Early Results With Our Baker Creek Heirloom Tomatoes

We decided to grow different varieties of baker creek heirloom seed tomatoes this year for ourselves, and for our one restaurant customer Elkmont Exchange in downtown Knoxville, Tennessee. There are about eleven or twelve different tomatoes in our gardens, and at least six plants for each, so we’re hoping to get enough of what we like, even if some turn out to be “duds”… by that I mean they split, are too attractive to insects (we don’t use insecticides), or just don’t do well in this year’s climate.

Ananas Noire Tomato

Ananas Noire Tomato

We’re growing Ananas Noire these this year just because they “looked interesting on the seed packet”… It’s difficult to tell what they’re going to taste like by reading the description, but they sound good. We’re expecting a lot of really big tomatoes from these plants, and we have about ten of them!

Baker Creek Ananas Noire Tomato Page… Brads Atomic Grape Tomato

Brad’s Atomic Grape Tomato

This is a “large cherry tomato” that looks good now, and will look absolutely awesome when they ripen up. They are supposed to be very sweet, and they’ll last a long time after we pick them in a couple of weeks. These plants are covered with tomatoes and we have great expectations for a big harvest.

Brad’s Atomic Grape Tomato at Baker Creek… Green Zebra Tomato

Green Zebra Tomato

Green Zebras are small-ish tomatoes with a strong acidic flavor that are supposed to be good for cooking… I’m not a Chef, so I wouldn’t know what to do with them. We’re sure the folks at Elkmont Exchange will know what to do with them though, and we’re looking forward to the results!

Baker Creek’s Green Zebra Page… German Johnson Tomato

German Johnson Tomato

This is another first for us, so we don’t really know what to expect other than some “everything is great and big” about this tomato. We’re looking forward to a “2 pound tomato”.

Check out the Details at Baker Creek… Get Stuffed Tomato

Get Stuffed Tomato

These are supposed to be good for stuffing and cooking, like a bell pepper. They’re hollow tomatoes that are supposed to hold up to cooking, so someone else will have to prepare them. I’ll be sure to try them in a salad or on a sandwich though. I like the way they’re growing in clusters and I imagine we’ll have plenty of these to go around in a few more weeks.

Baker Creek’s Get Stuffed Page.. Japanese Black Trifele

Japanese Black Trifele Tomato

We looked for this tomato on Baker Creek’s site and could only find reviews. That said, the reviews are spectacular for this tomato. The pictures show a green/red tomato, not black. We also found them on the Totally Tomatoes site where they talked more about appearance than anything else, but what they did say about taste matched the reviews at Baker Creek. This is a small tomato that seems to be pretty prolific, so it’s welcome in our garden any time.

Baker Creek’s JBT Review Page.. Totally Tomatoes JBT Page… Lucid Gem Tomato

Lucid Gem Tomato

This tomato is described as “sweet” and “heat tolerant”, two very good qualities for our full-sun, drought-prone gardens. Like most of the other BC tomatoes, we’ve never grown these before but they’re coming in well and it looks like we’ll have a lot of them pretty soon.

Baker Creek Lucid Gem Tomato page… Mortgage Lifter Tomato

Mortgage Lifter Tomato

At last (!), something we’ve grown before. Well, we tried growing these before but didn’t have very good results. From what I recall of last year, the bugs were pretty fond of these tomatoes, and they were likely to split. We weren’t as prepared to manage our gardens last year as we are today so our results are turning out a lot better (so far).

Baker Creek’s Mortgage Lifter… Pink Berkeley Tie-Die Tomato

Berkeley Tie-Dye Tomato

Baker Creek compares these to the Cherokee Purple tomatoes that are pretty common here in East Tennessee. We’ve tried growing CPs for the past few years but they always split, and then turn into bug food. The ones (CP) we’ve been able to eat have been great, but these Tie-Dye tomatoes are supposed to be even better. I’m hoping they don’t end up splitting too!

Berkeley Tie-Dye Tomato at Baker Creek…