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Post by ilex on Jan 16, 2015 12:41:55 GMT -5
Low water content? Yes and no. Some are dry, some are very juicy. If dry farmed, or picked after no watering they will keep longer.
Some normal tomatoes have a long shelf life, but these play in another league.
I've got some picked on August 1st, still very good for fresh eating (and I'm very picky, won't eat anyThing). I've seen them stay two months in the soil, wet soil, and stay in good shape. Very few tomatoes can touch wet soil for more than a few days. Many improve in storage, aroma improves in storage.
Most are selected for bread rubbing, so not really dry.
About size, yes, there's an optimal size. Most are bit smaller than a saladette.
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Post by 12540dumont on Jan 16, 2015 20:08:29 GMT -5
Thanks for this Paco, I've written it all down in the seed book. I've really enjoyed the storage tomatoes that Dar sent. We just ate the last of them, in pizza sauce. Piennolo de Vesuvius. Lieven's Tear Drop also kept pretty long (harvested October, kept till December). I picked all thee ripe, and I'll tell you right now, they HAVE to have the stems on, or they don't keep!
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Post by Al on Jan 17, 2015 4:19:32 GMT -5
Now I am intrigued by these hanging tomatoes, a google search of Tomates de Colgar shows great strings of storage tomatoes dangling from rafters. A bit like the traditional French onion strings.
Spanish seed merchant BATLLE has Tomate de Colgar sel. Mollorquin; 120 g fruit "exceptional keeper", & also Tomate de Colgar sel. Domingo; 80 g fruit, redder & more uniform. I'm not sure if these are similar to long keepers others have mentioned, ilex seems to have some much smaller type?
It would be nice to have a few strings of these, if only for cooking, reducing the need for bottling tomatoes. It looks like they traditionally use a strong main cord to hang the tomatoes with thin string attaching each fruit to the cord around the calyx.
Mallorquin or Domingo??? Available in the U.K. via ebay.
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Post by ilex on Jan 17, 2015 11:53:07 GMT -5
DO NOT BUY THE COMMERCIAL ONES.
Most are hybrids that won't store well, and won't be top quality.
If it's normal red, be suspicious.
I will explain how to hang them in my website, once I have time. Much easier to hang whole bunches, even easier to use horizontal wire.
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Post by ilex on Jan 17, 2015 11:56:31 GMT -5
I dont remember the weight. Will weight some at home. Some bigger cooking ones are over 100g.
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Post by ilex on Jan 17, 2015 11:59:21 GMT -5
And we have melons and watermelons "de colgar".
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Post by Al on Jan 17, 2015 13:04:16 GMT -5
Thanks for the warning about commercial varieties of hanging tomatoes ilex, I have ordered a packet of storage tomatoes from Real Seed Company who only sell O.P. seed so hopefully I will not get a hybrid.
Real Seeds describe their 'de colgar' storage tomato as being an old type which they collected from Spain, late ripening with a thick skin. The picture looks authentic; fruit which is still fairly green & just a hint of red colour, I look forward to seeing how well it does, & rubbing it onto bread with some olive oil. But I also feel myself drawn to a summer holiday in Mallorca, & a search in the markets for the real Mallorcan rametta to collect seed. Probably that Mallorcan sun is an essential part of the equation but hopefully I can produce an acceptable taste of the south which will last into the winter.
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Post by cortona on Feb 8, 2015 9:09:22 GMT -5
i have find the italian equivalent of watermelon "de colgar"two varieties, but the first one is gone before i understand it
the two have a very very distinctive seed color pattern, have yours that pattern? want you some seeds?
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