August 28th, 2021 market
✨Luscious Tomatoes ✨ at Eloisa Organic Farm. Green Zebra, Paul Robeson, Brandywine, and Nebraska Wedding heirlooms.
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What do you think the best way is to face a tomato? Most of us are used to seeing tomatoes “right-side-up,” with their little green leaves and stems standing upright like a hat. But when it comes to transporting your precious, ripe, soft, heirloom tomatoes from your fields and to the market, stability becomes of the essence. Many local organic farmers purchase huge rolls of styrofoam to use to line their harvest crates just to protect their tomatoes.
When you sit a tomato “upright”, you’re actually sitting it down on the softest part, the blossom end. The blossom end of your tomatoes is more likely to crack under the weight of some of your larger heirloom tomatoes, especially when rolling back and forth in your crates as you drive to the market.
Placing tomatoes upside-down, or on their shoulders, is to place the tomato usually on the hardest, least ripe part of the tomato. Ripe, soft, ready to eat tomatoes are going to be more stable on their shoulders, and big heirloom tomatoes are going to distribute their weight and be a lot more stable during transport on their shoulders as well.
And besides, if we never set our tomatoes on their shoulders, we would never see this gorgeous bodacious solanaceous view of their blossom ends that we have to marvel at here.
Learn more about Eloisa Organic Farm by visiting their website, or follow them on Instagram at @eloisaorganicfarm.
