Category Archives: ‘THE TOMATO LADY’

NEW! ‘Veggie Gardening 101’ radio show starts Jan 14

I’ll be on the Santa Fe Master Gardener’s Gardening Journal radio show with host Christine Salem twice a month now. My original show gives tips and advice about what to do in a vegetable garden each month as the gardening season progresses. This assumes you have an existing vegetable garden.

We are adding a Vegetable Gardening 101 show. It seems we have many people here in Santa Fe that either have never started a garden or haven’t had success here in our challenging garden area. Many want to be successful organically growing their own food and need help on where to start. So I will take us from the beginning through planning and building a garden, creating good soil, raised beds vs in-ground beds, starting seeds, transplanting plants, varieties that grow well for beginners and even harvesting tips. This will be more basic info but even advanced gardeners might benefit from some of the tips I’ll be giving.

Go here to listen to past radio show podcasts and pick up awesome information -https://giantveggiegardener.com/radio-show/

Here’s the rundown:

SHOW #1—my regular radio show-‘Monthly Veggie Garden Tips’

Where:  airs on KSFR 101.1 on the Garden Journal

When: on the last Saturday of each month

Time: from 10:00-10:30am

Topics: What to do in our gardens for each month, problems that arise and solutions

SHOW #2—my NEW radio show-‘Veggie Gardening 101′

Where: airs on KSFR 101.1 on the Garden Journal

When: on the 2nd Saturday of each month

Time: from 10:00-10:30am

Topics: Beginning vegetable gardening from start to finish and everywhere in between.

Seed Catalogs/2017

catalogs-2017

My top two seed catalog picks

Even though it’s not 2017 yet, many of you are now getting your seed catalogs in for 2017 season. I just updated for 2017 my favorite seed and garden catalogs. I have many favorites besides the two above. Here they are:

GOOD SEED LIST:

THESE SEED CATALOGS/COMPANIES ARE GREAT. THEY DO NOT BUY ANY SEEDS FROM SEMINIS, A SUBSIDIARY OF MONSANTO AND ARE MY FAVORITES.

Seed Saver Exchange—As a SSE member I want to support this non-profit organization who is dedicated to CONSERVING and promoting heirloom varieties of veggies, flowers, fruits and herbs. It’s catalog is wonderful with many varieties of seeds that are hard to find or have been kept in families for generations. http://www.seedsavers.org

Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds—It features beautiful pictures of many varieties of heirloom vegetables, flowers and fruits, some of which are very unusual and rare. It gives wonderful descriptions and history of where each variety originated. Check them out. www.rareseeds.com

Southern Exposure Seed Exchange– recommended by Baker Heirlooms as another good source for heirlooms. Has many hard to find vegetable seeds. http://www.southernexposure.com/

Wild Boar Farms—specialize in fantastic OP varieties of tomatoes. wildboarfarms.com
No catalog-go online to order.

Baia Nicchia Farm—specialize in more fantastic OP varieties of tomatoes. Created the Artisan Seed Series of tomatoes in Johnny’s Seeds catalog. Support their company for certain select seeds not available anywhere else and go to Johnny’s for the rest of their Artisan tomato seeds. Support their breeding work by buying directly from them. https://store.growartisan.com/
No catalog-go online to order.

Secret Seed Cartel—specialize in unique, unusual or rare seeds of peppers and tomatoes from Europe–secretseedcartel.com
No catalog-go online to order.

Wild Garden Seeds—My new go to catalog for wonderful greens and lettuce www.wildgardenseed.com/ (I use to think they sold in bulk only,  but they sell smaller quantities as well. The packet price listed on top of catalog pages)

John Scheepers Kitchen Garden Seeds—Sells many wonderful hard to find heirloom seeds like Argentata chard and French gray shallots. http://www.kitchengardenseeds.com/

Kitazawa Seed Company—Oldest seed company in America specializing in Asian vegetable seeds. http://www.kitazawaseed.com/

Irish Eyes Garden Seeds—Get your different types of potatoes here. http://irisheyesgardenseeds.com/

