A Seed Saver's Garden

[Dahlia]

Thank you. They are on a zero water zone in the garden. Wow growing grapes in sand I guess it was good sand. You had lots of grapes at harvest.

So many grapes!

 

[heirloomgal]

Tinga peas are blessing us with their blooms. Just love this species. Growing so tall.

Trilop Ucburum Bider pepper. Happy it's actually ripening fruit, one of the first to change color. This one conforms to the catalogue description at Atlantic Pepper Seeds, but not to online info.

'Verato', which has a somewhat different form than the photo in the description where I purchased it. Looks like I got crossed seed....maybe later fruits will shift a little in shape.

Better pic of my red peas. Yup, true red when this young but they do darken as they mature. Not as dark a purple as the others, but definitely darker. I like the lime green pea lid on the navy expired flower with the red pod sticking out. It's like a tri colored pea! The wonders of plant breeding.

 

[Shades-of-Oregon]

Oh wow the tri-color pea plant is gorgeous.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Next two ripe tomatoes in (even if they don't look it).

The longer one is NOT ripe yet, but it fell off while I was touching it, so it is presumably pretty close (though I do not a potential issue with this one, it has the SMALLEST attachment point of any tomato I have ever seen. It's not even the size of a pinhead (the tomato itself is about the size of a grape).

Oh and both of these come from ones I picked up at the farmers market, so I don't know the variety names.

 

[Dahlia]

Next two ripe tomatoes in (even if they don't look it).

View attachment 67501

The longer one is NOT ripe yet, but it fell off while I was touching it, so it is presumably pretty close (though I do not a potential issue with this one, it has the SMALLEST attachment point of any tomato I have ever seen. It's not even the size of a pinhead (the tomato itself is about the size of a grape).

Oh and both of these come from ones I picked up at the farmers market, so I don't know the variety names.

Do those green tomatoes taste like ripe red tomatoes?

 

[heirloomgal]

(the tomato itself is about the size of a grape).

It LOOKS exactly like a grape!

I have collected a few tomatoes over the years with amazingly small (insufficient) attachment points; if I even brush up against the plant, a cascade of tomatoes tumble to the ground. Usually they're pear shaped with constricted necks/tops. Turandot comes to mind, very, very productive but don't touch the plant until harvest time. lol

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Do those green tomatoes taste like ripe red tomatoes?

Well, not EXACTLY, as each color of tomato has their own taste notes due to the pigments also having flavors. But, if you mean do they taste ripe, yes.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

It LOOKS exactly like a grape!

One other thing about that one. I'll have to be careful about saving every seed, as not only does it not make many, it can make ones that have no seeds AT ALL (which makes me wonder if it could be the variety called Thompson's Seedless Grape). Unlike with a lot of other seedless tomatoes it WILL have fully sized seed cavities with full get, but there will be no seeds in the gel. It's sort of the reverse of the one I used to have I called Drywall, which produced fruit with seeds that had no gel around them (I ended up discarding that one, as it also had basically no water in the fruit walls as well, and was not only tasteless, but dry to the point of cardboard-y.)

I have collected a few tomatoes over the years with amazingly small (insufficient) attachment points; if I even brush up against the plant, a cascade of tomatoes tumble to the ground. Usually they're pear shaped with constricted necks/tops. Turandot comes to mind, very, very productive but don't touch the plant until harvest time. lol
View attachment 67503

The name is vaguely accurate. While Turandot is what Filet Mignon is sometimes called in French (as in Turandot Rossini, the literal meaning is "Turn the back". The legend is that Rossini the famous composer (Barber of Seville, Willian Tell Overture) was in a restaurant, and complained that he was tired of all of their beef dishes. When the chef tried to steer him to other areas of the menu, he said he only liked beef. Then he proposed the basic idea of what would become Turandot Rossini. The chef said such a dish would be unpresentable. Rossini said "Well, then arrange for it not to be seen". The dish became popular, and is now a classic of French fine cooking, but still, by tradition, it is never to be prepared in the sight of the diner.

 

[Dahlia]

Well, not EXACTLY, as each color of tomato has their own taste notes due to the pigments also having flavors. But, if you mean do they taste ripe, yes.

You could make fried green tomatoes with them then!

 

[Pulsegleaner]

You could make fried green tomatoes with them then!

No, you need UNRIPE tomatoes for that. Ripe ones would bee too wet and mushy.

Also, you probably wouldn't want to try and make ketchup or tomato sauce. Heating tends to move the pigments towards the yellow/red part of the spectrum. That's why red tomatoes turn into red-orange tomato sauce. Whites turn yellow, yellows turn orange, red and pink, turn red-orange, purple and black turn deeper red orange......and green turn a really off-putting greenish brown.

Bear in mind though, that when I did the tests, I was using Green Zebras (which are actually a green with some yellow). These don't have any yellow pigment at all (which is why they still look unripe) so the color might be different (possibly a dark green, like pesto sauce or cooked spinach.)