Cherokee Purple - one in GH and two outside. GH one produced well and is still going though almost dead. Two outside did nothing. Great taste

Black Krim - one outside and put in late produced about 20 good size fruit with a taste about the same as CP. Will be planting many different blacks this spring.

Zogola - one in GH produced well but late and loved the taste, potential for bigguns.

Akers West Virginia - one in GH produced great tasting toms and still is. A winner.

Keloggs Breakfast - two outside produced outstanding tasting beefstake toms for a yellow. Winner with all the women in my life so will have to plant again :-)

Neighbours Polish - one outside in large pot produced pretty well and were meaty and tasted great. Prone to concentric cracking but.

Big Zac - one in GH and one outside in big pot. GH plant produced maybe 10 fruit with the first being nearly but not a pound. One in pot produced about the same but smaller. They tasted pretty damn good for a hybrid and I will try one again.

Thats it for the ones grown this year that will be going in again in the spring. With prehaps a Principe Borghese as the token cherry.

Ones that rate a mention:

Persimon - prolific and pretty and quite tasty but not up to KB standards
Aussie - Still producing on new growth and quite tasty
Amish Paste - did not like the GH me thinks as the toms never got to any size

The ones that will not be:

Early Wonder - yuck, chook food.
Burkes Backyard - see above
Stupice - tart and not to my liking
Gardeners Delight, Tommy Toe, Tiny tim, Snow white, Resentraube - good and bad ones here but most went to the chooks and given away as we dont use them.
Brandy Boy - tasted Ok but nothing special
Big Boy - so so
Jumbo - could bowl three overs with these babies before you scratched the skin
Hawaiian Tropic - see above
Tuscany - ditto

Mantis *off to get some deep heat to rub into typing hands, yes before any wise cracks, I do use two hands :-)*

Mama Mia, supposedly a hybrid but have saved seed for several generations with no change. Beautiful BIG pink sauce tomatoes with no juice and very few seeds. Skin is so thin it disappears when cooking... They did well in the GH, but stopped setting fruit after they were carrying 12 kilos or so. Second crop coming on now.

Legend, an early determinate with big meaty fruit. Nice flavour and very early, as they are parthenogenetic.

Ones I won't try again:

Oregon spring, small yield of so-so tasting smallish tomatoes.

Reggae: supposedly a Roma hybrid and being sold for paste. Good yield and the healthiest plant in the greenhouse with falling light levels, still ripening lots of smallish fruit. The taste is ok, but they are too juicy for sauce and too tough-skinned for eting raw. Bad Blossom end rot.

Golden Jubilee, I like this tomato best of all, but keep getting only one or two fruit per plant. Supposedly a tall plant, mine struggle to reach 1 meter, and look unhealthy very early on. Shocking BER problems. I think I might have dud seed as other people have done well with this one.

Undecided: Tommy toe. I like the flavour, they dry well and the yield is good, but I tend not to eat a lot of cherry types. Too big for a single bite and too small to serve sliced. However they make a good grafting rootstock.

Any thoughts on chillies, I like hot but tasty.

Cheers,
Manuel.

1.Box Car Willie: Not true to form but a glorious ribbed red.
2. Cherokee Purple: Good flavour but few fruit.
3. Coustralee: A great red but erratic production.
4. Camp Joy: Good red cherry, nothing dynamic.
5. Dr Carolyn: Excellent hyper yellow cherry.
6. Ethel Watkins Best: Prolific mainsteam pink.
7. Eva Purple Ball: Wrong, ugly pink, tart nothing.
8. Green Grape: Oodles of green asparagus balls.
9. Gregori’s Altai: A terrific early large pink.
10. Novichok: An early, butno good.
11. Pearly Pink Cherry: Early flavourless cherry.
12. Pruden’s Purple: Not a fruit.
13. Paul Robeson: A few fruits and delicious.
14. Silvery Fir Tree: Tart and so-so.
15. Volgorad: Early and not for my climate.
16. Whippersnapper: Early cherry and not coming back. Bland.
17. Stupice: Not a bad early.
18. Soldacki: Superb, prolific, large fruit prone to cracking. Pick it early or b4 rain.
19. Giordane: Prolific but blan.
20. Finbar’s Unidentified Orange Cherry: Funky later in the season. Like an orange.
21. A Cherokee Chocolate overwintered clone: Died on my but I like this one.
22. Three Patios: Not bad for a hybrid in a pot.
23. A RL seedling that came up in the tray months after a failed sow. One of 10 possibilities. Should be fun. Ended up being a Sun-something hybrid hard as a rock and ordinary tasting.
And a volunteer Green Zebra or Tommy Toe: RIP

