Heirloom Tomato Harvest
Sep 25th, 2011 by Matt
Shown is today’s tomato harvest from our garden, one day after the equinox and minutes before our first big rain in a long time. Considering how summer took so long to arrive here and how we’ve had less-than-stellar results growing heirlooms in past years - we are a bit surprised and thrilled at the results. The varieties - that we can remember - are Green Zebra, Speckled Roman, Brandywine (purple), and Persimmon (yellow). We purchased one starter plant of each through Eugene Local Foods - from the following farms: MoonTime Farms near Veneta and Mountain View Farm near Junction City.
The Speckled Roman are probably the best surprise of all. They are a plum tomato with yellow/orange stripes. They have been prolific with several very large fruits. We are processing these into a barbeque sauce.
The persimmons are very large fruit - about the size of a softball - and have been designated for a yellow-colored catsup. We have over 20 fruit this size on one plant alone. Todays persimmon harvest - about 1/3 of the total it will produce - yielded 4 quarts of cut up tomatoes, just right for the sauce recipe.
Yesterday we made a tomato tart with a mix of our cherry tomatoes. It’s a superb recipe found in the Harvest to Heat cookbook. Shown below is before and after cooking the tart. It was a big hit. Thank you to my mom for gifting us this great cookbook, and suggesting the recipe.
And THANK YOU to the nearby farms growing these starts and keeping these special varieties in supply and convenient for us urban farmers in the city!
Totally gorgeous and inspiring. Yum!