2011 Tomato Overview

2011 was not the year of the tomato here in Eastern Pennsylvania. I'm not going to complain too much since we did manage to get enough tomato products put up for the year. With the exception of tomato catsup, none was made.

The total weighed tomato harvest was 316.8 lbs from 42 plants. This is considerably less then I expected since we harvested 221.2 lbs from 19 plants in 2010 and only 16 were really productive (due to a very late planting of 3 of the plants).

The first ripe tomatoes were the Matt's Wild Cherry. 2 little cuties were harvested on June 16th. The first big tomato was a Cherokee Purple, seed from Daphne, weighing 4 oz. on July 1st.

The largest tomato this year was a Pineapple, seed from Diana, weighing in at 2 lbs. 9.5 oz. It was the largest tomato I have ever grown....and tasty too!

I also did a Cherokee Purple experiment with 4 plants from 4 different seed sources. Due to the weather conditions this year, I am going to do the experiment again next year. I will post the results from this year in a separate post.

Red Varieties:

Amish Paste - Indeterminate - Seed from Thomas - This was the first year that I planted this variety. It is a nice meaty and somewhat oval shaped tomato. The fruits weigh about 5-9 ounces. It is a great tomato for cooking, canning & slicing. This variety did fairly well with the horrible weather conditions this year. It's a definite for next year.

Belgian Beauty - Indeterminate - Seed from Landis Valley - This was the first year that I planted this variety. The fruits are round, meaty and low acid. The first few were a good size around 1 lb. This plant did not do the best this year due to the weather conditions. I am going to plant it again next year.

Matt's Wild Cherry - Indeterminate - Original seed from Amishland Seeds -  As always, this variety did great. It's a non-stop producing plant that fares well in any conditions.

Howard's German Red - Indeterminate - Original seed from Amishland Seeds - This is one of our favorite overall tomatoes. It normally has large long pointed very meaty fruit. Although you would think that this is a tomato for cooking and canning, it is a wonderful tasting tomato for slicing. This variety did not do well with the weather this year. I will be planting it again since it is a great tomato and has always done well in the past.

Paulina - Indeterminate - This tomato is from seed that I saved a couple of years ago. The original tomato was purchased from an Organic Amish Heirloom Tomato Farm nearby. This variety is very similar to the Amish Paste tomato and the results were about the same. This tomato will be planted again next year.

San Marzano - Semi-determinant -  Seed from In-laws trips to Italy - My in-laws have brought me this variety of seed on two separate trips to Italy. I have to say that I have not be happy with the results. Every year, I say that I will give it one more try. The fruits are very small, take forever to ripen, production is low and is always the first to disease. I don't think I will be planting this one again. I am going to try another source for this tomato next year though.

Reigart Plum - Indeterminate - Seed from Landis Valley - This was my first year planting this variety. It is a small oval tomato that is a about twice the size of a grape tomato. Although it is not that big, I really liked this tomato. It did very well this year in spite of the horrible conditions. It is a meaty tomato and is great for cooking, canning and salads. It's on the list for next year.

Pink/Purple Varieties:

Glick's Brandywine - Indeterminate - Original seed from Amishland Seeds - This is a great tasting slicing tomato. Last year this variety produced the largest fruit. Things were a bit different this year due to the weather. It had the same problem that I had with many of the other varieties. It was unusually deformed, had a lot cracking and a hard time ripening. Seed Origin; The history is that the seed came via Glen Brendle, whose family obtained it from Isaac N. Glick, an early seedsman from Lancaster, PA, who distributed seed for Johnson and Stokes Seeds of Philadelphia. Brandywine Tomato was first introduced by them in 1889. This is supposed to be the most original of the many Brandywine strains. It is on the list for next year.

Tiffens Mennonite - Indeterminate - Original seed from Amishland Seeds - This is a Mennonite Heirloom potato leaf variety very similar to a Brandywine. The fruits have a wonderful flavor and are great for slicing. This variety is usually a good producer with large fruits. Due to the weather, I had the same problem with this variety this year that I had with many of the other varieties. It was unusually deformed, had a lot cracking and a hard time ripening. It is on the list for next year.

Purple Varieties:

Cherokee Purple - Indeterminate - Seeds from Daphne, Diana, EG & Thomas - What can I say...it's a CP! We just love this tomato and we were very pleased with all 4 seed sources! This variety did have a difficult time with our horrible weather conditions though. It was unusually deformed, had a lot cracking and a hard time ripening. Of course all four are on the list for next year!