To which you can now add 10 more seedlings sent to my by Dear Patrina. The flew interstate overnight and look good. They include:
24. Golden Oxheart (Craig) ’93: Not a lot of flavour.
25: Heatherington Pink (Bruce B: Great early on but died soon after. A highly-strung mater.
26. Large Dark Purple 93 (Craig): Great tasting, sporadic productivity.
27. Sochulak ’94 (Craig): Nice, unusual, different. Nothing outstanding.
28. Yellow Paragon ’93 (Craig):RIP.
29. Indian Moon (Aunty Carolyn): Very plain and hollow.
30. German Queen: Excellent tasting tomato and would grow again. Not that productive, thou’.
Dr C:
31. Airyleaf (Aunty Carolyn): Died.
32. Paragon (Aunty Carolyn): Nice prolific red with a strange taste kind of chemical-like.
33. Big Yellow ’95 (Craig): A real beauty but so few fruits. Not enough to warrant a resow.
34. Dwarf Green Grape: see Green Grape.
35. Regina Yellow: Terrific fruit salad tomato w/ zip acid and an almost mango taste. Fruit fly loved it too!
36. Erika d’Australia: Great big reds but very late and not enough fruits to warrant a regrow.
37. Burwood Prize: A beaut little ball. Will grow again, for sure.
38. Nepal: A beaut prolific red with sharp taste of medium size. Will grow again, I think.
39. Marianna’s Peace: Ripper.
40. Dr Neal: Ripper.
41: Sudduth: The very best taste.

All for now.

Ciao, Grub.

Cheers
Mantis

Re cherries: everyone will have their favourites. The best I've come across is Camp Joy. Grub refers to it in his post. I probably like it more than he does. It's also known as Chadwick's Cherry. Grows in clusters of 6 to 8, nice tomato taste, extremely prolific, and a very vigorous plant. It will take over the garden. This year I also grew Sungold F1, a hybrid gold/orange cherry. It's very popular in the States, but, to my taste, verges on too sweet.

My thoughts on this season:

1. SOLDACKI - Pink beefsteak. Wonderful tomato, rich taste, meaty texture, produces well. And the most handsome plant in the garden - very tall, very elegant PL. Very highly recommended.

2. ANNA RUSSIAN - Pink heart. I always grow it. Juicy, nice complex flavour, slightly sweet. There are probably richer tasting tomatoes around, but it just about qualifies as an early because, for me, it produces ripe fruit around 65 days from planting out. And it's prolific for a heart.

3. SUNGOLD F1 - Prolific, but I found them a bit too sweet.

4. SAINTE LUCIE - Large red beefsteak. Late variety, quite prolific, lovely rich flavour, on the sweet side. I wouldn't grow it every year.

5. CAMP JOY - See above.

6. CHEROKEE PURPLE - Always a terrific tomato. My production was low this year.

7. BRANDYWINE OTV - Red beefsteak. Delicious. Earlier, more complex taste and more productive than, say, Sainte Lucie. Highly recommended.

8. GIORDANE - Medium round red. Prolific, pleasant taste. Wouldn't grow it again in a hurry.

9. JAUNE NEGIB - The surprise for me this season. Like Anna Russian, it falls into my early-ish category. And, frankly, my early-ish category knocks any of the true earlies - Stupice, etc - into the rubbish bin. I'd much rather wait 10 to 15 days for a tomato real taste. This one produces ripe fruit around 65 days. Oblate yellow, pleasant mild taste with a deliciously creamy aftertaste. HIghly recommended for an early-ish variety.

10. LARGE DARK PURPLE - Nice tomato, but nothing really to set it apart from a lot of other pink beefsteaks.

11. EVA'S PURPLE BALL - Another nice tomato. I wouldn't grow it every year.

12. AIRYLEAF - Nondescript for me. Wouldn't grow it again.

13. MARIANNA'S PEACE - Classic pink beefsteak. Absolutely delicious. Very highly recommended.

14. CHEROKEE CHOCOLATE - Great tomato. Like its sister, it wasn't productive for me this season, but something I'd grow every year.