Native Seed/SEARCH—fabulous seeds by native people in the southwest. www.nativeseeds.org/

Hudson Valley Seed—The Hudson Valley Seed Library is an amazing source for heirloom and open-pollinated garden seeds and beautiful garden-themed contemporary art. http://hudsonvalleyseed.com/

Peaceful Valley (Grow Organic)—I get all my row cover and most of my growing supplies from here.www.groworganic.com

Johnny’s Selected Seeds—provides hybrid, heirloom and OP seeds, tools, information, and service. A general all-purpose catalog packed with more than just seeds. www.johnnyseeds.com

There are many other good seed companies that do not buy their seed stock from Seminis.  To see more good seed companies that may be among your favorites, go here. If your favorite seed company is not listed, call them if you are interested.

My favorite tomato for 2016!

lucky-cross1

I always plant several new varieties of tomatoes each year and the winner hands down for 2016 was:

LUCKY CROSS

lucky-cross-insideIt is a fantastic yellowish tomato with pink blush outside and inside as well. Sometimes they were more yellowish with pink overtones and sometimes more pinkish with some yellow overtones. No matter the color, it has an exceptional sweet flavor like a Brandywine. It never cracked or got diseases and was very prolific. It is a potato leaf variety. I haven’t been this excited about a tomato for a long time. It now beats my beloved Virginia Sweet tomatoes which are prone to cracks and diseases.

When I did some research on this tomato, the variety originally came from Craig LeHoullier (author of Epic Tomatoes). He stated it came from a Brandywine and an unknown bee-produced cross and had the luck to grow it out with these great attributes.  You can read the story of it from him here. No wonder I thought it tasted like a Brandywine! It is now a stable open-pollinated (OP) tomato and will grow out the same each generation. I saved some of the seeds from this beauty and will definitely grow it next season.

What’s with all these green tomatoes?

tomato_green tomatoes

I’ve lived here for 21 years and have never seen the tomatoes ripen this late. In fact the majority of them in my garden are still green. I have a few sungolds and black cherry tomatoes and one Pink Berkley Tie Dye and a couple of red ones ripen but that’s it-the rest are still green on the vine.

tomato_healthy plants

The plants are big and healthy. So what’s happening here?

Problem #1
The first problem was we had a hot June (except for one weekend) and an unbelievably hot July here with day after day of 92+°F. Why does that matter? Tomatoes won’t pollinate themselves over 92°f-they drop their blossoms, which is commonly known as blossom drop. They will keep producing blossoms but won’t set them producing tomatoes until it’s cooler. So we lost a whole month, putting us behind schedule.

Problem # 2
So once the monsoons thankfully came in, it got cooler and now we have green tomatoes in various stages of ripening. But suddenly, it got even cooler. So much so that it is starting to feel like autumn in August with temperatures dropping at night into the 50’s and daytime temps are much lower in the 70s. So although the tomatoes can’t have extreme heat to set fruit, they need heat to ripen. With cooler temps, it takes longer for tomatoes to turn red, or yellow, or black or whatever color they should be when ripe.

Normally I show up at the Farmers Market middle of August with 6-8 boxes of tomatoes that then increases to 15-20 boxes every week.

tomatoes_first harvest

Here is what I have now. Only 2 little bowls of tomatoes, getting a bowl a day-hardly enough to go to market with.

Now it is a race to get some tomatoes to ripen before our first frost which usually comes in October but one year it came in early September. Let’s hope not this year!

Last year I decided to slow down and take a little time off (farmer’s burnout) and that I might not go to the market as much nor grow as many tomatoes either. I have 40 tomatoes this year (lost three to curly top virus) so now I have 37 compared to 125 tomato plants last year. I guess I made a good choice as I’m not sure how long into Sept it will be before I have enough to go to market if at all before a frost.

Tomatoes, peppers and eggplants in!

tomatoes 05 24 16

All my tomatoes get planted into wall of waters when first transplanting them. Really helps them get a good head start.

