Tomato Pear Jewel Plants

The Pear Jewel Tomato is a variety of Cherry type that offers many small pear-shaped fruits, yellow tinged with red-brown ("blue" for tomatoes) in the upper part. Very decorative, they will brighten up aperitifs with friends or family picnics. Also consider this variety if you want to introduce the taste of tomatoes to your children. They love the tiny fruits with vibrant colors that can be eaten directly from the vegetable garden. Plug plants should be planted from April to June after the last frost when the plants reach about fifteen cm. The Pear Jewel Tomato is harvested from July to October.

The Tomato is native to South America and Central America. Several varieties were already cultivated by the Incas long before the arrival of the Conquistadors. The term "Tomate" comes from the Inca Tomatl and refers to both the plant and the fruit it produces. It is one of the many foods that came to us from the New World, along with beans, corn, squash, potatoes, and chili peppers. The Tomato took much longer to reach our taste buds. And for good reason: it was long cultivated for its aesthetic and medicinal qualities, but it was considered toxic due to its resemblance to the fruit of the Mandrake, another Solanaceae. It only became a regular part of our diets in the early 20th century.

The Tomato is a perennial herbaceous plant in tropical climates, but it is grown as an annual in our latitudes. It lignifies over time and produces small, insignificant yellow flowers clustered in cymes that will turn into fruits. Tomatoes can be grown in open ground but can also be grown in containers on a balcony, with a preference for varieties with small growth.

It is a fruit vegetable that has many nutritional advantages. Low in calories like most vegetables, rich in water, it also contains a very interesting molecule: lycopene, a powerful antioxidant. It is also rich in vitamin C, provitamin A, and trace elements.

In terms of cooking, Tomatoes can be consumed raw or cooked in many ways: in salads or for appetizers, grilled, stuffed, marinated, confit, in ratatouille, as a sauce... They come in all colors, shapes, and sizes. Take advantage of this and grow several varieties in your vegetable garden to vary the pleasures!

Harvesting: Harvest times vary depending on the earliness: early varieties are harvested from 55 to 70 days after planting, mid-season varieties from 70 to 85 days, and late varieties over 85 days. Harvesting should be done when the Tomato has taken on its final color and when its texture, while remaining firm, shows a slight softening. For better preservation, be sure to harvest the fruit with its calyx. Be careful, immature fruits, stems, and leaves contain solanine and should not be consumed.

Storage: The optimal storage temperature for tomatoes is between 10 and 15°C (50 and 59°F). Refrigeration is possible but alters the taste qualities of the fruit. For longer storage, tomatoes can be confit, dried, frozen, canned, or cooked into jam. To confit them, cut your tomatoes in half and collect the juice. Place your half tomatoes face up on the baking sheet of your oven. Season with salt, pepper, and sugar, then bake at a very low temperature for at least an hour. Remove your tomatoes, store them in a glass jar, and cover with olive oil.

The gardener's little trick: To limit watering, we recommend mulching the soil with thin successive layers of grass clippings, if possible mixed with dead leaves. This protection, which keeps the soil moist, also limits weeding.