Brrr. Thinkin’ of Tomatoes

Sure hope the tomatoes survived the chilly temperature of last night.  I’ll know in an hour and a half when I go out to the Market Garden to fetch more tomatoes to can. 

The tomato plants here at Vicktory Farm & Gardens spend their whole life (after transplanting) in a poly tunnel, or high tunnel, or funky greenhouse, whatever you want to call the season extenders that are quite popular.  So they already had some protection from the light frosts that we have been having.  But yesterday evening after a late dinner, I covered the four rows of Solanum (tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, ground cherries), with tattered floating row cover (really need to buy a new roll).

I’m hoping to get another week at the very least out of the tomatoes but they didn’t look too sharp yesterday evening when I was out there, although it was getting nearly too dark to see.  

We’ve been eating tomatoes a lot this summer, since July, but I just started canning them this week.  I just couldn’t seem to get to that part of my to-do list before the fair, and last week, the week after the fair, I was in no condition to can. 

My goal is sixty pints of sauced and sixty pints of stewed tomatoes.  So far I have fifteen pints of sauce done and ready for the shelf.  That was from a small box of Mama Leone tomatoes that made a very very dark sauce and a box of Plum Dandy tomatoes that made a nice thick red sauce.

Bet and I picked three more boxes on Wednesday.  I intended to keep the three varieties that we were picking separate, but between “Tomato Twister” and finally bracing the plants up so I could go down the center aisle, the boxes are rather mixed.  So it is tough to determine which tomato is the better sauce producer and which ones just plain pumped out the most tomatoes.

The lack of accounting is due to a two year issue of me not staking the tomatoes up right away or even when the actually need to be.   I swore by August of 2011 that I would never not stake my tomatoes again.  Guess what I’m swearing again this year?   Arrgh. 

Of course next year will be better.  The plan is to pre-make my stakes.  Because of course I cannot just have stakes, I have to have Lanny style stakes. (No, I do not ever learn that sometimes it is good to just get the job done like a normal person running out of time).  So in January, when there isn’t all that much to do, and I am seeding trays with tomato seeds in the Hippy Hot Hut, I will, yes, I will, walk into the Market Shed and sit at my lovely table with the wood stove going and a press of coffee brewing and make my stakes, 6 feet tall, pointed on the end, painted, with the name of the tomato variety and at least two cross bars on each stake.  One hundred twenty-five stakes.  Maybe one hundred fifty.

At least this year I have tags in the planting holes of each tomato and pepper plant so that I can trace the branch back and tell which variety is which.  I could have tried harder, and Bet would have been willing, to keep the varieties separate but the jungle was just too much.  And I rationalized it with “the sauce will be better mixed, like we do with the apple cider”.

Because of the tagging and the more space I gave them this year over last, I am at least confident in saying that I am fairly pleased with all the varieties that I used this year and I will repeat them again, providing that the seed companies are carrying them again next year. 

I did notice a few things about the varieties:

• Plum Dandy, a hybrid determinate didn’t have a lick of trouble and his foliage was always very nice looking, I like that in a plant.  The tomato crop was abundant but it seems to be one of the last to ripen of the plum varieties.
• Oroma, an open pollinated determinate, was first to ripen on the plum side of the tunnel.  Heavy fruited plants, not quite as durable as Plum Dandy but pretty good none-the-less. 
• San Marzano, open pollinated indeterminate (not sure if it is the one Territorial Seed carries), is wicked tall, er.. make that wicked long, next year we’ll call it tall!  Good crop.
• Roma, open pollinated determinate, nice plant but it certainly needs staking at least by the time it fruits, all of my determinates (the catalogs say don’t need staking) need staking because of fruit set, even most of my pepper plants needed staking this year! But that’s another post.
• Mama Leone, open pollinated indeterminate, continues to be a favorite because of its dual purpose nature, the best sandwich tomato of all the “sauce and paste” tomatoes.  And it’s cute!
• Chocolate Cherry, open pollinated indeterminate, continues to be the snitchers all time favorite.
• Black Cherry, open pollinated indeterminate, nice alternative to Chocolate Cherry if you need one.
• Early Cherry, open pollinated determinate, certainly early, but not sure it is necessary when I have Chocolate Cherry and the two early slicers, Glacier and Stupice.
• Oregon Cherry, open pollinated determinate, sort of lost in the shuffle, maybe good for up in the ornamental gardens for a snack.
• Stupice and Glacier, open pollinated indeterminate, both of these pump out tomatoes all summer, a few of the tomatoes get to a real nice size.  Glacier was a bit earlier than Stupice.  Further review when I stew the two varieties.
• Reverend Morrow’s Long Keeper, open pollinated determinate (tall for sure) I am waiting to talk about these, so far they look great.

Well I am out to pick more tomatoes in the chilly morning.  No rain in sight yet, this dry weather is crazy, crazy, crazy. 

Fire danger is pretty high so there won’t be a Leif Erickkson bon fire this year, there might not even be a party – Baby Manley #3 is on his/her way, due on the tenth of this month. 

If the baby comes a day early, and is a boy, I wonder if Eric and Steph will name him Leif (pronounced Layf by the way) the baby’s brothers have very Nordic names, Kai and Aksel. We are all super excited to meet the new baby! 

But now for some more tomato canning today (I might even try some oven dried tomatoes), chicken butchering tomorrow and more tomato canning, lamb butchering and more tomato canning on Sunday… .