After years of poor beefsteak yield, cherry tomato crop overflows
Plump, sun-warmed, bright red or golden, sweet and delicious, right-from-the-garden tomatoes scream s-u-m-m-e-r. There's no way that out-of-season, greenhouse-grown tomatoes can begin to compare to garden-grown, summer tomatoes. No way.
Over the years I worked at producing home-grown tomatoes without much success. I always wanted to grow those slice-of-bread-sized beefsteak style tomatoes like Burpee's Big Boy Hybrid (burpee.com/vegetables/tomatoes/beefsteak-tomatoes).
My issues: insufficient sun (they like a full day of summer sun); too wet or too dry soil; and insects. If you grow or have grown tomatoes, you know how difficult that can be.
Last year, my life-partner, Nan, suggested, since she'd had so much success with them over the years, that we grow cherry tomatoes (small and round). She told me that the cherry tomatoes she grew self-seeded and came back year-after-year. Easy pee-zee.
Knowing that cherry tomatoes can frequently taste sweeter than large tomatoes, I went along with Nan's experience, and we grew two red cherry tomatoes plants last year. We ended up with so many tomatoes that we froze gallon bags full for use during the winter. Those frozen cherry tomatoes made some of the best spaghetti sauces I've ever made.
We'll probably end up giving tomatoes away this year since we have four cherry tomato plants, two red and two golden. Yellow or golden tomatoes are also low-acid tomatoes. That reduced-acidity makes those tomatoes even sweeter. The texture of low-acid tomatoes is also finer grained; smoother. I've already gotten three yellow cherry tomatoes from our plants, and they are excellent.
There's one other crop that means summer: corn.
I've never been able to do it, but the story goes that the best way to eat fresh summer corn is to heat a big pot of water out in a cornfield, when the water comes to a boil, pick some ears of corn, shuck them immediately and dump them in the boiling water. A minute later, pull the ears from the pot with tongs, slather them with melted butter and dust with a touch of salt and bite in. Nirvana.
The closest I can come to that is head to my local farmer's market in July, buy some fat ears of unshucked corn and get them to a pot of boiling water as soon after that as possible.
These days, I want to make sure that my corn isn't a genetically modified organism. 2014 USDA statistics show that 93-percent of all corn grown in the US are GMO. Most is field corn; corn to feed animals, not humans. Since there is such a thing as GMO sweet corn (Monsanto introduced it in 2011), I want to make certain the corn I buy is not GMO corn. Easier said than done.
If I can talk to the farmer at my local market about the fresh, sweet corn he's selling, I can ask whether it's GMO or not (chances are fairly good it is not GMO). The only other way to ensure corn is not GMO is to buy certified organic corn. That's not easy to do.
The easiest and most certain path is to buy frozen, certified organic corn since organic corn cannot be from a GMO corn strain. However, that corn's not quite as good as biting down on a fresh, newly-picked ear of sweet corn.
Welcome to summer.
If you grow zucchini or summer squash, you know they go great with tomatoes and corn, and they all make a most-excellent summer salad. If all three aren't available just yet, store this recipe away; you'll be glad you did.
• Don Mauer welcomes questions, comments and recipe makeover requests. Write to him at don@ theleanwizard.com.