So I’m gonna try to catch up on the garden in the next few posts…

All the tomatoes went into the garden in their Wall of Waters on Wednesday, May 24. My friends, Janet, Mernie and Linda plus myself manage to get all of my tomatoes in by 2 pm.  Thank you for your wonderful help! I was 5 tomatoes short, so I went over to Agua Fria Nursery (my favorite nursery) and picked up what I needed the following day and they are now in as well. I have 3 sections in my main garden and now section 1 is filled. One third done! I always espoused we should harden off out tomatoes before setting them out, but I’ve found out that if you put them into Wall of Waters, one doesn’t need to  harden them off. The Wall of Waters, act like a little greenhouse and keep them warm at nite and the winds at away-well worth the money and effort. Once the tomatoes reach the top sometime this month, remove the WOWs. Still have many things to plant but the ‘maters are in!

rhubarb spring

Rhubarb is doing well even with a hail storm we had. Somehow it was sheltered.

My perennials are coming up-rhubarb, raspberries and grapes-yeah! I didn’t have to do anything (except water)! The cabbage is already in as well.

GRAPE VINE ROW COVER

Himrod green seedless grapes grow great here. They are recovering from deer damage

Some deer came by an munched about half the leaves and grape flowers on one grape plant so now they are under row cover and recovering nicely. I pulled it off so you can see the recovery. I hope  we get the grape flowers (that will become grapes) again. The deer have not been back or at least haven’t eaten any more of them.

FUSHIMI PEPPER PLANTED

Fushimi pepper and all peppers planted under fencing material and row covered until they adjust to heat

This week, June 1-4, I transplanted all peppers-the varieties are: Jimmy Nardello (sweet Italian frying pepper), Poblano (mildly hot use for chile rellanos), Fushimi (similar to shishitos only bigger-not hot), Shishito (good frying pepper-not hot) and Corno de Toro (big sweet Italian pepper).  I put epsom salts in bottom of hole to increase flowers and peppers. I also planted all my eggplants-the variety is Fairytale. I love them, they are my favorite-I don’t grow any other. The bigger eggplants take longer to ripen and you only get a few on each plant vs fairytale eggplants are extremely prolific and ripen earlier. Fairytales are small, never bitter, thin-skinned, great sliced in half and sautéed with garlic in oil or on the BBQ-ed on the grill. You can still use them for Eggplant Parmesan, only takes more.

 

Time to get seeds!

275px-Painted_Pony_Bean

It’s time to start getting my seeds for this coming growing season. I have most of my seed catalogs that I want and have looked at them. This is an exciting time for growers! So many things I want to grow and many new varieties too!  Here are some things I do when starting this process:

  1. The first thing I do is go through my seed storage boxes where I threw the packets in last year after planting. I have to organize them first to see what I still have.
  2. After reorganizing my seed boxes, I decide what I want to grow this year. Now the fun begins! Scouring over all the catalogs, I start to make a list and I need to decide where they will go in the garden because every year I over buy and run out of room in my garden. Many of the catalogs are so beautiful that I want to buy everything! I call it garden porn!  I too run out of beds to grow everything I want! Imagine that! Some of you have seen my gardens last year-I have 4000 sq feet of gardening space and still run out of room.
  3. I have a few rules I try to follow when purchasing seeds. Rule number one for me-I only grow things I love to eat so celery will never be on my list and if my partner didn’t love radishes so much, I wouldn’t grow them either (they taste like dirt to me). Why grow vegetables you don’t really like? Rule number two-I grow some vegetables that are more expensive than others. For example, I grow shallots instead of onions. Shallots are expensive, onions are cheap. Rule number three-I grow vegetables that I can’t find as starts in the nurseries. I’ve gotten some great vegetables that just aren’t available unless you grow them. You can either start them inside or direct seed some of them outside when the time is right. Also:

Home Grown New Mexico is having its 2015 Seed Swap on
Wednesday, March 15th at Frenchy’s Barn  on Agua Fria from 3 pm to 6 pm.
It’s free and you’ll get great seeds!