15. DOCTOR NEAL - A well-kept secret. Delicious tomato. Highly recommended.

16. BELGIAN BEAUTY - Falls into the Large Dark Purple for me.

17. GOLDEN QUEEN - The USDA strain, from Carolyn. Deep golden colour with a pink blush at the blossom end and mild scalloping around the shoulders. Delicious rich flavour. Very highly recommended.

18. JAUNE FLAMMÉE - Great tomato, a real flavour kick. Very highly recommended.

And this coming season? I'll be fitting as many containers into my Italian front courtyard as I can!

Cheers
Mantis

Good:
Principe Borghese. Lovely not too small oval shaped fruit, great for drying (we did ours in the oven mostly semi-dried and you only have to halve them). Freezes well semi-dried and extremely good in oil with garlic & herbs. Had a lot of these straight off the vine on toast - fiddly but very nice. Will put these in again. Yield so far approx 4kg/plant but they aren't finished yet.

Tommy Toe - since PBs will fulfill the cherry needs even though the yield is higher in the TTs (approx 5kg/plant and still coming) I won't plant any next year. Taste is also v nice but I couldn't tell the difference between the two raw, so I'll stick to the PBs which I felt dried better. PBs flavour was more concentrated on drying than the TTs.

Bad:

Amish Paste. Sandy texture and bland when raw. OK when cooked but didn't produce anywhere near the quantity to make them a worthwhile paste yield is 2kg/plant and they're pretty much finished now. V disappointed in this one, perhaps not suited to our climate... shape and size varied considerably, they are far more attractive to grub (nothing on the other two, heaps on the APs) however they skin easily for cooking.

Looking for a good paste variety for next year and am trying to convince my partner to do a few more varieties. I like the sound of the Kellogs Breakfast... I really want to big slicing tom next year.

I know grape, apple etc. varieties differ greatly according to these considerations.

Herman's Yellow - 5
Kellog's Breakfast - 5
Marianna's Peace - 5
Debarao - 5
Black Cherry - 5
Earl's Faux (Brandywine) - 5
Brandywine Sudduth - 4.75
Purple Calabash - 4.5
Yellow Perfection - 4.25
Big Yellow - 4.25
Black Early - 4
Soldacki - 4
Polish - 4
Jaune Flamme - 4
Kotlas - 4
Pink Ponderosa - 4
Cherokee Chocolate - 4

Rating according to production: (in grams)

Black Early 9955
Herman's Yellow 7483
Red Cloud (2 plants) 6136
Soldacki 5583
Polish 5523
Heatherington Pink 5510
Kellog's Breakfast 5236
Lemon Boy 4968
Marianna's Peace 4672
Broad Ripple Yellow Currant 4385
Rouge de Marmande 4349
Aunt Gertie's Gold 4168
Grosse Lisse 4126
Geswein's Purple Bonny Best 3962
Jaune Flamme 3919
Paul Robeson 3917
German Queen 3843
Kotlas 3337

The bottom 3 of the taste sheet, with 0 points and the comment, 'Yuk':

Heatherington Pink
Pearly Pink Cherry
Paragon

Some of the big producers will not come back next season. They were at the bottom of the taste sheet.

Some of the lousiest producers, such as Brandywine Sudduth (2 tomatoes) will get another go.

This summer was a strange one, so it may not be fair to skip some of the tomatoes next season. They may get another chance in a year or two.

What follows is a summation of the 2005 tomato-growing season in my suburban Sydney backyard in the coastal suburb of Manly.

I have now sampled all the tomato varieties listed below and subsequently saved seeds from most of them, except Yellow Paragon and Airyleaf, which didn’t make it, and Prudens Purple, which is a miser.

Also an overwintered Cherokee Chocolate was trampled to death, but I can report from my experience with this tomato in 03 that it is a delicious and productive mahogany fruit. I think the Cherokee Purple from Eden Seeds isn’t in the same league, but more on this later.

The Weather
While it was a mighty humid summer, it was an excellent one in my patch. I had better fruit-set than last year and, though we had traditional November rains, nothing suffered from blandness or mushiness.

