite growing time period and are more bush like.  We knew we wanted more indeterminate because vining tomatoes fit better in the square foot gardening plan as they will grow up and not out.

 

We know we have space for 12 plants.  This should give us enough for us to eat, share and can.  This is a bit of a guessing game for us and we tend to overdo things (Remember my husband’s motto:  Bigger Is Better).  With that said, we want to make sure we’ve bought the prettiest most talented tomatoes.  The contestants are…

Maraglobe Select:  They will produce in 72 days, which is pretty fast for a tomato.  It is determinate but we have loved these in the past.  They are sweet with not many seeds, which is a huge plus for me.  Seeds gross me out.  I think it stems from someone once telling me that if you swallowed a watermelon seed, it would sprout in your stomach.  Ummmm… yuck.

Green Zebra:  Also a 72 day-er. It meets our indeterminate needs. I am not as big a fan (I mean… they’re green) but Barry loves them.  They also give a nice color splash to your tomato salads.

German Striped:  Ah, the love of my tomato life.  These 78 days to maturity beasts are delicious.  They have in the past taken a HUGE amount of space in our garden but now that we are using our new vocabulary-indeterminate, we can vine them upward.  If you haven’t tasted the sweet German Stripe you haven’t lived.

Yellow Lemon:  This is new to the Parker Garden.  We have not canned past Yellow Brandywine tomatoes, we just like them for the color it brings to our culinary presentations.  But the Brandywines always split funny and I’m not crazy about the taste.  So we are trying this type.  Indeterminate but 85 days to maturity.

Mortgage Lifter:  Well, we picked this one because the story behind it was cool.  M.C. Byles who bred these tomatoes took the biggest varieties he could find and bred them.  He sold the plants for a dollar a piece and was able to pay down his mortgage with the money earned.  Way to go M.C.  80 days to maturity, indeterminate.

Late Ripening:  I suspect this isn’t their real name and are under some kind of witness protection program or something.  These are also a test.  They are red, late ripening tomatoes.  You pick them, put them in a cool location and it takes them 2-3 months to ripen.  Yup, winter tomatoes.  I’ll let you know how this all goes or if it is a fairy tale of tomatoes.

  

Early Girl:  We haven’t been super functional yet.  But most of our plants are Early Girls.  65 days, indeterminate, and you have beautiful red tomatoes to eat and can.  This way I get my canning over early. 

Who will be crowned Miss Best Producer or Miss Tastiest?  Only time will tell.

Sheep and Wool Festival Side note:

                                

So I forgot to tell you all about the best $20 bucks we ever spent.  We bought a handmade broom.  It is FANTASTIC!!!!  It was made to be an outdoor broom and it sweeps up everything from our grass clippings to our piles of dirt on my deck from planting to our dried worms from the sidewalk.

Look at the inside of the broom… that’s the secret weapon right there!

The inside bristles are super thick.

I don’t care what Ray Montero, one of this year’s dragees, says.  There is no way you can get this quality broom from Home Depot.  Want the porsche of brooms?  Write Bob Haffly of Lone Oak Brooms, P.O. Box 160, Amberson, PA  17210

Here’s Bob on YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwVKrRHDFmg