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Grow Tomatoes Review: Neves Azorean Red Tomato

August 19th, 2009 | Author: Dot

NOTE: DoT has been posting from Honolulu since late July when she left California to help her mother through some medical procedures. She will be doing so until she can return to Orange County

DYT Neves Azorean Red Tomato July 24, 2009

DoT’s Thot:

Neves Azorean Red Tomato Characteristics

Neves Azorean Red Tomato is an indeterminate tomato plant (I) which is reputed to yield 1 to 3 pound fruit. The tomatoes are a deep red and very beautiful. In my southern California garden, these tomatoes proved to be a late season heirloom beefsteak tomato. The seedling for this tomato went into the ground in late March and I harvested my first four Azorean Red tomatoes on July 16, 2009.

Neves Azorean Red Heirloom Beefsteak Tomato Review

This heirloom beefsteak tomato slices up into a beautiful presentation and had a full, rich flavor. The deep red color is very attractive. My tomatoes did not achieve the large size that this tomato is reputed to have, but yielded a nice collection of tomatoes. There were more tomatoes ripening on the vine and still growing in size, but I had to leave my tomato crop late in July to come to Hawaii to help my mother through some medical issues. I wish to plant Neves Azorean Red Tomato again, since late season tomatoes give me an extended season with the tomatoes that I love so much.

Bottom Line: Neves Azorean Red Tomato

This tomato is on my plant again list, as I wish to have some nice red tomatoes toward the end of the season and an heirloom beefsteak tomato like this would be very welcome in my kitchen. My recommendation to self is to prune, watch the fertilization and try for larger fruit next year.

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Aloha, DoT

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Grow Tomatoes Review: Aussie Heirloom Tomato

August 17th, 2009 | Author: Dot

A Pair of Aussie Heirloom Beefsteak Tomatoes July 24, 2009. SoCal

NOTE: DoT has been posting from Honolulu since late July when she left California to help her mother through some medical procedures. She will be doing so until she can return to Orange County

DoT’s Thot: “Aussie Aussie Aussie! Oi Oi Oi!” I heard this from an Aussie at a Cub Scout Camp when my boys were young. I thought the young fellow was saying “Ozzie, Ozzie, Ozzie” as in Ozzie and Harriet. Only some months later I suddenly realized that it was “Aussie”, like in this Aussie Heirloom tomato.

Aussie Heirloom Beefsteak Tomato Characteristics

Aussie is an Australian Heirloom Beefsteak tomato, a regular leaf, indeterminate tomato plant (I), which was a late fruiting tomato for me — having planted the seedlings into the ground in the third week of March, I harvested the first two tomatoe on July 24, 2009.

The Aussie heirloom tomato is reputed to be resistant to both early and late blight. In our garden patch, this tomato appeared very healthy and yielded nice, clean-looking tomatoes.

Aussie Heirloom Tomato Slices on a Dinner Plate

Aussie Heirloom Tomato Review

Aussie is an Australian Beefsteak tomato bursting with great flavor; an excellent blend of acids and sugars. When we ate the tomatoes, we discovered that the is a very attractive consistent red, smooth skinned, and meaty. Having a nice tomato flavor, the Aussie heirloom tomato is a very satisfying tomato with a taste that lingers pleasantly on the palate.

A sweet tomato, it has just enough of an acidic touch to make me want to eat the whole thing all by myself. The plants produce well and some recommend it as a show competition tomato.

Grow Tomatoes Review Bottom Line for Aussie Heirloom Tomato

The bottom line on the Aussie heirloom beefsteak tomato is — there will be a spot for the tomato in my garden row as one of my late producers to extend my tomato season next year, provided I can find the seedling at the tomato sale.

Aloha, DoT

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Grow Tomatoes Review: Pineapple Tomato

August 12th, 2009 | Author: Dot

NOTE: DoT has been posting from Honolulu since late July when she left California to help her mother through some medical procedures. She will be doing so until she can return to Orange County

Pineapple Heirloom Beefsteak Tomatoes, July 16, 2009

DoT’s Thot: “Pizza with pineapple, that’s a cake…Pizza with cucumber, it’s an insult. — (Alessio Vinci ).

