Confession: My Tomatoes Taste Horrid

[joseph]

I've changed my living circumstances, so that instead of commuting 25 miles to the farm, I only have to go 6.5. However I'm going by bicycle these days, so I don't have to pay for gas, but the trip takes just as long. I'm getting really strong and fit... My arms and chest have always been buff from lifting so many vegetables and irrigation pipe. Now my legs and belly are following suite.

I tasted about 100 tomato fruits today: Bleck, bleck, bleck! However, I found one that I thought tasted good. It came to me in a mixed lot of seed that were said to be about F3 crosses between domestic tomatoes and wild tomatoes. It has green stripes on it when ripe, and the gel sack around the seeds is green.

Wild Cross-5: Indeterminate


I have more to write about tasting tomatoes, but I want to do it some morning while I'm rested and not late at night. More later...

[joseph]

I found another really tasty tomato this summer. It likewise is descended from a cross with a wild tomato species. It also has green gel around the seeds. It is a yellow-fruited indeterminate small cherry tomato. I started fermenting a batch of a couple hundred seeds today.

It failed to meet the selection criteria for the promiscuous pollination project, but it sure passed the taste test, so a special place will be reserved for it in next year's garden.

Is green gel around the seeds something that contributes to better tasting tomatoes? Does Cherokee Purple have green gel around the seeds? Are there some common varieties that do? How do they taste?

Wild Cross-10: Indeterminate

[joseph]

I would like to take this opportunity to formally apologize to my tomatoes for saying that they taste horrid. I am apologizing because a couple weeks ago I picked some tomatoes from my brother's garden and gave them to a friend. I didn't want to bike the 13 mile round trip to the farm just to pick tomatoes, so I begged some from my brother. Then I came home and tasted some of the tomatoes that I had given to my friend. I immediately texted her to apologize for the tomatoes.

It turns out that my brother was growing completely industrialized tomatoes, complete with the cardboard gene, and the bland flavor gene. Even though they were vine ripened, they still lacked flavor, and were very hard... I was horrified at the thought of having my name associated with that kind of a tomato.

I have been conserving a tomato that I call "small paste". It is a saladette sized tomato that is extremely dry, and keeps for so long on the vine that it dehydrates before it rots. I tasted it today... It is also totally industrialized. I suppose that it also has the cardboard and bland taste genes. Meh... I have fantasized so often over the years about growing enough of that variety to make sauce. Based on today's taste test, I expect to abandon the variety. If it was the last tomato on Earth I might grow it, but only to preserve the species, not for eating...

Today I saved landrace tomato seeds: A little bit of everything that is growing in my garden this year... Somewhere around 300 plants contributed seeds to the mix. I tasted every fruit before adding it's seeds to the fermentation vat... Compared to the industrialized tomatoes, my fruits actually taste quite good. I'm growing 61 F2 hybrids this summer. Among them there were a couple of fruits that were truly nasty: One of them tasted bitter. One of them was extremely watery. They were both culled. The rest of the fruits were fairly decent tasting (considering that they are tomatoes).

I still haven't tasted any fruits from the Hillbilly X Jagodka clade. I have high hopes for the flavor of the yellow or bi-color fruits.

So again. My apologies to my tomatoes... They don't taste near as bad as I though they did.

[heirloomtomaguy]

I new you would come around sooner or later. Now you need to sit down your brother and have a serious talk with him about his horrible tomatoes.

[Misfit]

Congrats on all your endeavors Joseph. Especially that of commuting by bicycle.

Most people have forgotten what riding a bike was like, It was my first taste of freedom as a child, and I still enjoy whenever I'm on two wheels.

-Jimmy

[loulac]

I would like to take this opportunity to formally apologize to my tomatoes for saying that they taste horrid

I’m sure your tomatoes will accept your apologies. They certainly didn’t deserve the unfounded opinions you gave to your customers. If they ask questions about your varieties it means they are looking for genuine, natural, traditional products, they need the touch of dream that hybrid XYZ1234 can’t give them. Now when you make your own hybrids you prove you enjoy your work and care about your customers, they will be grateful.

