The Last of the Tomatoes

With Fall officially here my tomatoes are pretty much spent and I should be able to find some other interesting things to post on instead, so this is one last tomato post to wrap things up...


Previous Posts:
Heirloom Tomatoes (again!)
Planting (Potting) Heirloom Tomatoes
Quick Tomato Update
Tomatoes, Tomatoes, Tomatoes

All in all I am pleased with the endeavor. I will be fertilizing from the start next year as well as closely monitoring water throughout the growing season and I have decided on my favorites from the five varieties I grew this year and plan to grow them all again next year except for the striped roman.

Here's the breakdown of my experience with each variety:

Pantano Romanesco
Great sandwich/burger "slicer" tomato.  Clean, mild flavor that goes well with any sandwich type of thing. This was also my most successful tomato as it did not succumb to the blossom end rot that others did and produced plenty of good sized fruits.  I had two plants this year and it produced just enough for my family of four.

Striped Roman
This did have several fruits that gave in to the blossom end rot and did not produce very well particularly considering that you really need a decent amount of these to do anything with them.  It is a paste tomato that I had read others say they ate these with their other table tomatoes, but this was not my experience.  I did not care for the flavor as it was at all.  I may have made sauce or paste from them had I had more fruits to work with.

Weeping Charlie - note, I have just discovered that the "unknown tomato" in my pot this year may have actually been the weeping charlie and the little cherry tomatoes I assumed were what I had ordered since they showed up on the vine first are actually "unknown" sneaky guys that got in with my order.  I am going to have to track down the actual variety from Horticopia because I enjoyed the little cherries, made all my post descriptions based on them and didn't end up with much from the actual weeping charlies....
Very acidic great tasting little cherry tomato (see note, weeping charlies are actually a roma type tomato).  I really like these and got plenty of them at a time to add to salads early in the season. As the season went on only one or two would ripen at a time so my son just ate those off the plant as that was a serving he was fine with.  They are also small enough that they were not affected by the blossom end rot that the others experienced. -

Depp's Pink Firefly
This is a great beefsteak tomato that ended up being delicious in salsa.  The funny thing about my experience was that I only ended up with two fruits off the one plant I had and they took almost the whole season to grow and ripen.  I tell you what though, they were huge!  I made one large batch of salsa from each tomato.

Purple Russian
My Favorite.  Great little oblong 6 ouncers that I most enjoyed eating fresh off the plant.  It has a great sweetness to it that I thoroughly enjoyed and ended up making a great caprese salad (was delicious on a regular ol' salad as well).

So here's some pictures of what I did with them and the one last issue I had that truly ended the season for me.

What I thought were Weeping Charlie tomatoes, on a salad

(Top) Pantano Romanesco ready for sandwiches

(bottom) Purple Russian ready for most anything

Caprese with pesto

I didn't get a picture of the salsa or the fully ripe Depp's but here's the recipe I used, modified from a friend:

Salsa

4 tomatoes
1 white onion
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1/3 cup fresh cilantro (more or less to your taste)
1 can tomato sauce (I used crushed tomatoes [14.5oz] and you could always just dice fresh tomatoes and put them in the food processor)
1Tbs cumin
1Tbs sugar
3 Tbs white vinegar (I used white wine vinegar)
2 Tbs Worcestershire sauce
2 Jalapeño peppers, minced

salt to taste

Chop, mix and enjoy!
(I usually put the jalapenos, onion, and garlic in my food processor to make it faster)

When I made it I halved the original recipe to yield about 2 cups which was just enough for game night at our house with 6 adults

And, sadly, I finally gave into the end of the season when the last fruits ended up with Cloudy Spot.  We have been overrun with stink bugs this year and I never knew they were a problem for tomatoes, but they apparently pierce the skin suck out the juices and inject something that kills the flesh at the bite site and leaves you with  cloudy white spots in the flesh just under the skin

Purple Russians with cloudy spot and cracking from inconsistent moisture

oh, and one last issue that I almost forgot to include

The tomato hornworm

Freaky looking thing that ate a ton of the leaves off my plants, didn't seem to cause much issue, but they did leave droppings all over my deck around the tomato pots.  Every one I could find found a nice new home in the woods behind my house, away from my tomatoes. 

I did find that I should have left the ones that looked like this:

Because the little cocoons are not actually more hornworms, but a wasp larvae that have been laid on the worm and when they hatch are predators of the worm.  I was afraid these were tons more worms that were going to overtake my tomatoes when they would have actually served as a natural control for the worms.