Hello! Aren’t we getting so very tired of hearing those snow plows and snow blowers as we sit here fully engaged in a ragingly high cabin fever? What we really want to hear is that wonderful sweet sound of rototillers and lawn mowers, right? What’s that I hear? Sigh! It’s just another band of snowmobilers frolicking in wonderful winter wonderland!

At any rate, last week we were talking about 3 of the All American Selection winners for 2009 – a cute white mini-eggplant named ‘Gretel’, intended to compliment a cute purple mini-eggplant called ‘Hansel’; a delicious white flesh melon named ‘Lambkin’ ; and ‘Honeybear', a cute mini-acorn squash.

Since cute and delicious seem to be the name of this new variety game, let us continue with a few more new cute and delicious varieties that we might want to try in our cute and delicious gardens this spring. Today, let’s talk about some new cute and delicious tomatoes.

‘Sweet Mojo’ is a new, high yielding, attractive red grape tomato (F1) hybrid offered by Johnny’s Select Seeds. These prolific, excellent, sweet-flavored fruits grow in abundance on long clusters, are uniform in size, have good texture, and resist cracking. ‘Sweet Mojo’ is widely adaptable to hot or cold, wet or dry growing conditions. This is an indeterminate grower that will keep growing and growing and growing. And it’s fairly early - 59 days. So – ‘Sweet Mojo’ – cute and delicious.


‘WOW!’ Tomato ECO Matures in 58 days. Indeterminate, so it keeps growing and growing. This is a newly developed open-pollinated cherry tomato, reputed to be better than ‘Sun Gold’. Keep in mind, ‘Sun Gold’ has been the Holy Grail of tomato breeders for many a year. The breeder, called Relentless from Garland, Maine, says the ‘WOW!’ tomato has it all - the orange color, the ‘Sun Gold’ Brix (that’s the super-sugar factor) with more tomatoey flavor, and an added resistance to cracking. This ‘WOW!’ 2009 will be the F-6 generation whose ancestors hail from the ‘SunWine’ group, ‘Brandywine’, ‘Sun Gold’, and a grape tomato. This is a Fedco introduction, named because ‘WOW!’ has been the first word out of everyone who has ever plopped one in his or her mouth. This one is so new that there is a very limited supply of seed this first year from Fedco Seeds in Maine. They have a limit of one packet per customer. They say to be sure to order very early, and here it’s already almost the end of January, so I guess I won’t be one of the lucky ones to be wowed by ‘WOW!’! Now how is ‘WOW!’ for cute and delicious?

You have heard of the Burpee Seeds before. They usually send out tons of catalogs with different offerings of everything from seeds to plants to fruit trees to fruit bushes, from veggie seeds to herb seeds, to flower seeds, to gardening equipment. Well, here is one really amazing Burpee Exclusive that I swear I am going to try! This one is – are you ready for this? This one is the ‘Sweet Seedless Hybrid Tomato’ -the world’s first seedless tomato!
Diverticulitis sufferers, rejoice!

Here is what they have to say about this extraordinary development: “We’ve come to appreciate seedless watermelons and virtually seedless cucumbers – now the world’s first seedless tomato! Beyond the lack of seeds to digest, this tomato is first rate for taste. In fact, precisely because there are no seeds to store the sugars for later use, all the sweetness is immediately available for you to enjoy in every rich slice. This is a totally new tomato on every level – the perfect balance of flavor and sweetness, meat and gel, solid firmness and juiciness. And to top it off, the indeterminate plants have a full package of disease resistance to ensure plenty of healthy yields.”

These tomatoes are medium size, 8-10 oz – over half a pound, and they take 68 days to mature, so you know that it is possible to grow them up here in the North Country. The Burpee catalog also says “Sorry, state laws prohibit shipping plants to Alaska, Hawaii, Arizona, California, Nevada.”

OK, so now you feel sorry for those 5 states that can’t try the ‘Sweet Seedless Hybrid Tomato’. Actually I felt really happy that I would be able to grow these in my garden, because I am definitely going to order these seedless tomato plants. And then the unthinkable, most baffling thing happened when I went for ordering information! Are you ready for this? It seems that you can order the ‘Sweet Seedless Hybrid Tomato’ – the operative word here is seedless – with either plants or seeds!!!

Is this like an oxymoron or what??? You can actually order a seed packet of ‘Sweet Seedless Hybrid Tomato’ seeds! So, there you have it - the ‘Sweet Seedless Hybrid Tomato’ – cute, delicious, and oxymoronic!

More on new varieties next week!

Hey – Remember – Eat Smart New York!

And – Bye – Talk to you soon!
D