Tomato variety evaluations - The Best of the Best

This year we trialled many varieties of tomatoes we have never grown before to see which ones would do well here at The Funny Farm. We got most of them from our friend Daniel who farms at Gaia Gardens a few miles from us. - These are our favorites. The photos are in the same order as the following descriptions
1. Black from Tula - Everyone who has eaten this one agrees that it is the best tasting tomato they have ever had. Juicy, acidic, flavorful. It is beautiful as well. Dark red/black on the bottom with green shoulders. One slice covers a whole slice of bread. Good producer not too much problem with blight.
2. Amana Orange - Most people really like the flavor of this one too. Kind of fruity, not too acidic, juicy. Beautiful solid orange colored large, bread covering sized fruit. Prolific and not too much blight. The minor complaint i have is that it is hard to harvest. If you try to pull it off the vine the whole cluster tears off. The best thing to do is to cut the stem with pruners or a knife.
3. Eva Purple Ball - Don't know why this one is called purple ball because the fruit is pink. They flavor is really good. Medium acid, lots of flavor, juicy. The fruit rarely has blemishes.It is about the size of a baseball. Thick fleshy stems, good producer. Not much of a problem with blight.
4. Big Beef - This is a hybrid but it is very flavorful, juicy, and sandwich sized. It is a very heavy producer with little blight problems. This is our main crop.
5. Juliette - Small, oval shaped, meaty flesh. this a good tomato for making sauce. Flavor is good and it is amazingly prolific. We will always grow a few of these.

Next post will rate the middle of the pack.

EASTERN HERCULES BEETLE

Robin found this beetle on the floor of our den this morning . She was scared to touch it so she covered it with a bowl and called me to remove it.This one is a female. The male has horns. It is a kind of rhinoceros beetle. I took it outside and released it in the garden.
It took off somewhere.
Dynastes tityus

Tomato Leaf Blight

Cassie wants to know what tomato leaf blight looks like so i'm posting some photos. Here in the South the blight is inevitable because of the heat and humidity which make ideal conditions for it to get started and spread.
Many heirloom varieties are highly susceptible to it. That's why hybrid tomatoes were developed, to breed in resistance. We grow Big Beef as our main crop of slicing tomatoes. They are pretty resistant.
Making sure your soil is biologically active, high in organic matter and contains all the macro and micro-nutrients the tomatoes need makes the plants grow strongly and helps them resist the onslaught of the blight.

Spraying really good actively aerated compost tea regularly when the hot humid weather is predicted is very helpful in postponing the arrival and severity of the blight infestation. We have used Serenade Organic Fungicide ( the active ingredient is a bacteria called bacillus subtilus) and it helps some.

Tomatoes

Tomatoes are starting to ripen now. We've had a few mater sammmiches this week. Yummmm!. My favorite so far is Eva Purple Ball. Unblemished, not very acidic, meaty. Tigerelle has rather small green striped fruit that split around the middle. Won't grow them again. Amana Orange is very flavorful and quite large but cracks at the top which lets in rots pretty quickly. Speaking of rot... we've been having very humid weather with afternoon storms almost every day for the past 10 days or so. I'm not complaining about the rain because we are still in a rainfall deficit here. But these are prime conditions for tomato leaf blight which is busting out all over the plants. I brewed some compost tea over night to spray on the tomato plants to suppress the blight but it has been raining all day so far so i can't spray. The tea is only good for 12 more hours so i hope it stops raining soon otherwise i'll have to brew some more tomorrow. In the mean time the blight is spreading by the force of the raindrops.

Damn!

Funny Farm Update

We're in full swing now. The flower field is busting loose with a riot of color. The sunflowers must have tapped into the moisture and nutrients in the septic drain field. They're huge. 

The front garden is starting to produce. We had some problems earlier with a magnesium deficiency. I was able to correct it with a foliar spray of epsom salts and soil applications as well. The leaves of the peppers were all curled up but they are fine now and starting to bloom.

