A TRUE BIOLOGIST SPEAKS

I offer this to you all for your winter reading and some possible improvements in your gardening. These are not my words. Credit to the writer are given at the end of this letter.

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Vegetables - Look Good, Or Taste Good?
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I knew it was going to be a mistake before I ate it. But it was a very appealing-looking slice of tomato on the plate at the restaurant - perfect shape, nice attractive red color. It looked much like those beautiful photos in glossy seed catalogs. So I cut the slice into fourths and popped a wedge into my mouth, hoping that my expectations would be wrong this time.

Wrong! While chewing, my taste buds vainly tried to coax something like a tomato flavor from the oddly neutral material. No luck. I sighed and left the remaining pieces uneaten. In hindsight, I should have known that it was really intended more to provide a little color to the plate than to be consumed.

Yes, I know. Everybody and their crazy uncle have ranted on and on about tasteless tomatoes. We all agree - those pretty, uniformly-sized red things at the supermarket are "like cardboard." There's no need to further belabor that point.

Instead, let's consider the opportunity that this creates. There are varieties and growing methods readily available that can produce marvelous tasting vegetables, not only tomatoes but beans, melons, asparagus, corn and all the others. And the flavor difference in the same potato or sweet corn eaten within hours of being harvested versus several days later is huge.

Sadly, many people never get a chance to savor freshly-picked flavor-packed varieties of vegetables. The growing popularity of farmer's markets is a step in the right direction, but even there the rows and rows of identical "pretty" vegetables are a tip-off that vendors are selling inferior-flavored produce bred more for high production than for high flavor.

At a recent local farmer's market, I did spot some ugly heirloom tomatoes in a back box. There were various colors - near-black, yellow, red-streaked gold, as well as red. Many were cat-faced and none were perfectly round. I was loading a bag with some of each when I noticed the price - $5.99 per pound. The big red and yellow tomato (maybe Hillbilly, Georgia Streak, or Pineapple?) in my hand would cost me over seven dollars all by itself. Whoa!

But I still bought it. And thoroughly enjoyed eating it at home later, one delicious slice at a time. I managed to stretch the experience out over a few days.

I think there's a lesson and an opportunity in this story. Some people care enough about flavor in their food to pay a premium price for great-tasting stuff...and there's not enough great stuff readily available. If I were younger, I'd seriously consider finding a few acres within range of a city, load up the soil with minerals, create big populations of beneficial soil organisms - earthworms down to nitrogen-fixing bacteria - and plant only high-flavored varieties of vegetables.

In California, the commercial strawberry variety Chandler is widely touted as having excellent flavor - a little strawberry taste has been bred into them. A neighbor once told me how he was now looking for Chandlers in markets (and outside of apples, not much produce is identified by variety - a bad thing). I took him back to my garden and offered him an Earliglow berry. I think I forever ruined Chandlers for him.

There are heirloom tomatoes as well as older hybrids that taste wonderful and produce enormous crops of (misshapen) fruit - Mortgage Lifter, Big Girl, Beefsteak, Pink Girl, Lemon Boy, Clear Pink Early, Grushovka, to name a few. There are varieties of SE sweet corn (Incredible is a good one) that taste far superior to the insipid Supersweets now dominating produce stands. Beans, strawberries, melons - even carrots (Nelson, for example) - can all produce an "Oh,wow!" response when grown in good soil and eaten soon after picking.

That's both the problem and the opportunity - growing top-flavor fragile varieties in mineral-rich living soil, and then getting them quickly into the hands of consumers after picking is not easy, but there can be rewards for success.

This isn't exactly an innovative idea, but I just don't see many growers making the most effective improvements of their soil, or growing the highest-flavored varieties, or promoting "unattractive" but highly-flavored produce at farmer's markets. Yes, a few are doing some of these things, but the entire process could be done so much better (and more profitably at the same time).

Look good or taste good? It's a shame that we typically have to make that choice. Growing your own is the ultimate answer - and don't overlook the importance of activated soil and tastier varieties. "New and improved" rarely works for vegetables.

Good growing, my friends,

Don Chapman
President
BioOrganics

I have just wrapped up my 25th year of vending at the Farmers Market. We have strived to supply the customers with top quality produce. Every year the same thing happens, growers with tons of product show up. Customers practically run to them because they are selling at a lower price.
I raise tomatoes in a greenhouse, in the ground, not hydroponic. I start selling them in early June. Garden tomatoes don't show up until August here. Customers will buy the garden ones even when they are covered with black blight spots! The real topper was about 3 weeks ago when temperature was 24º at 6:30 in the morning. All the greedy vendors were setting their things out even though the market does not open until 8 AM. There were frozen tomatoes, corn, watermelons & other things. Even Butternut squash setting out showed signs of being froze.
We kept our stuff in the truck until temp reached 32º. That was about 10:30 AM.

So of course the last few weeks we heard all kinds of comments about customers taken produce home that day & not being able to use it. It didn't change their buying habits though!

Sad to say, but there is a long way to go on educating customers. It will never happen in my lifetime!
Bernie

This message was edited Nov 4, 2009 6:38 PM

Well Bernie............if you visit the West Coast I assure you it has happened. It is a delight to be in a hippie market where quality is based on flavor, texture, and known contents because of how it was grown what varieties were grown and sometimes by whom.

