Part of Hanna’s Tomato Tastings 2011

I expect this tomato to be sweet, because why else would you name a tomato (or anything really) after a dessert if it was not sweet. I mean it would be just a cruel trick to name a vegetable after a luscious dessert if in fact it was not sweet.

Plus, this is another black tomato. Num-num-num. But, knowing that, I am confused. Black tomatoes do not normally bill themselves as sweet tomatoes. They tend to lean towards the savory end of things. Maybe that is about to change. We will see.

The description from the company I bought this tomato from reads:

This variety produces pretty, globe shaped fruit of medium size. They are a stunning deep caramel color with hints of red and chocolate. The flavor is rich, sweet and full-bodied, and the texture is tender and smooth. An attractive tomato that is great for both home and market.

The Beauty Pageant:

Size: About the size of a baseball.

Shape: Mostly round. Slightly flattened sides.

Color: Deep brick red with deep green shoulders.

The inside:Multi-chambered with very loose gel and large seeds.

Texture: Smooth and silky.

Tasting:

Off the Vine Tasting: It is sweet, but not dessert sweet. More like melon sweet. But it also has the typical black tomato savoriness. It is an interesting combination and I am not certain how I feel about it.

Sliced and Salted Tasting: Salt give it a more distinct melon flavor.

Cooking Thoughts: Certainly a complex tomato flavor, so would be fun for a slice and serve side dish.

Growing Notes:

Healthy enough with medium production.

Will Hanna grow this one again:

Probably not. But not because it is a bad tomato. The flavor just does not sit well with me. It is interesting, complex and certainly unique – just not a combination I want in my tomatoes. I would recommend that others try it though.

If you find yourself wondering what to do this coming weekend, then I encourage you to stop on by the RIPE! Festval being held at the Cleveland Botanical Gardens. Lots of fresh and local food plus talks on how you can tap into the local fresh foods here in Cleveland.

Oh, yeah, and I will be there too! Stop by my talk on Sunday the 25th at 12:00pm. I will be talking about Heirloom Tomatoes (what else!) and will be passing out samples for all to try.

Hope to see you there!

10 years ago, about this time, I was thinking to myself, “Who the hell is stupid enough to fly a Cessna into the Twin Towers? Those things are HUGE!” And to be fair, it was a topic of great interest and agreement among my fellow co-workers for about 10 minutes… Until someone informed us that a second plane had hit the Towers and a sickening realization came over us. And then the world made a giant shift into chaos.

Even then if you had told me in that moment that 10 years later exactly I would be 2 weeks out from sending my husband overseas to fight in a war started by that same plane, I would have told you that you were fucking nuts. My husband was not in the military at that time… I had babies at home. But here we are. 10 years later. Husband deploys to Afghanistan in 2 weeks. Funny that. Well, not really, but you have to laugh or you will just try really hard not to cry.

We have gotten criticism regarding this decision for quite awhile. “How could you do this when you have children?”, is the most common. And this is always the most confusing one for me.

I guess it is because some Americans don’t understand who it is who protects them.

When my husband left for Basic Training, he left with the knowledge that most of the people he would be training with would be closer to our eldest son’s age than his own. For those of you who would not like to do the math, that means we generally send our near-children to protect us. And in protecting us, I mean everything from firing guns at seen and unseen enemies all the way across to pulling babies and grandmothers, dead or alive, out of disaster ravaged houses. A good portion of them are not even old enough to drink (which is so unfair when you consider what we are asking them to do).

Regardless of age or intent, we, soldiers and their families, do this willingly, which is more choice than anyone of the innocent people who died on 9/11 had. A few months ago we took our children to the Flight 93 Memorial in Pennsylvania. We wanted to explain why their father did this and why he had to go. One of my kids was barely old enough to remember 9/11, one was barely alive before 9/11 and one came into the world after 9/11. So we stood and looked at pictures and at a big green field that use to be a crater and we answered questions. So many questions. And they get it. They understand that Dad goes away for a little while on the gamble that because of what he is doing (which is building roads in Afghanistan, BTW), someone else’s mom and dad won’t have to go away for forever.

My garden is starting her slow slide into a susurrus peace and I am glad for the upcoming rest. I will tie a yellow ribbon around the not quite old oak tree in my front yard and life will continue – changed but still there. Just like it did 10 years ago, when the fate of my life and my love was shifted by an airplane that I initially thought had simply flown off course. But it knew its course and, now, so do we.