Other groups who will be at the Seed Swap:

The Santa Fe Master Gardeners will have several info tables there where you can get how-to info on composting, growing native seeds and more.

In addition the Seedbroadcast truck people will be there getting people’s seed stories and putting them online. Do you have a great seed story? Tell them!

The Tomato Lady (that’s me) will be there at the Home Grown New Mexico table inside the barn. I will have some of my tomato seeds and giant vegetable varieties available as well if any of you want to try growing a giant this year!

This is great resource for gardeners and a fabulous way to start off the growing season. Vegetable, flower and herb seeds will be available.

If you have any seeds you can bring to swap that would be great, but if you don’t you can still come and get some fabulous seeds for this year!

Finally the Garden is cleaned up-Nov 23

Nov garden 2015

The garden is CLEAN! Here I am siting on the bench on Nov 23. How desolate it looks compared to the picture below in summer. I put all the dead tomatoes and squash plants in the trailer to haul to the dump. The reason they go to the dump is tomatoes and squash are prone to diseases and I don’t want to use them in the compost piles if they don’t get hot enough to kill pathogens. I don’t want to be spreading diseases in the garden. The rest of the garden is in the compost bins which are now overflowing. I will make some more compost later this week when it is warmer. The winter weight row cover in the pic is covering the last little bit of my garden that is still alive-the kales. I have Russian Red kale and Winterbor Curly kale. Unbelievably they are still alive even with the bitter cold nights with temps dipping in the teens. The other thing you see are my strawberries to the right which are quickly going dormant.

garden bench summer 2015

Here is the garden in the summer. I miss it already.

Cherry tomato varieties review

cherry tomatoes group

There are many varieties of cherry tomatoes but this year I had 7 different varieties of small or cherry tomatoes. Six were heirloom or OP (open pollinated) varieties and one was a hybrid. Open pollinated varieties will be the next new heirlooms when they get to be 50+ years old. Six are shown above from left top row – Juane Flamme, Indigo Cherry Drop, Bottom row from left Artisan Blush Tiger, Artisan Purple Bumblebee, Artisan Pink Bumblebee and Sungold – not shown Black Cherry tomatoes (forgot to take picture!) I think it was way too many cherry tomatoes because of the time it took to harvest all of them every week (exhausting) but having said that, they were all very tasty. Three of the tomatoes pictured above were completely new to me. So let’s look at those above and review them.

tomato_juane flamme

Juane Flamme tomatoes

Juane Flamme – heirloom variety, mid-season tomato – originated by Norbert Perreira of Helliner, France. Extremely prolific. A favorite of my patrons at my Santa Fe Farmers market stand. Yellow turning tangerine color when ripe. Very sweet. Bigger than a cherry tomato but still small, about the size of a golf ball. The only problem I’ve had is in my garden, it was susceptible to Early Blight getting it 2 years in a row. Since I didn’t use any fungicides this year (but I did last year), I’m not sure that is fair although all my other tomatoes didn’t get Early Blight till the right at end of the season which I consider normal as they get more susceptible to diseases as they get old. Still if you like a very sweet tomato, you might try it and just be sure to use an organic fungicide early on to control it and you’ll be fine. You’ll need to get seeds unless we can talk the nurseries into growing them next year. Recommend it.

tomato_indigo cherry drops

Indigo Cherry Drops and Indigo Rose tomatoes mixed

Indigo Cherry Drop – OP (open pollinated) variety, early mid-season tomato-NEW to me this year. Excellent sweet flavor and incredibly large yields 1 inch cherry tomato. Part of the famous Indigo family where the shoulders are black and bottoms are red. Indigo Rose was the first tomato to come out and is a cross between a South American and Galapagos Island tomato. Any Indigo tomato-Indigo Rose (2-3 oz), Indigo Blue Beauty (4 oz) , Indigo Apple (4 oz), Indigo Blue Berries (too tiny to bother with) are the new darlings at the market and all the varieties have to do with the size of them as they all taste the same-excellent flavor hard to describe. Many of the Indigo varieties are available at the nurseries as starts in spring. Extremely prolific. I like them. Bigger Indigo varieties recommended but not the Cherry Drop-too small

