Oliveto Community » -Tomato Watch 2009

Dead Ripe – “It actually means something”

Catherine Meng — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 20:18:20 +0000

‘Tis the season of abundance and acute ripeness, as summer crops put all their remaining energy into their final fruits and seeds in one last attempt to be sown back into the earth. The farms themselves seem at their most beautiful, and the harvest months have a certain celebratory cheer about them, the true pleasure in a job well done.

It’s also the season when farmers and chefs alike are borderline overwhelmed with an onslaught of fruits & vegetables that are ripe RIGHT NOW. It brings an immediacy and a level of creativity to the kitchen and menu that is unique to this time of year. The term farmers use to describe some of their produce (specifically tomatoes and stone fruit) around now is “dead ripe”. Chef Canales explains to us what that means exactly and describes the sense of timeliness it brings to the act of cooking during this brief yet vibrant season.

Tomato Tasting

Catherine Meng — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 22:17:58 +0000

For the kitchen, the first step in planning the menu for Tomato Dinners is knowing what they have to work with. Yesterday, Chef Canales and his sous chefs sat down for three hours and tasted fifty-five different tomatoes from seven different farms. Each tomato was assessed using the following criteria: color, acid, sugar, gel, other flavors, texture, structure, and then given an overall rating.

A primary task was picking the 6 – 12 tomatoes to comprise the best-of-season tasting plate. While each tomato on the tasting plate has to be a knockout in its own right, the dish overall requires diversity, balanced color, and variety of exceptional characteristics.

A few of the standouts from yesterday’s tasting were Momotaros from Brookside Farm, Big Girls from Lucero Organic Farm, German Reds from Riverdog Farm, and Yellow Brandywines from Catalan Farms.

Tomato Watch Week 20 – Shippers, Breakers, Pickers, Packers

Catherine Meng — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 22:47:17 +0000

Riverdog Farm's pasture-raised hens grub up some heirlooms

We’ve been tomato watching now for five months and finally, tomato season is here! Dry-farmed Early Girls are tasting excellent right now, and the heirlooms have just reached their height, giving the kitchen ample time to work with them before Tomato Dinners begin on August 26th. It has been a great year for tomatoes weather-wise and also timing-wise; many farmers took the risk of planting early and the risk paid off.

Another part of the equation is knowing when to pick tomatoes and who to pick them for. Back in April, Tim Mueller of Riverdog Farm in Yolo County took the time to explain to us the stages of a ripening tomato. He differentiates between what is ripe enough to ship and sit, what is perfectly ripe, or “dead ripe” that it heads to the Farmers’ Market (or Oliveto) that day, and what is so ripe it’s only fit for a hog or a hen.

Film edited by Dallas Mark

Tomato Watch Week 18 (Part 2): In which we also consider the eggplant

Catherine Meng — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 21:17:41 +0000

Chef Paul Canales hit up the Derby Street Farmers’ Market yesterday with daughter Eva in tow. The duo got a look at some of the recently available tomatoes at Riverdog Farm, Catalan Farms, Lucero Organic Farm, and Full Belly Farm. Tomato season should hit its peak in the next few weeks, giving the chefs time to evaluate what’s up to snuff for this year’s tomato dinners.

In the meantime, the current showstopper is eggplant. Chef Canales shows us the three varieties he’s particularly fond of and explains how he likes to use them. Eggplant will be on the Oliveto menu in a variety of dishes over the next few days including:

Conchiglie with Rosa Bianca egglpant and pancetta

Stuffed chard and fried ricotta polpettini with wood-oven-roasted eggplant purée

Tomato Watch Week 18 – Riverdog Farm

Catherine Meng — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 19:27:52 +0000

Cherry tomatoes and Sun Golds are tasting delicious right now, but we’re still waiting on Early Girls, San Marzanos, Red Zebras, Pineapples, and the rest of the larger varieties to hit their peak flavor. If everything goes according to plan, that should happen some time over the next three to four weeks just in time for our annual Tomato dinners.

