Tomato Fest 2009 - Heirloom Plant Sales / Benefit

Hi Folks,

Michael Thompson of the Chicago Honey Coop and I are teaming up for Tomato Fest once again. I have literally hundreds of heirloom starts coming along nicely that we will sell to benefit Slow Food Chicago and The Garfield Park Conservatory in a few weeks time.

When the fruit is ripe, we will host the second annual Tomato Fest at the Hoeny Coop in early September and hope that everyone who bought a plant will share some of the harvest. This was a great end to summer last year and it should be bigger and more flavorful this year.

As an added bonus, we are going to have Chefs from all over the city serve Heriloom BLT's for a couple of weeks around Tomato Fest using locally grown Heirloom Tomatoes and, whenever possilbe, local, Heritage Breed pork. (That is if they choose to use Bacon. Paul Kahan's first words were "ELT, with smoked eel").

All sorts of great chefs have signed up and all will pledge to use local heirloooms and to trumpet the farms from which they buy.

Should be a great series of event and a great season of growing. If you are in the market for Heirlooms, please keep our little benefit in mind! More on the dates for the sales here: http://www.candidwines.com/slowfoodtomatofest2009.html

Cheers,

Damien

Don't tempt me to plant more tomatoes!!!!

Truly, this sounds like a great thing - good food, good wine, good causes.

I'll be at the Garfield Park installment, looking forward to it!

Viewsakew -

I'd be happy to give a list of some of the best from last year if you'd like.

Even if you can't plant any of "ours" we still hope
you'll share some of yours at the honey coop.

I will post a list of varieties to be sold later today.


Damien

Glad to have the list. Each year I pick new ones I haven't tried, along with one or two that I know I love. If I have good luck with my EarthBoxes this year, I will certainly bring some. (Have had intensive whitefly infestations a couple times. While I try to keep up, it's time consuming and sometimes they win).

Here is the list. I have bolded the varieties that we did not plant last year, fyi. All of the repeats were addictive and grew well in the western suburbs.

Please, please, please help spread the word. We have upwards of 650 plants to sell! Last year I ended up giving away plants to the staffs in kitchens around the city - the team at Custom House was particularly interested - but I would much rather have more people growing and a bit more money for Slow Food.

All seeds came from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds and I have been quite happy with them over the last few years. You can find descritions for each by googling "Baker Creek" and the specific variety.

Thai Pink Egg
Mortgage Lifter (A Slow Food Ark Variety)
Pearly Pink
Tappy's Heritage
Cuor di Bue
Principe Borghese
Illini Star
Tess's Land Race Currant
Persimmon
Cherokee Purple
Black Cherry
Japanese Black Trifele
True Black Brandywine - One of the best.
Wapsipinicon Peach
Plum Lemon

Are any of those varieties cherry tomatoes?

I'm very interested! Is it worth reserving them or should I just show up bright and early?

Thanks,
Josh

Black Cherry is a purple / black cherry. I had one plant last year and regretted that I only planted one with every tomato I ate. Looking forward to more this year on that one.

Tess's Land Race Currant is a prolific producer of slightly larger than currant size fruit. This plant held the key to many easy dinners because a bit of chard or kale mixed into a saute pan with about 40 of these is delicious. I had some push back from folks who thought the fruit was too small, but to them I say "taste more carefully next time". (Forgive my overbearing nature when it comes to heirlooms, I am trying to learn patience...)

There will be no reservations, but I appreciate your enthusiasm. This is a first come first serve event.

Damien

That's a great list of tomatoes (and I'm always up for going to the Garfield Conservatory). When were the seeds started?

We started them about a month ago and transplanted ten days ago.

I went today and at 5:30 they were sold out

Many, many thanks to everyone who came, and many apologies to those who missed out. This first picture is of Lou, who was waiting on line 20 minutes before we started. Incredible - I was totally shocked at the turnout and the speed with which people snapped up plants.
http://picasaweb.google.com/damien.cast ... 9502924466
We opened at 4PM, and this next picture was taken at 4:15.
http://picasaweb.google.com/damien.cast ... 9118431506

Apologizing to people for not having enough heirloom tomatoes to sell for the benefit of Slow Food and the Garfield Park Conservatory is one of the highest of high class problems. I am sorry if people missed out - we have more plants for sale on June 5th at Uncommon Ground on Devon and June 6th at the Green City Market.

Thanks to everyone! We raised roughly $500 and sold more than 150 plants.

Glad to know it was a success. Next year? Double or triple your sights! In my opinion, Chicagoans are starved for good gardening resources, both plant and material wise.

