Best tomato and Hershey Gardens free

August 31st, 2010

Two interesting tidbits this week…

First, Franklin County Master Gardeners held their 9^th annual Tomato Tasting Day last week at the Extension office in Chambersburg.

This is a neat event that tries to settle the age-old gardener debate of which tomato really tastes the best.

Extension’s Steve Bogash grows the tomatoes at Penn State trial gardens in Lancaster and Franklin counties, then MGs slice and dice the letter-coded tomatoes for whomever wants to show up and try them.

This year, 162 folks taste-tested and scored two dozen varieties. And the winner was… once again, ‘Sun Gold.’

‘Sun Gold’ is an orangish cherry-type tomato that’s slightly smaller than a Ping-Pong ball. It’s won this contest before and is a high scorer in most competitions it’s entered in.

‘Sun Gold’ is extremely sweet, but its main downfall is that it’s thin-skinned and prone to cracking, which is why it isn’t a supermarket staple.

That’s the advantage of growing your own, though. Storage, shippability and shelf life don’t matter when you can pick your bounty and eat it before it ever even makes it to the kitchen.

Personally, I’m partial to ‘Sweet 100’ and ‘Christmas Grapes’ as cherry/grape types.

The second best scorer was a ‘Sun Gold’ cousin called ‘Sun Gold Select II.’

Third-best was ‘Black Cherry,’ a dusky deep-burgundy cherry type, followed by ‘Jazzy’ (don’t know that one) and ‘Red Brandy Master’ (a new offshoot of the popular heirloom ‘Brandywine’).

The top five scorers for best looks were ‘Brandy Boy’, ‘Jazzy,’ ‘Sun Gold Select II,’ ‘Sun Gold’ and ‘Aviuri.’

Most of the tested varieties are available to home gardeners through seed catalogs and in plant form at garden centers. If you’re a tomato nut, check out the Totally Tomatoes catalog at www.totallytomato.com. Also see Tomato Growers Supply at www.tomatogrowers.com and Johnny’s Selected Seeds at www.johnnyseeds.com.

More details on the Tomato Tasting Day are online at the Franklin County Master Gardeners blog at http://franklincountymgs.blogspot.com/2010/08/and-winners-are.html.

The second item of interest is that Hershey Gardens is holding its annual Gardenfest day on Sunday, Sept. 12, from 9 to 5 p.m.

This is a day when the 23-acre botanical showplace opens its gates to everyone for free. So if you haven’t seen Hershey Gardens lately (or, horrors, ever), this would be a good time to check it out.

The Gardens are most famous for their roses, but I actually like the annuals display at least as well. You’ll also find a lot of cutting-edge plants throughout the 23 acres so you can see what they look like in a real-life setting before buying for yourself.

Sept. 12 is the last day the Butterfly House will be open for the 2010 season. It houses 20 North American species in an action-packed 1-acre Children’s Garden that’s as much fun for plant geeks as kids (and especially for kids who are going to grow up to become plant geeks).

Gardenfest also features garden-information booths, music, games and a variety of family entertainment.

More information is at www.hersheygardens.org.