Culinary Trends in 2015: Heirloom Tomatoes

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At the turn of the New Year, the National Restaurant Association releases its predictions for the coming year’s top culinary trends. The list is the result of a survey of professional chefs, indicating which items you can expect to be on your menu when you dine out, or to inspire creations in our own kitchen.  

It should come as no surprise that for the past four years, local food has taken the top ranking. From year to year, the remainder of the list has been in flux, with one trend overcoming or falling victim to another. For horticulture-based  trends, especially for local food, the source all comes back to seeds and how the food is grown.

The product managers at Johnny’s reviewed this year’s list and offered up their thoughts on a few of their favorite trends. Each week for the next 5 weeks, we will be covering a different topic within a blog post. Leave a comment and let us know your thoughts on each of the trends we cover.

Heirloom Tomatoes

By Pete Zuck, Vegetable Product Manager

The allure of an heirloom tomato has always been its exceptional flavor. While still very popular with consumers, heirloom tomatoes have recently lost a little ground to other trends. They are also slipping in popularity with growers because they tend to produce far fewer marketable fruits than more modern tomatoes, and do not have the same disease resistances as hybrid varieties to keep them producing vigorously throughout the season.

Black Prince

With that in mind, modern breeding has begun to catch up with heirloom tomatoes. Varieties like ‘Marnero’ and ‘Margold’, available exclusively from Johnny’s, have solved a long-confounding puzzle: how to wed the incomparable eating quality of heirlooms with the commercial performance of modern hybrids The results are outstanding: fruits that retain every bit of the flavor and beauty of the old heirlooms on plants that can produce 2-3 times the yield.

Explore additional resources on Heirloom Tomatoes:

•        Heirloom Tomato Comparison Chart >
•      10 Tips for Heirloom Tomatoes >

Combating Spotted Wing Drosophila and Late Blight

In recent weeks, Spotted Wing Drosophila and Late Blight have been popping up on growing operations throughout the Northeast. Below are some tips for preventing these issues from becoming a serious problem this year.

Late blight (Phytophthora infestans) occurs each year in many areas of the United States and the world. There are steps that you can take in order to reduce late blight recurrence this growing season.

• Pull up and throw away or burn any volunteer potato plants — these sprout from tubers that may have gone unseen in the soil last fall during clean up and/or in the compost pile.
• Plant certified disease-free potato seed pieces — do not use seed pieces saved from last season.
• Follow recommended crop spacing and soil fertility, maximize greenhouse and hoophouse air circulation, reduce insect pressures.
• Cull any and all tomato or potato plants if they display late blight symptoms by throwing away or burning plant debris.
• Treat plants with a preventative copper spray. We recommend item #9778, Champ® WG Copper Fungicide (OG)
• Treat plants with hydrogen dioxide for prevention and treatment of late blight infections. We recommend item #9719, Oxidate® (OG).

According to the Vermont Veg & Berry Newsletter, late blight has been confirmed in Franklin County, MA on tomato plants on July 11th, and in Erie County, NY on tomato plants July 10th, and on potato plants July 9th. Previous reports in FL, WV, LA, TN, MD, KY, VA, NC, and WI have been confirmed as P. infestans strains US-23 and US-7. You can track disease progress at USA BLIGHT.

View our informative videos on Identifying Late Blight and Controlling Late Blight at Johnnyseeds.com.

Spotted Wing Drosophila (Drosophila suzukii). According to MOFGA’s Pest Report of July 11, 2013, compiled by Eric Sideman, PhD, MOFGA’s Organic Crop Specialist, “The spotted wing drosophila (SWD) has been found in Maine this week, and was found in southern New England a week or two ago.” Here are some need-to-know facts about SWD, per MOFGA’s Pest Report:

• This fruit fly is a new pest in our region; it is a common pest in parts of Asia.
• The tiny fly looks like a typical fruit fly, but the males have a spot on each wing that you can barely see with the naked eye.
• Common fruit flies that we see here only go after overripe and rotting fruit. The SWD is a much greater problem because it can attack sound fruit and has been very damaging to raspberries, blueberries, and other late summer soft fruit.
• Two years ago was the first year in which it was seen in large numbers in Northern New England.
• In as few as 8 days it goes from eggs to new adults laying more eggs, so populations can explode quickly.

If you’re battling Spotted Wing Drosophila, you may want to explore our effective Organic Controls for combating this issue. Specifically, Entrust® SC (OG) is extremely effective against Spotted Wing Drosophila. You can learn more about Entrust® SC (OG) on Johnnyseeds.com here »

Johnny's Attends the 2013 NOFA VT Winter Conference

Johnny's Maine-based Territory Sales Rep for Vermont, Chris Hillier, recently attended the NOFA Vt Winter Conference held in Burlington, VT at the University of Vermont, on February 15–17, 2013.

This year’s Winter Conference featured more than 70 diverse workshops, intensive seminars, TED-inspired talks by food system innovators, a second annual seed swap, a collective art project with local artist Bonnie Acker, and much more.

According to the conference website:

Whether you’re a gardener, homesteader, commercial farmer, researcher, forager, chef or consumer, you are certain to find something at the Winter Conference to enrich your skills, inspire your goals, and deepen your understanding of resilient food and farm systems.

Growers from all over New England attended the three-day Winter Conference.

Chris spoke to conference attendees about our new-for-2013 products, including the new 'Salanova' Lettuce line and the Johnny's-bred, AAS Winner 'Jasper,' as well as the Quick-Cut Greens Harvester. At the Johnny’s booth, we also featured live Salanova product, grown by a Johnny’s customer in the Southeast and shipped to Vermont, for conference-goers to see the product first-hand. Along with the product, Chris displayed our Salanova brochure, as well as informative product sheets on some of our newest products and existing customer favorites.

