Summer Sunshine

Most of the tomatoes I grew last summer I probably won't grow again. The biggest disappointment  was Italian plum. When I bought the seeds I was of the understanding that it was a Roma-like paste tomato. It was going to be my mainstay for sauce for last year. I planted 25 plants and the fruits turned out to be barely larger than a cherry tomato with hardly any flavor. I did end up processing them all for sauce, but it was a lot of work.

The one tomato that I will grow again that I grew last year, is Jubilee. It is a productive yellow tomato with large uniform round fruit. The flesh is thick, sweet, and juicy with lots of tomato flavor. It was perfect for eating fresh, for sandwiches and it cooked up into a thick golden sweet sauce.

Six year old Liam holding a Jubilee tomato from last summer's garden.

The large golden tomatoes cook up into liquid summer sunshine.

A wheel barrel of tomatoes from last summer waiting to processed into sauce.

It is the time of year to browse through catalogs and plan next summers garden. For those of you who garden, what are your favorite tomatoes to grow?

 Each year I try new heirlooms, but still haven't found many varieties that are productive enough to give a permanent place in my garden. I would love to find a very productive heirloom paste tomato. My very favorite tomato for taste is Hillbilly. It is a big irregularly shaped yellow-orange tomato with flesh that is marbled with yellow, orange and red. No other tomato comes near it for sweetness or flavor. The big draw back is that for me, it has been extremely unproductive--I often get as few as 2-3 tomatoes off of each plant. I plant a few plants every year in spite of that just because they are so delicious!

Tobacco Hornworm

For the past few weeks I've noticed leaves disappearing from my tomato plants. At first I suspected deer, but saw no damage to any other plants. I thought the damage might be being done by tomato hornworms, but couldn't find the culprits. Then last night I found these two giant caterpillars. I've never actually seen a tomato horn worm and went and looked them up. That is when I discovered that hhey are a  close relative, tobacco hornworms. They are distinguished from the tomato hornworm by the red horn on the tail and the one set of stripes. Tomato hornworms have a dark green horn and v-shaped stripes. Click on this link for a photo comparison of tobacco and tomato hornworms.

Hornworms apparently become Sphinx and humming bird moths. Tobacco hornworrm become Carolina Sphinx moths with a wing span of over 4 inches.

Obviously Tobacco hornworms don't limit there diet to just tobacco.  Besides tomatoes, they will eat pepper  and potato leaves and sometimes tomato fruit.

The larger of the two worms measured 4 and half inches long.



They have these cool suction cup feet. I pried the smaller off the stem for a photo shot, but could get the big one off.







So what to do with my tobacco hornworms? The chickens wouldn't touch them and they were just to big to kill in cold blood. I finally decided to put them in a gallon jar and am feeding them leaves from the volunteer tomato plants in the herb garden. Maybe at some point in the future, I will have a photo of a Carolina Sphinx moth to share with you!

Dirt Bathing

The favorite place to take dirt baths right now is behind the cherry tomato plants by the back door. They all line up against the house foundation. All except the broody hen who is still determinedly sitting on eggs that won't hatch.

Tomato Boy

Finn (Terry's grandson) enjoying a tomato fresh from the garden. When he is in the garden, tomatoes watch out! Big, little, ripe or not, he loves tomatoes!

Tomato Salad

Green zebra, Cherokee purple, and Glacier tomatoes...

See? A BLT can be heathy!

I picked the first Mortgage Lifter today. In spite of my best intentions, somehow bacon made it into the frying pan. But that is where the resemblance to a normal BLT ends. This is what the finished product looked like:
Whole wheat pita bread, heirloom tomato slices, crispy bacon, and lots of tender baby greens--kale, arugula, beet greens, mustard, bok choi ,and purslane.

Speaking of green tomatoes...

I'm wondering if Green Zebra is ripe. Any experts out there with an opinion? Here is what mine currently look like: Maybe I will be brave and pick them tomorrow evening! At least they are smaller tomatoes so it will be easier to resist the temptation to make BLTs...

Caspian Pink

I'm trying a few different heirloom tomatoes this year that I haven't grown before. Mr. Stripey being the first to ripen. Today we had out second one, Caspian Pink--a large pink tomato.

I'm impressed by the size, and judging from all the green tomatoes on the plant, it looks like it will be very productive...which is certainly a plus and somewhat unusual in heirloom tomatoes. The flavor, at least this in the first one was just a bit disappointing. Bland instead of sweet and a bit mealy rather than meaty or juicy. It could be that I picked it when it wasn't quite ripe. It can be so hard to tell with some heirlooms as a lot of them are supposed to have the green shoulders. Last year I grew Cherokee Purple and let most of them rot--not on purpose, but because they are a purplish green when ripe, and and I kept waiting for them to turn completely purple. I'm trying not to make that mistake again! None the less, Caspian Pink was a heck of a lot better than any store bought tomato. And it did make some pretty impressive BLTs.

(I don't know why I keep calling these BLTs when they are lacking the Lettuce!).

I really, really need to cut back on BLTs...it appears one the hazards of being a visiting nurse (I started a new job with a home care agency a couple of weeks ago) is serious weight gain. At least I'm guessing that by looking at the majority of my coworkers. It certainly is a lot less active than the job I had previously working a hectic medical-surgical floor! No running around on your feet all day for 12 hour days! So now I'm off to the treadmill to work off the calories from the all that bacon.