Lehigh Valley gardeners get an inside look at Burpee's newest produce

George Ball isn't shy about his love for tomatoes.

Red. Yellow. Orange. Maroon. Purple.

Big and little.

Beautifully round, pear-shaped or delightfully lumpy.

Seedless or heirloom.

''I'm a tomato freak,'' he declares during an interview. A few minutes later, the CEO of W. Atlee Burpee Seed Co. confides, ''I'm a tomato wolfman. I just adore them.''

And that's why a tomato-tasting table will be featured during the Burpee Harvest Festival 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Friday and Saturday at Burpee's Fordhook Farm in Doylestown.

Filled with fervor about the event, Ball will stir up some batches of his special tomato sauce for visitors to taste.

During the two-day festival, visitors can rake in information about growing vegetables and flowers, see new varieties during guided tours of Burpee's ornamental and kitchen gardens, get pointers on fall gardening and collect the favorite recipes of Burpee employees (including Ball's tomato sauce recipe).

They can also see pesto being made by cookbook author Laura Schenone (''The Lost Ravioli Recipes of Hoboken'' and ''A Thousand Years Over a Hot Stove'') and ''Discover the Power of the Vegetable Garden in the Kitchen, in History and in Daily Life'' from her two lectures each day.

Although some new tomato varieties on trial this summer will be included in the tastings, Ball carefully mulches his answer to a pointed question about whether any really ''hot'' tomato news will be revealed.

''We're previewing candidates for our next catalog, rather than going public with them and their names ... Generally, we save our surprises for the new catalog that's released in December. But our festival visitors might find out about one or two new veggies or flowers, if we find we have something truly exceptional to show off.''

According to Ball, the interest in growing tomatoes and all kinds of vegetables has never been higher in the last 30 years. ''This year's vegetable seed sales spiked by 25 to 30 percent. Prime on people's minds during the recession are savings reaped by growing their own food.'

When Michele Obama planted her garden at the White House, Ball couldn't have been happier about the example she set for Americans. But even when the economy goes north again, Ball doesn't expect the interest in gardening to go south. ''It's about saving money as well as health and safety concerns,'' Ball says.

''When you're gardening, you're bending, pulling, pushing and stretching as you go. And after security stimulated interest in eating locally grown food, you couldn't get more local than raising food in your backyard.''

''If people really want to save money on their food bills, tomatoes are tops,'' he adds. ''A $2.95 packet of 30 seeds is guaranteed to produce 25 plants. If one plant produces 40 large fruits that would sell for about $1 apiece in the grocery store, you're getting $40 worth of tomatoes on one plant. Multiply that by 25 plants and you'll have reaped $1,000 worth of tomatoes.''

The self-professed tomato lover adds, ''I haven't even mentioned the added taste and nutritional benefits of home-grown tomatoes over those that are store-bought.''

When it comes to savings, peppers, sugar snap peas and green beans are among other good crops to plant. Sweet corn, potatoes and onions yield lower savings because they sell at lower prices in food markets. Ball adds, however, that they're still worth planting for their homegrown taste.

So what are Ball's favorites? As expected, he talks tomatoes. ''Big Boy is a favorite of mine because it is a very fragrant tomato, but I also like our Porterhouse variety that's more productive than Big Boy. I'm fond of Brandy Boy, too. It's probably the best of our line when it comes to overall quality. But we're coming up with new ones all the time. We're never at rest.

''Big Mama and Healthkick are the two that I like to combine for my tomato sauces. The Big Mamas are about four or five times the size of Roma tomatoes and have very few seeds. Healthkick has a high level of licopene, is fairly dry and kicks in a 'buzzy' flavor for my sauce.''
But Ball admits that not all in the seed business is as rosey-red as his tomatoes. He stops short of skipping down his gardens' rows because the skyrocketing seed sales have been confined to vegetables.

He laments, ''Sales of flower seeds, except for classics like sunflowers, zinnias and marigolds, have been declining. People perceive them, particularly higher-end perennials, as frivolous. But they're not.

''One of the points we need to make on our garden tours and as an industry is that there's nothing better to increase the perceived and actual value of a house than some beautiful landscaping with flowers and shrubs.''