Note: Comments are turned off on this post because last time I posted about my husband’s military service I recieved a few unwanted (and one unwarrented) comments about his service and the decision to join later in life. I know there are many of you out there who wish us well and I really appreciate your thanks and support. But with my husband’s deployment so close, I do not wish to have this time marred by a few comments from idiots who have nothing better to do than to make some “profound” but rude point on my lowly blog about how they object to the military or our choice. I am sorry to the rest of you that this had to be done. I hope you understand.

Part of Hanna’s Tomato Tastings 2011

Ohhh… A black tomato. I love, love, love black tomatoes and am always keen to try new ones. I have to say that this one I bought for the name. What’s not to love about a tomato called “Southern Night”. It brings to mind sultry, steamy nights in New Orleans or Atlanta. Rich, thick and languid darkness filled with mystery and beauty. Well, it does right up until you learn that this tomato was developed in the USSR. Oops… I guess they had a different Southern Night in mind, but I can still dream that some cold and lonely Soviet plant breeder was dreaming of the warm and sultry US South when he named it.

The description from the company I bought this tomato from reads:

An attractive “Black” tomato developed in the old Soviet Union. Great tasting fruit are dark and intensely colored, being a deep maroon. Very sweet and luscious, these are hard to not eat right in the garden. A classic that is well worth growing if you like real flavor.

The Beauty Pageant:

Size: About the size of a baseball.

Shape: Mostly round. There was cracking on the top as well.

Color: Deep reddish brown through the tomato with dark green shoulders.

The inside:Multi-chambered with slightly loose gel and rather large seeds.

Texture: Just a smidge mealy, but not enough to really be that bad.

Tasting:

Off the Vine Tasting: This is a good tomato. It starts out with very strong, deep tomato flavor and progresses into a savoriness that is reminiscent of beef. Plus, it has a wonderful aftertaste that stays with you, again, as though you have just taken a bite of steak.

Sliced and Salted Tasting: Salt just turns all the flavors up and makes a party in your mouth.

Cooking Thoughts: This is a classic side dish tomato. Perfect for when you want to showcase to your friends what makes heirloom tomatoes awesome.

Growing Notes:

This has not been a big producer in my garden. Great tomatoes, but not many of them. As it is a Russian tomato and it is now getting cool outside, I may see an uptick in production now.

Will Hanna grow this one again:

Yes, with a caveat. Certainly, the flavor of this tomato is a keeper, but if the production is not better, I just don’t have room for it. But, plants went in way late this year so that might be the reason for its under production. I will plant it again and give it another chance. Well worth it for the flavor.

Part of Hanna’s Tomato Tastings 2011

This is a Russian tomato, which means it should do well here because Russian tomatoes are bred to be fast growing in cold weather. I say should because in theory, Cleveland is suppose to be a rather cool place. In reality, we have a shortish growing season that consists of going from snow and 30F weather to drought like sun and 90F weather in a matter of weeks. Spring does not really happen here.

These tomatoes are suppose to be “early” type tomatoes. But, not surprisingly, these tomatoes did not really perform for me until the weather got cooler. Russian tomato like cool weather and these showed that.

I am a fan of Russian tomatoes. They tend to be good tasting. Which also makes sense, because let’s face it. If you are going to put that much effort into creating a tomato that can actually grow that close to Santa’s Village, it does not hurt to put in a little extra effort to make sure they taste good too.

The description from the company I bought this tomato from reads:

Great Russian tomato perfect for cooler/shorter growing regions. Sturdy plant produces abundant clusters of 4-oz., bright-red, round, juicy fruit that is surprisingly flavorful for a cooler ripening variety.

The Beauty Pageant:

Size: Slightly smaller than a baseball.
Shape: Slightly oval shaped with just a hint of ruffle on the shoulders. They were surprisingly uniform in shape and size.

Color: Solidly red with just a hint of pink.

The inside:3 chambers with rather large seeds. The gel is very tight.

Texture: Pretty smooth meat. Skin is not thick. Seedscan be a bit of a distraction.

Tasting:

Off the Vine Tasting: Good, very strong tomato flavor, especially in the meat. The gel has a strong sour, citrusy flavor that goes nicely with the tomato flavor in the meat.

Sliced and Salted Tasting: Salt removes the tomato flavor on the initial bite, though it comes back as you swallow. The sour flavor is as strong as it is without salt. There is also just a hint of sweetness.

