First batch of tomatoes?

Continuing our tomato talk after last week's post

 chronicling the first batch we planted.

I say first batch for two reasons—the plan all along has been 

to have an ongoing growth cycle for our tomatoes this season. 

This way, we will ensure our tomato bounty to be plentiful 

which keeps the chefs (and our diners) happy, 

while not having so many ripening at one time, 

that we almost don't know what to do with them! 

Although of course, you know we would never let a luscious red gem go to waste. 

(Cue Chefs getting creative with too many tomatoes!).

Matt & Ray from Local Landscapers have worked arduously 

planning when to plant seeds, spacing out the early nurturing of the starts 

for our 800 tomato plants so that they are maturing at varying times.

tomato starts at various stages
in greenhouse 

This has been the plan. But, as we continue to learn 

farming doesn't always go according to plan 

and we are often reminded that our partners, 

Mother Nature and the weather can have more influence. 

So it was the very next night following our April tomato planting party,

 that winds of 65mph swept through Sonoma Valley 

and rattled our fragile tomato plants. 

Sigh. But we were back at it the next morning, tending to the plants, 

staking and securing them (which ironically had been "the plan" anyway for that day) 

and honestly we lost only a few of the most fragile ones. 

So, replacing those will mean a "second" planting day that was not initially intended. 

But farming does not always go according to plan, 

which is truly one of the life lessons this endeavor affords us: 

staying flexible, being open, (keeping a sense of humor) 

and figuring out how to move on when unexpected things happen. 

two days after the winds

A week after the winds, most of the tomato plants
are standing tall

staked and ready to climb

And in this first round of tomatoes, we have many varieties

including a few new ones that we have not tried before:

Heirloom Carbon tomatoes which are described as

"Good taste, rich and sweet, tasty, complex flavour, exceptionally rich 

 yet sweet, delicious, rich flavour, tangy, smoky flavor, rich earthy sweet flavour, 

outstanding taste, season with salt and pepper and it tastes like meat/steak/bacon."

Carbon tomatoes

Also Purple Smudge and Brandywine tomatoes are new to us this season. 

Purple Smudge tomatoes are "a vibrant tangerine orange with random 

true purple blotches on the shoulders," (so don't assume those are bruises!). 

Amy Goldman, author of The Heirloom Tomato, calls Purple Smudge tomatoes

 "Truly a thing to behold." You may know Amy Goldman, 

who grows some 250 vintage varieties of tomatoes collected from around the world. 

Check out this slide show from her garden featured in an article in Scientific American.

one of our Brandywine rows

which will yield us these jewels
Brandywine tomato

And for more "tomato talk," check out this new blog we've discovered,

Talk of Tomatoes (which she does with great passion).

Actually, the blogger writes about more than tomatoes, 

all with passion, wit and smarts.

What varieties of tomatoes are you planting?

Have you seen any new ones at the Farmers Market?

Looking forward to continuing "tomato talk" 

for many more months.