I love the optimism. This event is teaching me first hand the planning, bravery and stress that are bundled into farming. We planted 800 + seedlings this year. That is an awful lot to take care of as a hobby, and in truth my parents who volunteered the space and their time as waterers and growers deserve the credit.

We watch the plants grow and think - goodness, we had better have some serious sales to make this work. As much as we want the money and awareness for Slow Food, the Conservatory and others, watching 50 unsold plants become leggy, root bound and eventually dead is hard to do. As indicated by the amount of plants I brought yesterday, we had no idea that so much demand is out there. This of course is a good thing, but, if we double and don't sell out, we risk wasting an awful lot of time and money.

All of this contributes to my respect for small growers who gamble each year on the market conditions, the weather, and myriad other factors in order to bring good stuff to market. The next step in Tomato Fest for me is to really push for restuarants to sign our TomatoFest Pledge and make BLT's featuring locally grown tomatoes, bacon and lettuce in August / September. My hope is that we can establish a multiyear program where growers will know that the Heirloom BLT Fest will be a dependable market for 100's of lbs of heirlooms and that they will have some security in planting a few more heirlooms and a few less standards.

Thanks again for everyone's interest, and please come buy more plants on the 5th and 6th!

Just received a count from the garden. We have roughly 250 to 300 plants left to sell on the 5th and 6th. The list below is a rough (and conservatively low) count of the varieites we are offering. If you want a particular type, please come early.

We will split this 1/2 and 1/2 between the Friday Farmer's market at Uncommon Ground on Devon and the Green City Market (Slow Food's table).

Black Brandywine - 8
True Black Brandywine 8
Black Cherry 8
Cherokee Purple 8
Cuor di Bue – 5
Dad’s Sunset 5
Early Pink Cherry 10
Ganny Cantrell German 8
Illini Star 2
Japanese Black Trifele 20
Kellogg’s Breakfast 12
Marmande 6
Mortgage Lifter 9
Pantano Romanesco 2
Paul Robeson 7
Persimmon 12
Plum Lemon 4
Principe Borghese 12
Purple Russian 4
Riesentraube 20
Tappy’s Heritage 18
Tatar from Mongolia 2
Tess’s Land Race Currant 12
Thai Pink Egg 18
Tonados des Conores 6
Wapsipinicon Peach 18
Pearly Pink Cherry 10

HI

by they way, you need to let people know that Kellog's Breakfast is YELLOW Whoever sold it to me on Wed. said it was red, so I went and got a yellow tomato plant today because I wanted red and yellow.

Sigh. Anyone going on the bike ride tomorrow need a yellow tomato plant? (I only have room for one red and one yellow).

leek wrote:HI

by they way, you need to let people know that Kellog's Breakfast is YELLOW Whoever sold it to me on Wed. said it was red, so I went and got a yellow tomato plant today because I wanted red and yellow.

Sigh. Anyone going on the bike ride tomorrow need a yellow tomato plant? (I only have room for one red and one yellow).

We'll take it!

Actually I am torn between this one and the one I got today, not sure which I should keep. So you will get a yellow tomato, but it may be "Carolina Gold". Will you have panniers on your motorbike to carry it?

Fifille can carry it.

Sorry for any confusion. I have pictures of as many of the tomatoes as possible from last year on the blog I have started for the event:
http://chicagotomatofest.blogspot.com/

Glad it will find a home nonetheless!

leek wrote:HI

by they way, you need to let people know that Kellog's Breakfast is YELLOW Whoever sold it to me on Wed. said it was red, so I went and got a yellow tomato plant today because I wanted red and yellow.

Sigh. Anyone going on the bike ride tomorrow need a yellow tomato plant? (I only have room for one red and one yellow).

Also - more than happy to exchange at either of the sales. Just let us know ahead of time.

Can you tell us at what time and where for this sale on June 5 and 6th? Thanks,

Plant sale update :

We will be selling all of the plants listed on the Chicago Tomato Fest Blog at the first Uncommon Ground Friday Farmer's Market on June 5th, from 4 to 8 PM. Please refer to this page for all details: http://www.candidwines.com/slowfoodtomatofest2009.html

There is NO SALE at the Green City Market on Saturday. Sorry, but we have to respect the wishes of the market and they have commitments to farmers selling plants, which of course is completely understandable. So, NO SALE AT GCM on June 6th.

For a full list of the remaining plants, and there are a lot, please go to
http://chicagotomatofest.blogspot.com/2009/05/remaining-plants-for-sale-2009.html


Thanks!

FWIW, my plants that I bought from you are doing great!

Thanks for organizing this great project.

brian