tomato_artisan blush tiger

Artisan Blush Tiger tomatoes

Artisan Blush Tiger-OP (open pollinated) variety from Artisan Seeds, mid-season tomato. NEW to me this year. Unique julienne cherry tomato that is yellow with subtle pink stripes-very beautiful. Everyone loved this new variety. It has a fruity sweet, tropical flavor. Feathery foliage is different from regular or potato leaf types so don’t be alarmed – it’s normal. Did well and was disease resistant in my garden. You’ll need to get seeds unless we can talk the nurseries into growing them next year.  Recommend it.

tomato_artisan purple bumblebee

Artisan Purple Bumblebee tomatoes

Artisan Purple Bumblebee-OP (open pollinated) variety from Artisan Seeds, mid-season tomato. I actually grew these last year and liked them enough to grow again. They are dark purplish with green stripes. They have a superb sweet flavor. Very productive. You’ll need to get seeds unless we can talk the nurseries into growing them next year. Recommend it.

tomato_artisan pink bumblebee

Artisan Pink Bumblebee tomato

Artisan Pink Bumblebee-OP (open pollinated) variety from Artisan Seeds, mid-season tomato. NEW to me this year. I love this tomato as it has a very bright sweet flavor-a burst of flavor when you bite into it. Good disease resistance. You’ll need to get seeds unless we can talk the nurseries into growing them next year. Recommend it.

tomato_sungold

Sungold tomatoes

Sungold-hybrid variety. My only hybrid cherry tomato-early season. I’ve grown this for years as it is a supersweet tomato and when people ask for the sweetest tomato, I recommend this. Small yellow cherry tomato turns orange when ripe. Ripens early.  Extremely prolific. Available at the nurseries in spring. Recommend it.

Black Cherry tomato

Black Cherry tomatoes

Black Cherry Tomato – Heirloom tomato originally from Russia, mid-season tomato. I have grown this for years as it is a favorite of mine and the patrons at the Farmers market. Sweet, earthy complex flavors so common with dark purple or black tomatoes. Good size cherry tomato that is a dusky purple. Available at the nurseries in spring. Recommend it.

 

Drying tomatoes

IMG_7961

So someone gave me a jar of dehydrated tomatoes in olive oil and I thought they looked very beautiful and I know when you put them in pasta dishes, it’s bursts of intense tomato flavor. A great addition in the kitchen. So I thought, that’s what I can do with all those little cherry tomatoes! Look how beautiful they look when first put on the trays. I’ve dehydrated some during the last 2 weeks. I put all kinds together and not just cherry tomatoes.

tomatoes in oil

Here they are in the olive oil in a jar. I love these jars from Italy-Quattro Stagioni.
You can get them at Amazon. These are the 5 oz size.

I want to still eat some fresh while they last but there is definitely more than I or a small army can eat before they go bad. Today I also made 4 more pans of tomato tapenade. Pantry is getting full quick!

Amy’s Tomato Salad

tomatoes in sherry vinaigrette

I don’t know about you but I still have a lot of cherry tomatoes that I picked the other day. I love to serve them as a tomato salad in a sherry vinaigrette. It’s divine with the sweetness of the cherry tomatoes. A friend of mine, Amy Hetager, who is no longer with us was kind enough to share it with me.  I call it Amy’s Tomato Salad. Here’s the recipe below.

Amy’s Tomato Salad (Cherry Tomatoes in a sherry vinaigrette)
2-1/2 lbs tomatoes cut into same size or cherry tomatoes
1/2 cup red onion, thinly sliced
2 shallots, thinly sliced
1/3 cup fresh coarsely chopped herbs (basil, parsley, marjoram, whatever you got)

Toss everything together with the sherry vinaigrette below. Let it sit for a few hours before serving.

