Tag Archives: tomato day

Peregrine Farm News Vol. 15 #21, 7/11/18

What’s been going on!

Two big weeks coming up all focused on tomatoes.  Technically starting tomorrow, but with a sneak preview today at the first wine dinner, is the 17th annual ACME Tomato Festival where the entire menu is taken over by tomatoes in every dish.  Runs through the weekend with nearly 1000 pounds of tomatoes being consumed.  We only supply part of that but we did take the first 80 plus pounds yesterday to get things started!

We are also doing our best to fill the menus of other restaurants around town too with delicious tomatoes.  Pizzeria Mercato who just re-opened after their summer break, Elaine’s On Franklin, Oakleaf  just back from their summer break too and the Eddy Pub in Saxapahaw.

Next Thursday, the 19th, will be our annual tomato class at A Southern Season- An Ode to the Tomato with our friend the NC Tomato man, Craig LeHoullier who introduced the Cherokee Purple tomato to the world.  Always fun with Caitlyn Burke cooking great dishes with our tomatoes and Craig and I bantering on about tomatoes from A to Z.

Finally on Saturday the 21st is the Carrboro Farmers’ Market’s Tomato Day a celebration of all the amazing varieties grown by the farmers at market.  A chance to taste as many as 60 varieties and find out which ones you like best.  The market will be brimming with lots of fruit and tomato centric activities, don’t miss it!

Picture of the Week

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The Crested Celosia are so tall that you can barely see Jennie amongst them

What’s going to be at the market? Continue reading →

Peregrine Farm News vol. 13 #21, 7/6/16

What’s been going on!

Holy cow, its tomato week!  Good thing we are near peak supply.  Some of our restaurants are closed until the end of the week (Pizzaria Mercato, Elaine’s, Oakleaf) so that give us some breathing room but some of the others are putting on their tomato plates (Glasshalfull, Pazzo) and ACME is having its Tomato Festival which means hundreds of pounds of tomatoes are needed.  Finally Saturday is the Carrboro Market’s famous Tomato Day!

Tomorrow night is a tomato and wine dinner at ACME with our friend and tomato guru Craig LeHoullier.  Craig gave us plants of some of his 1400 varieties (that we don’t already grow) for this dinner but unfortunately they went in weeks later than the rest of our main planting so only a couple will be ready for the dinner.  We still have plenty of tomatoes to contribute to the evening though!

Enough with the rain already, nearly every day for over a week.  This kind of weather is really hard on everything especially tomato plants and fruit which is why we have the Big Tops to help keep them dry.  The crops most affected right now (always hard to know all the ramifications until later) are the lettuce and basil.  Looks like a really short basil season due to the rapid spread of the basil downy mildew, damn!

Picture of the Week

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Walls of happy and dry tomato plants

What’s going to be at the market? Continue reading →

Peregrine Farm News Vol. 12 #18, 7/9/15

What’s been going on!

If you haven’t noticed yet, it is all about tomatoes right now.  Peak of the harvest in general (past peak a bit for us) and they are featured everywhere and in every dish, as it should be.  Twenty years ago we all used to think that if you picked a tomato before the 4th of July you were doing really good, now the 4th of July is the beginning of the flood and by August it is really mostly over.  Sure there are tomatoes at market in the fall but they never taste as good as they do in July.

What happened?  Mostly I think we all became much better at growing and managing the crop that resulted in earlier maturing fruit.  Healthier soils, improved irrigation and trellising techniques, better transplants and pruning, high tunnels for protection and more.  Some of it is new varieties that ripen faster and some is certainly climate change with warmer weather in May and June that makes the plants grow vigorously and huge.

Whatever the reason there is an abundance of tomatoes to eat this time of year.  So let’s celebrate while we can!  Our tomatoes are on the menus at Elaine’s on Franklin, Pazzo, Glasshalfull, Oakleaf and ACME.  The folks at ACME are having their 14th annual Tomato Festival Friday to Sunday with the menu all about the summer fruit.  The biggest event is the Carrboro Farmers’ Market’s Tomato Day on Saturday with over 75 varieties to try and buy.  Pick and choose your location but eat up while the eating is good!

Picture of the Week

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After yet another big rain last night, the Big Beefs are still lush and heavy with fruit

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Peregrine Farm News Vol. 11 #18, 7/11/14

What’s been going on!

What was that falling from the sky yesterday?  Four weeks since the last real rain and things were getting crunchy dry.  In a determined attempt to make sure that we were able to solarize next year’s tomato field, that has been waiting for a month for a rain so we could cover it with plastic, we ran sprinklers for 48 hours to wet the soil enough to be effective.  Must be what finally brought some rain.

For solarization to be most effective the soil needs to be good and moist before covering with clear plastic otherwise there is not enough transmission of heat deep into the soil to kill the fungus and weed seeds.  As we have whole rows of tomatoes now dying from the fusarium wilt in this year’s field, it is a stark reminder of why we go to the trouble of covering a quarter acre with plastic.  After this morning that job will be done.

Definitely peak of our tomato season though with the biggest harvest day this last Monday.  Just in time for Tomato Day at the market tomorrow and for ACME’s annual tomato festival with three days of a tomato centric menu.  You can also find our tomatoes on the menus of Elaine’s on Franklin, Pazzo, GlassHalfull, Oakleaf in Pittsboro and Nana’s in Durham.  Time to wade into big plates of tomatoes as they will all too soon be slowing down and then all of a sudden gone until next year.

Picture of the Week

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Sprinkler goes around while half the field is already under plastic

 

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