Tomato Report: Indigo Rose

Another tomato I got to taste on my trip up California's central coast was the striking, nearly black "Indigo Rose". The Indigo Rose tomato was bred conventionally by Oregon State University specifically to have high levels of antioxidants. Those antioxidants are in the tomato thanks to a class of flavonoids called anthocyanin, substances which also give the fruit its dark color.

According to Oregon State,

Indigo Rose's genesis began in the 1960s, when two breeders – one from Bulgaria and the other from the United States – first crossed-cultivated tomatoes with wild species from Chile and the Galapagos Islands . . . Some wild tomato species have anthocyanins in their fruit, and until now, tomatoes grown in home gardens have had the beneficial pigment only in their leaves and stems, which are inedible.

The size is somewhat bigger than a cherry tomato. The inside of the tomato is a dark red. The taste? Good, even though the one I tried had not matured yet. I'm going to consider growing these next year.

You can find out more about the Indigo Rose on the Oregon State Extension Service website.

Indigo Rose seeds can be purchased through Johnny's Select Seeds.

Tomato Report: Blush

I think I've tasted my new favorite tomato variety: Blush. I got to tuck into a box of these delicious tomatoes at the farm of Shu and Debbie Takikawa near Los Olivos. Yellow with red streaks, Blush tomatoes have the perfect balance of sweetness and acidity.

The blush tomato was developed by geneticist and tomato geek Fred Hempel and are available via Seeds of Change.

Due to a series of gardening blunders that I'll blog about at some point, we're not going to have many tomatoes this summer from our yard. Thankfully I can visit Shu and Debbie's stand at the Altadena Farmer's Market on Wednesdays.

If you've grown Blush tomatoes please leave a comment and let us know how they did.

Top Tasting Tomato Varieties

Sakura Honey, image from the Master Gardeners of Frankly County

It's the time of year to start figuring out what tomatoes to plant here in the northern hemisphere. How about using taste to decide? The Master Gardeners of Franklin County Pennsylvania do a taste test every year. Here's the top ten from last year's results:

1 Sakura Honey
2 Red Pearl
3 Five Star
4 Principe Borghese
5 Old Brooks
6 Arbason
7 Fabulous
8 Heritage Hybrid
9 Cherokee Green
10 SX 605

The top three (all grape varieties) are available from Johnny's Selected Seeds. See the full results of the taste test here.

Also, if you're still looking for inspiration, review the comments on our recent giveaway post. Folks left their favorites there, and their regions--it's a treasure trove of climate-specific information. We should make a chart out of it our something. 

Link thanks to Ken Druse's Real Dirt Podcast. 

Tomatoes in December

It ain't pretty but I'm not complaining.

Note to self: the tomatoes that sprout on their own are always the healthiest. The cherry tomato above has reseeded itself for at least 12 years. Sometimes its offspring survive the winter and grow as a perennial. Our climate sort of permits this but occasionally a cold night will kill tomatoes off. And each year the fruit declines in quality.

This summer I transplanted two tomato seedlings that sprouted in the yard on their own. One turned out to be the offspring of the Italian red pear tomato I grow every year and the other a somewhat boring but prolific yellow cherry tomato.

It's Christmas and all of these tomatoes are still growing and producing. I've got an unintentional food forest started here. One of these days I'll just give up starting seeds and let nature do her thing!

Tomato Report II: Franchi Red Pear

Franchi's Red Pear tomato is a beefsteak variety we've grown for several years. It tastes phenomenal either fresh or cooked. From the Seeds from Italy website:

This is an old North Italian variety specially selected by Franchi Sementi. It is an indeterminate red, pear-shaped beefsteak. An outstanding producer of huge (as in 8-18 ounce) very tasty fruit. Great fresh eating. Early for such a large plant (70-75 days).  This is not the small pear shaped tomato called red pear by US Seed companies. Pear shaped with vertical ribs . . . Really meaty containing few seeds. Indeterminate.

One problem I've had with it is that it's not super productive, at least in my vegetable beds.  I also think I may have over-watered it this summer and, consequently, it's not quite as flavorful as last year's more "meaty" crop.