Eva's Purple Ball - Indeterminate - Original seed from Amishland Seeds  -  It's a smaller very round fruit ranging on the average 5-8 oz. each, just the right size for lunch. This is a wonderful tasting tomato, extremely prolific, disease tolerant and also good for cooking and canning. This has got to be the most dependable variety that I have ever planted! No matter what the conditions, the fruits are the same size and the plant keeps producing. Seed origin; This is a late 1800's heirloom tomato from The Black Forest Region in Germany via Joe Bratka's grandfather who kept this wonderful heirloom tomato from dying out. Joe donated seed to a seed saving organization in 1992. We are planting a lot of this variety next year!

Purple Calabash - Indeterminate - Seed from Emily - This is a beautiful purple tomato with a lot of ridges and a wonderful flavor! The fruits are of a a medium size. It was very prolific and did fairly well with the weather conditions. This variety will also be planted next year.

Other Colors:

Pineapple - Indeterminate - Seed from Diana - This is a great tasting and absolutely beautiful tomato! The fruits are yellow and red and extremely large. This plant produced the largest tomato this year. There wasn't a fruit that was under 1 1/2 lbs! The fruit does ripen a bit later then most tomatoes...but, it is a must for anyone who loves tomatoes. The plant got very large and did better then most in spite of our weather this year. Of course we are planting this one next year.

White Tomesol - Indeterminate - Original seed from Amishland Seeds - We really like this tomato. It's a very pretty white variety that has a very nice flavor. The taste is light, not acidy at all, not too sweet or rich, just light. It is normally a pretty good producer with medium to large fruits. This year the fruits were much smaller then in the past. The plant did OK with the weather conditions. It's on the list for next year.

Black Cherry - Indeterminate - Seed from EG - This is a great tasting tomato! The fruits are usually about 1 oz each....very big for a cherry variety. The plant was very large, produced a tremendous amount of fruit, disease resistant and did exceptionally well with the weather conditions. It's a go for next year!

Paul Robeson - Indeterminate - Seed from EG - This is a large black tomato. Although CP's have always been our favorite eating tomato, I think that I can say this variety is as good! The first few fruits were very large and absolutely wonderful! As the weather deteriorated, I had the same problem with this one as I had with the CP's, Brandywine and many other varieties. It became unusually deformed, had a lot cracking and a hard time ripening. It's on the list for next year.

Kellogg's Breakfast - Indeterminate - Seed from EG - This is a wonderful orange colored tomato with very large fruit! They are very meaty and about the same size as the Pineapple tomatoes. Most of the fruits were at least 1 1/2 lbs. It is a low acid fruit and was also the favorite eating tomato of many who tasted it about here. It ripened a little later then many of the other varieties. It did fairly well with the weather this year. It is also a go for next year.

Due to the weather, this was a very difficult year to get a good review of the tomatoes. I hope that you all enjoyed the review and don't hesitate to ask a question. Hopefully next year, I will be a bit more organized and take pictures of each and every variety to add to my review.

Thursday's Kitchen Cupboard..............11/10/2011

So far this year I have canned almost 300 jars of food. Most of our canned goods are stored in the basement. I have this great old cupboard that I keep a lot of the jars in.

I do try to keep everything organized in order to find something without moving too much. I try to keep canned goods from the previous year on the top shelf. As you can see it's pretty much full.

So......

I have some tomatoes here.....and

some tomato puree on another shelf....I really think that I need to re-organize the basement shelves. It's a hot mess down there! I think that The Italian Santa is getting me a pressure canner for Christmas...so, I'm sure I will need a lot more space!

I did not do any canning or preserving this week. So, I thought that I would share a recipe. This is a great red sauce with sausage, wine & vinegar that we really enjoy. I'm not sure what region it is from in Italy. I think that "The Italian" was watching Lydia one day and she made something similar.

Red Sauce w/Sausage

Ingredients:

• Sausage removed from casing. You can use sweet or hot. This time I used two links of each of our homemade sausage.
• Red Wine (preferably free from your wine collecting neighbor)
• Olive Oil
• Tomato Puree or whole canned tomatoes pureed
• Vinegar
• Onion (optional)
• Pickled Hot Peppers
• Pasta of choice

Directions:

1. Remove sausage from casing, put in a bowl, mush with fork and cover with red wine. Use plenty of wine.
2. Let the sausage sit and absorb the wine for about 30 minutes. You may need to add a bit more wine if the sausage absorbs it quickly.
3. Chop onions, if desried. I used about 1/4 of a medium onion in the sauce this time.

This is what the sausage looks like when you pour the wine over it. It will absorb the wine.

    4.   Put a a medium size saucepan on med/high heat, add about 1 tbsp. of olive oil, add sausage and wine mixture and saute meat until cooked.

