The Color of Summer

Vine-Ripening Lemon Boy Tomatoes-Bird Back 40

The color of summer in a backyard vegetable garden is a show not to be missed. Like the rainbow, backyard produce can produce a glow, a hue, an iridescence that excites the soul. I can see that excitement in the photo to your immediate right. I will soon be able to taste that glow and excitement that is the first vine-ripened tomato of the 2014 summer gardening season.

And there's a quiet satisfaction in knowing that we made that. We made it happen. All that work -- all that prep -- it's all going to start paying off now with a bounty of produce that will transform the Bird Back 40 into our personal farmer's market. It may not be the first tomato to ripen up in the Sacramento area. Others have beat us to the punch and are weeks ahead of us.

Sioux Tomato

No matter. It's not a race. It's just the first tomato of the season. This weekend the Lemon Boy tomato pictured above will join the first cucumber of the young season on small snack plate to be voraciously consumed by two backyard gardeners who are eagerly awaiting that first taste of the summer season.

It's late June in Sacramento. You won't see them in these pictures -- but the weeds are EVERYWHERE. I suppose that's the price one pays for wearing a boot for a solid month, waiting for a cranky Achilles Tendon to heal. But heal it has. There is strength in that step again. The pain is gone. I'm ready to be turned loose in the garden for the first time in nearly two months.

Heirloom Tomato Monsters-Bird Back 40

A lot of work awaits.

But with the work comes excitement. Yes -- I need to stake up some tomato plants that have grown so large that they fallen over. But as I peer into the depths of those plants, now hidden by weeds, what I can see brings a large smile to my face. That courtship we danced with Love Apple Farms in May is paying dividends with monster production in the month of June. We haven't lost a single plant to disease this year, which is incredibly rare. Not only that, the vast majority of them are loaded for bear.

This includes the Sioux Tomato which has found a home in the Bird Back 40 for the very first time this year. This isn't a new tomato -- not by any stretch of the imagination. Introduced in 1944 by the University of Nebraska, the Sioux qualifies as an exceptional heirloom variety that has withstood the test of time. I may not have planted this variety before, but I've certainly heard good things about it from others.

Paul Robeson Tomato

In the world of growing heirloom tomatoes, my friends, there's nothing quite like the marketing campaign called "word of mouth."

When I stroll through the garden and study the various tomato plants in various stages of production, it's not the single fruit that interests me nearly as much as the cluster of fruit. Cherry varieties offer fruit that is clustered together, but that can be hard to find with standard, larger varieties. So if I find clusters of fruit on plants that are designed to produce 1 lb. beefsteak monsters or more? That's called excitement.

Honeybee Forages on Basil Flowers

These clusters exist on the Paul Robeson. What is a Paul Robeson you ask? Well, I'm glad you asked! Please, let me enlighten you.

Paul Robeson was an equal rights advocate who stood up to the infamous Joseph McCarthy communist witch hunts of the 1950’s, which nearly destroyed his career in opera. Idolized in Russia, as well as the rest of the world, this black Russian heirloom was named in his honor. Today the Paul Robeson can be found in vegetable gardens around the world, including the Bird Back 40.

Think that might go well in a jar of Roasted Garlic, Pepper and Heirloom Tomato Salsa? Yeah -- I think it might too. It makes for an interesting story too.

Siam Queen Thai Basil-Bird Back 40

It's summer. The tomatoes are fruiting. The corn is growing. Peppers are popping. Bees are buzzing with excitement as they race from one tempting patch of pollen to another. The first tomato of the season awaits harvest.

Does it get any better than this?

The TOP TEN from TomatoFest!

Gary Ibsen of TomatoFest fame recently sent this news release to Farmer Fred Hoffman, and I wanted to make sure you were informed of the growing popularity of certain types of Heirloom Tomatoes:
Bill

Announcing "Top 10" Heirloom Tomatoes for 2009

"Black" Tomatoes Still Reign with the Best of the Reds and Pinks

Bi-Colored and Cherry Tomatoes Also Growing In Popularity

Carmel, Calif. – January 25, 2009 – TomatoFest® Garden Seeds today announced that "black" tomatoes again rank high in the "Top 10" list of favorite heirloom tomatoes going into 2009. The "Top 10" favorite heirloom tomatoes are:

Brandywine (pink)
Paul Robeson (purple/black)
Aussie (red)
Julia Child (pink)
Cherokee Purple (purple/black)
Black Cherry (purple/black)
Kellogg's Breakfast (orange)
Gold Medal (yellow/red striped)
Aunt Ginny's Purple (purple/black)
Carmello (red)

"Black" tomatoes were more popular in 2008 than in any prior year," said Gary Ibsen, grower of 600 varieties of certified organic, heirloom tomatoes in California, and founder of TomatoFest® Garden Seeds, the most prominent internet retailer of organic heirloom tomato seeds.

"The purple/black colored heirloom tomatoes continue to rise in popularity at produce markets, with restaurant chefs, and with home gardeners for the 6th year in a row," "Black" tomatoes are fast becoming as popular as many of the best tasting pink and red tomatoes."

"Black" tomatoes are not really black," remarked Ibsen. "They cover a range of dark colors, including deep purple, dusky deep brown, smoky mahogany with dark green shoulders, and bluish-brown. The depth of colors seems to be encouraged by a higher acid and mineral content in the soil."

"Black" tomatoes are native to Southern Ukraine during the early 19th century. They originally existed in only a small region of the Crimean Peninsula. Soon they were showing up as new varieties in many shapes and sizes and began to appear throughout the territories of the former Soviet Union. Then they began turning up in the former Yugoslavia, Germany and the United States.

"A survey of our tomato seed sales to home gardeners and commercial tomato farmers, along with a review of our sales of fresh heirloom tomatoes to retailers and restaurants, demonstrate soundly that consumers have discovered the superior and complex flavors of the "black" heirloom tomatoes, and are selecting these bold colors along with their mix of favorite red, pink, orange and bi-colored tomatoes," said Ibsen.

Also showing a rise in popularity in 2008 with a greater presence in produce markets, are sweeter tasting bi-colored tomatoes, and a wider selection of different colored cherry tomatoes.

Photos and descriptions of all the above listed tomato varieties can be found at TomatoFest.

Bill's Note: Venus and I have grown four of the varieties listed in Ibsen's TOP TEN, and loved each and every one of them. Some heirloom afficianados go so far as to claim that Kellogg's Breakfast is the best tasting heirloom tomato, bar none, and they have a pretty good argument.

I ordered several different varieties from TomatoFest this year, and I have high hopes for a unique variety called "Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red." Time will tell with this new heirloom tomato entry into our backyard North Natomas garden. Some growers have reported amazing success with it, others have not.

And that's the trial and tribulation, so to speak, of growing heirloom tomatoes.