It's summer - where's all the good tomatoes and corn??

willregistersoon

Subject: It's summer - where's all the good tomatoes and corn??

I remember my old days of summer - my parents would find these big, juicy, deep red tomatoes that were just out of this world. So good that you would just eat one like an apple. Nowadays I can't seem to find these anywhere anymore. Even the ones at the farmers market are just... blah. A lot of times they're all mushy from sitting out in the sun and just not that good.

Same for corn. Every corn I've bought this summer - at CTown, Fairway and Rossman farms has been disappointing. Today we drove out to this farm an hour into NJ. We bought corn and tomatoes there and even those weren't that great. If you can't get the goods directly at a farm, where else?

So I ask you fellow Brooklynians - where have all the good corn and tomatoes gone?

pitu

It's too early in the season.

the psycho-ologist

Subject: Re: It's summer - where's all the good tomatoes and corn??

willregistersoon wrote: I remember my old days of summer - my parents would find these big, juicy, deep red tomatoes that were just out of this world. So good that you would just eat one like an apple. Nowadays I can't seem to find these anywhere anymore. Even the ones at the farmers market are just... blah. A lot of times they're all mushy from sitting out in the sun and just not that good.

Same for corn. Every corn I've bought this summer - at CTown, Fairway and Rossman farms has been disappointing. Today we drove out to this farm an hour into NJ. We bought corn and tomatoes there and even those weren't that great. If you can't get the goods directly at a farm, where else?

So I ask you fellow Brooklynians - where have all the good corn and tomatoes gone?

I have heard that the rains and cool weather have effected all the crops upstate, particularly the tomatoes.

whatchuwant

Tomatoes and corn-----> In August on eastern LI. The BEST!

domino

Big article in Newsday last week that the rains have affected ALL the crops out in Long Island - from corn to tomatoes to strawberries to (gasp) grapes. Some lament in one of the NJ papers.

Still way better than what passes for veggies in the supermarkets.

bmw2000

my tomatoes JUST started turning orange - and that's only one out of 5 plants. I suspect August will be a tomato bonanza....all delayed due to rain and no sun in June

ladylibertine

Late blight (the same disease responsible for the Irish Potato Famine) is apparently a big problem in tomatoes this year, too.

willregistersoon

So where does everyone get their goods from? I usually like the stuff from Rossman farms.

too big for the sink

Rossmans....sometimes Fairway

pitu

LadyLibertine wrote: Late blight (the same disease responsible for the Irish Potato Famine) is apparently a big problem in tomatoes this year, too.

gak! I was just reading about that -
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/nyregion/18tomatoes.html

New York Region
Outbreak of Fungus Threatens Tomato Crop
By JULIA MOSKIN
Published: July 18, 2009
The pathogen has spread to almost every state in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic.

(snip) At the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture in Pocantico Hills, N.Y., half the year’s tomato crop was infected and has been lost, said Dan Barber, the center’s chef and creative director.

Tim Stark, a Pennsylvania farmer who specializes in tomatoes, said he spotted three affected plants — he has more than 25,000 in the ground — last week and was worried enough to spray them with synthetic fungicide for the first time in 14 years of farming. For good measure, he pulled all of his potatoes out of the field.

(snip) Tomatoes on almost every farm in New York’s fertile “Black Dirt” region in the lower Hudson Valley, he said, have been affected.

Professor Fry, who is genetically tracking the blight, said the outbreak spread in part from the hundreds of thousands of tomato plants bought by home gardeners at Wal-Mart, Lowe’s, Home Depot and Kmart stores starting in April. The wholesale gardening company Bonnie Plants, based in Alabama, had supplied most of the seedlings and recalled all remaining plants starting on June 26. Dennis Thomas, Bonnie Plants’s general manager, said five of the recalled plants showed signs of late blight.

“This pathogen did not come from our plants,” Mr. Thomas said on Wednesday. “This is something that has been around forever.”

If a mega-grower that supplies plants to Walmart/Lowes/Home Depot has messed up our organic tomatoes . . .
:shock: