Heirloom Tomatoes!!

My heirloom tomato obsession continues. 

Not only do i love growing and eating them. i love to photograph them. i love the different colors and shapes. i love them in a basket, or laid out on the table.  

i have my favorites, but each year i plant a few new varieties as well. i love the Brandywines and Cherokee purple. Violet Jasper is a tasty golfball sized tomato. perfect for salads or munching fresh. A new one for me this year is the Cream Sausage. They are a pale yellow, but very flavorful. They are naturally low in acid and so they are great to each fresh if you have issues with tomato acid. 

i actually took this picture last year for a blog post about heirlooms that i don't think i ever wrote. lol. This would look better if my tomatoes were a bit prettier all that rain in July caused cat-facing, cracking and various rot spots. Still thought it was a neat picture. i believe (according to my garden charts) these are Money Makers, Ferris wheel, Cherokee Purple, Brandywine, Black Krim, Violet Jasper, Early girl, Hillbilly, Blue Beauty, Tigerella, mountain gold and cherry tomatoes...but not necessarily in that order.  Most of these i can identify just by looking at them, but this a couple i'm not sure about.

This is my current variety, although i still have several plants that haven't begun to riped yet. So before the summer is over i may try making a new tomato chart.  Pictured here are Brandywines, Cherokee purple, roma, San Marzano, Hillbilly, Early Girl, Box car Willie, Cream Sausage, Blue Beauty, Tigerella, Violet Jasper, Black Cherry, Yoder's German yellow and Golden Jubilee.  There may be some Black Krim and Black from Tula in there as well, but i'm not really sure.  i'm still waiting on several varieties. Almost all of these can be purchased from Baker Creek Seeds. 

They have a really great variety of heirloom seeds, and they are a good honest company.  A few of the  radish and carrot varieties i purchased ended up not producing true to seed, and i received a gift certificate in the mail to replace them. i hadn't even realized there was a problem with the seeds, just thought it was something i had done. So it was a pretty fun surprise to get a gc half way through the season to buy more seeds. :)  You can sign up for a free catalog (which is absolutely beautiful) on their site. i can not recommend them enough. Great company with a huge selection of non-gmo heirloom seeds.  

Heirloom tomaotes can be very challenging to grow. Unlike hybrids they are very prone to diseases and pests. They take extra care to keep them alive, but i feel like it's worth it.