Monday 24 November 2008

Winter Blues, Reds and Greens




As winter bites, it's a good time to remember last years fruits and plan for more and better next year. In September 2006 I visited Château de la Bourdaisière in the Loire for the annual Tomato Festival and come away tomato star struck with a great variety of heirloom seeds. All that winter I waited patiently for 1st April to begin to germinate the bounty. Every seed became a seedling so that by May I was giving pots of baby tomatoes to anyone who had a garden, window box or old shoe to grow them in. In the end I freecycled the last to grateful strangers. Wow and how they grew. By the end of the season I had picked over a hundred kilos. Salads, sauces, bottles, jams, pickles, ketchup you name it, we processed it. So here in memory of great harvest are some photographs. My favorite was an orange beef heart-type with a very thin skin, which tasted more like tomato than any tomato I ever ate. There were green stripped zebra types more acid and great for mixed salad de tomato. Black tomatoes from Russia rich and honey sweet. Yellow plum types to make surprisingly smooth and golden pasta sauces. Pointy ones, banana-shaped ones, tiny ones, the choice is yours. So if you fancy having a go, my advice is to look at www.kokopelli-seed-foundation.com to supply your every need, I assume they ship to the UK, or get on down to the Festival of everything Tomato, who needs an excuse to visit the Loire anyway?

1 comment:

Natasha Newton | The Blackbird Sings said...

Great blog you have here, Fay! I'm now following you. :)

Such beautiful pictures, and I can already see that you love to tell a story! I look forward to reading more...