Salad days – the taste test

Well, after much nervousness here, and eager beaver first sightings of ripening colour here, the salad days have finally arrived. My tomatoes have ripened, they're yummy and they've come through the taste test with flying colours! Who would have thunk such things possible?

Blognoscenti, I give you a small but perfectly formed Alaska tomato on the left, and a normal sized and thoroughly handsome Beaver Lodge Slicer on the right. On average, the Alaskas measure 44mm (1.7 inches) in diameter and the Beaver Lodges 68mm (2.7 inches).

On a subjective 10 point scale, with 10 being the best, the Alaska rates a totally delicious 8, which is very tomatoey and will star in many salads in coming weeks. The Beaver Lodge Slicer gets a very good 7 out of 10, which is still very tomatoey and much, much better than anything I can buy in the shops, but not quite as tomato-tangy as the nice little Alaskas.

The texture on both is fine, but again I like the Alaska just that little bit more, 8 for texture. The Beaver Lodge gets 7 for texture, too. It's a tiny bit squishy but not too bad that way, while the Alaska holds itself together nicely for tossing in salads. I sliced up a Beaver Lodge in a lunchtime salad sandwich today and it really made that sanger something special. Maybe I should give it 8 for flavour, too? It was really nice.

So, why not 10 for taste? Well, I like to be a hard marker on tomatoes, just in case I come across something truly awesome one of these days. I have tasted some 9s in my time, but I'm saving up 10 for heaven. If I spent my '10' too soon then I'd have to do a Spinal Tap trick (if you've seen the movie you'll know what I mean) and give my best-ever tomato 11 out of 10.

Is that a blush of red I see?

Well, isn't red an exciting colour! Though I have been keeping an eye on my tomatoes, daily, this morning they still caught me by surprise. My 'Alaska' tomatoes are ripening rapidly, and their relatives across the path, the 'Beaver Lodge Slicers' are starting to colour up, too. And it's happening fast now. Yippee!

These are the two most advanced Alaska fruits, but as the plants are big, sprawling bushes covered in developing fruits, these will hopefully be the first of many.

This is what I mean by big sprawling bush. Most of the greenery in the centre foreground of this shot are two Alaska tomato plants, gone berserk while on holidays Down Under in sunny Sydney. They have swamped my parsley border and even monstered my potted mint, which is quite an achievement, and they're giving my sage bush cause to worry, too. The herbs are not amused!

On the other side of the pathway the 'Beaver Lodge Slicer' tomatoes are smaller and better behaved plants overall (but the fruits are bigger than the Alaskas), and they're just starting to colour up, too. Of course the all-important taste test is a few (several?) days away, but I am just hoping that a few Alaskas will be OK to eat by next Saturday, when we have a bunch of friends coming around for lunch.

Finally, I was given a link (by a US tomato grower by the name of Smope - thank you Smope) to a cool blog entry that photographically shows the progress of a tomato from flower bud to ripe fruit, and then beyond, to rotten fruit. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

I give you, the progress of a tomato fruit, from bud to fruit (and beyond).

Nervous waits

Apart from stinging nettles and Triffids, do any plants make you nervous? Tomatoes make me nervous. I think this is the symptom of being a trauma victim, because last year's tomato crop was a sudden, unexpected, dare-I-say-it 'tragic' disaster, and this year's crop is following the same early, worrying pattern. At the moment everything is looking terrific, just like the same time last year. And that's got me nervous. Let me explain.

Here's a totally healthy young 'Alaska' tomato, photo taken this morning. Small-sized but bigger than a cherry tomato, there are plenty of them forming. This is part of my experiment in growing so-called cool climate tomatoes early in the season, hoping for these fast-growers to crop early before the worst of our summer bugs and diseases arrive.

Raised from seed, this is the seedling on the day I planted it out, October 3.

46 days later and fruit is on the way, but not for another two or so weeks, I'd guess.

Alaska is a 'bush' type tomato, which means it spreads sideways like you wouldn't believe and it doesn't need staking. Seemingly, everything is OK with it. But that's how things were at roughly the same time last year...

This is a shot from last year. Mid-December 2008, Tomato Land in full swing. Low-growing bush-type Romas in the foreground, taller-growing 'Grosse Lisse' in the background. Seemingly, everything OK.

Two weeks later, December 31, 2008, and the dreaded mystery disease has struck, the plants yellowed and wilted rapidly, exposing masses of green fruits that were never going to make it to the ripe, red stage. Every day it got more wilted and hopeless, and so I pulled up the lot. Rats! 'But there's always next year', I told myself, and so I'm back in the tomato-growing business again.

As well as planting the cool climate 'Alaska' I also raised from seed some Canadian 'Beaver Lodge Slicer' toms and planted them out on October 3 as well. (And yep, I am growing them in totally different garden beds to last year's disaster crop.)

Also a bush-type tomato, these have grown even better than the Alaskas, but they are in a slightly better spot in the garden, getting perfect sunshine.

Beaver Lodge Slicer fruit are bigger than Alaska's, about 2.5 inches (7cm) across, and there are plenty of them forming. I've used an organic spray called Success to control caterpillars, which have been seen, but I want to grow these guys organically, so no other sprays, dusts etc will be used. They're on their own.

As I dutifully water them every morning I keep on saying to myself "come on guys, ripen up. Go on, you can do it!" Nothing will hurry them along, I suspect. So I'll have to learn the virtues of patience. It will be a nervous wait, I can assure you.