So what beefsteak varieties do you like? I'm looking for suggestions for next year--hybrids or heirlooms.

ETA:  Just thought of something that would be helpful--if you rec. a tomato, tell us where you live. It will really help others searching for a good tomato that works well in their climate.

Tomato Report: Franchi Red Cherry

I don't have much to say about this variety from Franchi named, somewhat generically, "Red Cherry". It grew well and is very productive considering the compact size of the vine. The taste, however, was acceptable but not exciting. This could be because of over-watering on my part.

I could find very little information about this tomato on the interwebs other than that it is an indeterminate, early variety that grows well in pots (though I grew mine in the ground).

In the interest of a sweeter cherry tomato I think next year I'm going to plant the reliable Sungold.

What's your favorite cherry tomato? Leave a comment . . .

ETA:  Just thought of something that would be helpful--if you rec. a tomato, tell us where you live. It will really help others searching for a good tomato that works well in their climate. You know how it is: location, location, location...  And if any of you who have already rec'd one see this, feel free to pipe up again regarding your location.

Waiting for our tomatoes/Tomatoland

grow! grow faster!

Mrs. Homegrown here:

Via Boing Boing, I found this excerpt on Onearth Magazine's website, from a new book called Tomatoland by Barry Estabrook, which is apparently a document of all the indignities suffered by the industrial tomato--the tomato that sits, bright red, useless and flavorless, on store shelves year round, country-wide. Here at the Root Simple compound, we choose to eat tomatoes seasonally--when they're coming out of our yard--and make do with canned and dried tomatoes for the rest of the year. Basically, we believe that fresh tomatoes are a privilege, not a right. Right now our tomato plants are covered with blossoms and tiny green fruit, and I'm almost frantic for fresh tomatoes. (The basil is in! Where's the tomatoes?!?) Yet I know better than to buy a tomato at a store. I haven't for years.

In this excerpt, Estabrook explains why Erik and I avoid store-bought tomatoes like a plague. I haven't read his book, so can't comment on the whole, but I liked the excerpt. It focuses on the tomato industry in Florida. Here in California, we're not often offered Florida tomatoes. Ours seem to come mostly from Mexico at this time of year--and I have no idea how those tomatoes are grown. Are they better than Florida tomatoes, which are coaxed reluctantly from nitrogen-free sand beds, with massive inputs of chemical fertilizers and pesticides?

...they must be protected from competitive weeds, disease spores, and especially nematodes, which thrive in Florida. Growers have a ready solution to these problems. They kill everything in the soil. To do so, they fumigate the beds with methyl bromide*, one of the most toxic chemicals in conventional agriculture’s arsenal... The chemical is injected into the newly formed beds, which are immediately sealed beneath a tight wrapper of polyethylene plastic mulch. Then the growers wait while the chemical does its lethal work. Within two weeks, every living organism -- every insect, fungus, weed seed, and germ -- in the beds is dead. "It’s like chemotherapy," said Ozores-Hampton. Once the soil is suitably lifeless, it’s time to plant tomatoes.

And methyl bromide is just the start--it's just soil prep. The tomato growers use a large chemical arsenal to bring their crops to fruition:

U.S. Department of Agriculture studies found traces of thirty-five pesticides on conventionally grown fresh tomatoes: endosulfan, azoxystrobin, chlorothalonil, methamidophos, permethrin trans, permethrin cis, fenpropathrin, trifloxystrobin, o-phenylphenol, pieronyl butoxide, acetamprid, pyrimethanil, boscalid, bifenthrin, dicofol p., thiamethoxam, chlorpyrifos, dicloran, flonicamid, pyriproxyfen, omethoate, pyraclostrobin, famoxadone, clothianidin, cypermethrin, clothianidin, cypermethrin, fenhexamid, oxamyl, diazinon, buprofezin, cyazofamid, deltamethrin, acephate, and folpet. It is important to note that residues of these chemicals were below levels considered to be harmful to humans, but in high enough concentrations, three are known or probable carcinogens, six are neurotoxins, fourteen are endocrine disruptors, and three cause reproductive problems and birth defects.

