Co-owner of Waterkist Farm, Melanie Corun, picks an heirloom tomato inside their hydroponic greenhouse in Sanford. (Willie J. Allen Jr./Orlando Sentinel)

Come July, near the end of their growing season, the heirloom tomato vines at Sanford’s Waterkist Farm, can top out at lengths of up to 40 feet, monstrous horizontal stalks that end up victims of their own success.

The greenhouse-grown tomatoes — which can be weird and wonderful, oddly shaped and textural, and range in color from dusky green to sunshine yellow to vivid red and orange — come courtesy of hydroponics, which their caretaker, Waterkist co-owner Melanie Corun says, “is a way to feed the tomatoes exactly what it wants.”

At press time, the plants were growing six inches a week. Stand amid the rows of the 12,600-square-foot greenhouse long enough and you might actually see it happen.

“Their size is one of the reasons we have to end the season,” says farmer and co-owner Melanie Corun, “because it’s so hard for them to access the nutrients up such a long vine.”

This season will mark the last for Corun and her husband and partner, Roger Worst, who founded Waterkist Farm 22 years ago, second careers for the couple who had met during their time as drivers for FedEx — and had zero experience in any sort of farming, let alone hydroponics.

Heirloom variety tomatoes from the Waterkist Farm come in many colors and sizes. Waterkist Farm has been growing them since 2000. (Willie J. Allen Jr./Orlando Sentinel)

“We bought some land when we were getting married and so had some property,” Corun explains. “I was tired of [my job] and wanted to do something different. Everyone always says, ‘Do what you love to do.’”

An article about hydroponics in the Orlando Sentinel piqued the couple’s interest.

“At the time, it was still kind of ‘out there.’ But we were intrigued and went to Ohio for a two-and-a-half-day training, then jumped in without really knowing what we were doing.”

Worst stayed on at FedEx another five years while the business spun up.

“It was scary at first because we didn’t have the market. My dream was just to sell everything to Publix, which is a joke,” she says, laughing. “Once I got into it I realized things don’t really work that way. So, we struggled a little bit.”

Co-owners of Waterkist Farm, Roger Worst and Melanie Corun inside their Sanford greenhouse. (Willie J. Allen Jr./Orlando Sentinel)

But not about what to grow. Corun, originally from Maryland, missed good tomatoes since moving to Florida. “They’ve always been one of my loves and my grandmother grew the best ones, but the tomatoes here aren’t that tasty.”

Theirs were. And the couple began dropping them off with local chefs and area hotels. Business began to pick up and Worst, who’d finally “quit” driving a truck, was delivering fresh produce down to the Disney area at dawn, then returning to the greenhouse to tend the plants. Eventually, the pair began selling through FreshPoint, but that’s for commercial clients.

You can grab up their goodies every Saturday at the Winter Park Farmers Market: lettuces, hot and sweet peppers, microgreens and more, along with those gnarly heirlooms which as beautiful as they are, are grown specifically for taste.

Green Cherokees, says hydroponic farmer Melanie Corun, are incredibly delicious. (Willie J. Allen Jr./Orlando Sentinel)

“They’re usually meatier in general,” says Corun. “A lot meatier than beefsteaks, which have more juice, more gel.”

Darker varieties lean more acidic. Yellows and oranges tend to be sweeter. All have a place at the table and, says executive chef Michael Cooper of The Osprey, are usually best left mostly alone.

“You almost have to stop yourself from screwing them up,” jokes Cooper, who was introduced to the Waterkist heirlooms while working at Luma. “They’re probably the best tomatoes I’ve had outside a few farmers markets in California and the big difference for me, whether it’s the cherries or the larger ones, is that they’re all hand-harvested, which really shows us that they’re pulling them off the vine right as they’re ready.”

Cooper also enjoys getting them slightly ahead of peak.

“That allows us to let them sit out at room temperature until they get to the appropriate ripeness,” he notes. “When they get there and you slice them correctly, a little bit of nice olive oil and a good crunchy salt is all you need.”

Corun agrees. “When I was a kid at my grandmother’s it was just the tomato and a salt shaker.”

Waterkist grows a rainbow of varieties, from pink to the beautifully ombre’d Green Cherokee, which fades from chartreuse to a bold forest green.

“It’s just the most delicious tomato,” says Corun. “The colors often throw people off. They see a green one and think it’s a frying tomato — if they even know what that is. They’re so used to seeing red tomatoes, they’re almost afraid of the different colors. They don’t want to try them.”

But those who do come back again and again.

“I’d say 85 percent of our customers are repeat,” she estimates. “We’ve been at the farmers market so long these people aren’t even our customers anymore. They’re literally our friends. They supported us during COVID and tripped all the way out to Sanford. They bought them for their neighbors. They’ve just been great and we’re very grateful.”

So, too, are customers like Cooper at The Osprey, which includes beautifully blistered Waterkist Farm’s heirloom tomatoes on its current menu via the Grilled Bluehouse Salmon entree.

Waterkist Farm tomatoes are featured in this grilled Bluehouse salmon entree at The Osprey in Orlando's Baldwin Park neighborhood. (Makaela Falter/Good Salt RG / Courtesy photo)

At home, Cooper’s more apt to grab up a few at the farmer

, “all different colors and sizes,” he says, and cut them in various ways.

“I put them on a baking sheet — and if you have a torch, just give them a kiss with that to open them up, then season with a little bit of olive oil or maybe ginger-infused oil. Fresh herbs are key — lemon verbena or Thai basil or mint, always hand-torn. And then maybe a little cured egg yolk or bottarga to give it a salt factor. Arrange them on a plate with those herbs. Once you season them, they’ll begin to weep a little, so serve it with a nice grilled focaccia on the side to sop all that up — it’s so good.”

Great advice in advance of this Saturday’s market, a tradition Corun and Worst — who’d love to sell the business as is and see new owners carry it forward — hope will continue even after they’ve retired.

More info: instagram.com/waterkistfarm.sanford

Want to reach out? Find me on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram @amydroo or on the OSFoodie Instagram account @orlando.foodie. Email: amthompson@orlandosentinel.com. For more fun, join the Let’s Eat, Orlando Facebook group or follow @fun.things.orlando on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.