The Most Interesting Tomato Plant of The Month! JUNE 2024 Edition!

The Most Interesting Man in the World

Grow Tomatoes My Friends! Fine words of advice indeed from a treasured actor like Jonathan Goldsmith. He used his persona as The Most Interesting Man in the World to convince you to drink Dos Equis beer. Which isn't a bad idea. But I'm using his character for a much different and healthier reason.

I don't think he will mind very much.

I do know that I'm a tad late with this blog post. After all, it does come about seven days into the month of July. But I have been dealing with a bit of a difficult heat wave in Northern California at the moment. While it seems like it's been two straight weeks of temperatures at or near 1001 degrees, that's a tad facetious. However, I can tell you that it's tough to do anything in the garden over a long period of time when the mercury hits 110. Which it has. Far too often for my liking to be brutally honest.

Don't get me wrong here. Summer vegetable gardens LOVE heat. Those summer producers love everything about bright sunshine and sizzling hot afternoons. As long as they get enough water, everything in the vegetable garden world is as good as it gets. Peppers, for example, LOVE heat. Hot peppers and sweet bells love it equally. Given them enough water in a heat wave like this one, and they will respond with record growth and happiness.

Pink Vernissage Tomatoes

The same is true with just about everything in the summer garden. This includes The Most Interesting Tomato Plant of the Month. This is a large cherry variety. It's about the size of a golf ball. It is one of six cherry varieties that call the garden home this year. But this one is a tad unique. It's not native to California. It's not native to the USA. It comes to my garden by way of a Eastern European country that's been in the news for the last few years. That country is Ukraine.

There's a Russian tomato grower there who is attempting to do all sorts of increidble stuff with my favorite summer fruit. He is the Ukrainian copy or counterpart of California's own Brad Gates, the founder of the Wild Boar Farms collection of unique tomato varieties. The cross-breeding done at the farm of Ruslan Dukhov has resulted in my Tomato Plant of the Month: Pink Vernissage. Dukhov runs his experimental tomato breeding farm in an area called Mushirin Rog. That is in the Dnepropetrovsk region (Oblast) of Ukraine. Please don't ask me to type that out again, let alone try to pronounce it.

The Pink Vernissage, according to Dukhov, is a cross between the Stupice (Stoo-Pick) tomato variety and another that is local to Dukhov's region. it's called the Kitaiskiy Barkhatnyi. Please don't ask me to pronounce that either. I could barely type it. I've grown Stupice a number of times. It hails from Czechoslovakia, near the town called Stupice. It is a time-honored favorite in Eastern Europe, and was one of the first varieties introduced to American growers after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Stupice is one of those varieties that seems to grow extremely well no matter where it is planted. This includes a crack in a sidewalk.

Pink Vernissage Clusters

The Pink Vernissage, or Vernissage Pink as some seed websites call it, is as unique as the striped varieties that have been developed by Gates at Wild Boar Farms. Loosely translated, the term Vernissage means art. It certainly is that. This unique tomato variety is both spotted and streaked with colors of pink, brown and orange. Like every tomato that is vine-ripened in extreme heat and sunshine, every bite is a delight to the tastebuds. My Pink Vernissage plant produced the first ripe tomatoes of the summer season and continues to set clusters of four or six tomatoes on a plant that is now reaching six feet in height. It's open-pollinated, which means it will continue to deliver fruit until the frost of winter shuts it down.

Pink Vernissage isn't Dukhov's only contribution to the world of unique tomato varieties. He's responsible for dozens more. This includes other contributions in the Vernissage variety that carry colors of green, black and yellow. If there is one difference between the work of Dukhov and Gates, it's this: Gates isn't doing his experimental work smack dab in the middle of a war zone. Dukhov, unfortunately, is. His farm is uncomfortably close to the front lines of the conflict between Russian and Ukrainian forces. While it seems that soldiers would not at all be interested in raiding a tomato farm, that hasn't stopped errant shells from falling. One of those misfires reportedly damaged a greenhouse.

Pink Vernissage

That hasn't stopped Dukhov from doing his wonderful work with tomato plants at his small farm. He has a website, which is in Russian and tough to follow. He also posts videos on YouTube, which are also in Russian. Which means it can also be a little tough to follow. Unless you know Russian. Which I do not. Despite the language difference, there is an infectious excitement in his voice when it comes to discussing his favorite subject.

Every tomato tells a story it seems. The Most Interesting Tomato Plant of the month certainly does that and more.

KOMPOT!

