Wild Galápagos Tomatoes – Translucent Little Gems

I love this tomato. When I found it back in January at Terrior Seed Company, it captured my imagination. The Galápagos Islands are amazing, and to have the opportunity to grow something I'm so passionate about from there, and to be able to eat it too, well it doesn't get much better than that. It lived up to what I imagined, and has fascinated me ever more.

What I didn't expect was how translucent these little tomatoes are. If they catch the light right, they shimmer like little gems on the plant. If you look closely at the right hand side of the photo above, you can see below the skin of the tomato. It's easier to see before they ripen.

The photo on left is a green one, and the white lines are the cells below the skin.    Being a wild tomato, they are very small. The average size is slightly smaller than a dime, with some almost as small as a currant. I did peel some, and the skin is indeed transparent.

For a small tomato though, it packs a lot of flavor. So much so that it comes close to Black Cherry, which is my favorite cherry variety. Nice balance of sweet and acid, with some salty undertones. Perhaps it's the high tolerance of salt that imparts these tomatoes with that salty zest. They  can be found growing close to the beach, in between rocks on the Galápagos.

The salt resistance has plant breeders excited along with its natural resistance to whiteflies. These characteristics are being bred into other tomato varieties. Its been a very wet summer here in southern New Jersey, and early blight, and black spot has impacted all the other tomatoes I'm growing, I haven't seen a sign of it on these plants.

They naturally sprawl, so they are dense, compact, and bush-like when staked. They are very prolific, and from I read, they produce up until frost. They also produced early, so a long season of hearty and flavorful tomatoes is something I'll take every year. There is a second variety from the Galápagos, Sara's Galapagos, and are red. They don't seem to be a true wild tomato either.

The best thing for me though is the giant tortoises of the Galápagos are said to like these tomatoes. To be able to share a taste with these magnificent and graceful creatures a half a world away is a true gift of nature, and places these tomatoes in a special part of my heart.

A Dried, Sweetened Tomato as a Fig Substitute?

Evidently in colonial times in America, this Philadelphia heirlom variety did exactly that. It seemed odd and intriguing to me when I first read about the Red Fig tomato being used as fig susbsitute in early America. When I read about that use, of course I had to experience this piece of hertigae and history for myself. I was born in Philadelphia, and my family has lived in the city for 100 years. I'm also a history buff and sucker for a good story like this. I love fresh figs, and fresh tomatoes, but I never thought about substituting a tomato for a fig. As far as the dried versions of either, I can do without them.

So I ordered the seeds, and got a new perspective on the use of a tomato. The seeds came from tomatofest.com. On the Red Fig description page I found instructions on how to prepare tomato figs. Basically, you boil some water, place the tomatoes in the hot water so you can peel them. Once peeled, you place them in a jar with an equal amount of sugar and let them sit for a couple days. Everyday you pour off the syrup and add more sugar. Once that is complete, the colonial folks dried them in the sun for a few days on screens. I used my dehydrator. Once they are dried, in colonial times they covered them with powdered sugar and packed them away. I didn't coat my version in powdered sugar. It's too sweet and too processed for me. I also used light brown sugar to cure the tomatoes.

I did this for two days. The result is I have some tasty little nuggets that to me taste more bbq than a fig. I have some tomato simple syrup that will be used in a cocktail or a drizzle on some buttermilk ice cream the next time I make it. I only did a small batch since I wasn't quite sure how these would turn out. I would like to try them in some baking. Perhaps biscuits or breads with herbs and cheese. Thanks to a wicked hail storm the bulk of my harvest got knocked off the vine or else I would make more.

The plants produce an abundant amount of pear shaped tomatoes. The foliage is delicate, and on the dainty side. The plants remind me of botanical drawings. The fruit grows in clusters, and it falls ont he vine real easy. You have to be careful while picking the ripe ones.

They also dry in the oven well. I still don't get the fig substitution but it doesn't really matter since the odd and intriguing concept inspired me to try this tomato. I can take it from here. As I learned in my art history courses, in order to create new art you have to study and understand the past. So while I won't be substituting these tasty morsels for figs anytime soon, I have a new ingredient and flavor in my culinary and gardening pallet. And in the end, that's just fine by me.

