KC Tomato Times Blog

Thank you to all that came out to the 3rd Annual KCTT Tomato Tasting at Roe Park on Saturday!  It was great to see so many familiar faces as well as all of the new tomato tasters.  For those that missed it…well…you missed a lot!  We had about 60 tomato tasters in attendance and they had the chance to taste 60+ varieties of tomatoes.  There were also some awesome tomato dishes such as salsas, caprese salads, bruschetta, and the greatest tasting green tomato pie (Thanks Kathy!) in the universe!

The number of varieties was considerably less than I had hoped for.  Many varieties peaked in early July and then succumbed to the extreme heat we’ve had this season.  I personally lost 6 varieties in the month of July and I know other gardeners had a tough time keeping some plants alive as well.  The good news is, we have a good handle on the types of tomatoes that can handle extreme heat and humidity in our area…food for thought when planning future gardens.

Thanks so much to Todd and Julie, as well as my mother for taking awesome pictures!  Check out Todd and Julie’s blog and pictures at Tomato Town.  Check out my Mom’s pictures here!

We had a contest for heaviest tomato that was won with a Linnie’s Oxheart from Landon Quigley.  It weighed in at 1lb 8 oz.  Second place was a huge Black Krim that went 1 lb 7 ounces grown by Marinda Nash. We also had prizes for most varieties labeled  and brought.  Todd and Julie brought 13 varieties and Marinda brought 9 types.  They are all excellent gardeners and grow an amazing amount of produce in their urban backyards!  My brother brought several platters of beautiful fruits, none were labeled (long story), but I was able to determine what most of them were.  As always, Keith Mueller brought some of his extremely unique varieties he’s working on with some delicious samples of his Apricot fleshed line!

Participants at this year’s tomato tasting had the opportunity to vote for their favorite tomatoes.  Each person was given 10 tickets to use as votes.  Some voted for 10 different varieties, some only voted for a few types, and some voted multiple times for one variety they really, really, really liked.  We tallied up the votes and had a few clear cut winners.  Brandywine Sudduth’s Strain, Sungold, Lucky Cross, Dora, and Cherokee Purple were all superstars for flavor and people raved and raved about their tastes throughout the event.  Check out the results below:

The vote was in no way scientific and the results are a little skewed as some varieties didn’t arrive until after some people had voted.  The only result that truly surprised me was the low vote count for Stump of the World.  This variety gets a lot of kudos from growers around the country, but folks in KC didn’t care too much for it this year.

Mark your calendars for the first Saturday in August, 2012!  We’ll do it all again, bigger, better, hopefully not hotter, but definitely tastier!