Saturday, August 22, 2015

Spring/Summer Tomato Finale'

We decided to terminate the last of the tomato plants this week, instead of trying to baby these through the fall.  They looked bad, although they were still producing a few tomatoes.  All in all, we had a tremendously successful tomato year.

All total we harvested 89 pounds 5.7 ounces of tomatoes.  Whew!  I put up:

 4 pints "Rotel" Tomatoes
 7 pints Tomato sauce
14 pints Mild or Hot Salsa
 3 bags frozen Tomatoes for soup
The rest we either ate fresh or gave away. Yes, we ate a lot of fresh tomato salads this year!

Totals for each variety:                                                                Pounds             Ounces
Beefsteak Tomato 12 4 9
Black Cherry (volunteer) Tomato 0 5 2
Cherry, Yellow Tomato 6 14 1
Cherokee Purple Tomato 9 1 5
Snow White Tomato 8 4 7
Homestead Tomato 14 15 6
Great White Tomato 5 5 9
Juane Flammee' Tomato 6 4 3
Red Star Tomato 10 5 3
Sleeping Lady (2) Tomato 15 12 2

My favorite of these varieties was the Snow White.  I loved those little pale yellow tomatoes, and I put a few vines to try to root one for the greenhouse this winter, and I'll grow this one again and again.

Second favorite was the Homestead.  Huge, heavy, beautiful classic red tomato, and it put on tomatoes in three different waves for us all spring and summer.  This is your classic for slicing for sandwiches, a real meaty tomato.

The Sleeping Lady was a small compact plant, and if you're planting in a pot or in a small garden area such as a balcony or porch you will be very pleased with this one.  The tomatoes ripen to a beautiful maroon color, but I didn't feel like it tasted as rich as I like from a home-grown tomato.  This might have been our soil, so it would be interesting to hear what others experienced from this variety.

The Great White was another favorite, and very lovely.  Big, pale yellow, and heavy -- another great slicer.  Tasted wonderful too!

We had so much fun this year experiencing our tomatoes from seed, to pot, to garden, to the kitchen.  First time we've ever done that, and I call it a huge success!

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