Saturday 30 July 2011

Brandywine for Taste

Brandywine is considered one of the best of all tomatoes for taste. However, because it's a late maturing variety, it is best grown under cover in short season areas. As you'll see from the quote below, it is also low in yield and and ripens unevenly. But these are a small price to pay for such a great tasting tomato!
Brandywine is an heirloom tomato, which means it’s open-pollinated and not a hybrid. It’s a large, meaty, pink, late-season tomato. Gardeners excuse its low yield and uneven ripening because of its classic tomato flavor.
I grew this variety outdoors and it produced about half a dozen tomatoes per plant. You'd need to have quite a few to want to give these away to the neighbours!

Friday 29 July 2011

Tomato Fun Information

One of the great tomato fests or even pilgrimages is La Tomatina tomato fight, where people throw tomatoes at each other. I expect that wearing a white t-shirt makes it all the more fun!
La Tomatina (BÅ©nol, Valencia, Spain), held annually on the last Wednesday in August, attracts tens of thousands of visitors. The highlight is the tomato fight, in which 30,000+ participants throw an estimated 150,000 overripe tomatoes (100 metric tons) at each other.
I hope they are all ripe - a few unripe tomatoes could hurt a lot!