Cooking Thoughts: Good frying tomato. It will hold up well to frying in mouth consistency and flavor. Would also do for salsas and other tomato salads.

Growing Notes:

Was not an early producer in my garden, but now that the weather has cooled down, I can see this as the savior of my fall garden as I see it producing well until a hard frost takes it out.

Will Hanna grow this one again:

Maybe. This is a pretty good tomato. The amazing uniformity of size and shape has some possibilities and the flavor is really nice.

Part of Hanna’s Tomato Tastings 2011

This tomato has eluded me since 2008. Every year I have planted the seeds and every year, disease, weather or my own stupidity took away my chance to add this tomato to my formal tomato list. But not this year, damn it. I have learned to label well, I have finally figured out how to rotate without spreading disease and a watering system has spared me most of the grief that weather can bring. This tomato is finally laid to rest on the tomato tasting list on this day. BTW, the seed viability shelf life on this tomato is outstanding.

The description from the company I bought this tomato from reads:

French heirloom. Produces dependable heavy, clusters of 6-ounce deep red, slightly flattened, oblate fruits that are meaty, lightly lobed and contain an excellent, complex, slightly tart taste. I’ve found that this variety also does well in the cooler summer conditions of California’s bay areas. An all-’round great tomato for slicing.

The Beauty Pageant:

Size: As wide as a baseball, but just a smidge taller than a Krispy Kream donut (Mmmm… donuts).

Shape: The is a pretty flat tomato. Ruffled shoulders, but not dramatically so.

Color: Pretty red but with some small splotches of orange, particularly around the shoulders.

The inside:Loose gel with medium seeds. Multi chambered with thin walls and a thick core.

Texture: Silky meat and gel. Skin is a bit thick but not terribly so. Definitely a messy tomato, though. Juice everywhere.

Tasting:

Off the Vine Tasting: Very strong savory flavor from the gel. Almost like a meat savory. There is a subtle sour flavor as well as just a little hint of sweetness. Nice solid tomato aftertaste.

Sliced and Salted Tasting: Salt really tones down the sour, which leaves behind that sour and savory flavors. Really nice combination.

Cooking Thoughts: This is a good but messy sandwich tomato. I had juice all over me at the end of the tasting. But, I am thinking that it would be a great tomato to use for bruchetta. That juice would mingle, make friends and soak into the bread. Heaven.

Growing Notes:

Healthy… this year. It has succumbed to disease pretty quickly in the past.

That being said, the plant has grown well and is healthy this yera. Looks to be producing well, too.

Will Hanna grow this one again:

Maybe. Flavor is robust and complex. Texture is nice. But it does concern me that it took 3 years for me to get this tomato to a tasting. I don’t have enough room in my garden to wait 3 years for a pretty good tomato.

My garden has a new resident and I am tickled green (because it would be silly for a gardener to be tickled pink). A garden spider has seen fit to build her sturdy web in a patch of weeds in the middle of my flower bed. I will overlook the fact that I only found her because I had planned on removing said weeds and now the weeds must stay for her sake. That’s ok. I’ll deal. It is not often you find a garden spider in your garden. I have not seen one since I was a child, when every summer a garden spider would take up residence outside the kitchen window. My mother would point her out and we would watch her with great fascination.

I know that there is a segment of the population that has certain prejudices towards the arachnid family, but this is not an ordinary spider. This is a special spider. This is a garden spider. And when I read the classic Charlotte’s Web, in my mind Charlotte is a garden spider. She had to be, because garden spiders are just like Charlotte. They are loyal and beautiful and make the most wondrous webs.

Garden spiders are also known as writing spiders, though their fancy schmancy name is Argiope aurantia.  They are called a writing spider because their webs always contain a strip of thickly woven web down the center that looks as though the spider was practicing her Zs.  This strip is called the stabilimentum.  The reason for this strip of web is uncertain, though it is theorized that it may be as a visual stop sign for birds to keep them from flying into the webs or to attract bugs to the web who might think it is a safe solid place to land.  I suppose the second theory might be true and if it is, you could kind of thing of that as nature’s way of cleaning out the stupid bugs as I am not sure why a bug would think a spot in the middle of a web would be any safer than the outside of the web.

