2009 A Challenging Year, Looking Forward to 2010

2009 was a rough year for growing tomatoes in S.E. Texas. Temperatures were cold for longer than expected, and then the blast furnace kicked on from April nonstop through July. It’s a wonder many of us got tomatoes at all! That said, we still had quite a turnout at SETTFest and had plenty to share and bring.

We are looking forward to the 2010 season and if you haven’t planted your seeds yet, this is probably the last weekend to do it!

If you have any experiences you’d like to share, or post your own article, just post a Comment and we’ll check it out.

-Morgan

Oven Roasted Tomato Sauce

I’ve been making a lot of oven roasted sauce lately. It’s an easy way to turn your excess tomato harvest into a tasty, rich sauce to enjoy throughout the year. I originally got the idea from critterologist on Dave’s Garden, who wrote an informative and detailed article about it there. She says it is “pure ambrosia”, and I agree! I’ll never go back to slaving over a hot stove top to cook down tomatoes into sauce again. This method frees up my time to get some other things done while the sauce is roasting, and tastes much better.

Any tomatoes you have on hand can be used. Meaty paste types are not necessary. Got a buildup of cherry tomatoes? Throw ‘em in too.

Recipe continues after the jump. (more…)

SETTFest 2009 Best Year Ever

The 3rd annual South East Texas Tomato Festival (SETTFest) returned to the historic Washington on the Brazos state park on June 13th, 2009. We had our best turnout yet, with familiar faces, new folks, and unexpected guests. We had a great time, had everything set up early, so we could just enjoy visiting with folks.

Our mission at SETTFest is to introduce heirloom tomatoes to Central and South Texas gardeners and farmers alike, dispel the myths that only ‘heat setter’ varieties can be grown here, and offer advice and seeds wherever we can. So it was great to see folks asking lots of questions (including a few stumpers!), gathering seeds, and talking shop.

We are thrilled that more and more folks are bringing tomatoes and other items as well. There was a nice spread of breads, cheeses, pasta salads, etc. This was a tough year for tomatoes in our area due to the heatwave and torrential downpours in early May. But still most folks managed to get something and we enjoyed tasting varieties that others brought. Indeed one of the best varieties at the event was Atkinson.

Thanks all for making this a great event!

View photos of the 2009 SETTFest!

SETTFest 2009 Announced!

The 3rd annual South East Texas Tomato Festival (SETTFest 2009) will return to the historic Washington on the Brazos state park on June 13th, 2009.

Located 20 minutes from scenic Brenham, TX, this state park has authentic recreations of crafts and farming of the time of the founding of the Republic of Texas. The excellent facilities available to us at this location should draw a great crowd! Last year we had over 150 tomato varieties represented.

Setup begins at 11am, with the Tasting running from 12:30pm to 3pm.

EVENT INFO | DOWNLOAD FLYER

Website Relaunch

We are proud to announce the relaunch of the South East Texas Tomato Festival (SETTFest.com) website. We will be doing our best to provide helpful and accurate information about the challenges and solutions to growing tomatoes, peppers, and other vegetables in S.E. Texas. We are adding information all the time such as variety recommendations, garden bed preparation, container growing advice, and more. We will be keeping more up-to-date information on our Tomato Festival as well.

If you have any suggestions or feedback, please feel free to leave your comments below or use the Contact Us form. If you’ve got photos of your garden or your tomatoes you’d like to send us for inclusion in the website, please send us an e-mail and we’ll arrange that as well.