cherry tomatoes

I Love You From My Head Tomatoes

September 23, 2025

Tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, eggplant, corn, peppers, and farm flowers are arranged pleasingly together

No other crop embodies the summer bounty on the Farm like fresh tomatoes! Delicious and versatile, they are always a favorite among students and staff. In years past we have leaned heavily on several workhorse varieties of tomatoes, particularly ‘mountain merit,’ which are all determinate, or bush, tomatoes. This means that their growth is limited to about four feet, and, while they don’t produce as many tomatoes overall, they are dependable and easy to support, such as with a simple trellis or cage.

A fruit cluster of queen bee tomatoes ripen on the vine

A cluster of beautiful green tomatoes on the vine

This year, however, we wanted to celebrate tomatoes by growing a wider variety of colors and flavors, focusing on heirlooms and more unusual varieties. All the new cultivars we grew were indeterminate tomatoes: they have a vining growth habit, requiring support structures to produce well and remain clean and disease-free. Because of their vining, we have to frequently attach the vines to the trellises.

A student holds a cross-section of a ripe multicolored tomato

Matt's wild cherry tomatoes hang in a cluster that moves from green to red in a gradient of ripeness

We selected ten traditional tomato varieties: ‘Cherokee purple,’ ‘Woodstock,’ ‘Barnes Mountain orange,’ ‘carbon,’ Radiator Charlie’s mortgage lifter,’ ‘Brandywine,’ ‘yellow Brandywine,’ ‘harvest moon,’ ‘lemon boy,’ and ‘golden girl.’ We also grew six varieties of cherry tomatoes: ‘sungold,’ ‘Matt’s wild cherry,’ ‘indigo cherry,’ ‘white currant,’ ‘bumblebee sunrise,’ and ‘queen bee.’ All in all, we grew a total of 19 varieties.

A variety of fresh farm tomatoes are sliced and arranged colorfully on a plate, ready to eat

A student holds a bowl of various kinds of cherry tomatoes

A closeup of the white currant variety of tomato — white currant

A closeup of sungold cherry tomatoes, of a vivid gold-orange — white currant

This extended variety is allowing us to perform a trial to determine which kinds of tomatoes grew best in our hot and humid climate. A second wave of tomatoes is still coming in, so the results are still out! Early spring and late summer were a real test of tomato resilience because of how much rainfall we received, since excessive wetting can hurt the tomatoes.

Students and volunteers are gathered around a table for the tomato taste-testing

But we also wanted to see which varieties were the best to eat, so we held an informal blind taste-test of all our tomato varieties. Several students and Project Horseshoe Farm volunteers gathered for this event and voted on which tomatoes had the best flavor and texture. Among the traditional large tomatoes, standouts were ‘Woodstock’ and ‘harvest moon.’ For cherry tomatoes, the favorites were ‘sungold,’ ‘bumblebee sunrise,’ and ‘white currant.’ With all this new information, we are already looking toward next summer when we can focus more on these robust favorites!

Students and volunteers are eating tomatoes

Students and volunteers look thoughtful as they judge the tomatoes qualities

In other farm news this summer, we grew for the first time a Native American heirloom corn called ‘glass gem.’ It is a dent corn variety (not sweet corn), so its culinary use is limited to grinding the dried kernels into hominy or grits. However, once dried, the ears are gorgeous and herald the coming of autumn!

A display of glass gem corn ears with kernels of purple, pink, white, yellow, red, orange, yellow, and blue

Several ears of the brilliantly colored glass gem corn

A side view of a many-petalled zinnia flower in shades of orange, gold, and pink

Some flower spikes of Phoenician mullein

Tags: cherry tomatoes, corn, eatlocal, farmhelpers, farmtotable, freshfood, organic food, projecthorseshoefarm, rsfarm, ruralstudiofarm, tomato, tomatoes

The Closing Of Summer

August 31, 2022

Summer draws to an end just as new students begin their time at Rural Studio. But all through the summer swelter, it has been last year’s leftover students—now graduated—whose work has kept the farm running.