Bandit and Mango

I must admit that it has been a very nice experience to live right next door to a husband and wife who were born in Ukraine. They both arrived in California decades ago as young children. They were immigrants in what must have been a strange new world for them. But, they adapted. They grew up. They met, they fell in love, got married and started a family. This journey came to my attention when they purchased the home next door some years ago.

I couldn't ask for better neighbors. Sometimes I feel like I've won a lottery of life. The children from this marriage have been called upon, or put to work so to say, to name the beasts that are pictured above. Both cat and dog were procured from the Bradshaw Animal Shelter in Sacramento County. The dog, a Border Collie, was christened with the name of Bandit. The kitten received the title of Mango.

Recent Tomato Haul

I've come to learn that this family loves the produce that comes from the over-sized gardens that I plant every spring. I always make the mistake of planting far too much than I could ever consume, which means the multitudes of tomatoes, squash, peppers, onions and other garden goodies are always searching for a home. They have found a home next door (and elsewhere).

They have also been introduced to the tree-ripened delight of Black Mission figs. I first experienced this delight last year when the tree I planted three years ago suddenly delivered a small crop of fruit. Although I've planted and nurtured a multitude of fruit trees, this would be my first experience with tree-ripened figs. Oh my! I can begin to understand now why figs were, at one time, the most widely planted of all fruit trees in California.

Black Mission Fig Tree

The crop that is coming off the tree this summer can be described in many ways. But, the word "small" is not one of them. Dozens of figs are now ripe for the picking every single day. While I always enjoy five or six pieces of daily, tree-ripened fruit, the dozens that are coming off the tree right now are a bit much. They have found a home next door, across the street, down the block and even at a local dog park where Bandit can terrorize other dogs and dog owners.

It is this gift of fruit, plus other summer garden produce, that resulted in the discovery of an old Russian and Ukrainian heirloom recipe. It's called Kompot (Kohm-Poat). It's a simple way of using a lot of tree or bush-ripened fruit to make a fresh and natural fruit juice that is out of this world GOOD.

Black Mission Figs

I suppose you could call this the old-fashioned way of making Kool-Aid. It's just much healthier. It's also much, much better.

The introduction to this crazy-good concoction made a surprise appearance at my front door the other day. It was a gift from my Ukrainian neighbors. This particular Kompot was made with strawberries and blueberries. I instantly fell in love with it. I'd never tasted anything like it. I would come to learn that Kompot can be made with any combination of tree-ripened fruit. Or, it can be made with just one type of tree-ripened fruit.

Like, Black Mission figs, for example.

Making Kompot

The glass jug that my neighbors of Ukrainian descent used to introduce me to the wonders of Kompot would be returned two days later. That's how long it took me to drink a quart of strawberry and blueberry Kompot. It was that good. But, this jar would not be returned empty. It was cleaned and filled again. It would be returned with a Black Mission fig mixture of Kompot.

If one were to cast votes on this matter, I would personally choose the Kompot that came out of the neighbor's kitchen. That combination of strawberries and blueberries was truly something special. I wish I could share that taste with you. It is out of this world good.

Black Mission Fig Kompot

But, other people also get to cast votes in this election. It's a split decision. The neighbors who introduced me to Kompot claim they like my Mission Black fig creation just a tad better.

You can't ask for better neighbors. You really can't.

This is the recipe I used to make my own version of Black Mission fig Kompot. I also modified it a tad, so I've listed it below. Although this is a recipe that I used to create Kompot from Black Mission figs, any fruit can be substituted.

This is the month of August in California. What California fruit ripens during the month of August? EVERYTHING!

Have fun!

Black Mission Fig Kompot

-25 soft to the touch, tree-ripened Black Mission figs

-1.5 gallons water

-1 to 1.5 cups sugar (depending upon how sweet you want it)

Directions:

-Cut figs into quarters and set aside

-Fill a large pot with 1.5 gallons of water and bring to a boil

-Add quartered figs and return to a boil

-Reduce heat to a simmer. Do not cover pot

-Simmer for 30-45 minutes.

-Turn stove off after simmering is complete. Add sugar to water and fruit. Stir to mix. I covered the pot and let this mixture sit overnight.

-Straining the fruit from the liquid is tricky. I just dumped the entire concoction into a plastic one gallon jug. I used a colander to strain the juice into two half gallon jugs. Seeds from the figs do pass through, but I didn't mind. If you want a clearer fruit juice, minus the seeds, you can place cheesecloth into the colander during the straining process.

The left-over fruit used from creating this mixture is also very tasty. It can also be used in another dish called Kissel. This recipe comes courtesy of Natasha's Kitchen. Scroll past the Kompot recipe to access the instructions for Kissel.