Boothby's Blonde, My First Harvest

Tonight was it, my first harvest! And the first time I've tasted Boothby' Blonde Cucumber. And the result, it tastes like a cucumber, which I love cucumbers. And there is quite a difference in one that you grow as opposed to the ones you buy. A major difference, no wax. That's why I don't buy them in supermarkets. Secondly, there no comparison to a freshly picked anything and some supermarket dud. And finally and most important, you will never see these in a supermarket. A farm market perhaps. That's the value of growing heirlooms. They are unique. For myself that's important. I want to experience the buffet that Mother Nature provided. Not be feed what come profit driven business decides what's best for them. I like idea that cucumbers could be yellow, that tomatoes can be considered black or purple, string beans are purple and peppers and melons that come all shapes, sizes and colors. There's a zest to that. A passion that is meant to delight the senses, and inspire the soul. It's nice to have options.

The cucumber itself is delightfuly crisp, has a sweet creamy texture, and from what I can see, the plants are very prolific. I'm glad I choose to grow these. I hope you will consider them as well.

I have Lemon Cucumbers on deck. I grew them last year and only got a few. I did enjoy them and look forward to picking a few of them in the next week or so. I'll post about them as well. Round and yellow, now there's a cucumber to turn your concept of cucumbers upside down.

Heirloom? Hybrids? Why Not Both?

A friend of mine sent me a link to this article, Heirloom Seeds or Flinty Hybrids? and it gave me some food for thought. Since this is not a blog devoted to media critiques, I'll refrain from that. I will focus on the one thing that made sense to me from that article, the subject matter, heirlooms or hybrids. Heirlooms hold a special place in my heart. I am a passionate supporter of them. My mission now is to connect people to them, and encourage them to make them family heirlooms. That said, I feel hybrids serve an equally important purpose. It comes down to what is the end user's goal.

I can understand farmers needing to have a a uniform crop. Their living depends on the harvest. The challenge of weather, plant disease and pests is a formidable one. Hybrid seeds level the playing field in a big way, and encourage the farmer to farm. On a smaller scale, the home gardner faces the same challenges, and hybrids offer them the same advantage. Hybrids plants offer a safe and stable alternative to the potential gamble that heirlooms offer.

Heirloom varieties can be a bit of a crap shoot. Take for example heirloom tomatoes. For the farmer looking for a full-fledged, market-ready cash crop, a major stumbling blocks to heirloom tomatoes is their thin skin. It hinders shipping them over a distance. They also have a shorter shelf life. The plants can be more susceptible to disease. The odd shapes and sizes makes packing difficult.  In the structure of modern society, with the big box retail model as the driving consumer practice, heirloom tomatoes don't stand a chance.

For the backyard gardener, the stability of hybrids offers them opportunity to grow plants that aren't as finicky and fussy as heirlooms, according to the reputation that heirloom's have. Limitations of time, space, ability, and the growing zone in which a gardner lives, all are challenges that hybrids can address to a varying degree of success. They can bring more people in the fold as gardeners.

Hybrids on the surface offer a safer return on your investment of time and money for gardening for a certain segment of society.

They just don't taste as good. And you can't save the seeds. The seed factor is big. With hybrids you're handing over the power to sustain life on this planet to seed companies. These companies will decide which plants are worthy to be grown. This allows decisions to be made about what best for the company, not the balance of life on the planet. Keep in mind, mother nature perfected the blend of art and science in a seed. This generally tiny thing, that when planted in the earth with the addition of light and water, can grow into something that can help sustain life, for so many inhabitants on this planet, while tantalizing and tickling all of the human senses, is an amazing achievement. And it wasn't done for profit.

And it's that factor that I will place my trust in her, and her heirloom varieties.

While Watermelon Pink Beefsteaks, are, at least in my experience, one of THOSE varieties with THAT reputation about being not prolific, uncooperative and having a will of their own, the majesty of their process makes it easy to forgive them. Watching the fruit ripen on these plants is a sight to be seen. Not all ripen this way, however some go from a standard green tomato, to a green striped tomato that resembles a watermelon right before turning a highly chromatic crimson that is the color of a very sweet and ripe watermelon. The tomatoes are big, after all they are beefstakes, and ultra sweet. And the taste is worthy of the experience of their process. If you get a half a dozen from a plant, you've done well. They are truly fascinating. I'll always have a couple of these plants around.

So for me, that's what I relish in my garden. I could also understand why a farmer would pass these over for a cash crop, or someone who was challenged by time, space and enviromental issues, to choose a hybrid over a Watermelon Pink. There's good reasons for both heirlooms and hybrids. For me though, it's that nonconformist tendency that heirlooms offer, that make them my choice. And the power of their seeds.