Finally Getting some sandwich tomatoes!

[MickinMD ★]

Pictured below is today's pickings from the garden:

The 3.5" to 5" beefsteak tomatoes are, top-bottom: Cherokee Purple, Cherokee Purple, and Brandywine Pink.  These are the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th large tomatoes I've picked.  I began thawing the Butterball Turkey Bacon I bought and froze a while back when my brother recommended it.  I hope I get good BLT sandwichs!

The left container has 1/2 quart of the fantastic, orange Sun Gold cherry and some red Mexico Midget grape tomatoes.  Sun Gold is SO good that I save them to snack on in the evening (60 Cal. per cup), Mexico Midget has more of a beefsteak taste than a typical sweet small cherry taste.

The right container has 1 quart of Supersweet 100, very prolific and sweet, and Yellow Pear, less acidic, cherry tomatoes.

As you can see, the Super Sweets are outproducing the Sun Golds in both quantity and size, though the typically 3/4" But Sun Gold has such a delicious combination of sweetness, tartness, and texture that when I have a mix of these small tomatoes in a bowl, I can tell when I'm biting into a Sun Gold! The paler the orange the stronger the tartness is, very dark orange ones are sweeter.  Burpee Seeds says its rapidly becoming the most popular cherry tomato of American gardeners.  It will be my go-to cherry tomato of the future.

My Brandywine Pink tomato plant is 9 feet tall now with potato-looking leaves as big as my fingers-extended-hand and the stem, at the ground, is approaching 3" in diameter.  It's like one of those monstrous plants in the original Jumanji or Little Shop of Horrors movies!  It has lots of beefsteak tomatoes growing on it.  If it tastes as good as claimed, I'll plant it again next year and I now have "Brandywine Sudduth" seeds that are the original heirloom tomato variety grown by the Sudduth family along the Brandywine River.

With cherry tomatoes going for $4.59 in the local stores and 3-packs of tomatoes a little smaller than the smaller Cherokee below going for $1.59, today's pick is about $10 worth of tomatoes.  I think the garden will pay for itself this year and the soaker hose, seed starting stuff, seeds, etc. I won't have to buy for a few years.

[Airehead]

I love the brandywine pinks. Great for sandwiches.  Enjoy

[Parsnip Totin Jack ★]

Great work Farmer Mickins! My tomatoes are not as prolific, they are only starting to ripen. I didn’t plant any Cherry or grape tomatoes as I’m the only tomato eater in the house. Wo7 will eat pasta / pizza with sauce, but won’t add them to a salad or sandwich. I have Black Prince heirloom, Better Boy, and Roma VF paste tomatoes. I had a brief hornworm invasion that took some leaves off the top before I found them.

[12string]

I thought this was going to be a post from the groundhog in my garden.

$#@W%^&W$%& rodent is eating my Beefsteaks!

[Kirby]

1 hour ago, 12string said:

I thought this was going to be a post from the groundhog in my garden.

$#@W%^&W$%& rodent is eating my Beefsteaks!

On the plus side, you don't have to buy groundhog chow.

[12string]

35 minutes ago, Kirby said:

On the plus side, you don't have to buy groundhog chow.

I had a plan to not buy dog chow when it showed up Sunday, but there were people hanging out that may have had an issue with that plan

The neighbor's got it yesterday, but couldn't finish it off. 

One ran into the street, it's turkey vulture chow.

[12string]

I do have plenty of tomatoes, just not as many beefsteaks as I'd like, and that's what he's hitting.

Going home tonight to continue cooking down San Marzanos for gravy.  Its' cooked down to about 6 gallons so far, but I can pick a few more pounds tonight.  They may go in with the other varieties for soup, should be able to start a few gallons of those.

2 days of picking Cukes got 29 pounds for Garlic Dills.

[Airehead]

1 minute ago, 12string said:

I do have plenty of tomatoes, just not as many beefsteaks as I'd like, and that's what he's hitting.

Going home tonight to continue cooking down San Marzanos for gravy.  Its' cooked down to about 6 gallons so far, but I can pick a few more pounds tonight.  They may go in with the other varieties for soup, should be able to start a few gallons of those.

2 days of picking Cukes got 29 pounds for Garlic Dills.

ThAt is lots of cukes. 

[MickinMD ★]

 

2 hours ago, Old No. 7 said:

Great work Farmer Mickins! My tomatoes are not as prolific, they are only starting to ripen. I didn’t plant any Cherry or grape tomatoes as I’m the only tomato eater in the house. Wo7 will eat pasta / pizza with sauce, but won’t add them to a salad or sandwich. I have Black Prince heirloom, Better Boy, and Roma VF paste tomatoes. I had a brief hornworm invasion that took some leaves off the top before I found them.

