Tomato Survey

Check out the tomato survey at Mother Earth News. I just took, it and it was very interesting to read the results. The most interesting result was that most people who've taken the survey preserve their tomatoes by freezing them. There is nowhere near enough room in our freezer to freeze all the tomatoes. I usually make pizza sauce with most of the tomatoes. Most years I try to save seeds, but since the blight struck so early this year there wasn't any decent fruit to collect from.

This year I grew two heirloom varieties: Illinois Beauty and Rose. I also grew my now-favorite saladette tomato, Juliet. The Rose tomatoes were huge, like the Brandywines that I grew for a few years. I liked the Illinois Beauty a lot better. They had a nice, uniform round shape, about the size of a softball. They also stayed shorter and didn't end up sprawled all over the ground. Although I use tomato cages, the Rose tomato plants were twice as tall as the cages and a lot of the fruit ended up on the ground and was cannibalized by slugs.

Earlier in the year, Gardener's Supply Company sent out the Grow What You Eat Challenge. The challenge is to plant a garden that will produce at least 10 pounds of food. It has been very interesting to weigh all my produce. Even though I had a lot of trouble with the weather and early blight, I got 39.5 pounds of tomatoes. I was again amazed at the produce from the Juliet plant - 2o Pounds!

More on the Grow What You Eat Challenge coming soon!
Sarah