tomato two cents

The great upside down tomato experiment of 2010 is officially a success. Having tried every tomato cage/stake/spiral/string tie up mess known to man, this year we decided to stop trying to defy gravity and hung all our tomatoes upside down in the greenhouse. We are now reaping the rewards with more tomatoes than we can even think about eating.

Since I am apparently under the impression that someone out there might not be able to pick a favorite tomato without input from me, I thought I'd give you my tomato taste test two cents.

The initial reason behind this post actually has nothing to do with taste, but with the appearance of the Yellow Pear, our first contestant in the tomato contest. She is curvy and cute, and I was *this close* to finding some sort of little flower to put on her head as a hat. The only thing that stopped me was a flashback to this post, and the fact that I am still feeling remorseful for the time I spent arranging and then photographing my clothes. Dressing up a fruit falls loosely into that same how to waste valuable time category, and I am proud of the fact that I restrained myself on this occasion. I am now able to devote the precious time I saved to writing a post about dressing up a fruit instead.

Baby steps.

So, back to the show.

Yellow Pear.


She definitely wins in the beauty portion of the contest what with her flippy, sassy hairstyle and all, but in my opinion, lacks a bit in the taste department. Compared to the competition, she's just not a standout in the juicy or flavorful category.

But she's cute. Did I mention that she's cute?

Contestant number two, and our second runner up, Supersweet 100.


For a long time, Sweet 100 seemed to be the end all be all cherry tomato, but times have changed and now Supersweet 100 and Sweet Million are heavy competitors in this category as well. While we've tried them all, this year we opted for Supersweet 100 and she's good, but....

Here we have Sugary, our first runner up.


This is the first time I've grown this variety and I love it. Very sweet and flavorful. She's even worth the extra work it took to prop her up for her photo shoot. I used a nut out of the miscellaneous nut and bolt jar. In a beauty contest, it's as much about what you don't see as what you do see.

Finally, our hands down winner, Sunsugar.


It's really no contest at all. She's the winner by a mile. Sweet, juicy and flavor packed, this beauty has it all. I use her for everything. In BLTA's, Panzanella, Paula's Cracker Salad (very weird but very good recipe - if you try it, don't use anywhere near that much mayo). The only bomb was homemade salsa. She's actually too sweet for traditional salsa - it just didn't taste right, but I can only imagine what she'd taste like in Mango or Pineapple salsa. I must give that a try.

We are also growing Lemon Boy, Big Boy and Roma, but it didn't seem appropriate to mix the boys in with the girls, although I'm sure that day isn't very far off in the real pageant world.

So, that's my humble, somewhat ridiculous tomato opinion, but I'd love to hear yours.

Who tops your tomato list?