Sauce and Paste Tomatoes

 

 

1884  1884 ($4.95)  (B)    ((HG) (E) 78 days. 1884 is a superbly flavored old-time tomato which grows on a strong vigorous plant and produces big luscious 2 lb. deep dark pink fruit with luxurious flavor and sets fruit readily in hot weather. It is said that the original seeds were discovered in 1884 by a Mr. Williamson in the debris after the big flood in Friendly, West Virginia. This grand fruit has taken top mention year after year in tomato tastings all over the country. Easy to grow and very productive. Marvelous for fresh eating and makes a luscious sauce.

 

Anna Russian ($4.95)    (VE)  ((HG) 65 days. This was the very first heirloom tomato I ever tasted and one of the finest of the oxheart tomatoes.

The plant has very delicate, wistful foliage as do many of the Russian varieties. Don't let that fool you! Anna is easy to grow and bears heavily during hot and cool weather.

 

Years ago my mom brought me some perfect heart-shaped Anna Russians from her garden. She had gotten the seeds from a friend. I tasted; I swooned. From 8 to 12 ounces, the fruits she brought had grown in beautiful clusters of 2 or 3--I wouldn't be without it.

 

Still in my top 5 favorites after all these years, Anna Russian is always among the first few plants I set out in my home garden every spring in a little Tomato Love ceremony. Its perfect heart shape in colors ranging from pink to red make it very special indeed.

Anna Russian seeds came to Craig Lehoullier from Brenda Hillenius of Oregon, who got the seeds from her grandfather, Kenneth Wilcox. Years earlier he had been given the original seeds from a Russian immigrant friend--a genuine example of the intriguing history these grand old tomatoes carry with them.

 

 

 

Bisignano Bisignano #2 ($4.95)   (E)  (P-S) 75 days. This superior old-fashioned Italian tomato is a family favorite of the wonderful tomato loving Bisignano family of New York, NY. Known for its outstanding rich flavor, perfect for fresh eating, fabulous for sauce, Bisignano produces 3 distinctly different medium-sized bright red fruit shapes on each plant: plums, pears, and perfectly round fruits. Extremely productive, it's a classic garden staple and a top favorite of tomato growers worldwide.

 

 

 Black Ethiopian Black Ethiopian ($4.95) 80 days. This spectacular tomato has an exquisite flavor-- just knocks me out.  Be prepared for extremely heavy production of deep reddish brown-bronze 5 oz. luscious plum shaped tomatoes, sweet, rich and tangy--just ambrosial. Black Ethiopian's exceptional production and splendid flavor have made it highly prized in the tomato world.  We are proud to be offering it for the first time.

 

Black Plum Black Plum ($4.95) 75 days. (E)  (P-S) This marvelous plant offers a very heavy production of rich, sweet, fruity, elongated, mahogany plum-shaped 3" fruits that fall into your hands by the dozens as you pick them. This one is outstanding eaten fresh, or sliced in a salad, with a rich smoky sweetness and a delicate touch of tartness to its creamy flesh, it makes a fabulous and perfectly balanced sauce or paste and is becoming a great favorite for canning. I like it fresh off the vine for straight-up garden snackin'. First place winner at the TomatoMania tasting of 2002.

 

 New for 2010!    Bull's Heart  ($4.95)     This old time oxheart tomato from Russia is deepest pink with rich, robust, unruly flavor that will capture your senses.  Meaty with few seeds it is outstanding for fresh eating and for sauce. Reaching 1 to 2 lbs and very productive, it will become a stale in your garden.

 

 

 

Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red ($5.25) (HG) (E) 78 days. From Gary Ibsen, owner of Carmel TomatoFest, Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red is a deep-red, round, beefsteak  type fruit with a robust unruly tomatoey flavor and firm, meaty yet juicy flesh that invites tomato feasting and seed-saving. The tall, indeterminate, very disease resistant plant produces loads of 3-4", 10-12 oz. fruits.

 

"This is one of those big, bold tasting tomatoes that is not for sissies," said Ibsen. "Although it has some of the highest sugar levels I've ever seen from a tomato, the sweetness is in the background and its fruity flavors are balanced beautifully with plenty of acidity, earthy nuances and flavor complexity. It's a perfect tomato for eating fresh, cooking or canning.

 

Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red has proven resistant to several of the most common tomato diseases: verticillium wilt, fusarium wilt, nematodes and tobacco mosaic virus."