You may have noticed that I keep referring to my garden spider as a she and you may have been asking how I know that it is a female. And perhaps a bizarre image of me sneaking up and lifting the spider’s skirts to check came to mind (and if it did not before, it comes to mind now, doesn’t it?), but no. I know she is a she because all garden spiders you see are likely to be female.  The females are huge, with bodies (not including the legs) that can be an inch or more in length. The males, on the other hand, are often only 1/2 of an inch or smaller.  The female of the species is a loyal homebody. Once she finds a place she likes, she builds a web and often stays there for the rest of her life.  While the males wander, looking for mates and a sex driven death, and rarely make webs. So, if you see a garden spider, A) it was big enough to see,  B) it likely is in a web and C) it is still alive – ergo, it is a female.

Garden spiders can be recognized by their distinctive black and yellow markings. And, for as scary as she may look, a garden spider is much like many spiders. If you don’t bother her, she won’t bother with you. Meaning, yes, they can bite, but only if you touch her first.

She lives about a year, but once a garden spider takes up residence in a spot, normally one of her children will replace her in that spot in subsequent years, so your garden will never be without her beauty again.

She is a tidy spider as well. Every evening she will take her web down and eat it and then will rebuild it the next day.  They also have a unique habit of bouncing their web if they feel the web is threatened. Again, it is not known why they do this, but it is thought that it may be a way for the spider to draw attention to itself, as in to say “My web is here, dumbass. Don’t be clumsy and knock down my home!”  I accidentally triggered this reaction while gently moving some weeds so I could show my neighbor the spider and it was odd to see.  It is like watching the spider suddenly turn her web into a big trampoline swing.

But my garden spider has nothing to fear from me.  I won’t knock down her web.  I have take steps to protect her, such as leaving the weed patch intact and forbidding my budding entomologist of a son from collecting her into one of his dozens of bug jars that are now scattered around my home.  Now instead, he sits watching her for hours on end (or emptying the contents of one of his bug jars onto her web), reminding me of myself when I was his age. It almost makes me want to run out and get a runty piglet to place back there as well.

Part of Hanna’s Tomato Tastings 2011

I don’t have too much to say initially about this one, other than to say I was not really all that impressed with how “early” it produced. Yes, it was among the first to ripen, but was not the first and there were several other plants in the garden that were also producing. I’m hoping its taste makes up for its marginal on-timeness.

The description from the company I bought this tomato from reads:

Brilliant red, 6-9 ounce slicing type fruits are produced even in the face of cold wet, springs or hot, dry summers. Reselected from the original Earliana in the early part of the 20th century by famed breeder Albert F. Yeager, working at North Dakota State University. Yeager was working to develop early maturing tomato varieties that would be reliable in North Dakota

The Beauty Pageant:

Size: Pretty uniformly about the size of a baseball.

Shape: Roundish on the bottom, flatish on the top.

Color: Orange-ish red with orange shoulders. It does occasionally get a dark red stippling on a few spots on the skin.

The inside:Somewhat firm gel with seeds that are on the small side. The walls are a bit thin but the core a pretty wide and makes up for that. It is multi-chambered, which is pretty standard for a slicing tomato.

Texture: Firm meat and the gel falls apart well while you chew it, which mean that you get the impression of a juicy tomato without the mess. The skin is thin enough that it is not really noticeable while you chew it.

Tasting:

Off the Vine Tasting: Strong sour tomato flavor. Not complex, but nice. The gel is more sour than the meat.

Sliced and Salted Tasting: Salt just gives it a hint of sweetness and not much more. It is still pleasantly sour.

Cooking Thoughts: This is a great tomato for sandwiches. It gives a great mouth feel of being juicy without the mess. Perfect for a tomato sandwich or on a burger.

Growing Notes:

As I said, I was not terribly impressed with this being an “early” tomato. Conditions here have to be better than in North Dakota, right? So you think that would have played into its favor on being early.

That being said, the plant has grown well and is healthy. Looks to be producing well, too.

Will Hanna grow this one again:

No, but not because it is a bad tomato. It a nice tomato, but I like a little more complexity in my tomato flavor.

Part of Hanna’s Tomato Tastings 2011

This was not a tomato on my original tasting list. Yet, oddly enough, I have 15 of these tomato plants in my driveway. Funny story (as if anything in my life is anything but).

So, a few years ago, in a fit of industrious maternal instinct, I helped my kids build a fold-away lemonade stand/puppet theater. Honestly, it was far less effort than it sounds like and maybe someday I will post the plans. But, long and short of it is that my kids have a little stand they can drag out whenever they feel like being entrepreneurial. Which is cute and charming and sweet… right up until I found them out at the end of our driveway one morning hawking half dead plants that they had dug up from my garden. Then, it was not so cute.