    5.   Add Tomato Puree (I used 1 1/2 pints), onion if desired and about 1/4 Cup of vinegar to mixture and cook until thick. You may want to add a little more vinegar while cooking, depending upon the flavor. The vinegar and wine really make this sauce.

    6.   Cook pasta and serve topped with hot peppers.

The quantities I used made 2-3 servings, adjust quantities to accommodate portions required.

What's been going in or out of your cupboard lately?

Harvest Monday...................11/07/2011

All of the dry beans have been shelled & weighed. I just love dried beans! Many of them are so pretty!

Dry beans are usually one of the easiest crops that I grow. You just put the seed in the ground, let them grow, dry out and pull the plants when you get around to it. Not this year! With all of the rain we had late in the season many of the beans were rotting, molding and sprouting. So, I had to pull the plants, bring them home and hang them to dry.

I planted 6 varieties of dry beans: Great Northen, Red Kidney, Jacob's Cattle, Trail of Tears, Coco Rubico & Sadie's Horse Beans. The two varieties that I was the most excited about were the Trail of Tears (seed from Daphne) and Sadie's Horse Beans (seed from Diana). I didn't plant many of the Trail of Tears and the yield was good considering the weather. Unfortunately the Sadie's Horse Bean crop was lost entirely due to the wet weather. The yield on the remaining 5 varieties was about half of what they should have been.

Aren't they just Beautiful??

Varieties from left to right: Coco Rubico, Trail of Tears, Jacob's Cattle, Red Kidney and Great Northern white bean in the back.

Total weighed Harvest: 6.1875 lbs

Great Northern - 3 lbs (7 Cups)

Red Kidney - 1.5 lbs (4 Cups)

Jacob's Cattle - 13 oz (2 Cups)

Trail of Tears - 8 oz (1 Cup)

Coco Rubico - 6 oz (1 Cup)

Stop by Daphne's Dandelions our host of Harvest Monday to see what's going on in gardens around the globe!

Thursday's Kitchen Cupboard............11/03/2011

After returning from our vacation and catching up after the storm. I finally got to the orchard and purchased some apples to make some applesauce. I only purchased about 12 lbs. I used most of them for making some applesauce and left a few for eating.

I made my applesauce according to the Ball Blue Book of Preserving. I just cut, cored, peeled, chopped and cooked the apples in a large pot with a little water. Instead of putting the cooked apples in the blender or mashing by hand, I used my immersion blender. It came out a little thinner then normal. I think that next time I will mash it by hand.

I made 7 pints of applesauce. We really don't eat a lot of it...so, it should be enough for the two of us.

Tuesday evening I made one of our favorite soups, Winter Tarragon Tomato Soup. It's a great and easy recipe! I have posted this recipe before...but, here it is again.

Winter Tarragon Tomato Soup 

• 1 1/2 Cups Chopped Onion
• 1/2 Cup Butter
•  Quart Canned Tomatoes
• 1/2 Cup Dry White Wine or Vermouth
• 1 Tbsp Sugar (I use less)
• 1 tsp. Dried Tarragon
• Salt if desired
• Sour Cream to top

Directions:

1. In large saucepan melt butter and saute onions for about 15 minutes

     2.   Add Tomatoes juice and all, then mash with potato masher

     3.   Add Wine, Sugar and Tarragon, turn heat down and simmer for 45 minutes

  4.   Puree with immersion blender and add salt if desired

 

 

 

 

 

Serve with a little sour cream and.....

   

Some Fresh Baked Bread!!

So, what's been going in or out of your cupboard lately??

The Powerless People

I was going to do a New Orleans post today. However, after reading some articles in local papers regarding the power situation in our area, I decided to write about the Powerless People.

As you know, "The Italian" and I live in a city and we recently had a very early snow storm which caused about 350,000 people in our area to loose power. Many will be without power until this weekend.

One article in particular caught my attention. It is in a local on-line community newspaper. The title "What's Your "War Story" Now That the Storm is Over?". You can read it here. I was absolutely amazed about what the author has learned from this experience and the comments. You have got to be kidding me! You rushed around looking for an open gas station and something for the kids to eat??? McDonalds??

We have learned a lot from this storm!

1. We are not nearly as prepared as we need to be
2. We are much more prepared then most
3. We are sitting down this weekend and making a checklist of some very important items that we need
4. We are also going to discuss and re-think a few "things" around here
5. We were very lucky that were many open gas stations, restaurants and stores
6. We were very lucky that it wasn't really cold out and it wasn't windy

If we ever have a "real disaster", I don't think many people could survive very long............what a shame to be a "Powerless Person"!