"Within the hundreds of varieties of heirloom tomatoes I've grown each year has been a selection of previously undistributed, un-named varieties, the seeds of which have been handed down within different families from around the country for generations, then tucked into letters from gardeners wanting to share their legacy with me."  

"For years I've wanted pay tribute to our neighbor Clint Eastwood for the generosity he's bestowed upon our Carmel-Monterey community, for his actions to preserve the natural beauty of our coastline and for the years of support he's given to the Carmel TomatoFest," said Gary Ibsen. With Clint's permission I chose to name it 'Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red', after Clint's character, Rowdy Yates, from the old television series Rawhide."

"The seeds of this variety came from Archie Millett who is now 81 and living in the foothills of the Sierras. Archie was a tomato breeder with the University of California at Davis since the early 50's. Following years of crossing thousands of tomato varieties at the university to produce a disease resistant tomato with intense flavor, he retired in 1987 and continued cross breeding to enhance the flavor qualities of his favorite tomato from his small home garden."

"Archie gave me these seeds by pressing them into my palm while we were in his garden," said Ibsen. "He said, "Here Gary, these are for you. I've only shared these with friends and family. This is the best tasting tomato of my 50 years of growing tomatoes. Name it what you want, share it with others. You are the person I'd like to introduce this tomato to the public." 

Gary named this fabulous tomato for his friend and fellow environmentalist, Clint Eastwood. 

Gary Ibsen's friendship and encouragement continue to inspire my love for heirloom tomatoes. He has been my mentor and finest inspiration, and his award winning book, The Great Tomato Book, is always nearby. 

Archie Millett is a national treasure. If I have a tomato question that even Gary can't answer, he points me to Archie," Time to call Archie..." 

 

 

Costoluto Genovese Costoluto Genovese ($4.95) (P-S) (E) 70 days. A big beautiful and classic Italian heirloom, the deeply fluted, ribbed intensely-red 8 oz. fruits are mouthwatering and utterly scrumptious.  This stunning tomato has a splendid, complex old-time flavor which makes it a perfect choice for sauce and fresh eating.

 

 

 

 

    Goose Creek ($7.95) 75-80 days.      (HG) (E)

This delectable historical family heirloom is one of the rarest plants we offer and our top seller. The flavor and color run deep in Goose Creek, a stunning, deeply red fruit, round or slightly flattened, sometimes lobed, with occasional gold streaks or speckling, faintly visible in the photo. Juicy, very sweet and intensely tomatoey as if injected with concentrated tomato flavor, it is ambrosial. I've rarely tasted a tomato to compare. Averaging 6-7 ounces, with very few seeds; it has now made my top 3 list. 

 

This family treasure comes to us from edible landscape expert, Jimmy Williams, owner of Hayground Organic Gardening in California whose home garden we found to be an enchanting escape. Jimmy, born in 1942, and his Native Island Gullah-Geechee family are descendants of slaves brought in bondage from The Caribbean to the coastal islands of the Southern United States to grow rice for plantation owners.

The Gullah are still keepers of a fascinating culture of food, language and beloved traditions--a most extraordinary and delightful people.

The seeds of this sublime fruit have been passed down through generations since the 1800's when Jimmy's great-great grandmother, a young Caribbean slave, smuggled them with her aboard ship. When the ship docked at Charleston near Goose Creek, South Carolina, she had the treasured seeds with her, hidden deep in her skirt pocket and planted them that first spring. Jimmy's  grandmother, Elouise Watson, shared this precious heirloom with him more than 45 years ago, assuring Goose Creek 's place in his family's garden for generations to come. Among its extraordinary qualities: A very high fruit yield and very few seeds. 

Along with being very heat tolerant, it shows remarkable cold-tolerance along the cooler coastal areas where the fruits continue to set and ripen through November and December. It is a wonderful choice for growing in containers.

 

Goose Creek has two distinctly different and superb flavors during two phases of its growth: when partially ripe and still showing some light green at the shoulders it has a brisk citrusy taste balanced with a fine, lingering touch of sweetness, and again at full red ripeness when it develops an intensely rich, earthy sweet flavor and luxurious, silken texture. 

Very prolific, this exquisite variety has been featured recently in Fine Cooking Magazine,  The Los Angeles Times Magazine,

and Visiting with Huell Howser on PBS. This season it will be featured in Sunset Magazine, Mother Earth News, Weekend Magazine and The Victory Garden on PBS Television.

 

Now available to the home gardener and online exclusively from Laurel's; it is a rare and exquisite selection for your table and your historical garden. 

A perfect gift for the tomato-lover on your list.