Pineapple Tomato — that’s a winner.– (DoT)

Pineapple Heirloom Beefsteak Tomato Characteristics

The Pineapple tomato was listed as an heirloom beefsteak tomato with maturity date of 85 days. It is an indeterminate (I) heirloom tomato plant.

The pineapple tomato is bicolored, red and yellow and reputed to weigh up to 2 pounds. The flavor is rich, sweet, and fruity.

Pineapple Heirloom Beefsteak Tomato Review

Slices of Pineapple Heirloom Beefsteak Tomato 20 July 2009

Our Pineapple Tomato plant yielded it’s first tomato on July 16, 2009, having been put into the ground as a seedling in mid-March. It was definitely one of our late tomatoes which makes this beefsteak tomato appealing from the point of view of extending the heirloom tomato season as much as possible, since we enjoy these fruits so very much.

Our garden’s Pineapple heirloom beefsteak tomato plant did not yield the very large tomatoes I would have liked. The tomatoes were more in the range of 1/2 to 3/4 pounds.

They are beautiful tomatoes that show little cracking (a real plus here with our periodic heat waves). Though the tomatoes were smaller, there was an abundance of tomatoes and the harvest has been good. I think I need to learn to prune my tomato plants — this is definitely the resolution for what to do differently next season.

Distinctive Red Edging on Pineapple Heirloom Beefsteak Tomato Slices

The pineapple tomato itself is bursting with juicy flavor, very meaty, and a beautiful golden yellow orange with red mottling in the flesh. This is a very sweet tomato. If you look closely at the Pineapple Tomato slices, you can see the unusual and distinctive red edge that the skin provides against the mottled flesh. It is quite unique and beautiful.

Pineapple Heirloom Beefsteak Tomato Harvest on 17 July 2009

Grow Tomatoes Review Bottom Line for the Pineapple Tomato:

This heirloom tomato goes on the list for next year. A late season beefsteak tomato, it is plentiful and beautiful, tasty and yields tomatoes not prone to cracking which is a real plus in our Southern California garden.

Aloha, DoT

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Grow Tomatoes Review: Old German Heirloom Beefsteak Tomato

August 10th, 2009 | Author: Dot

Old German Tomato Plant with Heirloom Beefsteak Tomatoes That Look Like Pumpkins On The Vine

DoT’s Thot: However silly it may seem, sometimes I grow a tomato plant because of how it looks, even if the flavor is not top-ranked…just part of curiosity, I suppose.

Old German Tomato Heirloom Beefsteak Green Vines

Old German Tomato Characteristics: Heirloom Beefsteak Tomato

This is one of those tomato plants that I first got and put in the ground out of sheer curiosity. It was listed as an indeterminate (I) heirloom beefsteak toomato.

Old German tomato apparently is Mennonite in heritage and hails from the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia. Just the thought of its history made me want to help this heirloom beefsteak tomato to “go West”.

Days to maturity was listed as 75 days. It was reputed to produce 1 to 2 pound tomatoes.and was rated as outstanding. I bought a plant and put it in the ground.

Old German Tomato Has Distinctive Curlicues and Large Blossoms

One of the very first things we noticed about our Old German tomato plant was that as the plant grew, the vinces were unusually thick and curly. The look evoked a feeling of old Germany, the black forest, and fairy tale pumpkin patches with curling vines.

Old German Heirloom Beefsteak Tomato Flowers

The blossoms on this heirloom beefsteak tomato plant are large with very curly sepals. If you look closely at the picture you can see the curlicues that charmed me so much.

The Old German tomato itself is a very pretty yellow-gold with a pink-rose center which gives lateral slices of this tomato a very distinctive appearance.

Grow Tomatoes Review Summary

My particular experience this year was that while the plant was productive, it did not yield tomatoes as large as reputed. Perhaps our Southern California growing season has some differences not quite suited to this Virginia heirloom beefsteak tomato.

