The Mighty Storage Tomato

Cordially introduce yourself to the reverend.

I snapped this picture of him (her, technically...she is a fruit after all), on the FIFTEENTH OF FEBRUARY. I live in gardening zone 5. That's the coldest part of Ohio, adjacent to Michigan. Our expected first frost date is October 15, and that was just about right this past fall. I grew this special tomato, Reverend Morrow's Long Keeper, in a regular garden without any flare like a hoop house to keep the reverend safe from the frost or cold. So our little reverend here had been out of the garden and off the vine for four months!

What is so unusual about the Reverend Morrow Long Keeper of tomatoes? Well just that, it can keep for a long time. Most tomatoes wouldn't last a week once picked, but these guys were content on the shelf through most of the winter.

Storage quality used to be a significant factor in deciding which seeds would get planted again for next year, but with the advent of the shipping of out of season produce around the world, that was largely forgotten about. Attention was diverted from produce that stores well to produce that ships well. Today many fruits that store well are in danger of going extinct, as orchards get rid of their storage apple and pear trees when consumers flock to the grocery store for fruits from the other hemisphere. But the ability to store well in a root cellar or cold room is important for crops like potatoes, onions, garlic, cabbage, carrots, beets, pumpkins, winter squash, and more, even today.

I harvested a few dozen of the reverends before the first frost and mostly used them to cook with throughout the late fall and winter. (Let's face it: eating fresh tomatoes is not as appealing in the cold weather.) They were cooked into rich sauces for beef for tacos, added to simmering pots of black beans, and chopped to make salsa. Sitting on a shelf in my breezeway they held up great, despite the fact that I was basically as negligent as possible with them. After harvest, I simply placed them in a low sided cardboard box (not touching) and stuck them in the breezeway, as that is usually 10 degrees or so cooler than the rest of the house. And then I just grabbed a tomato when I wanted one. A few developed small soft spots, so I used those up when I saw them. And they made it until literally the middle of February! Had I wrapped them in newspaper it's likely they could have lasted even longer.

How do they taste? They're passably good, nothing is wrong with them to be sure but these aren't the heirlooms that are getting waxed poetic about. Flavorwise this is not a memorable tomato and it is out shined by its competitors of the August harvest. But where are those Purple Cherokees and Orange Icicles in the middle of winter? Maybe canned into sauce, maybe tucked away into the deep freeze, but nowhere will they be found fresh. But without a doubt they are superior to those tomatoes that are picked green down in Florida and then trucked into the store in the wintertime. Much better. Storage varieties like Reverend Morrow (also known as Reverend Morrow's Peach) are a great way to have fresh and local produce when the garden is buried in the snow.