Break Out of the Tomato Rut

Flower & Garden Magazine, August, 1999 by Andrea Ray Chandler

Gain a new appreciation for this vegetable tomatoes -- are more than just red, round and juicy.

Quick! Describe what a tomato looks like.

"Oh, it's a red ball. I like the big ones you can put on hamburgers."

Fair enough. If you go shopping for tomatoes at the market, or for tomato plants at the discount store, that's what you'll get: red balls. Since most of us know that the sort sold at grocery stores are bred for their shipping ability rather than their flavor, nearly everyone who calls themself a gardener will have at least one tomato plant.

But if you read many seed catalogs or gourmet cookery magazines, perhaps you're beginning to get the idea that there's more out there. Some folks rave about the heirloom tomato, `Brandywine.' Even so, it's only the tip of the iceberg. Tomatoes come in several different categories: bush (determinate) or indeterminate; slicing, paste or cherry; hybrid or open-pollinated; and early, mid- or late-maturing.

Bush (determinate) tomatoes grow to a smaller size and only produce a certain number of fruits before they quit. They're great for the canning industry, which needs a crop that matures all at once so the field can be stripped out and replanted. Indeterminate tomatoes are the kind that keep growing until the frost (or intense southern heat) does them in -- at which point we're feeling kind of overwhelmed anyway.

Slicing, paste and cherry tomatoes are all good for eating. You can use any of them to make sauces. Paste types are less juicy and thicken up quicker in the saucepan. Cherry tomatoes are smaller and great for salads and snacking. Cherry tomato plants also have visions of world domination and are extremely prolific. Tomatoes come in other shapes, too: pear-shaped, deeply lobed, ovoid, pointy at the end and even heart-shaped.

Early tomatoes are sometimes bush types and they usually produce smaller fruits. Late tomatoes are generally the giant slicing types -- the ones that so many gardeners find satisfying to grow.

QUESTIONS, QUESTIONS

Lots of times people ask me, "What's a GOOD tomato?" and my answer has to be "Good for what?"

"I want one that's good for putting up sauces."

Most people select paste tomatoes, which are types bred for less juice and goo. I also like to put paste tomatoes in salads and sandwiches, so they don't ooze all over my lettuce or bread.

"I want one that TASTES good!"

Now here's a sticky wicket! Like different wines, different tomato cultivars have better years than others. They grow better in different areas of the country, and people's reactions to their flavors are also very individual. Generally, most people like a tomato that has both sweet and tangy components to the flavor.

"What about those `low-acid' tomatoes I've heard about?"

It was supposed that some tomato cultivars were lower in acid. People were even concerned it would affect canning procedures. But it turned out "low-acid" tomatoes were really just sweeter tomatoes. They all can up the same.

"Which is the better tomato, hybrid or heirloom?"

This is another debatable point. Hybrid tomatoes didn't appear until the 1940s. Before that, all tomatoes were open-pollinated types; you could save the seeds from plants and keep the same cultivars going for years. "Heirloom" is a broad term that means open-pollinated, a cultivar that's been in the family for generations and/or one that's "from the Old Country."

Hybrid tomatoes are frequently sold by seed companies because they are able to have exclusive production rights to different crossbred combinations, which means exclusive sales. Hybrids often are tested for their tolerance to different diseases. Open pollinated tomatoes often have these tolerances too, but aren't tested because it's expensive and no one has exclusive rights to them. Ninety percent of the research and development done on tomatoes is for commercial production, not the home gardener. Alas, you can't successfully save seed from hybrid tomatoes. Well, you can physically do it, but the plants you'll get next year will have a motley collection of mixed-up genes.

Many people are exploring the world of heirloom (open-pollinated) tomatoes because of their great flavors, their novel appearances or their sense of history and romance. Some people also gain a sense of satisfaction in being able to save their own seeds for next year. Also, with seed saving there's no concern that a catalog will stop selling your favorite type next year.

GET OUT THE CRAYON BOX

One of my favorite tomatoes is a real hard sell when people visit the garden. "Close your eyes and open wide!" They take a juicy bite and grin, "It's a real tomato!" The big, drippy, tangy-sweet slab-o'-mater is perfect for toast and mayo -- bacon slices optional. Then they open their eyes and see I'm holding out a lumpy chartreuse globe. It's bright green -- and that's the ripe color. Actually, `Aunt Ruby's German Green' goes from olive drab to chartreuse with a golden blush on its bottom when ripe. The squirrels and birds don't nibble on them because they don't look ripe. Maybe even tomato-stealing dogs wouldn't eat them. Then again, maybe they would -- dogs have an excellent sense of smell.