Aug. 26 column

Here is a link to my column in today's edition of The Spokesman-Review: Grafted tomatoes prove worthy of diverse climates. As you can guess, the topic is on grafted tomato plants which are relatively new to the vegetable gardening world.

I've been testing a grafted tomato this summer and am impressed with how well it's growing compared to a non-grafted plant of the same variety ('Black Pear'). The plants were given to me by Ron McCabe, co-founder of Ezra's Organics (www.ezrasorganics.com).

I've never grown any 'Black Pear' tomatoes before and what's really cool about them is their size. In the past, I've grown 'Yellow Pear' which, as you probably are aware, are small but very tasty tomatoes. 'Black Pear' are quite large tomatoes that turn a purplish-red when ripe. We've only eaten one so far but it had an  intense, delightful taste.

I intend to report back at the end of the season and let you know my final impressions of how the plant performed.