In fact, I watered my tomatoes three times only throughout summer. How is that possible? I use newspaper or a very thick layer of sugarcane mulch and my soil is very moisture retentive but friable thanks to homemade compost and manures. The tomatoes in pots were watered more often, of course.

I did learn the hard way, however, about the problems that come from leaving fruits on the vine during heavy rains far outway the flavour enhancements from total vine ripening. I lost a lot of fruit that were showing colour after heavy rains. The subsequent cracking invited disease and bugs inside. Next time heavy rains are forecast I’m doing the rounds and bringing in anything and everything with even the barest hint of colour.

Pests & Diseases
Tomato growing in coastal Sydney can be challenging with regard to foliage diseases, namely Early Blight (EB), which starts with yellowing leaves that show small lesions and quickly spreads along the plant until it is defoliated and unable to photosynthesize.

I used Daconil, a chemical with a one-day withholding period, and routinely sprayed the foliage each week. Okay, I got slack in late summer but by then humidity that encourages EB had retreated. To the Daconil I often mixed Pyrethrum concentrate, a natural insecticide.

My spraying routine prevented my tomato plants from dying, helped control whitefly and protected the fruit to some degree from fruit fly and grubs. In fact, grubs were not even a problem this year. The residual pyrethrum on the fruit and leaves saw to that.

However, fruit fly has emerged as a real concern. I lost as many as 20 large fruits (8-10kg of tomatoes) to blown fruit and I have observed the striped fruit fly at work. A black dot on the skin would generally indicate maggots feasting inside. Sometimes I would get half a fruit but it wasn’t quite the same tucking into those slices. The fruit fly seemed to get very smart and avoid the Pyrethrum residue by stinging under the green inedible collar attached to the stem (don’t have the name for this part of the fruit).

Birds were a problem early on and late in the season. I observed a young Magpie, those dreaded Mynahs an most recently a black crow eating my tomatoes. It was terrible disappointing to lose a large Marianna’s Peace with just a few days to go. Other times the fruit were barely showing colour. One Erika d’Australie fruit I have on a vine right now has been pecked yet it’s hard and green. Out with the netting.

Production
This was my most productive season by far with oodles more tomatoes compared with my first season. What do I put that down to? Several things.

I had a few trees removed to allow more light to come through; I enriched the beds with potash (potassium sulphate); I got the nitrogen levels as low as possible, ie, no feeding other than twice with soluble tomato fertiliser. Flowers were really plentiful.

Staking
This was a pain, time consuming, but I think it’s the only affordable way to grow a heap of tomatoes in a small backyard. Think vertically. Old stockings are still the choice tying material but harder to come by now.

Taste
There were some absolute beauties in this lot. However, I had an inordinate number of wrong varieties. For example, I grew four Box Car Willies, however none was true to the true description. Yet, the loads of big reds that came from some of these plants were outstanding to eat with a taste that reflected freshly crushed tomato stems. In other words, a real tomato taste. The pinks tended to be sweeter, the yellows somewhat mild and the greens were great with a funky deep taste.

1. Box Car Willie (Heirloom Tomatoes): A huge, tough plant baring prodigious amounts of large ribbed red fruit weighing up to 800 grams with great taste. Not true to form, but I have saved seeds.

2. Cherokee Purple (Eden Seeds): Strong plant yielding good amounts of fruit that were much paler on the shoulders than I expected. Very good eating. Typical black taste. Sweetish and almost fermented. Saved Seeds

3. Cuostralee: (Heirloom Tomatoes): A huge plant with good numbers of red ribbed fruit of variable size from 400 grams to half that. Taste was very good and tomatoey. Saved Seeds.

4. Camp Joy (Dr Carolyn): A nice largish red round cherry, productive with a good tomatoey flavour, better than Tommy Toe. Hammered by EB in the end.

5. Dr Carolyn (Heirloom Tomatoes): One of the best cherries I’ve grown. Heaps of yellow/whitish balls of joy, though flavour diminished as the season progressed. Simultaneously tangy and sweet. Sturdy plant in the facer of EB.

6. Ethel Watkins Best (Heirloom Tomatoes): What was supposed to be a very good greenhouse tomato turned into an odd, bitter, pink medium things.

7. Eva Purple Ball (Heirloom Tomatoes): What was supposed to be perfect balls of niceness turned into the same odd, bitter, pink medium things.