Yes, it important to note that "residues of these chemicals were below levels considered to be harmful to humans" but I dunno...I'd rather skip them altogether, thankyouverymuch.

And is the result of this chemical onslaught a delicious tomato? A "well, it was worth all that methyl bromide" sort of tomato? No, indeed, it is not. All of the resulting tomatoes are picked while green and hard and reddened by application of ethylene gas, eliminating any possibility that they will ever develop flavor. Taste plays no part in the equation. As one of the growers says:

"People just want something red to put in their salad."

I grew up on flavorless, industrial tomatoes, and as a child, I assiduously picked them off everything I was fed. In retrospect, I don't blame my young self--they were horrible. Believe it or not,  I didn't know what a real tomato tasted like until I was 20 or so, not until an aggressive fruit vendor foisted a slice of heirloom tomato on me and I was too polite not to eat it in front of him. The flavor exploded in my mouth. It was--truly--a life changing revelation.

I wonder if more people grew up eating the real thing whether the bottom would fall out of the market for these ghastly Franken-tomatoes? Or are we really satisfied just to have "something red" in our salads?


*Reading the latest scientific literature, Erik has learned that methyl bromide is being phased out of the FL tomato biz, not because of toxicity, but because it generates too much greenhouse gas. (What a charming substance!) There's no saying it will be replaced by anything less toxic.

Staking Tomatoes with Concrete Reinforcing Mesh

For years we've been using concrete reinforcing mesh to stake our tomatoes. It's a 6-inch square grid of wire and is used to reinforce concrete slabs. I buy it in 3 1/2-feet by 7-feet sections at my local home improvement center. To make a tomato cage with it you find a flat stretch of patio or driveway and bend the wire into a tube. I overlap it a bit and tie it together with wire.

This year, thanks to a tip from Craig Ruggless, I decided to double the height of the cages using two per plant to make them 7-feet high. As the plant grows, you simply tuck the vines into the cage, with no pruning necessary. But you do have to stay on top of the tucking, otherwise you risk breaking off stems. Since a 7-foot cage can be very top heavy I staked them deep into the ground with some rebar I had laying around. Long wooden stakes would work just as well. You could also choose to grow shorter tomato varieties. The San Marzano tomatoes in the middle of the picture above are half the height of the other two and way more productive.

Another staking option is to buy Texas Tomato Cages for $99 for six 24-inch by 6-foot cages. The advantage with the Texas cages is that they fold flat when not in use. The disadvantage is the price. If you buy your concrete reinforcing mesh in bulk, on long rolls, the price would be significantly less than the Texas Cages and I think reinforcing wire is just as attractive if rolled carefully.

I would avoid the tiny, flimsy conical cages I've seen for sale at most nurseries as almost every tomato plant will easily outgrow them and stems will break as they spill over the top.

For a roundup tomato staking techniques see the Santa Clara County Master Gardeners website.

And leave some comments about your favorite staking and/or pruning methods.

End of Season Tomato Review

Homegrown Evolution had ambitious plans to review each and every tomato variety out of the garden this year, but alas, we fell behind in our bloggulating duties and planted way too many tomatoes. So here, as "winter" appears in Southern California (it's raining, that's how you tell), we'll review what worked and what didn't work.

The tastiest tomato award goes to the Pineapple variety pictured above. Not only did this heirloom tomato have the best flavor, it was also the prettiest tomato we've ever grown, a brilliant yellow with streaks of red in the middle of the fruit when you slice it. And they're just about as big as a Cadillac Escalade. We saved some seeds and will definitely be growing these again next year.


The most productive, trouble free and productive tomatoes this year were plain old Romas and San Marzanos, both of which provided a summer of tomato sauce and enough extra fruit to do some canning. Two hybrid cherry tomatoes we grew in self watering containers, Sun Gold and Sweet 100 also did well. The Romas have the additional benefit of being fusarium wilt and verticillium resistant. It may be organic gardening heresy to say this, but hybrid tomatoes such as Roma are the best varieties for beginning gardeners to grow due to their trouble free and disease resistant qualities. The down side is that you can't save the seeds.