Conference attendees who stopped by the Johnny’s booth were able to sign up for our free raffle, where one grower won a $100 gift certificate to Johnny’s. Congrats, Enrique Peredo of Two Guys Blooms in Hinesburg, VT.

Below are a some photos of Chris’s trip, Johnny's booth, and some other great sights at the conference. If you, too, attended, please feel free to drop us a line, share your thoughts in the Comments section, below, or visit our Facebook page anytime!

Johnny's Time Spent at the NOFA NY Winter Conference and the PASA Farming for the Future Conference

Johnny's Maine-based Territory Sales Rep, Kristen Dubord, recently attended the NOFA NY Winter Conference, held in Saratoga Springs, NY, January 25–27, 2013 as well as the PASA Farming for the Future Conference in State College, PA February 6-9, 2013.

NOFA NY Winter Conference

The conference offered a great selection of workshops on topics such as sustainable farming, soil health, grain production, and many others. Each morning, tradeshow attendees could additionally participate in a yoga session! The Keynote Address, which you can read here on the NOFA-NY website, was given by Scott Chaskey of Quail Hill Farm in Amagansett, NY. You can also view conference programs for 2004-2013.

While at the Johnny’s booth, tradeshow attendees could demo our Four-Row Pinpoint Seeder, grab a free Johnny’s bumper sticker, take a new catalog, enter our raffle, ask Kristen any number of growing questions, discuss concerns, and learn about our new selection of products. Congratulations to our raffle ticket winner, Jacob Diaz of Slow Roots Farm in Kingston, NY. You can learn more about Slow Roots Farm at their website.

While at the conference, we found the most popular informational sheets we offered concerned our Planting Programs. You can learn more about these programs, such as What a Planting Program Is, What the Key Elements Are to Implementing a Successful Program, and Why to Use a Planting Program at Johnnyseeds.com, as well as which varieties are best to plant (and harvest) when.

We give out Johnny's bumper stickers at our booth

A look at the Johnny's booth, all set up

The conference program

 You can learn more about the NOFA NY organization, as well as their Winter Conference, at their website and official Facebook page.

 
PASA Farming for the Future Conference

According to the PASA website, this year’s conference hosted an audience of  “around 2000 people from 30 states. Attendees included over 950 farmers, and 219 scholarship recipients.” If interested, you can also check back at the PASA website to hear audio files from the conference, from Organic Voices.

The conference offered three full days of educational workshops, opportunities to explore the exhibitors’ booths, social events, and more. On Friday evening at the conference, there was a movie viewing of three films, as well as a social hour featuring “snacks and drinks that [were] regionally sourced.”  

Once the Johnny’s booth was set up, we featured poster boards with information on the Quick-Cut Greens Harvester and our 'Lunchbox' Series of Snack Peppers. We also featured several information sheets on new and best-selling products such as our 'Jasper' tomato, specialty pumpkins, butternut squash, and our organic pepper lineup.

If you, too, attended either of these conferences, we'd love to hear from you in follow-up. Feel free to share your thoughts in the Comments section, below — or visit with us on Facebook anytime!

Johnny's Attends the 2012 MOSES Organic Farming Conference

Last Thursday Johnny's Maine-based Territory Sales Rep, Ken Fine, headed to La Crosse, Wisconsin for the 23rd Annual Midwest Organic Sustainable Education Service (MOSES) Farming Conference.

This conference is the largest organic farming conference in the U.S, with over 65 informative workshops, 160 exhibitors, locally-sourced organic food, live entertainment and educational keynote speakers.

Ken spent three days at the conference connecting with Johnny's customers, talking about our New for 2012 products, demonstrating some of our smaller hand tools and was even interviewed by WEAU 13, the local TV news station in Western Wisconsin.

See photos from the MOSES conference below, along with a video recap of some of the participating exhibitors, posted on the MOSES website. To see additional videos, head to their website here.

 

Eliot Coleman's Organic Farm, Winter Growing Subject of New York Times Story

Yesterday, the New York Times ran a great story -- "Living Off the Land In Maine, Even in Winter" -- about Four Seasons Farm here in Maine.

New York Times photo

Barbara Damrosch harvests Tatsoi at Four Seasons Farm in Harborside, ME. See story in the NY Times.

The story, written by gardening columnist Anne Raver, is about the organic farm owned by gardening book authors Eliot Coleman and Barbara Damrosch. The article details many of their winter growing techniques, season extension ideas, and managing a small commercial growing operation. It is accompanied by an online photo slideshow with a dozen shots from the farm.

Johnny's exclusively carries many of the tools that Eliot helped develop and design, including Broadforks, the Long-Handled Wire Weeder, the Bed Preparation Rake Row Markers, the Hand Tiller, and the Tilther.

These books, written by Eliot and Barbara, are also available on our website.

• "The Winter Harvest Handbook" by Eliot Coleman
• "The New Organic Grower" by Eliot Coleman
• "Four Season Harvest" by Eliot Coleman
• "The Gardening Primer" by Barbara Damrosch

We also carry the DVD -- "Year-Round Vegetable Production with Eliot Coleman"

Johnny's New Organic Online Catalog Released

The Johnny's Selected Seeds 2012 NOP Certified Organic Online Catalog is now live on our website. This new catalog contains 96 pages with more than 350 organic products. Click here to view the catalog.

OG Catalog