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From the Archives
Archive for February, 2008
A Theory on Gardening and Obsession
I realized this morning what it is that makes me love gardening as much as I do. The easy answer, the simple answer, is that its the beautiful flowers, the delicious food, the time spent in fresh air and sunshine.
But thats the wrong answer.
The right answer is that its one of the few things in my life that completely and totally holds my attention. You know how we spend most of our lives doing one thing, but thinking of another? Or ten or twenty others, at times? How sometimes we can devour a meal and realize, at the end, that we didnt really taste any of it? Or how, against all of our more valiant efforts, we find our mind wandering while we are supposed to be deep in conversation with someone? Its like living a divided life, where the things you actually spend time doing are a haze, a light shade of gray, and you get to the end of the day wondering how you spent it. You know you did things. You brushed your teeth, ate oatmeal, read to your kids, did the work you needed to do. And the whole time, there was this cacophony of thoughts and complaints going on in your head, so that you never really seemed to live any of it.
Do you know what I mean?
But gardenings not like that. Weve all experienced, to one degree or another, what happens when you become deeply involved in gardening. Maybe, when youre weeding, you can almost seem to sense where the next dandelion sprout is hiding. Theres no conscious thought on your part. You just know that if you reach your hand out, sure enough, there will be a weed there. Or youre doing hard digging, maybe making a new bed, and eventually theres nothing but the sound of your shovel digging into hard clay, the seamless way your muscles move as you dig. Everything else fades away.
Reading a great novel is like that. All of the noise around you, as well as the constant noise in your mind, just seems to disappear. Youre happily lost with a bunch of characters in a place youve never been, and it seems like youre home. You finish the story, close the book, satisfied but wistful, wishing you could spend more time in that world.
Maybe thats why winter time is so hard on gardeners. We get to spend five or six months of the year (more if youre really lucky or industrious) in the garden. We get to experience these occasional minutes, and sometimes hours, of finding ourselves happily lost in soil and plants, compost and water. We spend the rest of the year wistfully remembering what that felt like, or planning for how we can feel that way again.
There are few things in my life that completely captivate me. Reading a really fantastic book. Writing. Hugging my children. Being wrapped in my husbands arms.
And gardening.
Ive heard people say that their biggest fear is getting to the end of their life, and realizing that they never really lived at all. That their life was a series of tasks, time spent meeting the requirements of others. Ive known, and loved, many people like that.
Its safe to say that if you garden, you wont have that concern. Gardeners get to experience the best type of life: the kind where youre there, and completely involved, and doing it for no other reason but love.
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Winter Sowing Update: Whole Lotta Nothin’ Goin’ On
Hank commented in one of my recent winter sowing posts that he’s curious about how the process is coming along. It gave me a good excuse to waddle (and yeah, I’m at the waddling phase of pregnancy now…quack!) back to my potting bench in the yard and take a peek. It was near 40 degrees today, so I had a momentary glimmer of hope. Maybe I’d see green…
Nada. Zilch. Nothin’.
The containers are all still sitting there, glazed with ice, soil frozen into hard little cakes. I started getting annoyed. Surely last year I had some green by now….right? It’s been an eternally long winter, and it’s not looking like it’ll be ending anytime soon. We have four to eight inches of snow in the forecast for tonight.
But, enough whining. I waddled back inside and looked over last year’s entries. Last year, I didn’t have sprouts until March 20th.
Okay, so I guess progress this year isn’t any different from last year. Except that I also recorded that I saw the first crocus sprouts on February 28th, and here we are at the end of the day on the 25th, without any signs of crocuses.
Sigh.
By now, desperation is setting in. I’ve been spending my time working, planning this year’s vegetable garden (Carol had a great post about what she doesn’t grow in her garden—-I’ll be sharing my list of things you won’t find in my garden sometime this week), and shuffling through seed packets, feeling the same way I felt as a kid when my mom told me I could absolutely not go out to play.
More than anything, I’m restless. I feel like I’m spending most of my time waiting.
Waiting to hear from clients.
Waiting for the weather to change.
Waiting for sprouts.
