Category: Featured Plant

I made a previous post about the unique foliage on this tomato.

This tomato came from Søren of In the Toads Garden.

This plant turned out to be very interesting in many ways. First is was a very compact plant, that worked well grown in a container. While I normally use a larger container, I would say this tomato would probably grow well in 20 liters of dirt.

The unique foliage turned out to be unusually resistant to the usual diseases attacking the leaves of my plants like powdery mildew and the like. This plant showed no signs of infection when some of my other plants had early blight this year. Ashleigh of My Dutch Garden also grew this tomato. She reported that many of her other plants had serious damage from the wind this year, but not this one because the feathery light leaves didn’t catch the force of the wind.

Given the small size of this plant, it was very productive. This is also a determinate plant, giving it’s complete annual harvest within a short period of time.

This plant turned out to be a bit of a challenge for seed collecting, because the tomatoes didn’t have many seeds in them.

The taste of this tomato was only so-so. It was a bit mealy and lacked a very intense flavor. The lack of flavor may have to do with the unusually wet weather this year.

On top are La Ratte d’Ardèche, a very tasty fingerling type potato. To the left are Sarpo Mira, a very disease resistant and strong growing potato with a pretty pink skin. On the right are Catriona, a very pretty potato with purple blotches and a very special flowery/perfumey taste and smell when cooking. On the bottom are Peruvian Purple with it’s amazing deep purple color that goes all the way through the potato, is a bit staining like a red beet and even stands up to cooking. What you see in the picture is two Peruvian Purple potatoes, one of which is cut in half.

The Purple Peruvian, Sarpo Mira and Catriona came from my friend Lieven.

Wow, what can I say, they were all delicious!

I have to admit, I am new to growing potatoes and this was my first year. Also, growing up in the US, I’m without the same potato eating culture that exists here in Europe. When I grew up potatoes were something we ate at home a couple of times a year, and a potato was a potato (unless it was a McDonalds french fry). Now I understand there are waxy and floury potatoes, and I appreciate much more how different varieties taste. At the same time, I’m just not going to get into how these taste, or their textures, except to say they are all different and very special. The biodiversity of the different kinds was really great.

I grew these in containers on my roof, and while I have several nice meals worth, I didn’t really get a lot. I will probably save some tubers from some of my more unusual varieties for replanting, but otherwise I’m going to eat them fresh and not try to store any. In particular, my Purple Peruvian harvest was pretty small.

I will certainly be growing potatoes again!

Still to be harvested are Charlotte and Mr Little’s Yetholm Gypsy potatoes.

This is a multi-colored/black tomato, similar to the plain Pineapple tomato. It is mostly purple and green, with a little bit of red. It’s a very pretty tomato, and looks great sliced. The taste is a little mild and nondescript, but certainly tomato like. It’s my first year growing this tomato.

I think my favorite tomato color is ‘black’. In this case it’s more dusty brown with green shoulders. Most so called black tomatoes range from purple to brown, and none of them are really black. They mostly have a slightly sweet/smokey flavor, and are very nice.

This tomato is a very early variety, and it’s usually the first to ripen in my garden. This year, with all the weird weather, it was one of the last.

If you want to grow tomatoes from far away exotic places, this one hails from Irkutsk, Russia. I read somewhere that in Soviet times that villages in this part of Siberia would have annual friendly competitions to see who could grow the best tasting tomatoes, with every village specializing in one or perhaps a couple of tomatoes. Cold frames were commonly used to extend the growing season.

Perhaps not a lot good came from the former Soviet Union, but some really great vegetables were grown then!