Slices of Old German Tomato Golden Yellow with Pink-Rose Centers

Slices of Old German Tomato Golden Yellow with Distinctive Pink-Rose Centers

Perhaps I needed to pay more attention to pruning the vines, although other plants equally left to grow without pruning did produce fruit as reputed. My Old German tomatoes were about half a pound, not 1-2 pounds.

The tomatoes were pretty to behold. and the charm of seeing the flowers and vining habit made growing this tomato satisfying. Generally reviewed as a very tasty and sweet tomato, I was surprised to find mine were somewhat bland. I hesitate to eliminate this heirloom beefsteak tomato from my to buy list, because I think it deserves another season. I will continue to harvest and eat these and see if some of the later tomatoes are tastier.

Bottom Line: I’ll give this another chance before deciding that my micro-climate is unsuitable for me to grow this highly regarded heirloom beefsteak tomato. I really like looking at this particular plant and the tomatoes are good, just not as tasty as I was expecting.

Aloha, DoT

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Grow Tomatoes Review: Earl of Edgecombe Heirloom Tomato

August 7th, 2009 | Author: Dot

Salad Plate with Earl of Edgecombe Heirlom Tomato

DoT’s Thot: Home is where tomatoes grow in the garden. I do believe this is one reason I feel so happy when the tomatoes go into the ground in the backyard. This point in the year has come to be a tradition and a marker in our lives at home. Here is a tomato that found its way to us from New Zealand and frankly, I want to give this heirloom tomato a permanent spot in our backyard tomato garden.

Beautiful Golden Orange Earl of Edgecombe Tomato

Earl of Edgecombe Heirloom Tomato Description

Earl of Edgecombe heirloom tomato is an indeterminate tomato plant that hails from New Zealand. When the Sixth Earl of Edgecombe died in the 1960’s, the relative and heir to the title lived in New Zealand as a sheep farmer. He went to England to claim his title and brought this tomato to England and it became the Earl of Edgecombe tomato.

The plant is surprisingly disease free and is resistant to blossom end rot, cracking, and other diseases. It has a lot of foliage and provides good cover for the developing fruit. This is a very good trait for my Southern California garden, because some other tomato plants with fewer leaves sometimes develop “sunburned” fruit with faded white spots on them.

The fruit are slicer sized, about 3 inched in diameter and are a gorgeous orange-gold color, very uniform in appearance, without any green shoulders. The plant was listed as 73 days to maturity. The seedling planted in the ground in early March yielded the first fruit on July 5, 2009 in our garden.

I was impressed with how well the plant did and how very beautiful the fruit were. Next we need to review the taste of this smooth-skinned, lovely heirloom tomato.

DoT's Earl of Edgecombe Tomato -- Two Slices with Top

Grow Tomatoes Review of the Earl of Edgecombe Tomato

We sliced our tomatoes and first just tasted some plain. Yum. Not only was the external skin an unblemished rich orange-gold, but the internal flesh was again uniformly colored, somewhat lighter in color, but what a beautiful yellow-gold. Firm, but not crunchy, the tomato is very tasty, juicy, not watery, and leaves a nice tomatoey aftertaste.

Then we made a caprese salad out of this heirloom tomato, fresh mozarella cheese, fresh basil leaves. I picture the salad here before adding the salt and pepper, and balsamic vinegar and fine extra virgin olive oil. This was one of the finest heirloom tomato salads we have had this summer.

Earl of Edgecombe Heirloom Tomato Caprese Salad

Bottom Line: Earl of Edgecombe Heirloom Tomato One of the Best

My bottom line conclusion is that this is an excellent tomato, one of the best of the season. I will most definitely want to plant Earl of Edgecombe Heirloom Tomatoes again next year, because of the excellent balanced flavor, the meatiness, firm, yet creamy texture, beautiful deep orange medium sized fruit.

Both the skin and flesh are a gorgeouis even deep color. The tomatoes on my plant were also smooth textured and less showed very few cracks. Productivity was not as high as some, yet most satisfying. This is an exceptional tomato.

Aloha, DoT

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