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Friday, May 28, 2010

Thank You Wild Boar Farms for the Outrageous Tomatoes!




Yesterday Arlene planted the tomatoes donated to our garden from Wild Boar Farms. They are located just down the road (I-80W) in Suisun Valley. Thank you so much to Wild Boar Farms farmer Brad Gates (pictured above) for sending us the following tweet that got the ball rolling:
@goodlifegarden can I offer you some tomato plants for trial?? Locally bred and dressed to impress.
The answer of course was yes AND thank you, but then I started to dig a little deeper into that background of Wild Boar Farms. Was it a good fit for our garden? But the question, really should have been, is our garden really good enough for them!

Check out these endorsements from a couple folks you may have heard of like the staff of Alice Waters at Chez Panisse who had this to say:
"Wild Boar Farm's Tomatoes are Beautiful and Flavorful. They're Tomatoes You'll Never Forget."

AND Michael Pollan
"I grew a half dozen different Wild Boar varieties in my Berkeley garden in 2009 and they performed exceptionally well-- vigorous plants, with some unusual colors and shapes and excellent flavor."

Not bad, huh? We are really excited to see how they do here! Below is a list of the varieties that we have planted, and, where possible, links to their website where you can buy the seeds.

Pink Berkeley Tie Dye
Large Barred Boar
Black & Brown Boar
Boar King

Next year they will hopefully have starts available for larger public consumption. This year the 2,000 plants they had available sold in two days! Check out a photo of these lovlies and their rainbow of color below!


But, like Brad says, "You may buy a tomato once just because it looks cool, but you won't keep buying it unless it tastes great too." At Wild Boar Farms looks aren't enough it's all about the taste, and these tomatoes have at all!

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Wow, those look amazing! I'm excited to see how they turn out. Keep us posted!

UC Davis Good Life Garden said...

Thanks Brown Thumb Mama! Did you notice how they have a metallic, rainbow look? I asked if that was something weird in the photo or true to life...true to life was the answer! We'll definitely keep you posted.