Variety Show - Black Cherry and Tasty Evergreen

This week's variety feature is for two tomatoes.  One is a cherry tomato we introduced to the farm in 2014.  

Black Cherry

We only grew a couple of Black Cherry plants in 2014 as an experiment.  And, for the most part, only people who worked on the farm or visited for a festival had a chance to try this fruit.  Our 2014 Summer Festival and Tomato Tasting Event actually included some of these beauties for tasting.  The result?  Everyone wants us to grow them.

So, in 2015, we will grow more of the plants in our fields and we will start more of these plants for sale in the Spring.  Look for them and give them a try.  People of all ages agreed that they would eat ALOT of these if given the chance.

And - the other tomato that did extremely well in the tomato tasting in 2014 was.....

Tasty Evergreen

Production	Reliability	Resists Cracking	Disease resistance	Taste
Days to Maturity 80	Fruit Per Plant 7.6	Typical Harvest Period Aug/ Sept	Size of Fruit .73 pounds

These tend towards a brownish, yellow/green when ripe and maintain a green gel in the interior with white/green flesh. The taste is quite good, giving a refreshing zing to a summer sandwich, especially if you like mayonnaise. The taste helps one to think cool thoughts on a hot day. On the down side, they tended to have deeper cracks on the shoulders that led to rot problems at ripening. Fruit size is highly variable and the shape is rarely perfectly round. The taste treat is enough to grow a few of these on the farm. We find that picking them before they get too ripe gives us a better shot at harvest. Unfortunately, they do not ship well and are difficult to deliver.

The picture above is from the very dry 2012 season. Like many tomatoes, they liked this weather better than some of the wetter, cooler ones we have experienced on the farm. We are getting better at growing these, but we are still not convinced that we should grow much more than five or six plants. They are still finicky and we get discouraged by the number of fruit that start to show rot spots up by the stems in some of the creases. We get the feeling that they like being picked in warmer weather, so we're wondering if an earlier start might actually result in more marketable fruit. As it is, these are enough of a taste treat that we'll offer fruit that have some blemishes just so people can have the option of taking them home and enjoying them. Results with Tasty Evergreen are far better than those we get from Aunt Ruby's German Green, but that's our farm. We encourage you to try both head to head to choose. Taste for this tomato is, in our opinion, tangier and much more interesting than Aunt Ruby's.

We've tried this tomato in the high tunnel with no more success than the field.  We've tried it without mulch, with mulch and with different trellising methods.  One thing is certain - no mulch and no trellis is a very bad idea.  Otherwise, we have yet to find the perfect situation.  We suspect it may need more babying than we can give individual plants on our farm.  But, it still doesn't matter.  We look forward to this taste too much to completely remove it from production.