Home >  Lifestyle >  Gardening

Saturday, February 15, 2003

By Douglass Oster, Post-Gazette Garden Columnist

There are a variety of reasons we grow vegetables in our back yards. Maybe there's a certain variety we love, or we crave the freshest produce possible.

Taste is probably the biggest factor. Just try a store-bought tomato this time of the year. One bite of those impostors sends gardeners scrambling for their seed catalogs.

	Related information Growing with Phipps: Heirloom tomatoes offer variety of flavors

Health also can be an issue. When we grow plants in the garden, we know everything they are exposed to or, more importantly, not exposed to. But some plants are simply bred to be more healthful. For a number of years, breeders have been working to produce vegetables that contain higher nutrient levels.

One of the newest introductions is 'Health Kick,' a tomato that contains 50 percent more lycopene than other tomatoes. Lycopene, one of the most powerful antioxidants, has proved helpful in preventing cancers and other diseases. 'Health Kick' is a determinate plant that grows to 4 feet high and produces deep red, plum-shaped tomatoes weighing 4 to 6 ounces. The redder the tomato, the more lycopene it contains. 'Health Kick' is also bred to resist tomato spotted wilt virus and bacterial speck.

Two other tomatoes that have been around for years are 'Double Rich' and 'Caro Rich.' The first has as much vitamin C as an orange and twice as much as most tomatoes. It needs support and is an early to midseason producer of fruit weighing 5 to 7 ounces. It's both blight- and wilt-resistant.

'Caro Rich' is an heirloom variety that produces slightly flattened, 5- to 6-ounce fruit that is deep orange and offers 10 times as much beta carotene (provitamin A) as other tomatoes. Beta carotene is also an important antioxidant. 'Caro Rich' is a low-acid variety that is indeterminate, so it doesn't need to be staked.

Have you seen the red carrots available in stores? It might be the new carrot 'Betasweet,' which has twice as much beta carotene as most carrots. The Vegetable & Fruit Improvement Center in College Station, Texas, introduced 'Betasweet' and is breeding other vegetables. Associate Professor Stephen King says he's working on a watermelon with more carotenoids, another type of disease-fighting nutrients.

"Watermelon already contains more lycopene than fresh tomatoes," he added. "Not only that, but it appears that you don't have to heat watermelon to make the lycopene available the way you do in tomatoes."

Although his research is in the early stages, he's already seen breeding lines with four times the current levels of lycopene. King thinks it will take five years for these super high-lycopene watermelons to make it to stores.

Although seed for 'Betasweet' carrot is not yet available, there are other carrots out there that are bursting with extra vitamins. 'Nutri-red' is a carrot that turns red when cooked. It is high in lycopene but produces less beta carotene than most carrots. Its 9-inch-long tapered roots mature early in the season. 'Nutri-red' is not too tasty raw, but cooking brings out the color and flavor.

'Pot O'Gold' and 'Healthmaster' both have higher-than-usual levels of beta carotene. The first is a hybrid that is claimed to have the highest level of the carotene. It grows to 9 inches and is ready to eat in about 70 days.

'Healthmaster' producers brag that its level of beta carotene is more than any other open-pollinated carrot in its class. It's big, sometimes reaching a 3-inch diameter at the crown and 10 inches in length. 'Healthmaster' takes 130 to 150 days to mature, so be sure to plant in the spring and do not plan to harvest until early October. This carrot continues to grow until temperatures reach the low 20s.

Breeders continue to work with other vegetables to try to boost nutrient levels. Seminis, the company that introduced 'Health Kick,' is the largest developer, grower and marketer of fruit and vegetable seeds in the world. It's working on a broccoli with as much as 80 times more glucosinolate, a naturally occurring cancer fighter.

Of course, you don't have to create healthy vegetables. Some existing breeds are ripe for discovery. 'Hystyle' beans have been found to contain more calcium than any other bean tested. According to the Children's Nutrition Research Center in Houston, this plant has more calcium because it's particularly good at conserving water, which can dilute the amount of calcium in the pods. This bean has the added benefit of being drought-resistant.

So, do we really need to worry about how much and what type of nutrients our vegetables contain? Not if we're eating produce as part of a balanced diet, said David Yeung, general manager of global nutrition for H.J. Heinz Co.

"I would say to eat tomato products on a regular basis three to four times a week," he said, adding that you can get as many carotenoids as you need from a balanced diet of carrots and tomatoes.

Tomato growers will be glad to hear that people who eat tomatoes three times a week have more lycopene in their blood and that tomatoes are the No. 1 source of a combination of 10 nutrients.

And although researchers can't say exactly how much lycopene or other carotenoids we need in our diet, eating vegetables bred with higher nutrients certainly can't hurt, Yeung said.

The big question for many gardeners is: How do they taste? Wouldn't it be better to eat two really great-tasting tomatoes than just one bland fruit? To find out, you'll have to try them and find out if these new varieties satisfy your palate as much as they do the rest of your body.

Heirloom tomato hybrid

I think the most exciting new introduction this year is Burpee's 'Brandy Boy.' It's a hybrid version of the most famous heirloom tomato, 'Brandywine.' Breeders claim to have kept the taste and texture of 'Brandywine' with the productivity and even ripening of a hybrid. The plant sports an upright, more manageable growth habit and produces pink fruit up to 5 1/2 inches in size that is ready around 75 days from transplant. Of course, you never know if the variety will produce the way the catalog says. But I think it's worth a try.

Free tomato seed

Give Pittsburgh's most famous heirloom tomato a try. For the past several years, I've given away 'Potato Top' seeds given to me by Fred Limbaugh of Robinson. Named for foliage that resembles a potato, this plant has been grown by his family for years.

'Potato Top' produces large (sometimes 2 pounds), pink, very tasty tomatoes that have few seeds. Most readers agree that it's the best tasting tomato they have ever grown. It's a late variety, so grow something else for your early harvest. For a free packet of seeds, send a self-addressed, business-size (9 1/2 by 4 inches), stamped envelope to: Doug Oster, The Backyard Gardener, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 34 Blvd. of the Allies, Pittsburgh 15222.

You must send a business-size envelope or the order cannot be filled. All I ask in return is that you save seeds from the first tomato and send them back to me. Seed saving and growing instructions will be sent with the seeds.