A smiling student holds up a large plastic bag full of ripe cherry tomatoes of varying colors

An assistant manager harvests ripe cherry tomatoes

A student harvest ripe blackberries off the vines

Summer is the most productive time of the year, and each week we spend three days harvesting such things as fresh corn, cherry tomatoes, an assortment of peppers, eggplants, cantaloupes and watermelons, okra, cucumbers, black-eyed peas, snap beans, blackberries and blueberries, apples, Asian pears, leeks, scallions, and shallots, as well as herbs and fresh flowers.

Ripe blackberries sit collected at the bottom of a harvest bucket

A close-up of three harvest buckets with peppers and tomatoes

About 20 watermelon, of three different varieties, lay picked upon the wash table

A 20-gallon harvest tub brims with ears of picked corn as a farm manager trims leaves off the husks

Summer is also the hardest time of the year in terms of insect pest pressure and fast-spreading weeds. Yet, for the first time it never felt like the insects and weeds grew beyond our control. Each year, we diligently hand-weed and turn over crops to minimize the spread of unwanted seeds, and we are now seeing the long-term cumulative efforts pay off.

Two students transplant corn seedlings into prepared beds in the field

A student uses a stir-up hoe to weed between rows of young corn

A long shot of four students stooping down to pick pea pods

Also, we are growing a wider diversity of plants with more aromatic flowers and herbs that make it more difficult for harmful insects to zero in on any one crop. Despite all the hard work and the heat, it’s been a pretty chill summer on the farm.

A close-up of a sunflower head before it has matured and opened

Four students stand amongst the snap beans and pick them

Tags: blackberries, cherry tomatoes, corn, CSA, eatlocal, flowers, fresheating, freshfood, harvest, rsfarm

Maters and Taters

July 18, 2022

Few things signal Summer like fresh-dug potatoes and red, ripe tomatoes and both of these are favorite crops at Rural Studio Farm! After starting them in mid-Winter, we have been harvesting them in abundance.

An assistant farm manager smiles while a nearby volunteer clutches two ripe red tomatoes in her upraised hands

A student digs up potatoes and places them in a blue harvest tub

Tomatoes and peppers are both members of the solanum genus (along with eggplants), which is part of the bigger Solanaceae, or nightshade, family. Their close relatedness is one of the reasons you should practice good crop rotation and avoid planting one of these crops in the same location in successive years. Many of the same pests and diseases will afflict both tomatoes and potatoes, for example, so always planting in the same spot makes the pests’ jobs easier.

Several seedling trays rest in the seed house, notably some tall tomato plants that await transplanting

A tray of variously colored cherry tomatoes

Potatoes

Wild potatoes are quite small and originated in the Andes. True to their inclusion in the nightshade family, wild potatoes are also poisonous, containing an alkaloid called solanine. Domesticated potatoes can also express solanine when left in direct sunlight, which is evident by the skins turning green.

Potatoes are not typically grown from seed but rather from seed potatoes. These are quality potatoes saved from a previous harvest and replanted. The highest quality seed potatoes, which have been inspected and controlled for spoilage and disease, are available from seed catalogs, but these are often quite expensive—especially organic seed potatoes.

A student crouches next to several trays of pre-cut seed potatoes that await planting

A view of prepared seed potatoes filling a bed in a line, ready to be covered in soil

Buying them from a catalog also ensures that the potatoes are of a given variety. As an alternative, you can grow potatoes from those bought at a grocery. Even though the quality is less determinate, and you don’t always know exactly which cultivar you have, we have had great results growing supermarket potatoes at Rural Studio Farm. If you want to buy supermarket potatoes be sure to get organic ones, as the conventional potatoes are often sprayed with a chemical that inhibits sprouting. Big seed potatoes can be cut into smaller pieces and planted individually for bigger yields. Each piece should be no smaller than about three ounces, and each piece should have at least one eye on it, which is where the tubers sprout.

A student loads her tub with potatoes she has dug

A student holds up a potato plant she just pulled, revealing a cluster of tubers

For every pound of seed potatoes planted, you want to try and see a return of about 10 pounds, though under ideal conditions this can be much higher. Any return under six pounds probably means there were insect problems or the plants were not getting enough water. We started harvesting ours early for new potatoes, but we still got 8.8 pounds of potatoes back for every pound of seed potatoes we planted for a total harvest of 268 pounds.