 The neighbors have come around to our side now as they watch the garden grow. People who walk by are always complimenting us . A woman driving a school bus stopped one day and said she will be back to buy tomatoes.

Damn squash vine borers are taking out the squash now. I'm on guard to protect the zucchini. I started the squash in the green house to get a head start on the borers and it worked well. We harvested lots of squash before the infestation. I'm cutting them out of the vines and destroying them to reduce future populations.

Now that Kitty is gone the chipmunks are eating the strawberries before they even ripen. Penny needs to come out of retirement and get to work on that situation. Fat chance of that happening.

Wild fermentation is in full swing with kraut and more hooch, sunflower this time. I tasted some of the young hooch yesterday and it is pretty tasty and strong. 

MY landscape crew is building a deck down by the pond in anticipation of my 55th birthday celebration coming up on July 19. 

Promises to be a fun time for sure.

Hooch0ff 2008

Yesterday our friend Robert "Hoochman" Hamilton came out to the Funny Farm to teach a group of us how to make hooch. Robert has been sharing his outrageously delicious and potent hooch with us at gatherings throughout the past year or so. His work is comparable to the finest wines or port in the world (at least according to our uneducated, inexperienced palates). We have sampled hooch made from pineapple guave, jasmine tea, buttermilk and many things in between. Some are sweet and full-bodied, some are dry and fruity, some are simple in flavor some are quite complex.
We felt it was time to learn a new skill. Seven of us chopped, mashed, and/or juiced 6 different ingredients or combinations of ingredients from which to make our first batch of hooch. We did Carrot/orange/star anise, Cantaloupe, Mango/Lime, Strawberry/lime/chocolate mint, Red Tea, Black/blue/raspberry, Pineapple, Banana/strawberry. Robert's method is very simple. Mash the fruit. Add enough water to be able to pour it into a bottle (boil the water to get rid of the chlorine so it won't kill the yeast). Add 2 pounds of sugar per gallon of fruit and water. If you are not using any acidic ingredients like citrus you add some Acid Blend (available at your favorite wine making supply store) 1 tablespoon per gallon. Pour the mixture into the bottles leaving a little space at the top for some yeast. If needed add a tablespoon of When the temperature of the mix is between 90º and 75º add in distillers yeast , 1 teaspoon/gal. mixed in a little water. Turn the bottle over a couple of times to mix in the yeast. Cover the top of the bottle with a folded over paper towel and secure with a rubber band.
Robert says that in about 2-3 weeks the major activity of the yeast will be complete. Here is the point to taste the young wine to see if it needs more sugar to bring out the fruit flavors or (if you like it dry) to allow it to finish fermenting as is. At that time we will plug the bottles with an air lock and allow to finish fermenting for about 2-3 months. When to bubbles stop flowing through the airlock we will remove it and cork or otherwise seal the bottles for further aging (or guzzle them down immediately which is what many of us will probably do).
At our annual Winter Solstice Party we will be breaking out our hooch for sharing and comparing. Someone will be crowned Hooch-maker Numero Uno and will win a prize (to be determined at a later date)
If the shit hits the fan and we have to hunker down here at the Funny Farm we figure we'll be able to use our hooch as trading stock to get things we need. Everybody needs hooch!

R.I.P. Kitty

It is a sad day here at The Funny Farm. We awoke to find our beloved Kitty had been killed during the night. Could have been one of the mean dogs that we have seen wandering loose around the neighborhood. Could have been the fox that has been spotted out by the pond  I guess. Anyway whatever did the deed cannot be blamed. It was doing what comes naturally.

Kitty was a killer too. When we lived in the city she killed many chipmunks and proudly left them for us at the door. Out here on the farm she took out many voles and mice down in what came to be known as the killing field. She was doing us a service by eliminating what we think of as pests.

I buried her in the corner of the killing field so she can continue on with the eternal hunt.

The circle of life goes round and round.

We miss you Kitty!