Tomatoes are the most highly anticipated produce of the year. As soon as winter days start to give way to spring, customers at local farmers markets start asking, “Where are the tomatoes?” But it’s this time of year that farmers’ tables are piled high with tomatoes of every color and size.
Debbie Fraker of Corn Creek Growers in the city of South Fulton near Fairburn, says her customers start looking for them in March. “I tell you, if my customers didn’t love tomatoes so much, I sometimes swear I would never grow them again. The plants can be so finicky. But you can’t go to a farmers market in the summertime without tomatoes.”
Despite her disclaimer, Fraker really does love growing tomatoes. “I love experimenting with new varieties. I always overdo that. I sometimes say I have more varieties of tomatoes and peppers growing than feels sane. I’ve got 50 or 60 tomato plants right now, mostly tomatoes like Homestead, Sun Gold, Illini Star, Georgia Streak and Black Vernissage.”
She always plans for a variety of sizes and colors of tomato because that’s what attracts people to the table at the farmers markets. You can find Corn Creek Growers on Wednesdays at the East Point Farmers Market and on Saturdays at the Peachtree City Farmers Market.
Georgia Streak is a beautiful heirloom variety, golden yellow with a red blush on the outside and streaks of red flesh inside. Black Vernissage is a small round tomato with a mahogany-red skin streaked with green. Illini Star is a round red-skinned tomato that will look familiar to most shoppers. “Even if all a customer does is buy the traditional beefsteak-size red tomato, it’s fun to talk about the others.”
Fraker gets her tomato plants into the ground in April with fencing running through the middle of the rows. She finds that’s more efficient than individually staking each plant. The tomatoes can twine through the fencing and that saves a lot of tying up. At the end of the season, she leaves the fencing and next year she’ll grow cucumbers or climbing beans on it. The tomatoes will move to a new spot. That’s one of the “finicky” things about growing them.
She says her customers are always asking for advice on growing tomatoes. “They’re one of the most popular things for anyone with some space, but they’re so difficult. They have so many pests and there are so many different diseases. It’s just always unpredictable. ”
Woody Back’s Charred Tomato Soup, with Field Pea Chow Chow
This soup is so delicious you’ll find it’s far more than the sum of its parts. The secret is in those charred tomatoes.
Charring vegetables is one way Woody Back, executive chef of Roswell’s Table & Main, likes to add flavor to his dishes. When he’s cooking, he’s looking for six components – fat, acid, salt, aromatic, sweet and bitter. The charring provides the bitter in this soup. He demonstrated these recipes at the Morningside Farmers Market last year.
Back likes garnishing the soup with crumbles of soft goat cheese, but says croutons offer a way to add a little crunch. He’s adamant about his crouton preparation though. No toasting squares of bread in the oven. “That just dries out the bread and gives you something like a rock. Melt butter in a skillet and toast your croutons until the surfaces are golden.” One more tip for crouton making – no little cubes. Just tear small pieces of bread from the loaf for irregular pieces with lots of craggy surfaces to soak up butter and provide a satisfying crunch.
FOR SALE AT LOCAL FARMERS MARKETS
Just coming to market: ginger
Vegetables and fruits: arugula, Asian greens, beets, cabbage, chanterelles, chard, corn, cornmeal, cucumbers, eggplant, field peas, figs, garlic, green and pole beans, green onions, grits, herbs, kale, leeks, lettuce, Malabar spinach, melons, mushrooms, okra, onions, peaches, peppers, polenta, potatoes, spaghetti squash, summer squash, tomatoes
From local reports
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