New Heirlooms

Thanks to everyone who voted in our 2011 heirloom tomato poll, and double thanks to Alexander who voted twice. Six new heirlooms have been decided on for planting in our fields this May, giving us  a total of about three dozen tomato varieties. If you discover a tomato cultivar you would like us to grow next year, let me know, and I'll add it to next years poll. 

Here are the winners:

Andrew Rahart's Jumbo Red: This will be the first "regular" red heirloom tomato we've grown. I keep coming across more and more growers who love this tomato not just because of its flavour, but also for the quality of the fruit and health of the plant.

Blondkopfchen: This is a yellow cherry. We've grown lots of yellow cherries before, and like most yellow tomatoes, they are mild flavoured. This one is supposed to be the best tasting yellow cherry, we'll see! Anyone speak German? Tomato websites say it means "little blond girl", but Google translates it as "blond brains!"

German Red Strawberry: We grew an orange strawberry last year, so this is a welcome addition to the strawberry, or heart shaped tomatoes.

Indian Stripe: This one wasn't on my top six list, and come to think of it, I don't think I voted, oh well. It's described as being similar to Cherokee Purple (one of our favourites) but with occasional stripes.

Stupice: One of the best tasting red tomatoes. This small tomato is the earliest tomato to ripen, maybe we'll taste these in mid July! Stupice is from the Czech Republic and is pronounced "Stoo-peach-ka"

Speckled Roman: This is a red plum with orange stripes that looks great in photos, and supposedly tastes great also. Can't wait to see it!

The photo is of our three colours of plum tomatoes, about to go into the oven. In our poll, I was hoping that "Black Plum" would get enough votes, it would look so good next to the red, yellow, and orange plums. Better luck next year.

How to dry an apple gourd

This is perhaps an odd time of year to write about gourds, but bear with me, you'll see why. We grow too many gourds, but what's not to like about all the crazy shapes and sizes, multitude of colours, and textures? Most gourds are simply used to decorate your homes for the autumn harvest celebration, and probably get thrown in the compost when it is time to put up the Christmas decorations. Some of those gourds will have started to pass to the other shore, I know I've found my share with a puddle underneath where they are sitting, these are the ones you're sometimes afraid to lift up!

"Apple Gourds"  have a much longer life span.  They start off looking like a big apple, with their mottled dark green and light green skin, they even have a cute little stem on top. We've had one decorating our kitchen counter for three months now, and until recently it looked great, and its colour even matched our Christmas decorations.

As you can see from the photo, it is now time to banish it elsewhere. It is covered in white mold, which will soon turn black. If you saw any other vegetable covered with this mold, you would throw it out. With apple gourds (or any other of the "bottle" gourds), I'm don't have to do that. I don't want all those spores in my house, so I could wash it, but the mold would come back quickly.

I'm going to let that gourd dry out all by itself, covered in mold, in my garage. I'll post an update in a few months.