Tomato time is ripe at WSU’s Organic Farm

To market, to market. Tomatoes at WSU’s Organic Farm burst with flavor.

PULLMAN, Wash. – Tomatoes may be a latecomer to summer, but when they’ve been grown at Washington State University’s organic farm, the wait is, oh, so worth it.

After spending six weeks under a sky full of hot sun, tomatoes of every shape, hue and size – from yellow cherry to plump red heirlooms – are ripe and ready to eat. Whether you buy them on WSU’s Terrell Mall at noon Wednesdays, the Pullman farmers market Wednesday afternoons or the organic farm’s food stand on Fridays, these juicy and delicious beauties are planted by seed in spring and pampered by workers into the sunset of summer.

Remember the Palouse’s cool, wet and windy spring? Those conditions led to a later-than-usual tomato harvest, said organic farm manager Brad Jaeckel. Though the seeds were planted in a greenhouse on campus and transplanted into the farm’s organic-matter laden soil, “That kind of weather is stressful on plants and it can slow down their growth,” he said.

Even so, by now, “The quality and the yields look really good,” said Jaeckel, while inspecting rows of burgeoning vine-tomato clusters at the three-acre farm.

 

If the saying is true that good things come to those who wait, then the 10 tomato varieties grown at the farm are our just deserts – and maybe desserts; sweet and meaty with a hint of tartness, these tomatoes can be eaten like peaches. Considering the findings of a recent study that rattled tomato fans from Brooklyn to Bellevue after it made national news, we’re lucky to get our teeth into them.

That’s because those red, plump mass-produced tomatoes found in supermarkets come with a price, and not the monetary kind. An international research team led by the University of California Davis solved the decades-old mystery of why tomatoes sold in grocery stores taste so bland, especially when compared to the locally grown variety.

The authors’ study, published in the June issue of the journal Science, concludes that the genetic tinkering of tomatoes to make them uniformly red made them look pretty while inadvertently zapping their sugar content.

The good news is that, by identifying the mutation, scientists may eventually create commercially grown, flavor-packed tomatoes similar to those our great grandparents ate.

Candylike Sun Golds are the most popular.

But the even better news is that those great-tasting tomatoes – and organic, mind you – are already grown on the rim of WSU’s Pullman campus – and offered for sale. And talk about variety: You can choose from tiny, candylike Sun Golds, beefy heirlooms named June Pink and Moskovitch and a luscious hybrid called New Girl.

The farm also is offering something new, which, at first blush, conjures the term “Frankenmato.” Instead, it’s the more benign sounding “grafted rootstock tomato,” where growers connect the tops of certain high-quality plants to the bottoms of others. After the two halves are grafted, it takes about five days for them to meld – eventually growing into a hardy and prolific tomato plant.

While an old horticulture practice in Asia, tomato grafting is relatively new to the U.S., said Jaeckel. Inside the farm’s hoop houses, where rootstock tomatoes blaze like neon among vines fit for a jungle, the approach appears to have worked here on the Palouse.

 

“Basically, we choose the best qualities from two tomato plants, with one selected for the taste and quality of the tomato and the other for its sturdiness and resistance to disease,” Jaeckel said.

 

Organic farm workers, most of them students, will harvest 250 pounds of tomatoes during the week, with the poundage expected to peak at 600 in early September, said Jaeckel.

Each season, many of the orbs get into the hands of the farm’s CSA members (community supported agriculture), where customers pre-pay for a share of the produce. Others are for sale at local food stands (see below). And still many others end up in the bright kitchen of Pullman’s South Fork Public House, where they are sliced for BLTs, wedged for salads and chopped for vibrant salsas.

 

“Each year, we look forward to getting those tomatoes. We buy all that we can,” said restaurant owner Jim Harbour, also a culinary educator for WSU’s School of Hospitality Business Management.

 

“The mass-produced ones may serve a purpose but, when it comes to flavor, the ones Brad grows at WSU are far superior,” said Harbour. “When we place a slice on top of our cheeseburgers – now that really makes them shine.”

 

Tomatoes grown at WSU’s Organic Farm are for sale:

 

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