Waiting for Elizabeth (the name we’ve finally decided on for our new daughter) to grace us with her presence.
My life is one gigantic pregnancy at this point, full of potential and anticipation, but frustrating in how long everything seems to take. I am not a patient woman. It’s a lesson I had hoped that gardening and parenting would teach me. I believe that, eventually, it will. Nature, and life, cannot be hurried along. Things happen in their own time. The crocuses will bloom, my winter sown seeds will sprout, and my daughter will come wailing into this world just as soon as she’s ready. Until then, I rely on the small signs of progress: forsythia buds in the garden, seeds I hold in my hand, ready to plant as soon as nature allows, the regular, insistent kicks Elizabeth gives me when I lay in bed at night. And I know, from gardens and pregnancies past, that the wait just makes the moment of birth all the more precious.
Is anyone else feeling restless? Or is this just yet another hormonal rant on my part?
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The Growing Challenge: Veggie Indecision
I was dead set on my choices for the Growing Challenge (sponsored by Elements in Time) but now I find my resolve fading a bit. Anthony has been helpful in warning me that my Lemon cucumbers may have a tendency to be a bit seedy (Thanks for the warning, Anthony!) So I’ll grow them, but I decided to grow some good, dependable “Straight 8″ cukes as well, just to be safe. They’re not as quirky as the Lemons, but at least we’ll have a variety I’ll be sure everyone will like!
I’m still planning to grow sage for the first time, but Anthony also has me thinking about chamomile. As I mentioned on one of his Growing Challenge posts, I drink at least one, and sometimes several, cups of chamomile tea per day. That all depends on how crazy work and my daughters are making me 
Why buy chamomile tea when I can grow my own? And, I just happen to have some seed….
As I mentioned before, I’m also growing several types of tomatoes that I’ve never grown before. I’m not technically growing them as part of my challenge, because I grow tomatoes from seed every year. I figured I’d list them here to see what your opinions are of some of these varieties. As with my Lemon cucumbers, I’d rather know ahead of time if something is likely to be disappointing. It doesn’t mean I won’t grow it—it just means I’ll know not to be all heartbroken if something doesn’t live up to my expectations!
This year’s tomatoes:
- ‘Black from Tula’
- ‘Black Russian’
- ‘Garden Peach’
- ‘Golden Jubilee’
- ‘Green Grape’
- ‘Livingston’s Golden Queen’
- ‘Nicholson’s Yellow Cherry’
- ‘Persimmon’
- ‘Ponderosa Pink’
- ‘Red and Yellow Currants’
- ‘Subarctic Plenty’
- ‘Tiger-Like’
- and, three of my tried-and-true faves, ‘Brandywine,’ ‘Yellow Pear,’ and ‘Juliet Grape.’
Any experience with these? Looking over the list, I’m surprised to realize that I’ve only spent about ten dollars on tomato seeds. The rest were all the result of seed trades and a very generous offer that Trudi Davidoff from Wintersown made to members of the Gardenblogger Seed Exchange. I’m coming in severely under budget this year. I’ll have to remedy that situation….
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America’s Favorite Tomatoes (Plus My Top Three)
What are America’s favorite tomatoes? Barbara Pleasant from Mother Earth News spent some time trying to answer this question. She went to members of the Seed Savers Exchange. She went to Dave’s Garden. She went to individual tomato growers, and checked the results of tomato tastings nation-wide. What resulted was a list of 20 of the best-tasting tomato varieties. Here’s the list (but be sure to read the article—it’s full of great information about each tomato!)
- ‘Sungold’
- ‘Glacier’
- ‘Stupice’
- ‘New Girl’
- ‘Crimson Fancy’
- ‘Beefy Boy’
- ‘Orange Banana’
- ‘Roma’
- ‘Opalka’
- ‘Amish Paste’
- ‘Brandywine’
- ‘Big Rainbow’
- ‘Lucky Cross’
- ‘Cherokee Purple’
- ‘Black Krim’
- ‘Aunt Ruby’s German Green’
- ‘Green Zebra’
- ‘Kellogg Breakfast’
- ‘Aunt Gertie’s Gold’
- ‘German Red Strawberry’
The article also contains a list of the fifteen best-tasting hybrids, for those who are plagued with pest and disease problems.