We also grew Syrian Giants, but unfortunately our Doberman Pincher ate most of them on late night raids. Perhaps because the Syrians grew in less than ideal partial shade conditions, they weren't that tasty. See also our earlier reviews of Banana Leg and Red Currant varieties.

Most of the tomatoes were grown in cages made from concrete reinforcing wire (instructions on making tomato cages here) in raised beds with a drip irrigation system as pictured above. As an experiment for folks in apartments or with limited space, we grew a bunch of tomatoes in self watering containers on a strip of concrete next to the back wall of our garage (note crappy picture below). You'll see that we were too lazy to put the container tomatoes in cages--don't do this as you'll have a sprawling ugly mess! Nevertheless, the containers worked.

So readers, leave some comments! Tell us your favorite tomatoes this season. Weigh in on the heirloom vs. hybrid issue. We're sure that forward thinking folks planning seed purchases for the spring would appreciate the advice.

Vegetable Gardening With Dogs

We love all dogs and live with an elderly Doberman Pincher. But gardening with dogs can definitely have its challenges, especially when your trusted companion has a taste for heirloom tomatoes. On the right, the aftermath of one of our dog's nightly tomato raids, this time targeting our healthiest and most productive vine, a variety called Giant Syrian. The dog has managed to claim all but a few of the tomatoes off this vine, knocking off many unripe ones in the process. FYI, the Giant Syrian tomato is our favorite variety this year, producing large, flavorful and meaty fruit. Hopefully the Doberman will leave a few for us. [Update: an alert reader has pointed out that tomatoes are toxic to canines. The ASPCA says that the green parts are toxic, but others claim that both the ripe and unripe fruit are also a problem.]

On the subject of tomatoes, here's a very beautiful and useful website with pictures and descriptions of many heirloom tomato and vegetable varieties: the Heirloom Vegetable Archive.

Tomato Review #2 Banana Legs - it don't look like a banana and it don't got legs

It's raining tomatoes here at the Homegrown Evolution compound and time for the second in our series of tomato reviews. Today, Banana Legs, a determinate variety with yellow flesh and light green streaks. It has a mild, low acid flavor and a meaty texture. Not bad, not thrilling, not nearly is as good as a similar looking tomato we grew last year, Power's Heirloom.

We grew our Banana Legs in a self watering container (SWC) and it produced a respectable amount of fruit. With a sunny balcony, folks in apartments could do the same. For our container we used a repurposed storage bin and we'd recommend the largest container you can find for tomatoes or sticking to tomato varieties specifically bred for containers. As soon as the large root system of a tomato plant gets down into the water reservoir at the bottom of an SWC you can get some leaf curl. This did not seem to reduce the output of our plant, but it was somewhat ugly looking. We also made the dumb, lazy mistake of not caging the plant and it sprawled helplessly over the sides of the planter, probably reducing our yield. Here's the way we normally cage our tomatoes when we're not too busy blogging. You can also check out Bruce F's nice staking system for his rooftop garden in Chicago.

Verdict: we gotta get some of those Power's Heirloom seeds next season, but I'll save a few of the Banana Legs seeds for the sake of variety.

Tomato Review #1 Red Currant--The World's Smallest Tomato

Due to poor planning in our garden this year we've had a bit of a "need to get produce at the supermarket" gap. Ironically, the first bit of homegrown produce to appear this summer came in the form of what we're calling the world's smallest tomato: an heirloom variety Mrs. Homegrown Evolution picked up at this year's Tomato Mania sale called Red Currant (Solanum pimpinellifolium). This is a domesticated version of wild tomato plants originating in Mexico, and produces fruit measuring about one centimeter across. Red Currant is an indeterminate tomato, with a delicious, sweet taste. A malfunctioning drip line has has meant that our specimen probably did not get enough water, but nevertheless it has managed to produce fruit despite looking unhappy. If we had more than the paltry number we've produced, they'd make for a tasty addition to a salad. That malfunctioning drip line means that all we have is enough for the world's smallest BLT. If only we could find a pig the size of a cellphone.