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  • From: "g and r hamster" <hamster AT northnet.org>
  • To: market farming <market-farming AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: tomatoes
  • Date: Fri, 29 Sep 2000 07:19:28 -0500


your tale reminds me of david mas masumoto's book epitaph for a peach -- his
story of trying to save the family's suncrest peach farm. you might read it
(in the off season of course) and see if it gives you any ideas -- or at
least some empathy.

taste tests at farmers markets could help and your csa members would take
them gladly after the first bite. and that's what i love about being a csa
member as well as a farmer's wife -- all the surprises that come with the
pick up.

best wishes
gwynn
--------------------------------------------------------------------
hamster manor -- 717 congress street - ogdensburg - new york - 13669
hamster AT northnet.org -- 315-393-0978
bert & gwynn
------------

----------
>From: maroc AT islandnet.com (Maroc)
>To: "market farming" <market-farming AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
>Subject: tomatoes
>Date: Thu, Sep 28, 2000, 2:34 AM
>

> This year, against the better judgement of a large greenhouse grower, I
> decided to try some open pollinated tomatoes named Brandywine. When his
> other arguments didn't work he told me they were more prone to late blight,
> which we have suffered in both tomatoes and potatoes. I did a small
> planting (in an unheated greenhouse). The plants did not seem as vigorous
> as the hybrids, nor did they flower as early, but the fruit set well and I
> eagerly awaited the results. The fruit developed ridged and generally
> misshapened. As they ripened the tomatoes didn't have the robust red
> colour of the Fantastics, Early Girls, and Moneymakers, they were pale and
> more pink than red. I knew I had a loser, I'd be lucky to give them away,
> never mind sell them. I really didn't want anyone to see the things in the
> greenhouse near those beautifully round, deep red hybrids. To avoid a
> total loss I thought they might be okay for processing, so I picked some
> ripe ones for canning. As they fully ripened their colour deepened. A lot
> of the fruit weighed two pounds and just over. I started cutting them up
> for canning. Wow, the flesh was solid and meaty and as deep red as the
> thin delicate skins, and the texture is smooth and velvety. Of course I
> had to have a taste. Nothing I was growing, none of the beautiful hybrids,
> could even come close. This was a real tomato, this is what tomatoes are
> supposed to taste like. Now I'm saving seeds from the best fruit, the
> one's most nearly smooth and spherical. The problem is how to make these
> magnificient tomatoes marketable without losing the flavour and texture. I
> think we don't want to change the tomato, we want to change the customers.
> Good luck, eh.
>
> Don Maroc
> Vancouver Island, Canada
>
>
>
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