“Look, Mom,” my 7 year old told me proudly, “We are going to sell plants to get enough money to buy a new Lego set. We are selling this one for $10.” He said as he indicating a wilted chunk of lamb’s ear. While I commend them for aspiring to become the Junior Petitti’s (including the blatant price gouging), I was not so keen on sacrificing my garden for the cause.

So, not wanting to have my garden claimed by the market forces of my children, I went to a plant auction that night and snapped up 20 gallon size Patio Tomato plants for $2 apiece. I figured that if the boys sold them for $3-$5 each (which is less than the $9.99 that they are sold at the store for) they would make a little profit and be happy. My children instantly lost interest in selling plants as soon as they saw them. That get-rich-quick scheme was sooooooo yesterday, apparently. Now they were hatching up a plan to build a super robot who would rob a bank for them. Still, I forced them to drag a few tomato plants to the neighbors and they managed to sell 5 before rebelling completely and abandoning the rest on the driveway, where they have remained (except for the few that my youngest son and I spent 3 days shuffling back and forth from the driveway to the porch because he insisted that PATIO tomatoes would grow better on a PATIO and I insisted that the mailman would sue us when he tripped over one of the 15 tomato plants placed in the middle of the front porch).

Thus, I have many of these plants and, I will admit, they are only minimally cared for. But, I figured as Patio Tomato tends to be a popular starter garden plant (you know, “well, we will get this tomato and put it on the porch and see if I can actually grow something before I put in a whole garden”), it would be best to see how it performed under conditions similar to how your average newbie gardener would care for them.

The description from a company that sells this tomato reads:

The University of Florida developed this variety just for the home garden, with a compact habit ideal for containers, patio culture, or small-space gardening. It’s a great combination of big fruit on small plants, and is as stunning as an ornamental as it is delicious!

The big, bright red, smooth-skinned fruits weigh between 8 and 12 ounces each, measuring 3 1/2 to 4 inches in diameter. They are firm and crack-resistant, with good uniform coloring and terrific juicy-sweet taste.

The Beauty Pageant:

Size: Varies WIDELY. The picture above is  a good selection of the typical size of the tomatoes I get from these plants. Anywhere from golf ball size to baseball size.

Shape: Tends to be round when small but will flatten if the fruit is larger. They are a bit lumpy, but not grotesquely so.

Color: On the vine, they get to be an orange-ish red with slightly yellow shoulders. If left on the counter, they will develop to a deeper red. But, if you wait for them to get deep red on the vine, they will fall off and rot. Odd.

The inside:Pretty loose gel., which makes it very juicy. Medium seeds on just this side of being small. Walls and core are medium thickness so the inside it pretty evenly split between gel and flesh.

Texture: Surprisingly smooth. It has a nice mouth-feel . The skin is a little on the thick side, but not distractingly so.

Tasting:

Off the Vine Tasting: The flavor is ok. Really, just ok. Better than a store tomato, certainly. Not too much sweet about this tomato. Both the flesh and the gel have a tang and a bit of sour with the tomato flavor.

Sliced and Salted Tasting: Salt really brings out the tomato flavor in this tomato while playing down the tang and sour. It become a full flavored, standard tomato.

Cooking Thoughts: Great baseline tomato for basic recipes, like sauce, salsa and salads.

Growing Notes:

Despite being only marginally cared for, they have done pretty well.  First and foremost, they are not dead. They are not big plants, but they produce well. They do stay very compact and almost upright despite not having any support.

Will Hanna grow this one again:

No, I won’t, but I would recommend it for what it was bred for. If you are looking for a starting tomato to test the waters out with vegetable gardening, this is a good choice. Even if you flake out and don’t care much for the plant, you will be rewarded with a decent tomato.  And thus the addition begins.

I know. I am not nearly as witty in person. It is my husband’s shame (he is constantly telling people I am funnier in blog than in person). But, I do get the occassional TV appearance, like today. I was on New Day Cleveland. If you care to watch, here you go:

http://youtu.be/EdXuoCMYjaI

*.P.S
Tell them you like me and that I should do trcnks like standing on my head over a cactus or something like that. When they launch the Gardening Network, I want to be the judge of Iron Gardener! (Hanna now goes off to a therapist to re-enter the real world)