8. Green Grape (Heirloom Tomato and Patrina): Productive bushy indeterminate with loads of nice grassy, spicy grapes reminiscent of asparagus. I have decided I prefer my Greens large.

9. Gregori’s Altai (Earl): Wonderfully sturdy and productive plant produces loads of big pink animals of excellent zippy taste. Would grow a few again.

10. Novichok (Rosco): Didn’t produce early as hoped as was an ordinary tasting tart number.

11. Pearly Pink Cherry (Patrina): Bland pink grape-shaped cherry. Unremarkable.

12. Prudens Purple (Heirloom Tomatoes): Second attempt and in a bad spot but I just can’t get this PL plant to fruit.

13. Paul Robeson: (Tony in Orlando): Got a few from a plant in a pot and they had a terrific smoky flavour. Really like this one amid the barrage of reds and pinks. Will grow again.

14. Silvery Fir Tree (Patrina): Cute plant, early and productive but too one dimensional and just plain tart.

15. Volgorad (Rosco): See Novichok.

16. Whippersnapper (Patrina): Every early pink cherry with little flavour.

17. Stupice (Finbar): Very early reliable red with basic tartish tomato flavour. I think we can do alot better in Sydney than this early

18. Soldacki (Carolyn): Tremendous plant, one of my favourites from the year, with a rangy habit and sparse foliage and heaps of terrific pink heart-shaped tomatoes to 500g with wonderful balanced flavour. Only downside is reputation for cracking. Will grow again.

19. Giordane (Carolyn): Prolific created-variety producing pink fruits with so-so taste. Just too bland for me.

20. Finbar’s Unidentified Orange Cherry: Fruity number with odd shapes from cherries and hearts to beefsteaks. Flavour was a bit sickly fruity sweet.

21. Cherokee Chocolate overwintered clone: RIP but a wonderful tomato in 2003.

22. Three Patios (Tony): Produced plenty of red average tomatoes after 18 months. Prolific but none too exotic.

23. An RL seedling that came up in the tray months after a failed sowing: One of 10 possibilities turned out to be a heat-resistant hybrid like a Sunleaper or Sunburner or some such similar. Hard as a rock and reminiscent of supermarket number.

24. Golden Oxheart (Craig’93): Interesting but average-tasting and hollow for some reason. Flavour wasn’t too bad though. RL.

25. Heatherington Pink (Bruce B.): I though this one, despite its green shoulders, had a really nice taste. A typically nice pink that was prolific up front before closing up shop halfway through the season. RL from memory. Would grow again.

26. Large Dark Purple (Craig 93): Another very good pink or purple that produced over a longer time than other pinks and which had really nice tasting tomatoes from a PL plant (from memory). Would grow again.

27. Sochulak (Craig ‘94): Really nice motley light-red medium-sized fruit of good taste but average production. Better than some oldies.

28. Yellow Paragon (Craig 93): RIP

29. Indian Moon (Carolyn): Yellow than kept pumping them out but flavour was unremarkable.

30. German Queen (Carolyn): One of the nicest pink/purples I grew similar to LDP and HP. Very variable fruit size, though. Would grow again.

31. Airyleaf (Carolyn): RIP.

32. Paragon (Aunty Carolyn): I liked this one, a medium red with nice flavour, though hints of kerosene like a mature riesling. The mild scalloping on the shoulders seemed to suggest it was different to real smooth original. Quite prolific. Probably won’t come back.

33. Big Yellow ’95 (Craig ‘95): Was it ever a big yellow. Produced a handful of whopper fruits with good flavour. Production is too low. Very photogenic fruits, though.

34. Dr Neal (Finbar): Not sure if it was the proximity of treated-pine bearers or not but produced small pink beefsteaks of EXCEPTIONAL flavour. Will be trying it again from my saved seeds. That is, if I don’t die from the treatment in the pine bearer.

35. Nepal (Jennifer): A really good productive red that was just like your typical excellent tomato. Coming from the acid spectrum of flavours, but none too tomatoey. RL. Would grow again.

36. Regina’s Yellow (Carolyn): This was my first bicolour and what a beauty. Pretty low-to-moderate production of huge fruits that tasted like fruit salad to me. Juicy and very different. A dessert tomato, perhaps? Big rangy PL.

