The description from the company I got it from reads:

This potato leaf heirloom originally from an old British seed company produces bright yellow golf ball sized, thin skinned, tangy, and delicious fruits. They are very unique in taste! Indeterminate. 75 days.

The Beauty Pageant:

Size: About the size of a golf ball is right. Bigger than a cherry tomato, but not by too much.

Shape: Very round.

Color: Bright, bright yellow. Like highlighter yellow.

The inside: Medium walls for this size tomato. Rather large seeds with juicy gel. There is a core that is also medium sized.

Texture: Rather on the soft and mealy side.

Tasting:

Off the Vine Tasting: As I feared, this is a “mild” tomato. Low acid in it makes for weak tomato flavor.

Sliced and Salted Tasting: Salt gives this tomato a little more personality (kind of like a shot of tequila does for that blind date) but you can only work with what you have.

Cooking Thoughts: This is a salad tomato if I ever saw one. Too small for anything else, really. It would be good on salads and used for appetizers. But, I would not pair it with any flavors that it would have to compete with. Otherwise it would just get lost.

Growing Notes:
Rather large plant and produces well. It looks like it may have late blight (judging by the bottom leaves) but it seems to keep going like a trooper.

Will Hanna grow this one again:
No. Just not my style of tomato. If you are looking for something “mild” (and there are lots of people who are) this is a good tomato, but I like a tomato with a little more force.

This would be my freaky-deaky tomato of the season. It is a tomato that really, really wants people to think it is part of the very in hot pepper crowd. If you were not looking closely, you might mistake it for one. But even confused tomatoes can’t change who and what they are.

The description from the company I got it from reads:

The oblong red fruits are 3″ wide and 5″ long with orange and yellow stripes/speckles and decorative enough to keep in a basket on your kitchen counter until you are ready to cook with them. But, you will appreciate the hefty, meaty fruit with few seeds the most for the excellent flavor it has in sauce. You can also use these tomatoes fresh and sliced for sandwiches and hors d’oeuvres.

The Beauty Pageant:

Size: Anywhere from as long as my hand to as long as my finger. Somewhere as thick as two fingers and three fingers.

Shape: Long and pointy. Think a butch witch’s finger.

Color: Bright red with orange striation. The inside is a solid red.

The inside: Very few seeds with thin walls, but a thick core. Almost no gel.

Texture: This is a very mealy tomato, but fortunately, it has all the characteristics of a good sauce tomato.

Tasting:

Off the Vine Tasting: The flavor is straight tomato, and neither a strong nor a weak tomato flavor. Not all that memorable.

Sliced and Salted Tasting: Salt makes this tomato tangier. Gives it a little personality, like a shot of tequila gives a suburban housewife a bit more personality.

Cooking Thoughts: I don’t think that the feel of this tomato lends itself to appetizers, as the description suggests and has not enough unique flavor to eat on its own. But, it is a grade A sauce tomato.

Growing Notes:
Fairly healthy, but not robust. To tell the truth, from the time this tomato plant was a seedling, it always looked unhealthy. The leaves on this plant are naturally droopy. Every one of them I gave away elicited questions on their health because of the droopiness. It is hard to say if the adult plant is unhealthy or if it simply is just a perpetually sickly looking plant.

Will Hanna grow this one again:
No. Interesting tomato, but not enough production to make it a good choice for a saucing tomato.

If tomatoes spoke, I imagine in my head that this one has a southern accent. Granted, according to its history, it would have a heavy Russian accent, but frankly, Tula does not sound like a cold Eastern Block city, but rather a warm and heavy aired US Southern city.

Regardless of where this tomato hails from, it is awful purrty. It even looks like a Southern Belle with all those ruffles. It even has ruffles on the inside. But the real question is if this tomato cupcake tastes as good as it looks.

The description from the company I got it from reads:

Russian heirloom that is a favorite black of many tomato aficionados. Unique, large 8-12 oz. dark tomato in a deep purplish-brown color.

The Beauty Pageant:

Size: Slightly smaller than the palm of my hand.

Shape: As mentioned, very rufflly. Ruffles on the shoulder which, when you cut it, are reflected on the inside. Makes for a pretty tomato on the plate.

Color: Brick red with green shoulders. The inside has dark red meat and dark green gel, which adds to the visual experience.

The inside: Medium size seeds with thin walls. Gel is juicy but solid.

Texture: The meat is mealy, but to be honest, the walls are so thin, there is very little meat to really ruin the mouth feel of the tomato. The smooth gel is really most of the bite.

Tasting:

Off the Vine Tasting: The initial flavor is strong. Very tangy and deep. It is the gel driving that. The meat is pretty bland next to the gel, but, again, there so little meat, that this is not an issue.

Sliced and Salted Tasting: Salt changes the flavor some by toning down the tang, but it is not by much. It does bring up the meats flavor a bit too, making it taste closer to the gel.

Cooking Thoughts: This would look pretty on a plate, but it is pretty small for a plated tomato. Defiantly good for salads, maybe a caprese salad. Not a saucing tomato as you need the gel to get the flavor.

Growing Notes:
Pretty healthy plant. Some lower leaf loss, but it is hard to tell if that was the plant itself or from raccoon damage.

Will Hanna grow this one again:
Maybe. The flavor is strong and nice. The only thing that is holding this back from a definite yes is not knowing exactly how to serve it regularly. I will have to think on that.

