Post by tatiana on Aug 27, 2010 12:06:46 GMT -5
As I have been a very infrequent lurker here in summer time, I thought it is a good time for me to come out and share what was happening at Tatiana's tomato patch lately, as far as tomato picking and tasting. 
This time of the year I usually go to the garden at least twice a day to pick tomatoes, and in the evening it is of course 'tasting and big tomato salad' time - so here you go
It was somewhat an unusual day, for two reasons:
1. I finally saw that some tomatoes in my greenhouses started to blush - way too late this year, but it was still a very pleasant sight
2. I got too many 'surprises' (I'll get into the details later)
So here I am happily hopping around and checking what's happening 'under cover' first (=GHs) just to notice something unusual in the corner where I am growing 'green-when-ripe' varieties - something glowing there, and it is not green. So I come and take a closer look - this is what I see, a 'Green Pineapple' impostor from a seed I received as a gift from a fellow tomato enthusiast:
The fellow Green Pineapple from Sandhill is showing green-when-ripe fruits, but this one was surely different and so beautiful... I did not have a heart to cut it up in and left it on the counter, so we can admire it.
I also noticed blushing Yellow Oxheart (huge, >1 lb, I am sure), Malinovye, and large Jeff Davis starting to color up. I did not take pictures of these yet.
More fruit on Pink Ping Pong, and this is a mild tasting thing, so we do not care too much about it, as we like strong taste in tomatoes - so it is almost disappointing to pick more fruits from it every second day, but then I am thinking my younger son could have it in his salad, as he prefer mild, and if he does not like it, my mother-in-law can have it. :lol:
The next stop was in the main garden, where the few late blight 'survivors' were: Wonder Light and Shirley.
Nothing unusual about Wonder Light (a.k.a. Plum Lemon) - all as expected. Taste was mild and not something I'd call remarkable. I guess that was expected too
Shirley! I was expecting nothing special, just another small red tomato, and I have been waiting for it to fully color up for a few days, but then I decided to stop by and give it a gentle squeeze, as I thought it is taking for long, and still not fully red yet! So, to my surprise, it felt completely ripe, although the greenish tint was still there... So I picked up the two fruits - wow, what a surprise! Although it is certainly a red tomato, the fruit color was somewhat unusual - not quite red but with some greenish tint on outside, and dark pink, almost purple inside, with greenish gel. Excellent sharp flavor, right combination of meat and juice. I hope the pictures give a decent idea about the colors:
Next stop - my tomato container garden, on the sundeck.
First thing I see is a huge red heart hanging on Minusinskij Rannij plant, and it started to spoil at the top because a bird pecked at it quite a bit! So I picked it hoping to still have enough left for us to try - and I so so disappointed to see almost no seeds in this large tomato. 6 seeds only. And not many more fruits on the plant left, at least not close to maturity. Bummer!
I was expecting the taste to be sweet, but it was more acidic. Very nice indeed! (I wonder why is that all these almost seedless tomatoes are the best? )
Berkeley Tie-Dye Pink - what a beauty! Left it on the counter to ripen a bit more...
Martino's Roma - beautiful, but I had to pick it slightly under-ripe, as it falls off the vines easily, and I knocked down a few unintentionally.
And here is ...another surprise! I am growing 4 plants of a 'yellow strain' of Spears Tennessee Green, a fruit D. discovered at a farmers market which she thought was an offtype or a cross of Spears TN Green tomato. So, one plant has been producing large cherry-sized tomatoes, and two ripened up unnoticed under the heavy foliage cover... and they were chocolate-black, absolutely beautiful!
The very last stop was in the kitchen where I was waiting for Paquebot Roma tomatoes rescued from the blighted patch to ripen on the counter from green stage. Well, I was disappointed as I expected - nothing remarkable as far as the taste goes, not a thing for fresh eating anyway.
And last, but not least, another one from the container garden, another 'Russian' with hard-to-pronounce name, 'Gruntovyi Gribovskiy 1180', which has been sitting on the counter for a couple of weeks, still firm, but getting to a very dark, bloody-red color, so I decided it was a good time to cut them up... And what a lovely surprise - I have never tasted such a rich super sweet tomato in my life!