37. Burwood’s Prize (Patrina): Heaps of red golf balls with a very nice tomato taste. Just a rewarding RL indeterminate that I think is well adjusted to Australian conditions and EB. Will grow again.

38. Marianna’s Peace (Peter The Greek): Ribbed and more productive than Sudduth and just a fabulous-tasting tomato. If only I could have kept the birds away. Just didn’t get that many. PL. Will grow again FOR SURE.

39. Brandywine Sudduth (Finbar): Overwintered number than didn’t produce in the first year but which produced a good dozen or so pink fruits mainly in the 1lb size. A fabulous-tasting tomato. Balanced sweet flavour. PL Vine prone to EB. MUST GROW AGAIN.

40. Erika d’Australie (Carolyn): Big very late-season ribbed red with very good tomato flavour on strong RL vine. Had a prime spot and was a bit of a miser and slow. Fruit fly got to it. Would like to find others with this top flavour.

ENDS

I'm introducing the locals to Marianna's Peace, Anna Russian, Kellogg's Breakfast and Pink Gaetano this year. I only started that many because I knew I didn't have the growing space. Then, along came the nice English lady with the 5-acre olive farm who offered me as much growing space as I wanted. Getting a bit late to start any more later varieties, unfortunately, but I might start some more mid-seasons ASAP.

In exchange for some wonderful, gorgeous Italian food. :)

Grub, great list, thanks for the report.

Big Yellow (plant from Patrina) was very small. Nothing big about it. Cute shape. Taste? Can't remember. Must have a look in my notes later.

Garden Centres, or Nurseries, as we know them, are rare things here. I've been to several in the local area and they seem to specialise more in trees. I wasn't able to find anything remotely resembling seed raising mix. I had to make do with a version of potting mix to start my seeds. I had 100% germination with the potting mix which was a relief. Unless I find somewhere that sells tomato stakes, I think I'll have to fashion my own.

Dr Neal tasted as almost as intense as Marianna’s Peace for me, only the fruits were small and quite gnarled in the end. I think it might have been the soil or that treated pine border nearby. I got the plant from you. I’m keen to add OTV Brandywine to my grow list this season. I have seeds from Mantis for this one. Will be trying Red Brandywine from Mark (Korney) and the tasty wrong red Box Car Willie I saved seeds from.

Hi Spatz,
My Big Yellow from PP (where is she now?) was a huge plant with at least two tomatoes that weighed over 1lb — there just weren’t that many of them. And I liked their flavour, though it was typically yellow. I need to do some work on narrowing down the yellows but your Broad Ripple Yellow is getting a run, along with Jaune Negib and Hughs.

BTW: There are plenny typos in the above tomato report; as usual I just got lazy.

1. Cherokee Purple
Not having grown anything other than red tomatoes I was very impressed with the colour and flavour of CP. I really think the descriptions of its taste as smoky are a cross-modal interaction effect (put red food colour in white wine and all but the most experienced oenophiles will describe it with red wine characteristics) due to its colour. Lovely texture in your mouth. Good productivity but had problems with cracking around the stem and concentric cracking (possibly due to the occasional big downpours we had last summer). Definitely try again.

2. Black Krim
Flavour seemed a bit weaker than Cherokee Purple but still good. Slightly more productive than CP, and overall the toms were larger in size. Probably wont try again. Had similar problems with cracking.

3. Stupice
Marginally earlier but nothing to write home about. Much smaller than I had imagined, only slightly bigger than cherry size. Used mainly in sandwiches where the tartness was probably lost in other flavours. Not particularly productive, particularly for the size of the Toms. May give one more try.

4. Tommy Toe
I've grown it a few times and am always suprised by the hardiness and longevity of the plants. Maybe not the best flavour, but certainly still producing in late april when few others cope. I usually grow one plant just to have cherries for salads late in autumn.

5. Rouge de Marmande
When we first moved in I bought these from a nearby nursery to get plants in the ground while my seedlings (grown from Eden Seeds) caught up. Quite productive, very prone to cracking, quite pithy inside. Probably wont bother again.

Thinking of trying a different early tom this year, and maybe a green tomato to see if I can trick the birds.

Cheers

Art, I'll be growing a green tomato for the first time this season, too. Can't wait. Have you decided on which one it's going to be?

Would anyone have a few spare seeds for Aunt Gertie's Gold? I have heard so many wonderful things about it and I would like to put her in my aunties garden. Last season's plant (from Patrina) was a cross. So now I'd like to try the 'real' auntie.

