The 9th Annual Tomato Festival will be held this Saturday, August 8 at the Historic Lewes Farmers Market (HLFM) as part of the celebration of National Farmers Market Week.

A fun time is in store for all age groups with events such as tomato tastings, games, recipe contests, face-painting for children, and guess the number of cherry tomatoes.

You can even get your very own tattoo celebrating the tomato and the HLFM’s 10 year anniversary!

One of the special activities planned at the festival will feature a dozen of the best chefs from Delmarva working alongside with a dozen farmers to create wonderful tomato dishes for patrons to sample. Hattie’s Garden is excited to be partnering with Ted Deptula from the Lewes Yacht Club. Ted spent six years at Nage before moving to the Yacht Club this spring.

We can’t wait to see and taste what kind of dishes all the chef’s will prepare! But, in the meantime, for the very nicest heirloom & cherry tomatoes, fresh cut arugula, other vegetables and beautiful flowers, you can come by Hattie’s Garden this Thursday or Friday from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. If you need an alternate time, please email Hattie to make arrangements.

What’s Available This Week

• Tomatoes — We are pulling lots of heirlooms this week consisting of Striped German, Pineapple Bicolor, Aunt Ruby’s German Green, German Johnson, and Cherokee Purple, as well as copious amounts of beautiful cherry tomatoes in every color. And for those that prefer a low-acid tomato, our hybrid orange tomatoes are ready!



• Salad Greens — To go with all those tomatoes, we will have plenty of gorgeous young arugula, a much larger supply of freshly-cut loose leaf lettuce and mesclun consisting of a nice mix of lettuce with enough arugula to give it a little kick. All our greens are tripled-washed.
• Eggplant — Our Asian and Italian varieties are becoming bountiful.
• Haricot Vert — Delicious gourmet slender green beans.
• Radishes — These are making their debut this week.
• Peppers — We have a variety of beautiful sweet and hot peppers, including Carmen Red Italian Frying Peppers and Red Lipstick Peppers.
• Flowers — We can make you a custom bouquet to include the flowers you love, or you may chose one of our beautiful arrangements. Each bouquet comes with a packet of flower food. These bouquets should last at least a full week for you as we cut and condition them professionally. Available this week are:
  
  • Pincushion — As evidenced by the image on the right, this one attractive summer bloomer that comes in a variety of colors.
  • Lisianthus — The purple, white and pink lisianthus seem to be the star of our bouquets. Nice that they last in the vase for a couple of weeks.
  • Tall Blue Ageratum — Looks stunning with our Lisianthus.
  • Zinnias — Always a favorite and may be in contention to be the stars of the cut flowers this week.
  • Snapdragons — Gather a dozen or more in a small vase and you’ll have one of the prettiest bouquets around.
  • Cosmos — Our cranberry Cosmos are absolutely stunning.

  

  • Salvia — The bracts are long-lasting and dry well, making it a good cut flower.
  • Gomphrena — A very nice purple filler that can also stand alone.
  • Coreopsis — Very popular and known for their vibrant, daisy-like flowers.

Yours in the garden and the table,