This is the tomato that took my heirloom virginity. Many years ago, when I was but a sparkling, wet new home owner, I planted a vegetable garden. Sure, I had kept container gardens before. Grew an odd tomato here or there, had watched my own mother grow tomatoes in her garden, but now I had a vegetable plot and I was going to plant tomatoes.

I did as many generations did before me, I went to my local nursery and bought a few tomato plants. In my basket were the normal hybrids, Better Boy, Early Girl, Beef, Big Boy; all cute and clustered in the 4 count cell packs. And that was when I noticed the lone Cherokee standing across the way. He was in his own pot, tall and sturdy. A loner if I ever saw one. And I was filled with a desperate need to find out more about him. So I grasped his ½ gallon container and home he came with me.

To say my first taste of this Cherokee was life changing was an understatement. Never had it occurred to that a tomato could taste like anything other than a tomato. I fell in love and it was a love that has brought me to this place.

It was a fleeting summer love, as summer loves tend to be. And oddly, I never grew Cherokee Purple in my garden again… Until this year. I decided that I would re-visit my first heirloom love and see if my inexperience led me to believe it was so great or if the memory was as true then as it seems now.

The description from the company I got it from reads:

This old heirloom variety from Tennessee, rumored to have come from the Cherokees, has a very rich tomato flavor and unique coloring. The medium-sized 10-12 ounce fruits have a rose/purple skin with a brick red interior. With intense tomato taste and just the right level of sweetness, you will be shocked at how special this variety is. Cherokee Purple tomatoes have a thin skin and soft flesh.

The Beauty Pageant:

Size: Baseball size.

Shape: A nice round tomato. It does seem just a smidge prone to cracking.

Color: Dark, dark red on the bottom with dark, dark green shoulders. The interior is the same dark red and the exterior.

The inside: Largish seeds and loose gel. The core is rather thick and the walls, while not thick, are not thin either

Texture: Smooth and soft. Nearly melt in your mouth. The texture stops just shy of being silky, but is not bad at all.

Tasting:

Off the Vine Tasting: Nice, smoky flavor. You can taste the tomato, but there is just more to this. The meat is defiantly weaker in flavor than the gel and sweeter too, but the meat is not bad on its own. The gel is very concentrated and tangy. It bursts in your mouth.

Sliced and Salted Tasting: Salt is no friend to this tomato. It really mutes all the nice flavors in it.

Cooking Thoughts: Again, not a tomato you can sauce with. You lose half the fun if you de-seed it. This is a suburb BLT tomato. There will be no tug of war to contend with than might pull the slice of the tomato out of the sandwich. It will just melt when you bite into it.

Growing Notes:
Healthy plant that is producing nicely. I can see why this tomato ends up in so many newbie heirloom tomato grower’s gardens. Easy to grow with good taste. You can’t beat that for a beginner or a sure fire standard in the garden.

Will Hanna grow this one again:
Most likely. Memory did not betray me on this one. It is a good tomato. Have I had better? Yes (experience does that) – but this is certainly a solid performer.

I am not a white tomato fan. They tend to be bland because they tend to low acid. Great for people with acid reflux issues but not so much for my particular palet.

But, I am hopeful for this one. First, it was recommended by my tomato plant supplier. She knows her tomatoes and she generally makes great suggestions. After all, she found a cherry tomato that I could like and before this, I had never tried a cherry tomato I liked.

And, I have found others who speak highly of it. So, I will leave my white tomato prejudices behind and see if we can’t lift the segregation in my vegetable garden.

The description from the company I got it from reads:

Our fruits were smooth, flattened, oblate beefsteaks and weighing in around 8 oz. They were of the palest yellow….well, almost white….with light pink striping on the outside. Slices were the palest yellow with a pink trim, very pretty. Very unique and very pleasant tasting.

The Beauty Pageant:

Size: About as wide as my palm, and a few inches tall.

Shape: A flatish tomato with a slightly lumpy top.

Color: Very, very pale yellow. It was interesting watching this tomato ripen. Because it is so pale, it was like watching a ball of green water drain the water out.

The inside: There are many, many chambers . It looks like a beefsteak inside. The inner walls are thicker than the outer walls. Medium number of seeds.

Texture: Soft texture but firm give to the meat. Not mealy, but not silky either. I am not really fond of the texture, but it is not really bad either. There is not too much gel and what is there is pretty firm.

Tasting:

Off the Vine Tasting: Very tangy for a white tomato. The gel is very strong on flavor. Not so much a normal tomato flavor, though there is plenty of tomato flavor in it. It is like a tomato with lemon flavor to it to. Like a tomato lemonade. The meat is pretty flavorful as well. Still lemony but weaker and a bit sweeter. But, even on its own, the meat tastes pretty good.

Sliced and Salted Tasting: Salt tones down the tomato flavor and really kicks up the lemon flavor.

Cooking Thoughts: This would make a nice “conversation piece” tomato. Is it the best tomato you could offer company, no. But it is the best white tomato that I have tried. So, because it is interesting looking and not bad tasting, your guests will marvel if they see this on their plate. The lemon flavor would also play well with basil for a caprese salad.

Growing Notes:
The plant is in pretty poor shape. This was a plant that was particularly ravaged by the bandits. They did not do any obvious damage to the plant, but I wonder if them pulling tomatoes off the plant opened up the plant to a virus or disease. I will be lucky to get 1 more tomato off this plant before it is gone.

Will Hanna grow this one again:
Maybe. Not bad but I have had better.  I will keepit in the back of my mind if I ever am looking for an interesting tomato to fill a spot.