Art,
If you would like any seeds just mail me. Plenty on offer. FOC.

cheers all, mudlark

125g cannelini or borlotti beans (cooked, with cooking water reserved)
Large bunch of Italian parsley, chopped
4 garlic cloves, peeled and chopped
1 head of celery, chopped
250g carrots, peeled and chopped
2 med red onions, peeled and chopped
3 tbsps good olive oil
400g tinned peeled plum tomatoes, drained
1 kg cavalo nero, stalks removed, leaves coarsely chopped*
Load of stale ciabatta bread, crusts removed, sliced and torn up
Salt and pepper
EVOO

*Cavalo Nero is the traditional ingredient and I saw it appearing in our supermarket before we left. It's heartier and a bit more pungent than, say, silver beet. But if you can't get CN, silver beet will do.

Sweat the parsley, garlic, celery, carrot and onion in the oil until soft and the flavours have combined. About 20 minutes.

Add the tomatoes and continue to cook on a gentle heat for another 20 minutes. Add the Cavolo Nero and half the beans with enough of their cooking water to cover them. Simmer for half an hour.

Puree the other half of the beans in a food processor, add the puree to the soup with just enough boiling water to make the soup liquid. Add the bread, a generous slurp of EVOO, and salt and pepper. The end result should be thick but not solid. There should be just enough liquid for it to be called a soup.

Reheat the next day (preferably not earlier, hence the soup's name) and pig out.

Finbar,
That seems perfectly healthy. I’ve got a few Tuscan cook books here, the usual ones, but I’m going to try your recipe first. Seems nice and wholesome. Apparently, we all need to eat more pulses and I got inspired by all these sacks of wonderful dried beans I tripped over at a nearby deli. Beans of all shapes and sizes and colours crying out to be soaked, slow-cooked and scoffed. Waiting till the second night will be torture. But thanks. And best wishes to Mrs Finbar, whose probably hiding behind an easel somewhere, and the dog-gone mutts.

:grub, almost ready to perform a tomato-seed stocktake.

Spatz, I've only considered what Eden are offering, which seems to be down to two choices: Green Zebra or Aunt Rubys Green. I've read good reports about both, although I remember that the Diggers club used to promote Green Zebra as being very productive, so may try this year with it and next year with Aunt Rubys Green. Anyone else got a suggestion for a green tomato?

I've only got room for about 12 toms so I need to keep my choices limited. I also like to have 2 plants of each, just to give me a reasoable perspective on each variety.

Cheers

I must admit I haven't even thought about it yet. Must do so soon, as I'd like to get the seeds in at the beginning of August or so.

Grub, thanks for the offer, but I'll have to make my list first, to see whether I can squeeze in another plant. I have had visions of cutting down the number of plants this year. Maybe.

Art, Green Zebra is nice, but not everybody likes it. It can be slightly tart if picked too early. Even when eaten fully ripe it still has a little bit of a zing. :)

I was just looking at Finbars recipe above and noticed the cavalo nero reference, now I have been looking for seeds of this for a while and was talking to the woman at the market who grows heritage seedlings and she informed me that cavalo nero is more often sold as lacinato kale, which I have had seed to all along! Can anyone confirm this for me? I did an internet search, from this I learnt that Cavalo Nero is most definately a type of kale but I'm still not sure if it is actually Lacinato.

cheers, mudlark

cheers, mudlark

Mudlark, you can have as many tomato seeds as you like. Cherries, big ones, medium sized ones, yellow, orange, black, yellow, striped....

And if need be, you can set up a patch of tomatoes and veggies at my place. Just in case your mum is a lot craftier than you think. You'll 'only' have to ensure you have your own supply of water.

It'll be interesting to see everybody's tomato list for the coming season.

I won't start my seeds as early as last year. I'll be a bit more patient and wait a few more weeks. :)

If the cuttings in the greenhouse survive the winter, I should be laughing! What a headstart that would be. Yes!

I've actually got about 5 green tomatoes on my Anna Russian plant in the greenhouse. Maybe one day they'll ripen? If the mice don't get at them first.

It's cold and yuk out there. But who cares, spring will come one day again and the mad rush to get seeds and plants into the ground in good time will be here soon enough. :)