In the Garden with Pat Rubin

Bee garden writer Pat Rubin writes about everything that grows, from flowers and trees to vegetables and lawns. Pat volunteered for several years as a Placer County Master Gardener and has written about gardening for many national and regional publications. In addition to gardening, she spends time raising and showing miniature horses and miniature donkeys.

In the Garden will include news, events, advice and other gardening tidbits. Pat will also answer reader questions.

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August 6, 2007

Big dollars for tomatoes

Those tomatoes growing in your backyard could be worth a whole lot more than the per pound price at the local grocery store or farmer’s market.

Raley’s and NatureSweet Tomatoes are willing to divvy up $2,500 for the sweetest local, homegrown tomatoes in both the large and small categories. Two runners up in each category will receive $250 in prizes.

All tomatoes will be given a Brix test for sweetness. (Wine grape growers do the same thing to determine when to pick the grapes.) A panel of judges will taste the finalists, as determined by the Brix test. Scores will be tallied and the winner announced. In fact, The Bee's food writer, Gwen Schoen, and I will be on the judging panel.

Growing the sweetest tomatoes for the dinner table is easy--just keep picking and cutting and tasting them until you hit upon the ones that are the best. But a contest, well, that’s a bit harder. You don't get to say, "Wait a minute, I have better tomatoes than those."

Here are a few tips to help you select the sweetest tomatoes for the contest. Fred “Farmer Fred” Hoffman has heard just about every trick, rumor, and old wives’ tale imaginable to make tomatoes sweeter. Mainly, Hoffman said, we don’t pick tomatoes at their peak of ripeness. We pick them when they are too hard. “A tomato that is slightly softer to the touch is probably sweeter than one that is firm. I think people are used to store-bought "red rocks", and thus feel the need to pick tomatoes from the garden that are as equally as hard,” he said. “Withhold the urge and wait until they are slightly soft." Further, pick tomatoes the morning of the contest, not the night before. Store it in a cool dark place, but not in the refrigerator.

“If I were to enter a tomato contest,” he said, “I think I might withhold water for the week before the contest to stress the plant slightly."

Still want to enter? It’s simple. On Aug. 25, bring three regular tomatoes or 10 cherry type tomatoes of the same variety to Raley’s, 25025 Blue Ravine Road, Folsom. For times and rules, visit NatureSweet's Tomato Challenge website or call (800) 315-8209.

See you there.

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