Tag Archives: Santa Fe Farmer’s Market

Tomato Lady now at Santa Fe Farmers Market this Saturday, Sept 9

Hi I returned last Saturday to the Santa Fe Farmers Market with a few boxes. Starting tomorrow (Sat Sept 9), I will be there from 7 am-1 pm throughout the rest of the tomato season. The tomatoes are starting to come in now after a long wait. Don’t wait too long to come to my booth as I will run out before the end of the market. I am located INSIDE THE BUILDING. Just look UP for my ‘Tomato Lady’ sign above my booth. The market people may be moving me around a little inside the building so be sure to look around to see the sign. I have many new great varieties and of course my favorites I bring like Paul Robeson, Purple Cherokee, Sun Gold, Costuluto Genevese, Pink Berkley Tie Dye and more. Over 20 varieties grown this season from all over the world.  And of course I will have some Shishito peppers, and small eggplants as well. This is my last season at the market so be sure to come by and say hi and pick up a few.

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!

2014 garden-then and now

long shot of garden

The Tomato Lady
Tomato Lady’s mini-farm

My tomatoes love the sun and warmth!

tomatoes ready for market

Tomatoes ready for the Santa Fe Farmer’s market

Last week was warm and sunny-just what tomatoes need to ripen. Temperatures in the mid 80s. It’s a little cooler this week but still nice. Suddenly I have all kinds of tomatoes ripening-yea!

tomato lady at Santa Fe Farmer's Market

Up till last week I’ve barely had enough ripe ones to go to the Farmer’s Market much less make tomato sauce but now I have plenty to sell-just get there early as I sell out pretty early even with all these tomatoes. Here’s my booth at the Farmer’s Market. It is located inside the big building. Just look up for a big sign that says, ‘Tomato Lady’ to find me.

I noticed the number of ripe tomatoes have been growing here at my little farm and now they are exploding! Yea! I’m hoping for an Indian summer-that means the rest of September will be nice and warm which should keep them coming.

Tomato Lady will return to SF Farmer’s Market this Saturday!

first tomatoes

Here are some of my tomatoes of the 2014 season. I’ll be back at the SF Farmer’s Market this Saturday, August 16th from 7-12 noon inside the building. Just look up high (above my booth) for my Tomato Lady sign to find me. I don’t have a ton of tomatoes yet and so they should go pretty quick and then I’ll be out but have many other items to sell like rhubarb, green and purple beans, Shishito peppers, various eggplants including the infamous fairytale eggplant and maybe some Kale. Hopefully next week I will have more!

But if you want tomatoes-come early!

Tomato Lady of Santa Fe at Farmer’s Market this Saturday

3omato_costuluto genevese

Saturday I will return to the Santa Fe Farmer’s Market as the ‘Tomato Lady’. I don’t have lots of tomatoes yet but everyday more are ripe so come early to get the best choices like the beauty pictured above from Italy called “Costuluto Genevese”. I have 12 new varieties as well as the ones I grew last year.

Tomato Lady of Santa Fe returns to the Farmers Market this Saturday August 25, 2012

Tomorrow, Saturday, August 25, I am returning to the Santa Fe Farmers Market as ‘The Tomato Lady’. At this time I have over 15 varieties of organically grown heirloom tomatoes from luscious black tomatoes like Purple Cherokee, supersweet yellow Virginia Sweets to Italian Red Costoluto Genevese and many, many more . I have over 50 plants and 25 varieties that will ripen as we go through the season. They are beautiful. They are gorgeous! And they taste wonderful! Magnifico!

I also have Shishito peppers, Costata Romanesco zucchini and Fairy eggplants that I will sell as well. Next week I will add some sunflowers out of my sunflower forest and Emerite French filet beans. I’ll be inside the building-look for ‘The Tomato Lady’ sign above my booth. Hours are 7am-noon. Hope to see you there!

500 lbs of tomatoes..

There must be 500 lbs of tomatoes all over the house in different states of ripeness now. Little paths throughout the house to walk around! With all the freeze scares each day for the nights, I went out and picked almost all the tomatoes that can finish ripening. I started picking hard on Wednesday and then my good friend Mernie came over and helped picked the rest on Thursday and Friday. On Saturday I had one of my best days ever at the Farmers Market as “The Tomato Lady’. It has been cold and had rained in Santa Fe and snowing on our mountain and I think everyone started thinking OMG- the tomato season is almost over! It was like a shark frenzy. My patrons didn’t want anything else-only tomatoes. I completely sold out. Now I just have to manage the remaining tomatoes in the house to make sure they ripen nicely. While I’m gone on Saturday at the giant pumpkin weigh-off, Caleb will be ‘The Tomato Lady’ again and then I will be back the following Saturday!

Santa Fe Farmers Market/The Tomato Lady

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Saturday went well for my first time at the Santa Fe Farmers Market for this year. It is actually my third year returning as The Tomato Lady. I had many varieties of tomatoes, much more than I anticipated and sold most of them. I had a few left over which I made into tomato sauce and tomato tapenade today.