Sherry Vinaigrette Dressing
This is good on fresh kale salads too
1 garlic clove
3/4 tsp Kosher salt
1-1/2 TBL lemon juice
1-1/2 TBL sherry vinegar (this is sherry vinegar, not sherry wine)
1-1/2 tsp Dijon mustard
1 tsp sugar
black bepper
6 TBL extra virgin olive oil

Blend or shake it all together so it emulsifies before pouring over the tomatoes.

Here it is in pdf format for printing:
Amy’s Tomato Salad

 

Stella’s view

Stella's view

One of our indoor cats, Stella, always sits by a particular window looking out. I’m sure she’s looking at the birds outside and sees a mouse now and then too. It’s like it’s her TV. Yesterday, when I looked out her window with her,  I understood why she always looks out this particular window. The view was stunning with the yellow leaves of the aspen trees and the snow falling softly on the ground. We didn’t get much snow, maybe a half an inch but between the cold wind and the snow, it made me pause to look out with her and enjoy the view.

Tomato tapenade

 

tomato tapenade all tomatoes

Being the Tomato Lady I have lots of tomatoes. One of the things I’ve done with my tomatoes, especially my older ones is making tomato tapenade. It’s easy to do and is so yummy you’ll want to make more with any tomatoes you can get your hands on at this time of year. The picture above I have mixed up all kinds of tomatoes.

1. Preheat the oven to 300°F

tapenade beginning

2. Take a cookie sheet and cover it with a big sheet of foil to protect your cookie sheet. Don’t try to piece two pieces together, it won’t work. The tomato juices will leak between the two pieces and what a mess it makes. I first tried it with parchment paper underneath and it was worse so don’t try that either. I learned the hard way and ruined a cookie sheet. Then I spread some olive oil on the sheet so the tomatoes don’t stick and cut my tomatoes in half and put them on the cookie sheet.

3. Put salt and pepper on the tomatoes and crush up some garlic (lots) and put that on top of the tomatoes.

red tomato tapenade

4. Put fresh thyme on top of the tomatoes.

sauteed onions

5. Then (this is optional but so good) Slice an onion or two and saute it in olive oil until soft and carmelized as above. Then spread the onions on top of all of it. Now I have made this both with and without the onions and it is definitely better with the onions but is really good without it too if you want to save more time.

yellow tapenade with garlic and thyme

6. Drizzle some good quality balsamic vinegar and then a little olive oil over it as well.

7. Cook and check often till soft and slightly caramelized. I start with half an hour and then keep checking every 15 minutes till done. Should take between 1-2 hrs if your tomatoes are bigger or juicy. There will be some black on the edges and that’s OK but watch closely as it gets closer to done as it can overcook quickly and the whole thing could burn black. A little black good, a lot of black bad. I scrap off the tomatoes (skin and all) off the foil and viola its done! I don’t puree it as I like it chunky and the skins are soft enough that you don’t even notice them.

8. I make some crostini out of some french bread toasting the slices till slightly crisp on the outside.

9. Then I spread some chevre goat cheese on the crostini and put a spoonful of the tomato tapenade on top. Sometimes I put a Kalamata olive on top, sometimes not. Divine!

Two cookie sheets makes about 2 cups of the tapenade. Refrigerate for immediate use or freeze or preserve it using a canning method for longer storage.

 

 

Garden Harvest Early October

oct 8 harvest

I love this time of year. It’s like the garden’s gone wild, everything ready for harvest all at once and a sense of urgency is felt by me and the vegetables to get it done. Get it picked, get it harvested and get it preserved. It is a crazy intense time as fall is here for real and soon we will have the first 32°F night (historically the middle of October). Right now nights are in the mid 40’s but that will change soon. The mornings require a sweatshirt in the garden now.

