Life is just a bowl of cherries
If cherry tomatoes tasted nasty we would still grow them because they are so beautiful. It’s just a bonus that they are delicious.
Salmorejo
We spent late June in Spain. We visited Bilbao, Salamanca, and Madrid. In each city we ate Salmorejo. Each recipe was subtly different, but all were amazing. Comparisons to gazpacho are unavoidable, but Salmorejo is, hands down, the best cold soup on earth. It is simplicity itself as the only ingredients are tomatoes, bread, olive oil, and a touch of vinegar, along with toppings, which may vary. The key to success is that the ingredients, especially the tomatoes and olive oil, must be of superb quality. The hard boiled egg topping in this recipe is not entirely typical, but some version of the Serrano ham is entirely typical. I have tried replacing the Serrano ham with crisply fried smoked bacon. That works fabulously well.
Rocking it at the farmer’s market
The hoophouse is now producing prodigious amounts of tomatoes and cucumbers, much appreciated by our customers at the Snohomish Farmer’s Market.
First tomatoes
Today I harvested the first cucumbers, and the first tomatoes from the hoophouse. Tomatoes included , Alicante, Flamme, Aunt Lucy Italian Paste, Coyote, Earl of Edgecombe, Baselbieter Rotelli, Beams Yellow Pear, Sebastopol, Indische fleiche, Slava, Bloody Butcher, Kimberly, Tigerella, Buckbees New 50 day, Amy’s Apricot, Amy’s Sugar Gem, Washington Cherry, Aurora and Debarao.
High Tunnel Tomatoes
Our high tunnel is now fully planted with tomatoes, cucumbers and melons and plants are already sporting tiny fruit.
Tomato plant mass production begins again
My goal is to produce 1000 plants – ten each of one hundred varieties.
High Tunnel Tamaters
As usual, the tomato plants in the garden have all fallen to late blight, but the tomato plants in the high tunnel greenhouse are still thriving. Here are some of our heirloom beauties.
Finally, Ripe Tomatoes
The first tomatoes are finally ripening in my high tunnel. This is Slava, a dependably early variety.
First Tomatoes of ’17
The first fruit to ripen this year are Washington Cherry (left) and Bloody Butcher.