Tomato Tornado---The Recipes

Way back in May, we had an event named Tomato Tornado. We added 30 heirlooms to our already extensive list, bringing our total to 70 tomato varieties offered in our greenhouse. At the time, we asked friend and chef extraordinaire, Tom Schwarzweller, for some heirloom tomato recipes. Tom is an avid gardener and an award winning executive chef. He hand -wrote the following recipes for us to share with you. Please tell us what you think and add your own favorite tomato recipes to our facebook page. Click the text to towards the bottom of each recipe card to enlarge recipe for easy reading.

Tomato Tornado to Touch Down This Weekend

Next weekend on May 2 and 3, a Tomato Tornado will touch down at Valley View Farms' greenhouse. Our usual selection of 36 varieties of tomatoes will almost double for Saturday and Sunday, but wait too long, and you'll miss them. A limited selection of mostly heirloom varieties has been grown by our grower John Miller at our farm greenhouses out in Hydes, MD for this special event.

Our grower, John, stands in front of thousands of tomato transplants

If you can't make it, rest assured that our usual 36 varieties will still be available through of the month of May.

Those of you who are 'regulars' at Valley View Farms in the spring know that we are a little bit crazy when it comes to tomato plants. Our founder, Bill Foard, spends his spare time growing tomatoes at his home.

Billy's summer garden

Plum Crimsons make great sauce according to Billy

 He loves the Celebrity and Plum Crimson varieties for their great taste and productive vines. In fact, Billy brings buckets full of tomatoes all summer long for some of us lucky enough to be on his 'nice' list. His garden shed even contains a full kitchen for canning and processing tomatoes.

My co-worker Dotty enjoys growing her tomatoes, too. She and her daughter, Suzanne, love the heirlooms. Japanese Black Trifle, Big Rainbow, Oxheart and Black Cherry are some of Dotty's favorite heirloom varieties.

Mmmmmm---Sunsugar tomatoes

 She also likes the hybrid Sunsugar, a very sweet orange cherry tomato that we started growing last year when we were unable to get Sungold seeds. It's a winner according to our tomato gardeners.

Jan, recently retired from Valley View, likes the German Johnsons, Brandywines  and Mr. Stripey, all large slicing tomatoes with fantastic flavor. The Sungold orange cherry is on her favorite's list too.
Our perennial specialist and graphic/web designer Marian's garden in northern Baltimore County boasts heirlooms as well. Her favorites include Black Krim, Pineapple, Box Car Willie and Tomatoberry. I love the descriptive names of these wonderful tomatoes.

Summer produce from Marian's garden

Don, who takes care of all of our plants that come in from our own farm before they reach the sales floor, loves Brandywine and Mortgage Lifter. Both the tomatoes and the plants can get quite large over the summer. Don says the taste of the fruit is fantastic!

Stop by next weekend and talk to our tomato and vegetable experts.

Eddie, Nat and Sheila, ready to help gardeners choose from our tomato selection

 We have put together a special handout profiling each of our varieties and will have some recipes from Chef Tom Schwarzweller, Executive Chef at Wegmans. Please keep in touch this summer and share your tomato growing tips, recipes, and gardening stories on facebook. . This is our 1st Annual Tomato Tornado event; we hope to have many more.