Most of what I planted I had never seen the variety before - 10 of my 12 tomato plants, 5 of my 6 bell pepper plants, and all 4 of my Brussels sprouts plants.

My nextdoor neighbor, who clued me in to Cherokee Purple, has her tomato plants in relatively small containers whose soil nutrition may be weakened over the years, is amazed at how many tomatoes are growing on my plants.  Like the Brandywine Pinks on the left below and San Marzano Plums on the right.

The San Marzano Plum tomatoes are peeled (scald in hot water and the skins comes right off), crushed, and used ALONE by many prize-winning Italian Pizza makers.  I thought they would be bigger, but when I saw them growing on strings of 4 or more tomatoes, sort of like cherry tomatoes, and some are small but beginning to turn red, I looked it up and found, San Marzano produces narrow, oval, less-seedy fruits that reach between 1 and 3 inches in length, although the Napa County UC Master Gardeners' list of 2018 tomato varieties notes that the Super San Marzano, a newer variety of the indeterminate San Marzano, produces fruits up to 5 inches long.

If these San Marzanos make great pizza sauce for my homemade pizzas, I'm going to peel a bunch (I have two plants), scrape out most of the seeds, pulse them briefly in a food processor, and store them about 8 oz. to a Ziploc bag - the amount needed per 12" pizza - in the freezer to make a bunch of pizzas until I get more from the garden next year.

The "Super San Marzano" mentioned in the quote are longer but not wider, so I'll stick with my American grown "real thing" though purists claim it's not a real San Marzano unless it's grown in that area of Italy!

So I'll be giving a lot away.  There are a lot of people from housing projects more than half a mile away that walk by my house because they live in Baltimore City where store prices are high near them and I live in the adjoining County were there are better prices at the corner and liquor stores a block from me.

The cherry tomatoes have been gleaming red, yellow and orange in the Sun and facing the street.  But no one has stolen any tomatoes!  If they steal a few and don't knock over the plants, that's ok.

 

[Airehead]

You could put some on a table with a free sign. 

[Parsnip Totin Jack ★]

35 minutes ago, MickinMD said:

The "Super San Marzano" mentioned in the quote are longer but not wider, so I'll stick with my American grown "real thing" though purists claim it's not a real San Marzano unless it's grown in that area of Italy!

 

 

“That area” is Napoli. The slopes of Vesuvius, the volcano that buried Pompeii and Herculaneum. The volcanic soil is said to be good for the tomatoes. As you stated, San Marzano are preferred for the Neapolitan pizzas.

[Parsnip Totin Jack ★]

Open-faced cherry tomato ricotta sandwiches: 

4 tsp whole grain mustard 

2 tsp honey 

2 tsp chopped fresh marjoram 

1 tsp miso

fresh ground pepper 

10 oz cherry tomatoes 

4 1/2” thick slices rustic bread

8 ounces ricotta cheese

In a bowl, whisk together mustard, honey, marjoram, miso, and pepper. Adjust the oven rack 5” from the broiler element and heat broiler. Place tomatoes in a broiler safe skillet and broil until most tomatoes have burst and a few are lightly charred, 8-10 minutes. Transfer tomatoes to mustard mixture and toss to coat. Broil bread until brown, about 2 minutes per side. Let bread cool to handle then spread 1/4 cup ricotta on each slice. Top with tomatoes. Serve. (Cooks Illustrated)

[12string]

@MickinMD with all those tomato plants, you NEED a food mill! 

I gathered all the tomatoes from the past couple days, sorted by type.  Wash, cut off any bad parts, toss them whole in pots.  Cook just long enough to soften.  Run them through the food mill attached to the Kitchen Aid mixer.  Sauce only goes in a pot, seeds, skins, etc. go in another bowl.  Took about 2 hours to get about 50 quarts of sauce.

I do this with peppers for hot sauce, apples, pears, anything you want to sauce.

San Marzanos - at least the ones we grow in this climate and soil - don't want to get large.  Bigger fruits are just more water.  A little tug, they'll fall off if ready.  And don't be surprised if they get kind of round with all teh other round tomatoes you're growing nearby

[BR46]

[MickinMD ★]

So here's a relatively healthy lunch today:  Butterball Turkey Bacon (ok but not great nuked), Brandywine Pink Tomato fresh from the garden (excellent taste), iceberg lettuce, mayo, and 647 Bread (6 g. fiber, 40 Cal, 7 net g. carbs/slice).

[Parsnip Totin Jack ★]

Your tomatoes deserve better bacon than that @MickinMD! Give the Brandwine’s that you raised from infancy some respect. 

[Further]

My woodchuck is enjoying any low hanging tomatoes.

I have more than enough, and Mrs. has been sick lately, so I don't have time to process produce.

More flowers next year.