The sunflowers have come and gone, my cucumbers are done. I spent hours picking and pickling them as I love pickles. The zucchini are gone too. The green and purple beans are mostly finished. The shishitos and poblano peppers and eggplants are done as of this week. The 25 lbs of pears and 30 lbs of apples Michelle gave me are already dried into chips. The corn tassels are drying and soon I will see if my experiment of planting all pink kernels of Glass Gem corn will turn out pink ears or still be multi-colored. Either way is fine. The tomatoes are definitely fading, preferring much warmer nights and their size and harvest is getting smaller. I’m making tomato soup, tomato tapenade and tomato sauce like crazy-so far 18 gallon freezer bags of raw sauce in each that I will later make pasta sauces with (once the garden is done). Today was my last day at the Farmer’s Market as the Tomato Lady for this year as I will not get enough tomatoes again.

But the potatoes still need digging, the herbs need trimming and drying, Jimmy Nardello peppers are still kicking and need picking, the beets and carrots I planted in early spring are ready for harvest and the chard and different kales I planted in late July are loving the cooler weather now and will endure until we have really cold weather. Crazy busy around here.

My favorite sauce tomato

Goldman's American Italian

Here is my favorite sauce tomato!

First I want to share a fantastic tomato I grow every year and never sell it at the Farmer’s Market. Why? Because I think it is THE BEST sauce tomato I’ve every grown and I’ve grown many varieties.

GIA_SAN MARZANO

The San Marzano tomato top while my favorite sauce tomato is on the bottom

San Marzanos use to be my favorite sauce tomato but now they are numero 2. I’m selfish and save it for me to make tomato sauce out of. In fact I make a lot of tomato sauce as you can imagine and tend to mix up many varieties which tastes good. But when I get a bunch of these tomatoes, I only make sauce from them and don’t dilute them with any other tomatoes. The sauce is sweet, flavorful, rich and thick. A great base for any tomato sauce recipe.

GIA TOMATOES IN PROCESSOR

So what variety is this tomato? It’s called Goldman’s Italian American or as I label it on my freezer bags, GIA– so I know it’s different from my other raw tomato sauce. It comes from Amy Goldman who wrote a book on tomatoes. The only hitch on this tomato is it takes all summer and fall to ripen. It takes 90 days to ripen so some years I’m picking them when they are still green before a freeze and finishing ripening them inside but not this year. This year they are huge from all the rain and ripening nicely on the vine and I have a lot of these behemoths and lots of sauce.

 

I’m Baaack-Tomato Lady returned to Farmer’s Market last Saturday

tomato lady2

So last Saturday I returned to the Farmer’s Market here in Santa Fe and plan to be there on Saturdays until the end of the season when it freezes. I saw many friends and old faces there-people who have been waiting for my return and it was good to see them come back. Thank you!

It’s such a short market for an heirloom tomato grower. Our end of season is always dependent on when the first freeze happens. Sometime it happens in late October, once it happened in September (God forbid), and only once in November! Pray for a nice long fall or as we say around here, an Indian summer, so I can get all those wonderful tomatoes that are just coming in on my mini farm to the market.

I have 31 varieties this year and 125 plants. Someone asked me if they are all there at the market at the same time and alas the answer is no as I have early varieties, mid-varieties and late season varieties growing in the garden. What I can tell you is that I grow many unusual varieties of heirloom and open pollinated tomatoes whose seeds come from all over the world. Many of them you will not find here at our market or even be able to get the plants in the garden nurseries. I start them in April inside the house and transfer them to the garden after the last freeze in spring and this year, our last snow was May 16. So as you can see, it takes a long time to get these babies to the market. And after spending so much time with them I do indeed call them my ‘babies’.

Every year I have some new varieties I try. This year some of them are Black and Brown Boar, Cascade Lava, Artisan Blush Tiger and Purple Bumblebees. I also have my favorites that I grow every year for the market like Costuluto Genevese, Pantano Romanesco, Marmande Garnier Rouge, Juane Flamme, Paul Robeson, Indigo Rose and Pink Berkeley Tie Dye plus many more varieties. Then at the end of the season I evaluate them based on your taste buds and input and some of the new ones make it on my ‘all star’ list and some don’t. So come down to the market and check out what other tomatoes I have going on. I also sell other heirloom veggies like Fairytale eggplant, Shishito peppers, many varieties of beans and other veggies but as you all know tomatoes are my speciality!