‘The Tomato Lady’ returns to Santa Fe Farmers Market this Saturday, Aug 20

Here are some of the tomatoes I’ll be bringing to the Santa Fe Farmers Market

FINALLY, I will arrive at the Farmers market this Saturday, Aug 20 in the SAME LOCATION INSIDE THE BUILDING not outside. (COME INSIDE the BUILDING BY THE 2ND ENTRY WHEN YOU WALK DOWN MAIN OUTSIDE AISLE). I won’t have as many tomatoes YET as I would like so if you want some incredible, organically grown, heirloom tomatoes, you better come EARLY as I anticipate SELLOUT by 9:30am even though the market stays open till 12:30. Of course not all of them ripen at the same time so you will have a variety of tomatoes to pick from each week. Over 25 heirloom tomato varieties on 70 plants this year! This is the beginning-it will only get better as each week more and more tomatoes will ripen. I will also have other heirloom veggies there – Shishito peppers, a few Pepperoncini peppers, incredibly sweet, never bitter Fairy eggplants, fantastic nutty flavored Rattlesnake beans, wonderful thin French filet beans, Emerite, but mostly tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes! Hope to see your happy faces soon!

Tomato plants getting BIG

The tomato plants are now getting BIG. I’ve gotten a few ripe tomatoes-fighting off the birds for them! Most are starting to really produce green tomatoes now. I hope to get to the SF FARMERS MARKET by MID-AUGUST or sooner, tomatoes willing..

Here are my earliest tomatoes on the right that may allow me to go to the market sooner than later. On the left is my strawberry patch.

I have a variety of black tomatoes coming on-Paul Robeson, Giant Black Pear shaped tomatoes, Cherokee Chocolate, Black Krim and Black Cherry. None of which are shown yet.

I should have a plethora of cherry tomatoes this year-Sungold, Black Cherry and Green Grape and a mystery red that was suppose to be a San Marzano! Here is a closeup of  Sungold. Hope the birds don’t get it! All the cherry tomatoes should start producing soon!

I also love the bi-color tomatoes-my favorites. I’m growing Gold Medal and Striped Germans shown above. Both varieties can get between 1-2 lbs and are SWEET, SWEET, SWEET. They only have flowers right now.

My Big Zacs take longest to ripen 90+ days so you won’t be seeing these until late in the season but what a treat.1-2 lb giants with that old fashion tomato flavor perfect for a BLT..

Here is a brandywine. Notice the potato leaves. I haven’t had good luck in NM with Brandywine  tomatoes due to the disease factor but these are looking good so far, I have red, pink and yellow brandywines going.

‘The Tomato Lady’ returns to Santa Fe Farmers Market

‘The tomato Lady’-first day sold out of Tomatoes

Yesterday I returned to our Farmers Market here in Santa Fe, NM as the ‘Tomato Lady’ and sold out of my tomatoes by 10 am.

It’s been a long wait all summer for my tomatoes to ripen and they have started but are not full blown yet. So I had some tomatoes but not a ton. In another couple of weeks, I should be overwhelmed with tomatoes. I also had Costata Romanesco  and Lungo Bianco zucchini, Bennings Green Tint and Yellow Custard scallop summer squash,  Fairytale eggplants, Shishito peppers, Padron peppers, Parade, Armenian cucumbers and Rattlesnake pole beans. For tomatoes I had Early Wonder, Pantano Romanesco, Goliath, Sun Sugar and Black Cherry and a few Costuluto Genovese. Hope I have lots more next week!

It’s official!

It’s official! I finally got my acceptance letter from the Santa Fe Farmer’s Market. The Farmer’s Market has become so popular here in Santa Fe that you have to be juried in to sell there in the summers, not just send some money and automatically get in. I will be there this summer on Saturdays from 7am-12pm as soon as I have some crops to sell-got to get them in the ground first and with this late cold weather it hasn’t happened yet. I’m hoping to be there in late June with something but not the tomatoes-they won’t be ready till late July at the earliest. I have made room for 60 tomato plants and many more crops in my 1000 square foot main garden. So keep you eye out at the farmer’s market for ‘The Tomato Lady’-Heirloom tomatoes & exotic veggies for the discriminating cook.

Santa Fe’s Farmer’s Market

For the Discriminating Cook

This year the Santa Fe’s Farmer’s Market, which was recently rated as one of the best in  the nation, was a juried-in only market for farmers. Well, I went in the their office and they said I got accepted but I haven’t received their acceptance letter yet which makes me nervous as it’s been 2 weeks. I need to know for sure because it will determine whether I plant more tomatoes or not. We’ll see…

Last year at the Santa Fe Farmer’s Market

I am known as ‘The Tomato Lady-Heirloom Tomatoes & Exotic Veggies’ for the discriminating cook. I grow varieties that you don’t get at the grocery stores or at our farmer’s market. See you there this summer!  I’ll keep you posted when I start going to sell my produce on SATURDAY mornings this year-probably late June since I sell warm season crops…