doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Mildly OT: Good tomatoes

One of my neighbors in Nowhere, MN is a die-hard tomato person. Her garden is just up the road a bit from our home there and it is a sight to behold (walleye fish guts may be her secret weapon).

She grows heirloom tomatoes (that her father developed for that harsh and short growing season up there) and has been quite generous with me and my family (it helps that I have gifted her with a bit of elk meat to try as well). Meals made with these "real" tomatoes versus the ones available at the grocery stores are infinitely better IMHO (If you have any question as to why these tomatoes may be better, look up the subject on Youtube and educate yourself just a bit).

This spring, my wife and I went the extra distance in an effort to grow some of these more "exotic" tomato variants ourselves, such as the Black Crim, the Cherokee Purple and the Brandywine. The fruits of our labors then are being fully enjoyed now and we couldn't be more pleased with the results. By leaving shortly for the North Country, I'll be missing out a bit here but wow, just wow.

A good Caprese salad before a grouse meal is simply a wonderful treat. Even a BLT becomes something exotic when using one of these "real" tomatoes. Lycopenes are a wonderful addition to your diet, and in so-many ways.

Learning is growing and this is a good area to "grow" in. Find out what you have been missing-out on for all these years.

We've been knowing that in the Deep South forever, Lloyd. Glad for your good fortune. Nothing like home-grown 'maters.
JR

We grew heirloom tomatoes fir 20-25 yrs in Iowa. Brandywines among them. They are available in every farmers market and most grocersn in and around Duluth as well. I think Americans are waking up and insisting on better quality food. It is stunning what they are growing around Duluth and the number of people doing it. There are at least a dozen organic farms within a few miles of us here.

For many years I had a garden, then my back and legs went out on me, and I had to have my grandson help me and cut back on what I grew. Now he lives a couple hundred miles away and teaches High School Agriculture, so I no longer have a garden. The one thing I miss the most is tomatoes. I always had 2 dozen big tomatoe plants and one Sweet One Hundred cherry tomatoe plant to nibble on while working in the garden. I know exactly what you mean Lloyd.
Mike

Wayne Nish recommended roasting tomatoes on cookie sheets in a low oven after seeding to concentrate their flavor.
I doubt many remember him.
Had a great pair of Whites.

I do that and sprinkle a little balsamic vinegar on them.

Until last year, my neighbour three doors over, a very elderly woman who had farmed the area before our little town surrounded her farm, kept three acres and would grow tomatoes, beans, squash and gladiolas. She would set up a little wheelbarrel around the start of August and put the daily crop in it. A little jar to put the money in. The tomatoes were fantastic! Twice the flavour and half the price of grocery store varieties. I'd buy as many as I could eat August through the end of September. She finally passed away last year, well into her 90s. Just doesn't seem right not seeing that little old wheelbarrow out front.

My back up is my ex planted a bunch this year and keeps delivering some to me. She knows how much I like them.

Once you know what you're missing, it's hard to ignore it. It seems odd to me to be so deliberate about something so-simple as a "tomato", but there you have it.

I had occasionally been buying these "exotics" at a local Whole Foods (for something like $5 each!) for the last few years and other than being incensed at the price, they weren't always that good. A local roadside stand began selling decent beefsteak tomatoes (along with a few heirlooms) earlier this summer and they helped alot (and at a much more-decent price). But now...now my plants are groaning with giant, fist-sized tomatoes that are just so darn good. Even our cherry tomatoes (including a black-striped variant) are great this year, so sweet!

Much like James, we like the balsamic vinegar on them (even a concentrated balsamic), along with a few blue-cheese crumbles. Bruschetta is another option that gets used here frequently (my wife likes to bake bread as well) and along with our tomatoes we also use our(her) herbs, which include fresh basil. Vino usually makes it's appearance at these feeds as well.

Life is so-good when you pay attention and then work at it.

Tomatoes, when we lived WI and MN, huge two family gardens. Fresh tomatoes when we had them and we canned juice, whole, katsup, spaghetti sauce for the rest of the year, we even dried them. Something I picked up in Europe, grilled tomatoes for breakfast a mainstay in my house now.

The worst place to grow tomatoes coastal PNW, never enough sun or warmth, even cherry the matoes were iffy.

Here in the SW, it is strange, I plant early and get to matoes in May then the pants go dormant through the 100+ temps, now the days have dropped into the 90s and the plants are putting on fruit and I'll have tomatoes into Nov.

Back before my time my ex-wifes family live in Rochester MN and in the spring they would go down to the sewer pond and dig up newly sprouted tomatoes plants for the garden, seems tomatoe seed would go through the purification process unharmed and sprout on the banks when the weather warmed

We planted about three acres when we had the nursery many years ago, mixed varieties, mostly commercial red packs, siberian, and some heirloom, picked right up to a hard frost, around Thanksgiving on LI, and pickled the green. Nothing better than a vine ripened tomato and a dash of salt.

Wasn't Wayne the New York restauranteur who ordered and bought the matched pair of bespoke English double guns? I also remember that they were Whites.

How long ago has that been?, 25 years?