Tomatoes

It is tomato season in Rhode Island. This year is bittersweet for tomatoes. Blight, the same disease that caused the potato famine in Ireland, also can wipe out tomatoes. Tomato blight has ravaged the crop in the northeast and all the way to Ohio and West Virginia. I personally know farmers who have pulled out 3,000 tomato plants due to blight. I have avoided the worst of the blight through dumb luck and a little prevention. However, I have had to remove some plants as well. The blight seems to be mostly contained at One Love Farm and the tomatoes we have harvested are especially sweet knowing the bullet they dodged going from the farm to my plate.

One of the most enjoyable parts of growing tomatoes is all the different varieties. This year we experimented with a lot of varieities we had never grown before. One of the most successful was a Japanese variety called Trifle. The pear shaped friut is picked with green shoulders but the base is a deep red, almost black which looks striking sliced on a plate. Another favorite this year was pineapple. The huge globes are all yellow on the outside except for the very bottom which is pink. When sliced, it reveals a gorgeous pink heart surrounded by yellow flesh. We're also loving a variety called tall rose. Beautiful lobed fruit with a very strong tomato flavor. Of course we also can tons of tomatoes every year. All September and October my kitchen is filled with pots and jars as I process tomatoes into marinara and salsa for the winter. This year we grew Juliet (pictured above) as we do every year. This small, roma shaped tomato has a wonderful flavor. In addition, we grew some other Italian varieties including San Marzano which is like Juliet, only bigger and meatier. We also grew Striped Roman (also pictured above) which may be a new favorite. The oblong fruits are huges and incrediblly meaty which means they yeild a lot sauce and not much water making for a very rich marinara. We'll definately be growing more Striped Romans next year!