We visited with Trini Campbell and Tim Mueller of Riverdog Farm back in April, soon after their tomato plants went in the ground. Tim tells us what the next few months will require to insure healthy, flavorful tomatoes by August: lots of attention, diligence, and a variety of essential oils that help to combat against an even wider variety of pests.

Edited by Dallas Mark

Tomato Watch Week 16 – First Tomatoes

Catherine Meng — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 20:48:41 +0000

We received the following e-mail yesterday from Welling Tom of Brookside Farm in Brentwood:

Yesterday (Sunday, July 12) we sold our first tomatoes of the year at the Montclair farmers’ market. It was only a couple weeks ago when we were still watering them, so these tomatoes (Early Girls) were still larger and more water-plumped than ideal, but they were not bad, and people at the farmers’ market have been asking for tomatoes for some time now. The Early Girls were completely sold out. They should be better next week. Maybe good enough for Oliveto. We’ll see.

Our heirloom and San Marzano tomatoes should be ready some time this month, and should continue to be in peak production through the month of August. All the tomatoes look good,but they are mostly green now.

-Welling Tom

Dry-Farming with Joe

Catherine Meng — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 20:05:38 +0000

Click to flip pages

When we visited Joe Schirmer of Dirty Girl Produce back in April, he had many things to tell us in regards to climate, planting times, soil quality, and procuring information on patented seeds. But what really piqued our interest, was Joe’s knowledge of the practice of dry-farming, as well as its history. Finding little current information available, Joe tracked down texts dating back to the 1920s in an effort to understand how to grow vegetables using limited water. Here, he imparts some of his wisdom. Watch film.

Film edited by Dallas Mark

Additionally, we found a great online resource, Internet Archive, a non-profit out of San Francisco, that allows you to flip through books like this one from 1909 on dry-farming.

Tomato Watch Week 11 – Brookside Farm

Catherine Meng — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 22:27:13 +0000

Anne Tom and Welling Tom of Brookside Farm in Brentwood stopped by this morning with a tomato update and some pictures of their San Marzano and Early Girl plants. Due to the recent cool weather, Welling estimates the tomatoes will be ready to go to market by mid-July.

In the meantime, Brookside’s Bing cherries and Rainier cherries are currently out of sight. And ‘Musica’ beans, started in the greenhouse back in March, should be ready in the next few weeks.

Tomato Watch Week 10 – First Wave of Early Girls

Catherine Meng — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 19:01:55 +0000

Another thrilling episode from the sunny studios of Dirty Girl Productions!

Last time we heard from Joe Schirmer of Dirty Girl Produce, he had just finished planting his first wave of dry-farmed Early Girl tomatoes.

It is now June and the plants have not been watered since April. But thanks to a well-developed root system, they are looking healthy and robust and are expected to be producing ripe fruit by mid-July. Watch Video.

Tomato Watch Week 5 – Joe Goes Behind the Camera

Catherine Meng — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 19:59:18 +0000

Joe catching some air

Joe Schirmer of Dirty Girl Produce has taken Tomato Watch into his own hands! We had intended to cover the details of dry farming this week, but on Tuesday we received an email from Joe and shortly after that a video he shot himself of his tomatoes being planted. How cool is it to see the process of farming through a farmer’s eyes?

Joe’s email:
The first tomatoes are going out tomorrow at noon. We wanted to wait for the brunt of this heat wave to pass first. So we disked, listed, composted, ripped and now we are watering and we will till the beds in the a.m. and start planting after lunch. Hopefully we will be done planting the first wave Thursday and I will try to remember my video camera and get as much as possible.

Joe’s video:

It was our intention from the beginning to give farmers a space to connect with their community in a more direct forum and in their own voice. So it pleases us to no end to get email reports & pictures & now videos directly from our farmers.