As far as the list goes, there are several delicious varieties. Not surprisingly, most of the tastiest tomatoes are also open-pollinated varieties. Many of them, such as ‘Brandywine,’ ‘Cherokee Purple,’ ‘Amish Paste,’ and ‘Roma’ have had a home in my garden, and I was thrilled with all of them. There were also a few varieties on the list that I was unfamiliar with. Now I’ll just have to hunt down seeds for them 
The Mother Earth News article breaks the tomatoes into categories by color, use, and season. I only need three categories. Here are my personal, top three, must-have tomatoes:
1. Best All-Around Tomato: ‘Brandywine’
I can’t live without ‘Brandywines.’ The flavor and texture is unbeatable, and, to top it off, they’re really beautiful tomatoes. They’re perfect for eating apple-style, with juice dribbling down your chin, sliced on a sandwich or burger, cooked into a simple sauce, or tossed into a salad. I’ve heard from a few people that ‘Cherokee Purple’ is even better, but I grew it last year and it didn’t usurp ‘Brandywine’ as Queen of Tomatoes, as far as I’m concerned. Don’t get me wrong—-’Cherokee Purple’ is a great tomato, but it just isn’t a ‘Brandywine.’
2. Best “Pick & Pop” Tomato: ‘Yellow Pear’
By “Pick & Pop” I mean pick from the vine while you’re weeding or watering and pop it into your mouth whole. Now that is summer! There are plenty of awesome cherry, grape, and currant tomatoes, but I love the pure, mild tomato flavor that ‘Yellow Pear’ provides. I find some of the grapes too sweet, and some of the cherries are just a tad too acidic. ‘Yellow Pear’ is just perfect. And it’s pretty.
3. Best Cooking Tomato: ‘Costoluto Genovese’
This heirloom Italian variety won my heart when I grew it last year. I had been a faithful ‘Amish Paste’ girl until then, but I received some ‘Costoluto’ seeds in a trade and now I can’t be without them. Their firm, meaty texture is perfect for sauces (of course) but it’s also killer for drying and for topping a pizza. It’s not pretty—’Costoluto Genovese’ is a fairly ugly, irregular tomato. Its flavor more than makes up for its lack of beauty.
So, there they are: America’s top 20 plus the three tomatoes I can’t live without. What do you think? Are you surprised by any of the varieties on the Top 20 list? What are your Top 3 “Must-Have” tomatoes?
Thanks to Michelle over at Tomato Casual for her post about the Mother Earth News article!
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My Wintersowing Containers Are Drowning! (Or, reason #5,976 why Michigan winters stink….)
Our weather has been absolutely insane around here for the past couple of weeks. We’ve seen several inches of snow followed by thunderstorms with temps in the upper 40’s followed by a hard freeze, followed by five inches of snow. In other words, stereotypical Michigan weather. There’s a reason we have the saying “if you don’t like the weather, give it five minutes and it’ll change.”
I’m used to the crazy weather, but this is only my 2nd year winter sowing, and I’m getting worried about my containers. The soil froze solid after I put them out, which is great. But then we got a ton of rain. The water got into the containers, just like it’s supposed to, but since the soil was still frozen solid, the water wasn’t able to drain. Now it’s ice. So I’ve got at least seven containers with about three inches of frozen dirt covered with about an inch of solid ice. For whatever reason, I didn’t have this issue last year. So, I’m begging you, any winter sowers out there—-have you had this problem? And did the seeds end up germinating? I’m kind of worried that they’ll rot if all the water doesn’t drain out soon, but I didn’t want to pour the water out because I could see all of my seeds floating in it. Particularly, my monarda, sedum, yarrow, and hosta seeds. Grrrr….
I know the whole idea behind winter sowing is to trust Mother Nature, but she has a rep for being a bit flaky here in my neck of the woods. So what do you think? Should I just expect to kiss my hostas goodbye?
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