It turns out that my brother was growing completely industrialized tomatoes,

I remember driving across California and meeting huge trucks loaded with tomatoes on their way to a cannery. On you tube one can see the trucks are unloaded with water hoses, which means tomatoes must have a strong skin, taste is secondary. Small farmers / gardeners don’t play in the same division, taste comes first !

[joseph]

So when people ask for heirlooms, what should I tell them? I kinda like the word traditional...

Riding a bike is still like play to me...

[Salsacharley]

When people ask me about heirlooms, I tell them that mine are just like heirlooms except they are too new to be considered heirlooms. I tell them that they are "stable" open pollinated varieties just like heirlooms but they haven't been around long enough to be considered a classic heirloom. I might be fudging on the stable part for some of them, but I acquired the seed and grow them under the assumption that they are stable.

[Worth1]

Originally Posted by joseph

So when people ask for heirlooms, what should I tell them? I kinda like the word traditional...

Riding a bike is still like play to me...

You might consider calling them mongrel, mixed breed or uncontrolled hybrid tomatoes.
Or you may be able to get away with calling them Landrace under certain definitions.
Reason being you are constantly culling out the tomatoes that you dont like or do well where you live.
The Indians in Mexico have been doing it for many years with corn and still do it.

Worth

[Gardeneer]

Originally Posted by Worth1

You might consider calling them mongrel, mixed breed or uncontrolled hybrid tomatoes.

Yeah . Not manipulated by humans, (Cross breeding, GMO )

Gardeneer

[loulac]

I suggest you give a hybrid you like the name of a son, daughter, nephew etc. they will be quite proud to receive such a gift.
If a tomato is perfectly horrid it could have the first name of someone you don't like at all. It reminds me of a French tomato fan who raised two pigs whose names were Strauss and Kahn...

[joseph]

It was a battle of wills in my garden this evening. The wild primate vs the logical scientist... The primate was enamored with the taste and smells of the interspecies tomato fruits. Gobbling down every one that he could find. Delighted with the ummami, and sugars in the fruits. The logical scientist was saying, "Tsk. Tsk. Gotta save those for seeds, since they are so precious." The wild primate throttled the logical scientist, and drove him from the garden. Then gorged on delightful, fruity, sweet ambrosia.

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I'm currently growing F2 and F3 interspecies tomato hybrids in my garden. Solanum pennelli, Solanum habrochaites, and domestic tomatoes are the parents. The flavor profile is all over the place. There are fruits that taste like grapes, plums, ferments, ground cherries, etc. A super wide range of flavor profiles and odors. I am thrilled that very few of them tasted like domestic tomatoes. I never thought when I started down the path to beautifully promiscuous tomatoes, that I would end up with a population of fruity, great-tasting tomatoes!!!

[NarnianGarden]

Awesome that they crossed so well and produced some tasty fruits! Do you ever intent to share those interspecies seeds here at TV?

[Nan_PA_6b]

Originally Posted by joseph

It was a battle of wills in my garden this evening. The wild primate vs the logical scientist... The primate was enamored with the taste and smells of the interspecies tomato fruits. Gobbling down every one that he could find. Delighted with the ummami, and sugars in the fruits. The logical scientist was saying, "Tsk. Tsk. Gotta save those for seeds, since they are so precious." The wild primate throttled the logical scientist, and drove him from the garden. Then gorged on delightful, fruity, sweet ambrosia.
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I'm currently growing F2 and F3 interspecies tomato hybrids in my garden. Solanum pennelli, Solanum habrochaites, and domestic tomatoes are the parents. The flavor profile is all over the place. There are fruits that taste like grapes, plums, ferments, ground cherries, etc. A super wide range of flavor profiles and odors. I am thrilled that very few of them tasted like domestic tomatoes. I never thought when I started down the path to beautifully promiscuous tomatoes, that I would end up with a population of fruity, great-tasting tomatoes!!! October 10, 2015 03:59 PM

Congratulations, Joseph! Considering the title of this thread, you've come a long way.



You know all of us perk up when we hear the words "fruity, great tasting tomatoes."



Nan

[joseph]

Originally Posted by Nan_PA_6b

You know all of us perk up when we hear the words "fruity, great tasting tomatoes."

One of the tomatoes got described as "Refreshing". Who ever called a tomato refreshing before? Like nobody, never!