mini tasting

[PaulF]

My wife and I were invited to make presentations for a group of 4-H and FFA students at a small high school nearby. These groups sponsor and operate a Community Garden for their town. Recently because of a grant and volunteer labor their school was able to build a greenhouse. It is small but very nice. Our programs were part of the grand opening of the greenhouse.

My wife's specialty is herbs and she discussed harvest and use of herbs. Of course, I talked about tomatoes along with seed starting for garden vegetables.

As part of the tomato talk, we had a tasting of the 21 varieties that were ripe from my patch. The clear winner of the tasting was Marianna's Peace followed by Butter and Bull Heart. Also receiving votes were: Hillbilly, Orange Russian 117, German Pink, Lee's Sweet, Rebel Yell, Kellogg's Breakfast, Sweetheart, Yellow Bulgarian and Cowlick's Brandywine.

They even learned a new term: spitter. There were a couple of those on the table.

The Community Garden will have Heirloom/OP tomatoes as part of next year's crop. Small steps.