 

 

 

Green Sausage ($4.95) (D) (VE) (SM) 65 days. Look at this gorgeous fruit! Easy to grow and early ripening, its resplendent shape, sparkling green and amber color and tantalizing taste have made Green Sausage one of the most sought after tomatoes this season and a huge favorite at Farmer's Markets. Very prolific, Green Sausage is a small plant and produces an early, abundant harvest of 4" long fruits in clusters of 6 or 7 fruits. With flavor similar to Green Zebra but with a meatier flesh, it is tangy, rich, and juicy and sweet--just out of this world. This photograph was taken by my friend Cynthia Geske, grower extraordinaire and owner of Love Apple Farm in Ben Lomond, California. www.loveapplefarm.biz 

 

 

Italian Tree ($4.95)(B) 84 days. This huge prolific vining plant is called Italian Tree because it grows to 15 feet and produces enormous harvests of meaty 1 to 2 lb. gorgeous 4" to 5" red tomatoes with superior flavors and a perfect balance of sweetness and acidity.

Great for fresh eating or canning, be sure to give it extra support like a trellis as each plant can produce bushels of big tasty tomatoes. When laden with fruit it becomes very heavy.

One of the best for Tomato Sandwiches. (This season we will be posting tomato sandwich recipes from new and returning customers. Call Laurel for more information, 310-534 8611) One of the best tomatoes for market growers because of its excellent productivity, heartiness and old-fashioned tomatoey flavor.

 

 

 

 

 

  Martino's Roma (D) ($4.95)  (P-S) (E) (SM) 75 days. This extremely prolific plant produces a huge yield--the fruit loads up in amazing quantities on a small 3 foot plant. Its yummy crop of  3" red pear-shaped Roma tomatoes that are great for cooking, and sweet and luscious enough to enjoy fresh right out of your hand. Very meaty with few seeds, highly productive, marvelous for canning, and for your favorite tomato sauce recipe. The flavor intensifies exponentially during cooking.

 

 

Opalka Opalka  ($4.95)    (P-S)  (E) 70 days. This wonderful heirloom originated in Poland. To me, and many other tomato lovers; it's absolutely the finest tasting paste tomato, with 5-inch long, thick red fruit, shaped like little red bananas with a pretty round nipple on the tip of each fruit.

The foliage is wispy but the plant is very vigorous and prolific, often the tallest plant in the garden. Very meaty, virtually seedless and loaded with exquisite, refreshing, sweet flavors, marvelous for sauce and fresh eating. Yum. Despite the plant's large size, it's also done very well for me in 20 gallon containers.

 

 

 

  San Marzano Redorta ($4.95)    80 days. The best of the Italian sauce tomatoes, this big, luscious high-producing Roma type fruit is named for Pizzo di Redorta, (Redorta Peak) one of the highest peaks in the Bergamo Alps of Lombardy, Northern Italy.

At 8 to 10 ounces-- with reports of up to 16 ounces-- and 4" to 6" long, it is a much larger tomato with much better flavor than its cousin, San Marzano. San Marzano Redorta is marvelously rich, extremely productive and good enough to eat fresh, right off the vine.

My friend, Gary Ibsen of TomatoFest.com, prefers it to any other Italian paste tomato. I agree!

 

 

Sunset Red Horizon Tomato Sunset's Red Horizon ($4.95) (B)     (E) 72 days. This outstanding big, red, ambrosial and glorious fruit is, along with Marianna's Peace, Vintage Wine, Green Giant, Goose Creek, and Earl's Faux, the talk of the tomato world this season and being described as the best tasting tomato in existence. Producing like a champ in cool weather, resistant to frost, it is a splendid producer of big red oxheart shaped, 5" fruits with great old-time intense tomato flavors and a juicy silken texture. Very heavy in the hand, weighing from 10 to about 16 ounces. One of the first varieties to produce, and continue bearing fruit well into November and December in the cooler coastal regions of Washington, Oregon and California, Sunset's Red Horizon will also produce beautifully and reliably in all climates and has proven resistant to frost, blossom end rot and cracking.

 

 

 

 

  Sweet Orange Roma (4.95) 76 days. For all you folks who are entreating me to include a yellow-orange roma tomato, here it is. This 3" x 1½" fruit grows in prolific quantities and produces so bravely! Takes the heat like a champ and continues late into the year, undeterred by cooler weather. Sweet and lovely, great tasting, gorgeous tomatoes are perfect for fresh eating and cooking.

 

 

 

 

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