Pink Tie-Dye Tomatoes

Pink Tie-Dye tomato wins number 1! Out of all the varieties we've grown, it tastes good enough to eat on it's own. It's sweet, tart, smoky and bright.

Unripe fruit is a pinkish red with shimmery green stripes. As the fruit ripens, it deepens to darker purple pink and stripes grow dark green. It's an indeterminate plant variety, growing 6-9 feet and producing heavy amounts of fruit. It will keep producing until major frost halts it.

The Pink Tye-Dye is well-rounded as far as a tomato taste goes. In Italian Bel Canto music, we call this rare kind of well-rounded voice chiaroscuro. It translates from Italian as "light-dark" and is a well balanced sound that is both bright and warm. I feel like this tomato is the taste equivalent of this sound. The exquisite quality of chiaroscuro can be heard by the beautiful Leontyne Price singing Puccini's "Chi Il bel sogno di Doretta" (Doretta's Beautiful Dream). Listen here.

The Pink Tye-Dye is a new heirloom introduced by Brad Gates, known as "The Tomato Guy". He has created over 60 new tomato varieties and is the breeder responsible for this wonder. You can read more about his amazing story here.

Now that cooler weather has arrived, our plant will start winding down. I've canned about 50 lbs of tomatoes and will now freeze the last harvest whole. Freeze whole tomatoes, you ask? Why, yes! It preserves the summer flavor so well and makes hearty sauces a cinch.

I'll be using Pink Tie-Dye in combination with canned Romas for sauces and salsas this winter. This combo is pure culinary flavor. After cooking the tomatoes down a bit, the immersion blender makes quick work of everything. Even the peel is blended in. The inspiration for this method comes from this recipe.

Next growing season, you'll want to to find Pink (Berkeley) Tie-Dye seeds and plant them in your garden. They might just become you next favorite!

Thank you for your a wonderful year pink tie dye!

Enjoy,