heirloom tomatoes

Typically store-bought tomatoes and even common field tomatoes look beautiful, are durable and store well. Heirloom tomatoes, on the other hand, often look ugly and have imperfections. They bruise easily and they don't transport or store well at all. Supermarkets typically refuse to stock them and regard them as a nuisance. They simply have nothing going for them.

Except one thing.

They are the best-tasting tomatoes on the planet. And ours are the best of the best tasting because we dry farm them. What does that mean.? It means we don't water them. Nonsense! How is that possible? Is it possible for a weed to grow eight feet tall without being watered? Yes, it is. It is all about the location. Our location is in Garden Valley on what I call the annual flood plain, a rare and fertile riverside piece of land that sits below the hundred year flood plain. The dry dust on top serves as a wick and lifts up the available ground water below. Once the roots find it they can follow it back down in the hottest weeks of summer and the plants make the sweetest tomatoes without ever being watered. Last year I gave each of my 450 plants four 8-oz cottage cheese cups of "emergency" water in July to encourage such root growth. So they all got a half gallon of water. They didn't all need it, but I didn't lose a single plant.

Red varieties we grow are mortgage lifter, brandywine, and ox heart. Ox heart is the best fall red tomato you will ever experience. July and August tomato taste was found in ox hearts purchased on October 20th!

Yellow varieties we grow are Pineapple, Amish Gold and Golden Jubilee. Pineapple is has an almost tropical taste and compliments the summer. Amish Gold and Golden Jubilee are full-flavored tomatoes with just barely and acid taste, and like ox hearts they carry the glamorous summer taste of tomatoes deep into the fall.

Colored varieties we grow include Cherokee purple, black krim, and black beauty. All of these have such deep, rich compelling taste that condiments never need to leave their containers. You slice them. You eat them. That's it! This year we are growing several black varieties for Papa Curt's Salsas for a very special batch that ought to be worthy of regional if not statewide or national attention.