In our area our farm market has a grown in Pennsylvania rule that is to a high degree observed and self policed. We have cardboard produce growers in Pennsylvania so they can offer their product in our market. The market supports an extimated 50% true organic growers and three organic meat producers. It might be higher percentages but as you say......Education is the word which includes buyers and growers both.

Our meat and some produce is on a paid monthly agreement with the farmer. We stop by to chat and pick up his pre-packed box and to purchase a few goodies from others.
The organic or healthy grown items are definately growing nicely from year to year in our area.

Great article, Doc! I have become converted to this way of thinking in the past several years What a joy it is to bite into a very great tasting tomatoe. I'll gladly cut around the spots for some extra special flavor!

Doc, that is a great article. I refuse to buy tomatoes, like you said they taste like cardboard. I purchased 2 Tomato Success Kits in 2006, as I knew with the surgery I was going to have tending the vegetable garden that year was out of the question. That year the beds were full of weeds, I did not plant or start any new flowers, but I had my tomatoes. I have been using the TSK every year,next year will be the 5th season for them.
We have a family farm near us that grows only one type of sweet corn, the seeds are more expensive, we were told, but you can't beat their corn for flavor, they also go by the honor system, they pick the corn in the am, put it in a large bin and cover it with damp burlap, then they go off and attend to their other farm chores, checking back several times a day to empty the $ can and replenish the corn bin if needed. The farm is a bit out of the way so only the locals and regulars travel there.
The flowers are going the same way, they are breeding out the wonderful scents for bigger, brighter flowers. All for show.
I do like a pretty flower but I also want to walk in the garden and get that wonderful scent. The one that make you go searching for the source.

I think many of us have to one degree or another at least started leaning back into the direction of heritage plant growing. That includes flowers too. I remember when the flower shop cooler door was opened the aromas that came out were delightful. What comes out now is the odor of fungicides, insecticides and preservative chemicals put in the water. No one here grows thier own. They all fly them in from the warmer climate areas around the world. You get a pretty arrangement but it may stink and you may not know half the flowers that are in it. What with tinted flowers, tinseled leaves and artificial flower sprays we come up with the cardboard flower arrangements too.

Amen, doc--Amen!!!

So well said-----You are a voice in the darkness! I do not have room to grow anything much from scratch--except a couple of heirloom Tomatoes, but I do appreciate your fervor and conviction on all things organic and good.

I seldom buy tomatoes at the Stores---and when I buy a bagged salad mix--and open it--this gas smell about knocks me over! I guess it is to keep it fresh longer--and, probably, not harmful, or they would not be able to use it.

I do not, really, vegetable garden, as I have NO room for growing veggies--except maybe 4-5 tomatoes and some Dill.
I DO shop at my local Farm Stands for fresh produce. However--their prices have gone higher than most of the Grocery Stores.....
I reason--that IN SEASON-the veggies have to be "fresh" from somewhere! So I buy them at the stores as needed.

I do have a REAL farm store near me--and I get my eggs fresh and also their produce if I need it, and it IS cheaper than any Grocery Store----but off-season, I know they also ship their produce in and sell it as "local"....

Keep the flame going!!!!! Gita

Luckily a lot of the farmers around here grow the old varieties that have been in their families for generations, so you can often buy heirloom tomatoes at the fruit and vegetable stands that carry local produce for the same price as the hybrids. Some of the orchards grow heirloom apples too and they cost no more than the other apples.

I've been growing heirloom tomatoes and other vegetables about 30 years now and believe me, once you've grown the tasty ones, you'll never go back.

Gita, you might want to look into community supported agriculture or CSAs. Essentially you pay a fee that gives you a right to a box of whatever is in season each week during the season. Most of them have small portions for small families/individuals. It helps the farmers because they have cash at the beginning of the season when they need it. It helps you because you get the freshest produce for less than grocery or vegetable stand prices.

You can search here for CSA farms near you. http://www.localharvest.org/csa/

Hart, One day when I drove up to Penn State, I stopped in a local produce store. They were the drop off/pickup spot for a local CSA. The whole place was full of big baskets made up for each family participating. As I was there, 5 or 6 families came in to pick up their allotment. It was really nice. Would love to see one around here, so I could evaluate whether or not to participate. I looked at the CSA list before and there wasn't anything in my immediate area.

This message was edited Nov 8, 2009 11:29 PM

Keep checking. I know last year there were none in my immediate area and only a handful in the region. This year there was one right down the road and a lot in the region. I think it's really reasonable if you consider you're getting fresh produce for months. Heck, with grocery prices soaring all the time, I can easily spend in a month what many of them charge for a season for a small family. Especially this year when I didn't have my vegetable garden, just one tomato plant and a couple of squash plants.

Gosh, Stormy, there are oodles in your area. Seven pages of listings and even one with meats. Keep in mind even if a farm isn't real close, it may have a pickup point near you.
http://www.localharvest.org/search-csa.jsp?map=1&lat=40.130580&lon=-75.347520&scale=9&ty=6&zip=19401

We pay on a twelve month agreement. The boxes of goodies are delivered weekly in season per agreement. This summer was a dandy growing year. I believe our shares were quite often topped off with some extra goodies. If there is an excess on the farm there will be a little note.....special pricing first call first served. We captured a hind quarter of Angus at a very special price that someone had ordered and then backed out of the deal. We captured the benefit of someone elses down payment but we had to stop what we were doing and go pick up the buy, wrap and freeze it right away. It was grain fed and we bought half a dozen free range chickens to make the day. We of course had to have a cookie jar large enough to handle the buy when it was available.