Saturday, June 7, 2008

Ugly but tasty?

This photo is a plant called Ugly Ripe Heirloom tomato and I am sorry I did not plant this variety in the greenhouse instead of the garden. A quote I found online concerning the variety reads:
"The ugly ripe tomato may look gnarly and ugly. But the greatest "wow factor" about this ugly heirloom tomato is it's old fashion yummy taste. A great flavor all it's own. You might consider the ugly ripe like it is a "Frog Prince", one taste and you are hooked for life."
I knew nothing of these tomatoes until I was looking through my seed collection in March to determine which tomatoes I wanted to plant. It seems my wife bought some of these tomatoes in the market in 2005 and was so impressed with the taste she saved the seeds.
The name got me curious so I googled it and was surprised to find that this tomato caused a lot of controversy that even got congress involved. Seems it was sold in the winter of 2005, but the Florida Tomato Growers Group had some sort of beef with the grower, so they banned them because they said they did not meet the standards for shape, or some other silly reason. Never mind that they had much better taste than the stuff that the other growers were sending north. Well, the tomato got a lot of folks up north hooked , and then they could not get them again because the grower was forced to plow them under by the Florida Tomato Growers Group. Whatever happened to freedom?
Well, one thing lead to another and the controversy began... Me, I just thought it must be something special to make my wife save the seeds, which is something she is not prone to do.
When I planted my tomato seeds for the season I only started two of the seeds, and they are terrific looking plants. They stand out from my other tomato plants because they are deep green and stubby with the buds forming low on the plants.
Again, I will save seeds from the fruit, and being a heirloom it will be true to its heritage. Damn, I can't wait to taste one.

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