{"id":4602,"date":"2011-02-20T06:45:32","date_gmt":"2011-02-20T06:45:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/gardenlog\/?p=4602"},"modified":"2017-07-17T14:40:11","modified_gmt":"2017-07-17T14:40:11","slug":"tomato-review-2011-spring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/garden-essays\/tomato-review-2011-spring\/","title":{"rendered":"Tomato Review: 2011 Spring"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Gary Ibsen at TomatoFest<\/a> tweeted a sale last fall, I thought I’d get a jump on my spring tomatoes by having the seeds in hand when they were ready to sow. I received them in November but still didn’t manage to start planting them until February 20, 2011.<\/p>\n

My fall 2010 tomato crop was almost a total bust as we got a freeze the week before they ripened. We made green tomato chutney for the first time using Jenny’s recipe. It was great!<\/p>\n

Tomato Season<\/h2>\n

2011-02-20. I started planting seeds after we had a week of humid weather with highs in the 70s and lows in the 50s. In the two weeks preceding, we had some of the coldest nights and longest-lasting cold for the winter. Night after night with the temperatures in the low 20s.<\/p>\n

Tomato Varieties<\/h2>\n

Blondkopfchen<\/h3>\n
\n

\nTomatoFest Description: An heirloom tomato from eastern Germany. Big, leafy, indeterminate, regular-leaf tomato plants yield a phenomenal amount of 1\/2″, grape-sized, brilliant yellow\/gold, cherry tomatoes in clusters of 20-30. The vines are large and sprawling, so give them plenty of space.The name of this adorable heirloom cherry tomato means “little blonde girl”. Deliciously sweet with a slight citrusy tart finish.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nI seem to remember that the number of tomatoes on Blondkopfchen was fantastic when I grew them in Fall 2010. Beautiful trusses of tomatoes. Do I have photos?\n<\/p>\n

Gold Rush Currant<\/h3>\n
\n

\nTomatoFest Description: This strain was a selection by a Dutch seedsman. Our TomatoFest organic tomato seeds produce large, indeterminate, regular-leaf tomato plants with wispy foliage that yield excellent, heavy sets of \u00bc-inch tomatoes borne in trusses of 10-12. Excellent sweet tomato flavor. A perfect snacking tomato or to adorn salads and culinary creations.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nFall 2010. Teeny tiny tomatoes but lots of them. These plants could not be stopped. I pinched them back and pinched them back and they survived the first light freezes and kept producing flowers.\n<\/p>\n

Mandarin Cross, OP<\/h3>\n
\n

\nTomatoFest Description: Wonderful plant from Japan producing 6-10 oz., orange, round fruit with sweet (low-acid) flavors. I de-hybridized this variety over 7 years of my growing it out. A winner!!\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Texas Wild<\/h3>\n
\n

\nTomatoFest Description: All I really know is that the original seed of this tomato was collected from a patch of apparently “wild” tomatoes in southern Our Tomatofest organic tomato seeds produce huge, sprawling, indeterminate, regular-leaf tomato plants that copiously yield hundreds of 1\/2 to 3\/4-inch, red, cherry tomatoes with a delicious, sweet-tartness to them. A really decent snacking tomato for all you Texans and wanna be Texans.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Wapsipinicon Peach<\/h3>\n
\n

\nTomatoFest Description: From Dennis Schlicht. Named after the Wapsipinicon River in Northeast Iowa. Similar to Peche Jaune. Our TomatoFest organic tomato seeds produce indeterminate, regular-leaf wispy, tomato plants that yield a tremendous amount (thousands) of 1 1\/2 to 2-inch, delicate, fuzzy-like-a-peach, pale-yellow (with a tinges of pink), juicy, tomatoes with wonderful, slightly-spicy, very fruity-sweet flavors. Harvest is good all the way to frost. A novelty tomato that is sooo sweet, it begs for eating right off the vine. A Gary Ibsen ‘personal favorite.’ They won’t be able to keep from smiling after tasting this!\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Gary Ibsen at TomatoFest tweeted a sale last fall, I thought I’d get a jump on my spring tomatoes by having the seeds in hand when they were ready to sow. I received them in November but still didn’t manage to start planting them until February 20, 2011. My fall 2010 tomato crop was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9],"tags":[71,216,302,478,487,502],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4602"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4602"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4602\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4914,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4602\/revisions\/4914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/gardens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}