It was a happy day at Tatiana's, what else can I say
Tatiana
This time of the year I usually go to the garden at least twice a day to pick tomatoes, and in the evening it is of course 'tasting and big tomato salad' time - so here you go
It was somewhat an unusual day, for two reasons:
1. I finally saw that some tomatoes in my greenhouses started to blush - way too late this year, but it was still a very pleasant sight
2. I got too many 'surprises' (I'll get into the details later)
So here I am happily hopping around and checking what's happening 'under cover' first (=GHs) just to notice something unusual in the corner where I am growing 'green-when-ripe' varieties - something glowing there, and it is not green. So I come and take a closer look - this is what I see, a 'Green Pineapple' impostor from a seed I received as a gift from a fellow tomato enthusiast:
The fellow Green Pineapple from Sandhill is showing green-when-ripe fruits, but this one was surely different and so beautiful... I did not have a heart to cut it up in and left it on the counter, so we can admire it.
I also noticed blushing Yellow Oxheart (huge, >1 lb, I am sure), Malinovye, and large Jeff Davis starting to color up. I did not take pictures of these yet.
More fruit on Pink Ping Pong, and this is a mild tasting thing, so we do not care too much about it, as we like strong taste in tomatoes - so it is almost disappointing to pick more fruits from it every second day, but then I am thinking my younger son could have it in his salad, as he prefer mild, and if he does not like it, my mother-in-law can have it. :lol:
The next stop was in the main garden, where the few late blight 'survivors' were: Wonder Light and Shirley.
Nothing unusual about Wonder Light (a.k.a. Plum Lemon) - all as expected. Taste was mild and not something I'd call remarkable. I guess that was expected too
Shirley! I was expecting nothing special, just another small red tomato, and I have been waiting for it to fully color up for a few days, but then I decided to stop by and give it a gentle squeeze, as I thought it is taking for long, and still not fully red yet! So, to my surprise, it felt completely ripe, although the greenish tint was still there... So I picked up the two fruits - wow, what a surprise! Although it is certainly a red tomato, the fruit color was somewhat unusual - not quite red but with some greenish tint on outside, and dark pink, almost purple inside, with greenish gel. Excellent sharp flavor, right combination of meat and juice. I hope the pictures give a decent idea about the colors:
Next stop - my tomato container garden, on the sundeck.
First thing I see is a huge red heart hanging on Minusinskij Rannij plant, and it started to spoil at the top because a bird pecked at it quite a bit! So I picked it hoping to still have enough left for us to try - and I so so disappointed to see almost no seeds in this large tomato. 6 seeds only. And not many more fruits on the plant left, at least not close to maturity. Bummer!
I was expecting the taste to be sweet, but it was more acidic. Very nice indeed! (I wonder why is that all these almost seedless tomatoes are the best? )
Berkeley Tie-Dye Pink - what a beauty! Left it on the counter to ripen a bit more...
Martino's Roma - beautiful, but I had to pick it slightly under-ripe, as it falls off the vines easily, and I knocked down a few unintentionally.
And here is ...another surprise! I am growing 4 plants of a 'yellow strain' of Spears Tennessee Green, a fruit D. discovered at a farmers market which she thought was an offtype or a cross of Spears TN Green tomato. So, one plant has been producing large cherry-sized tomatoes, and two ripened up unnoticed under the heavy foliage cover... and they were chocolate-black, absolutely beautiful!
The very last stop was in the kitchen where I was waiting for Paquebot Roma tomatoes rescued from the blighted patch to ripen on the counter from green stage. Well, I was disappointed as I expected - nothing remarkable as far as the taste goes, not a thing for fresh eating anyway.
And last, but not least, another one from the container garden, another 'Russian' with hard-to-pronounce name, 'Gruntovyi Gribovskiy 1180', which has been sitting on the counter for a couple of weeks, still firm, but getting to a very dark, bloody-red color, so I decided it was a good time to cut them up... And what a lovely surprise - I have never tasted such a rich super sweet tomato in my life!
It was a happy day at Tatiana's, what else can I say
Tatiana
