Tomato Lovers Hit Pay Dirt
People who grow heirloom tomatoes often say they are addicted. Tim Warren of Fayetteville is one of them. Warren started out growing standard hybrids like ‘Celebrity’ and ‘Better Boy.’ But when he discovered the overwhelming number of heirloom varieties and their distinct flavors, he began ordering seeds from every mail-order source he could find. Then he started swapping seeds with hundreds of kindred spirits in the tomato forum on a gardening Web site, where he met Craig Lehoullier. Lehoullier is one of the organizers of an annual heirloom tomato taste-testing in North Carolina. At the summer 2005 event, 115 gardeners from North Carolina, Kentucky, Ohio, Virginia and Florida brought their homegrown tomatoes, representing 163 heirloom varieties.
There were green, yellow, orange, red, pink, white and purplish-black tomatoes of every imaginable size and shape, including ones with variegated or striped skins and flesh. They had names like ‘Box Car Willie,’ ‘Turkey Chomp,’ ‘Green Zebra’ and ‘Tennessee Britches.’ The get-together is an unprecedented opportunity for gardeners to savor the flavor of tomatoes they might otherwise know only from descriptions in seed catalogs. Warren dragged his reluctant wife to the picnic to show her that he was not alone in his obsession. “She understands a little better now about my tomato affection,” he says. She even discovered some taste preferences of her own.
One of Warren’s favorite varieties is ‘Granny Cantrell’s German Red.’ This meaty, low-acid tomato is named for Lettie Cantrell, who got the seeds from a soldier returning from Germany during World War II. Cantrell is alive and well at 96 years old and living in the hills of eastern Kentucky. She says she’s never tasted a tomato she likes better. She saves the seeds from the largest tomatoes—which can grow to 21/2 pounds—for next year’s crop.
To learn more about heirloom tomatoes or connect with other gardeners, visit Lehoullier’s Web site at http://nctomatoman.topcities.com. Or peruse the discussions at the Internet forum http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/tomato/