The chronology of summer in Portland goes something like this: Bike Summer kicks off in June, rivers and lakes get mobbed with paddleboards and partiers in July, and heirloom tomato season shifts into full gear in August. Every restaurant and their mother serves BLTs and caprese salads; fights break out at the farmers market over particularly juicy specimens.
It’s surprising then, that only one farm that we know of in Portland offers a tomato-only CSA. Enter Copihue Farm, named for Chile’s national flower, whose tomato CSA is now in its second year. The short-and-sweet season runs eight weeks between August and September, and a full share gets you six to eight pounds of tomatoes per week. Farmer Andrea Baeza grows over two dozen varieties of tomatoes, including heirloom slicing tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, and sauce and paste tomatoes—many of them from her native Chile.
“I just really love tomatoes. They’re my favorite crop to work with because I like how much care they require, which is a silly thing for a farmer to say,” says Baeza. “I really like nerding out on the histories of varieties, and it helps me connect back with where I’m from, too.”
Asked whether she grew up eating these heirloom Chilean tomatoes, Baeza laughs. “When I told my mom I was doing a tomato CSA, her response to me was, ‘I’ve never had a good tomato from Chile,’” she says. But tomatoes are nevertheless central to Chilean cuisine—they’re the key ingredient of ensalada chilena, a popular side dish of tomatoes and onions dressed simply with lemon, oil, cilantro, and salt.
Turns out that, much like tomatoes in the United States, supermarket tomatoes had largely taken over the Chilean market for their hardiness and longer shelf life compared to heirlooms. But one variety in particular, the limachino tomato, is a point of regional pride in its home of Limache, Chile—and now Baeza is growing it here in Oregon. They’re round, ridged, red, and juicy, ideal for slicing and putting on BLTs—and, of course, ensalada chilena.
Along with the famous Chilean limachino, Baeza also grows Chilean rosado and amarillo heirloom varieties, plus a few types of Chilean cherry tomatoes. To source these Chilean seeds, Baeza has connected with other Portland-area Chileans who have connections to agroforestry projects and farmers down in Chile; this year, during her annual trip to Chile to visit family, she visited markets and farms to do research. She’s also worked with seed breeders in Quebec and New Mexico. She finds that varieties from the cooler southern part of Chile tend to grow better in Oregon than those from the hotter north.
Some of Baeza’s other favorites include the dark green-red Paul Robeson heirloom—”I just find its flavor really good, deep, and kind of tangy,” she says—and the Magic Bullet cherry tomatoes, which are plum-shaped and orange with blue-black streaks. This year, she’s trying her luck again with South American banana tomatoes, which she describes as looking like long chile peppers; she’s also trying a new variety called Champagne Bubbles, a currant-type pale yellow tomato. Other intriguing varieties include a Oaxacan Pink heirloom, the super-ribbed Zapotec variety, and tomatoes with cool names like Lithium Sunrise and Baby Oxheart. (I’m naming my next band after a tomato.)
As of press time, sign-ups are still available for full and half shares for Copihue’s CSA. Pickups take place Wednesdays at People’s Farmers Market and Thursdays at Company Wine Bar; Baeza always brings some extra tomatoes in case intrigued wine drinkers want to take home a tomato or two, too. For those who aren’t ready to commit to a CSA, Baeza will also be at the People’s Farmers Market on Wednesdays and at the Woodstock Farmers Market on Sundays in August and September, selling tomatoes a la carte as well as herbs like parsley, cilantro, shiso, and basil.