Heirloom Tomatoes
As you may know… I am a tomato fanatic. Heirloom Tomatoes, Kumato Tomatoes… I love them all!
One thing I miss about my garden are the home grown tomatoes that we would pick on the spot and eat while standing in the garden. While we can grow tomatoes here in Las Vegas, I have yet to try to my hand at it. You would think as much as I hate paying $2 each for Heirloom Tomatoes that I would grow by own. But then the thought of work involved in creating the right and the cost keeps me in the aisles of supermarkets. I am thinking about ordering some new red wigglers and getting my compost bin going again so I can start a raised bed garden next spring. {Well see… watch for THAT article.} Click here to view various seeds for various heirloom tomatoes available for sale on Amazon.
- Commercial Heirlooms: Open-pollinated varieties introduced before 1940, or tomato varieties more than 50 years in circulation.
- Family Heirlooms: Seeds that have been passed down for several generations through a family.
- Created Heirlooms: Crossing two known parents (either two heirlooms or an heirloom and a hybrid) and dehybridizing the resulting seeds for how ever many years/generations it takes to eliminate the undesirable characteristics and stabilize the desired characteristics, perhaps as many as 8 years or more.
- Mystery Heirlooms: Varieties that are a product of natural cross-pollination of other heirloom varieties.
Some of the most famous examples include
- Amish Paste
- Aunt Ruby’s German Green
- Big Rainbow
- Black Krim
- Brandywine
- Cherokee Purple
- Chocolate Cherry
- Gardener’s Delight
- Green Zebra
- Lollypop
- Mortgage Lifter
- Redcurrant
- San Marzano
- Three Sisters
I like to use brilliantly colored Heirloom Tomatoes to create unique cold salads – especially Caprese Salads – for a dish that displays a variety of colors. Check back to see if I do my raised beds in the back yard and if I do… what I include in my little garden.
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