Heirloom Tomato Week -- We Mean It This Time!

Hello!

The house move is underway. We are in the neighbor’s totally awesome basement, and there’s not much time for the blog. (Too much pool, foosball, air hockey, and Legos to play with! Ha ha!) The house move is going fine. Today we ran into our first two little problems. They discovered a large concrete pad under half of the back room in a location where we could not see it. We think it was the porch floor on the back side of the school house, and then someone just built over it. So they’re having to bust it up with a horizontal jackhammer mounted onto the bobcat – it sounded like a war zone. Then, the plumber found quite the leaky pipe in the back corner of the house where the water comes in from the well. He pulled up a section of the floor and said things you never want to hear about your own house, like “Wow, that’s a LOT of standing water!” and “There’s even a sinkhole!” The late afternoon deluge just added to the general soup-like quality of our yard. What a mess. I’ll post pictures next week.

Bill and Pete are working around the construction zone. This week’s harvest will be greatly complicated by the fact that we have no electricity or water at our house. It will work out, though. Just be sure that his extreme efforts don’t go to waste – be sure to come to the market with a big appetite!

It shouldn’t be hard to convince you to attend this week’s market given the mounds of beautiful heirloom tomatoes that Bill is bringing. I’ve seen the stack of tomato-filled crates, and it’s really amazing. (You’d cry to see all of the tomatoes that go into the compost – at least 75%!! People just won’t buy a tomato with a crack or too many cosmetic issues. Of course, he still has to pick them!) Our favorite market tomatoes this year are Pink Brandywine and Kellogg’s Breakfast. Here’s some tasty information sure to get you to the market with wallets blazing:

Pink Brandywine: This is Bill’s favorite. It’s very difficult to grow for market – lots of splitting. Bill estimates he only gets 10% of the fruit to sell at market. One book describes pink brandywine as winey, robust, mouth-watering, sweet, tart, and complex. Whoa. I’m tired just thinking of all the adjectives.

Kellogg’s Breakfast: Juicy AND meaty, this beefsteak variety is truly scrumptious. Look for a big, orange tomato, and you’ve found it. You can’t go wrong with Kellogg’s (product placement – we get paid for that. Ha ha!!).

Striped German: This is aesthetically the most beautiful varieties that Bill grows. And to top it off, it’s really delicious. I think it has a fruitier flavor with a bit less acidity than a red tomato, but I’m not sure if it’s just the colors that make me taste it that way.

Green Zebra: It’s ripe even though is a green-and-yellow striped tomato. The flavor is sweet and tangy. It’s a perfect foil for a sweeter tomato, and adds a visual flair.

Cherokee Purple: It is said that this variety was originally grown by the Cherokee Indians more than 100 years ago. It’s one of my favorites because it has a wonderfully complex tomato flavor and meaty texture.

Hybrids: The hybrids that Bill grows are also quite good. They’re cheaper at $2/pound because they’re easier to grow and yield much better. Of course, they have nowhere near the complexity of the heirlooms as far as flavor goes, and the skins are a bit thicker (hence their being more blemish and ding-free.) That said, if you need a lot of tomatoes and don’t want to spend as much, these are a very good substitution.

Bill is sure that this will be the biggest tomato week of the season (he was surprised about that, since last week was so good).

You may have noticed the lack of green beans last week, which was due to the beans being just too immature to pick. That means that Bill will be totally overwhelmed by beans this week. (Picking them is torture – seriously, every year I wonder why he does it.) This would, subsequently, be an excellent week for you to buy beans!!

Here’s what we’ll have on Saturday …

Tomatoes
Eggplant
Leeks
Poblano Peppers
Sweet Peppers
Green Bell Peppers
Cucumbers
Green beans
Dragon tongue beans
Summer squash
Potatoes
Carrots
Shallots
Fennel
Swiss chard
Head Lettuce
Beets
Onions
Garlic
Basil
Broccoli?
Cabbage (Red)
Okra

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to email us at blueschoolhouse@yahoo.com, although during the farm season we can’t guarantee that we’ll be checking the email as often as usual. Our phone service is dead for the next few weeks until the house is moved back onto the new basement!

Best,
Mercy