Hello! As we swing into the final weekend of January – Super Bowl weekend – let’s not get too boggled down with this cabin fever thing! OK – so it’s the snowiest winter that we’ve had in many a year – at least the days are getting longer – this winter cannot last forever. Can we safely say that winter is in its final throes? Groundhog Day is just around the corner. Let’s hope that this humble mammal promises us an early spring! After all that we have endured – we deserve an early spring.

At any rate, with spring in mind, let us shut the blinds and curtains to the outside cold and white stuff; let’s continue to dream about our spring gardens. Let’s continue our expose on new vegetable varieties; let’s concentrate on some really unique tomato varieties.

Last week we left off pondering the impossibility of the ‘Sweet Seedless Hybrid Tomato’ – available in either plants or seeds! Seedless tomato seeds! Go figure! Let’s ponder the following tomato varieties that come in different colors! Not to worry – all of these tomato varieties have seeds!

White tomatoes! Yes – white – or at least cream-colored tomatoes! White cherry tomatoes! These varieties have names such as ‘Ghost Cherry’ and ‘Snow White’.

There are regular-sized white tomatoes such as heirloom variety ‘Great White’. This one is a beautiful, large white beefsteak tomato with sweet flavor and lots of juice. Then there is another heirloom called ‘Hugh's’ from the Midwest. These tall, heavy plants grow very large, up to 2-1/2 lb., beefsteak tomatoes that are pale yellow with a touch of red on the blossom end. They are very meaty, thin-skinned and delicious, seemingly bursting with summer sweetness.

‘White Beauty’ has a creamy white color inside and outside. It’s extremely mild and sweet because of a high sugar content. Fruits average 8 ounces and are quite meaty with few seeds.

‘White Queen’ offers some of the nicest shape and whitest color of any of the 'white' varieties. This beefsteak-type fruit weighs 8 to 12 ounces, and is smooth except for ribbed shoulders. Some fruit have a pink blush or streaks on their blossom ends and all ripen to pale creamy yellow with no cracking. ‘White Queen’ tomatoes are juicy and sweet with a well-balanced flavor.

‘Old Ivory Egg’ is an heirloom variety that is well-named because its fruit is the size, shape, and color of a chicken's egg. This pale ivory fruit will eventually turn creamy yellow and has a mild, sweet flavor. Very unusual color for a plum-type tomato, offering great uses in salads, platters, and even salsas and sauces.

Can you imagine making white spaghetti sauce? Are white tomatoes too bland or blah for you? Then let’s go to the opposite side of the color spectrum. How about black tomatoes?

There are dark-mahogany-brown, purple, deep reddish-brown, dark brown-red, deep burgundy colored varieties in this black tomato category. Some black varieties are aptly named ‘Black’, ‘Black Cherry’, ‘Black from Tula’, ‘Cherokee Chocolate’, ‘Black Krim’, ‘Black Plum’, ‘Cherokee Purple’, ‘Black Pear’, ‘Black Prince’, ‘Black Zebra’, ‘Blue Fruit’, ‘Carbon’, ‘Purple Calabash’, ‘Purple Russian’, and ‘Southern Night’.

Is white or black too extreme for you? Then how about a color in-between? How about yellow tomatoes? Keep in mind, some of their names actually describe what kind of yellow tomatoes they are. Their names leave nothing for the imagination! Yellow varieties include: ‘Cuban Yellow Grape’ , ‘Dixie Golden Giant’, ‘Golden Queen’, ‘Goldie’, ‘Lemon Boy’, ‘Limmony’, ‘Mountain Gold’, ‘Plum Lemon’, ‘Sunray’, ‘Tangerine’, ‘Yellow Bell’, ‘Yellow Brandywine’, ‘Yellow Canary’, ‘Yellow Currant’, ‘Yellow Oxheart’, ‘Yellow Pear’, ‘Yellow Ping Pong’, ‘Yellow Plum’.

And then there are some really unique yellow tomato varieties. There is ‘Banana Legs’ – a yellow, paste-type fruit is 4 in. long and 1-1/2 in. in diameter. Tomatoes are meaty with few seeds and a good taste.

‘Garden Peach’ - small yellow tomatoes with a pink blush. Skin is somewhat fuzzy resembling a peach and the flavor is sweet and fruit-like.

‘Gold Nugget’ - bright golden cherry tomatoes have rich, sweet flavor and are borne in great abundance on short, compact plants. Fruit is about 1 inch in diameter and most are seedless.

‘Golden Sweet Hybrid’ - the perfect yellow partner to red grape tomato. ‘Golden Sweet’ grows long clusters of deep yellow grape tomatoes that stay firm and crisp and also resist cracking.

‘Sweet Gold’ - 1/2 oz. bright yellow-gold cherry tomatoes with delicious sweet flavor. These tomatoes are naturally sweeter than red cherry varieties with a fruitier taste.

‘Ruffled Yellow’ - yellow tomatoes with a pleated shape like an accordion. When pulp is scooped out, they make beautiful containers for salads, desserts, and other stuffings.

‘Yellow Stuffer’ - a yellow-fruited stuffing tomato that looks just like a yellow bell pepper! Perfect for slicing or stuffing.

Do these unique, different, and/or weird tomato varieties sound tempting? What to try them in your garden this year. Go to www.tomatosupplycompany.com for these and other unique, different, and/or weird tomato varieties. This site also gives you colored picture of what these unique, different, and/or weird tomato varieties look like. Me – I’m going to try some of these unique, different, and/or weird tomato varieties to go with my seedless tomatoes!

More unique, different, and/or weird tomato varieties next week!

Remember – Eat Smart New York!

And – Bye – Talk to you soon!
D