Tomatoes

Tomatoes are actually berries, and cherry tomatoes are closer to wild tomatoes than the huge beefsteaks we often think of.

A student transplants a tomato seedling into the field as the sun rises against the pines

The Spanish were the first to encounter them and bring them back to Europe, but tomatoes had a rocky start before becoming so closely associated with Spanish and Italian food. In the 1700s, some aristocrats became sick and died after eating tomatoes, and the fruit even earned the nickname “poison apples.” But it was the pewter plates the tomato dishes were served on that caused illness: the acidic tomato juice leeched lead from the plates and poisoned those who ate from them.

Several clusters of cherry tomatoes, in various states of ripeness, hang from verdant tomato vines

The farm manager inspects several tomato plants thoughtfully

Tomatoes can be hard to grow in the South, especially in large numbers. The high heat means it can be difficult to keep them well watered, and the high humidity and heavy rain storms promote fungal and other soil-borne diseases. And then there is the huge amount of insect pressure and the need to support the sprawling vines. In general, we prefer to grow cherry tomatoes, which tend to be hardier and more productive. If a few cherry tomatoes get damaged then it’s no big deal, but if you lose several big tomatoes then the loss is more significant.

A student holds a glass filled with large, bright cherry tomatoes

A row of tomato seedlings with tomato cages placed around them

Over the years, we have been fine-tuning which support methods work best, and which varieties hold up best in the field. This season we are growing two kinds of indeterminate (vining), three kinds of determinate (bush), and six kinds of cherry tomatoes to compare how they perform and how they taste. It is especially important given our new CSA, since tomatoes are beloved by so many. And they are a Summer staple in our salad bar.

So whether its potato salad or a tomato sandwich, our solanum crops provide some of the best eating of the year.

A bird nest sits amongst the blackberry vines filled with four small eggs of light blue

Tags: cherry tomatoes, eatlocal, harvest, potatoes, rsfarm, tomatoes, transplanting

Farm Support Structures

May 27, 2020

Some crops on the farm have a growth habit that is best supported with the helping hand of a built structure.

Growing pole beans climb the bamboo and twine trellis

One such crop is pole beans, which send out runners to wind their way up whatever they can find. So farm manager Eric Ball and Emily McGlohn built a bamboo and twine structure for the growing bean vines to wind themselves up, though the runners still need a little help to “train” them to find the right places to climb.

A newly built trellis of bamboo and twine for pole beans to climb — April 29

Pole bean seedlings begin to sprout — April 29

Eric built another structure last spring to support blackberry canes. In the first year of growth, the blackberries produce primocanes, which were pruned and managed so that they spread across suspended wires, making them nearly invisible. In the second year, the established primocanes become floricanes, where flowers grow and then bear the fruit Rural Studio Farm is now harvesting.

Flowering and fruiting blackberry canes grown along wire trellis

Because the primocanes were pruned and supported by the wires, the fruit is borne off the canes in easy-to-pick cascades at three-foot and five-foot heights. As the floricanes produce berries, the plants also sprout new primocanes that will be next year’s floricanes. Once fruiting ends, Eric will cut out the spent floricanes and begin pruning and training the primocanes for next year’s harvest.

Blackberries of different stages of ripeness hang from canes

Eric, Steve Long, Xavier Vendrell, and Mary English also built a support structure for determinate field tomatoes so that they will have something to hold them up once they get top-heavy and begin bearing tomatoes.

A view of the newly built tomato cages for determinate field tomatoes

Recently transplanted tomato plants sit within their built climbing structures

Meanwhile, in the greenhouse, plants supported on string-lines—cucumbers, tomatoes, and cherry tomatoes—continue to bear fruit. The greenhouse zucchini has also been extremely prolific

An overhead shot of the east half of the greenhouse, highlighting the various plants

An overhead shot of the west half of the greenhouse, highlighting the various plants

A ten gallon tub overflowing with ripe zucchini harvested from the greenhouse — 1-day zuke harvest: 63.5 lb.s

A large, red, ripe tomato from the greenhouse sits in a workers palm — 1-day zuke harvest: 63.5 lb.s

Tags: blackberries, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, pole beans, rsfarm, solar greenhouse, tomatoes, zucchini