Plants That Produce

Boy Do I Love Tomatoes!

By Richard Frost

Every spring I tell myself that I grew too many tomato plants last year and not to start so many. This is about the time that some of my well-meaning friends bring me starts of a new or old-fashioned variety that they obtained from an acquaintance. And it is about this time that I realize its going to be more out of control this year than ever.

Now in an effort to keep the number of plants to a minimum I have tried to grow just one of each variety. For example, consider the “purple” tomatoes. I just have to grow Cherokee Purple every year and I would chose it if I absolutely had to grow just 1 tomato plant. If you feed this variety a potassium-based fertilizer it will produce an abundance of rich tasting tomatoes that go well with everything. But then of course my neighbor shows up with an extra Prudence’s Purple plant and well, I guess I have room for it. To make matters worse, someone has hybridized a black cherry tomato, and well …

O.K., I didn’t control myself very well in that category so maybe I can do better with cherry tomatoes. Oh wait, that’s not going to work because I always grow the Sun Gold (not Sun Sugar) and I’ve already got the black cherry planted. So I guess it wouldn’t hurt if I just fill in a small adjacent area with a Green Grape. This variety is great for snacking on – about 1.25 inch wide and 2 inches tall that is mostly green with a yellow hue at the bottom when it is ripe. It won’t be too much because I grow it every year anyway …

Fine. I’m certain I can get a grip in the “fruity” tasting category. There’s only one worth growing – Hillbilly. So I open up my tomato seed catalog and find that a diabolical tomato breeding fiend has come up with Virginia Sweets – supposedly a larger, sweeter, fruitier version of the Hillbilly. We’ll see about that!

Now I almost forgot about the great tasting fruity yellow tomatoes like Azoychka and Lemon Boy, and the fruity orange Persimmon and Kellogg’s Breakfast varieties. Hah! I’ll just put them in their own color categories! If I use that logic, then I’m only growing one fruity (Hillbilly), one yellow (Azoychka), and one orange (Persimmon). By the way, the Persimmon tomato has the nickname lil’ Pumpkin because about 1 out of 10 fruits grows to an enormous 3 to 5 pounds.

My wife really likes to cook with tomatoes and some of those recipes need what I call a “classic red”. Further, they should be round and just “pop” out of their skins when you blanch them for canning. Both the Celebrity and the Burpee Better Boy are great for this. Now if you want an heirloom, choose the Burpee Better Boy because it fits the legal definition: (a) expired patent and (b) reproduces true from seed.

Speaking of heirlooms, I’ve got to grow a “brandywine” variety. If you’ve read “The $64 Tomato” by William Alexander you know exactly what I’m talking about. So whether the Suddith Strain is actually better than the standard red Brandywine is something you’ll have to taste for yourself. I was just going to grow the Suddith this year, but I got a sample seed packet of the yellow Platfoot Brandywine …

SDHS member Richard Frost is a certified edible gardening nut. For copies of past articles and more information, please see www.plantsthatproduce.com.

Reprinted with permission from April 2009 "Let's Talk Plants," the newsletter of the San Diego Horticultural Society, www.sdhortsoc.org

© 2009 San Diego Horticultural Society