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From the Archives
Archive for September, 2009
My Favorite Tomatoes, 2009 Edition
I grew tons of tomatoes this year. I finally pulled a few of the plants that stopped producing due to Septoria, but most of them are still going strong. In general, I was happy with the tomatoes this year, and we ended up with plenty for fresh eating, canning, and drying (a first for my garden!) While we didn’t grow any real duds this year, a few stood out, and I’ll definitely be growing them again:
1. Japanese Black Trifele: This was my first year growing it, and even though I had to battle both my cat and the squirrels for a taste of these, it was well worth it. They have a slightly sweet, smoky flavor that I just love. I only grew one plant, but I’ll put in at least two this year—they were not the most prolific producers.
2. Polish Linguisa: These weren’t much for fresh eating, but they were really tasty dried or roasted in the oven. They were also great for canning, as there wasn’t much gel — very meaty tomato.
3. Kellogg’s Breakfast: This was my first year growing these mammoth tomatoes, and I am growing them from now on. Their light, almost fruity taste was a nice change from some of the other tomatoes I grow. Besides being delicious, they are just really, really pretty tomatoes.
4. Tiger-Like: I grew these mainly because they sounded pretty– orange and yellow striped tomatoes. I was picturing them livening up salads. In all honesty, they didn’t make it into many salads, because we ate them as quickly as they ripened on the vine. Very tasty, slightly tart one to two inch tomatoes. There is a lot of gel in them, so if you’re not a fan of that type of texture, you may not like these, but I loved them.
5. Red Currant: Oh. My. God. I used to get all evangelical about ‘Brandywine,’ but this is the tomato I’m pushing from now on. They are tiny, beautiful, perfectly tomato-ey little tomatoes. The one plant I grew this year grew prolifically, and we get at least a couple good handfuls of ‘Red Currant’ tomatoes every day or two. I knew I had a problem when the kids caught me crouching next to the plant in the garden, eating them as fast as I could pick them. Yes, I hoarded them and kept them from my children. Sue me 
I’ve been saving seeds from all of these, plus a few others, including ‘Brandywine.’ While there were no duds, there are a few that I won’t be growing again, and I’ll post about those next time.
Have you grown any of these 5 heirlooms? What’s your opinion? And what was your favorite tomato this year?
16 comments
On Guilt and Funeral Plants
Surely there’s a special place in hell for those of us who kill funeral plants. Especially when we were specifically entrusted with them because of our supposed ability to keep them alive.
I’m a terrible houseplant grower. I have a few houseplants alive right now only because they are of the virtually unkillable type hyped all over the web for those of us who want to grow houseplants, but for some reason or other, torture them to a long, slow death instead. I have an Aspidistra (truly a “cast iron plant!”) a pothos, a couple peace lilies (spatyphyllum) and a couple of small Peperomia that I’ve managed to keep alive for a long time now (as in, over a year.) Yes, that is a long time.
So, you can imagine my trepidation when my mother-in-law gave me this huge funeral plant—you know, those arrangements of a few plants put together in a basket that people sometimes give in lieu of flowers?– that someone sent when her mother passed away back in July. I loved my husband’s grandmother nearly as much as I loved my own, and I felt obligated, as the family’s resident garden nut, to accept the plant.
The first problem was, there is no place in my house where I could place this gigantic basket of plants. The basket itself was the size of a small laundry basket, and contained five plants: two draceana, a large variegated peace lily, some little palm-type thing, and a schefflera. I asked my mother-in-law, sheepishly, if it was ok for me to break the basket up into individual plants. She was totally fine with it (part of the reason I inherited the plant was because she had no room for it, either.)
Repotting, done. Plant placement where kids won’t destroy the plants, done. Regular watering…
Ah, crap.
Because I used whichever nice looking pots I had around, I ended up putting one of the dracaenas in a terracotta pot. Not really a problem, as long as they’re right in front of my nose and I am reminded to water them. Except that my cat, Bug, thinks dracaena are absolutely delicious, and will devour a plant in an afternoon (yes, he’s done it before.)
So, the plant went on top of the cabinet that is above my writing desk. Where I forgot about it.
Until this morning, when I picked it up, thinking “hey, I should probably water that!” and a good 3/4 of its leaves fell off. Now, chances are that with proper care and a little babying, this plant will be just fine. It does have several healthy leaves left, after all. And if I repot it in a nonporous pot, that will help with the watering, too (notice that its former arrangement-mate, in a glazed ceramic pot, is doing just fine.)
Yes, yes. Everything will be just fine. Really. (You can’t really tell in the photo, but the sad plant on the left has totally lost the leaves from one of its three stalks. They fell off a minute ago.)
I’m a terrible person…
10 comments
Summer Garden Photos: Before and After
I love comparing photos to see how the garden has progressed during the season. This year, the difference was huge, and I thought I’d share a couple before and after photos with you.
The Raised Beds
June 10th
July 14th
September 4th
The Side Yard
June 2nd
July 10th
August 13th
September 4th. Corn and beans have been removed to make space for beets, chard, and spinach.
Well, that was fun I did the same thing with the new front garden, and I’ll post those photos in the next few days. It will be fun to compare all of these photos year to year. Now I just have to remember to keep taking pictures (I am so bad about that…)
8 comments
Urban Farming at the Michigan State Fair
We did our yearly caravan to the Michigan State Fair over the weekend. Myself, my husband, the four kids, my mother-in-law, and my brother-in-law go every year together, and Sunday could not have been a more perfect day. It was in the mid 60’s, partly sunny, and just generally beautiful outside.
While my favorite things have traditionally been the livestock and the agricultural exhibits, this year I was enthralled by the Great Lakes Gardens, an example of urban farming installed right on the Michigan State Fairgrounds. It was the creation of Ryan Rowinski, who is a graduate of the Michigan State soil science program, and donated his time, experience, and obvious green thumb to the Fair this year.
I had read about the garden in the Detroit News, so I was interested in seeing it, but I have to admit that the husband and I weren’t hoping for much. We already HAVE an urban garden, how different could this one be?
Well.
Great Lakes Gardens Urban Farm
I could have spent the entire day in the Great Lakes Gardens. The plants looked fabulous, I loved the way Rowinski laid the garden out, mixing large borders of corn with small, narrow beds for squashes, and a circular bed for pole beans. What I loved about the garden was that it was obviously bountiful, it was beautiful, and it wasn’t pretending to be anything else. This was a working urban farm, and it didn’t need any “prettying up” or ornamentation. In fact, as of last week, the plot, which was installed eight weeks ago, has yielded over 300 pounds of produce, with another three to four hundred pounds expected in the next couple weeks.
A quick survey of the farm showed that it was growing just about everything: corn, tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, peppers, eggplant, wheat, lettuces, brussels sprouts, sunflowers, and herbs all had a home there. I did notice that none of the corn had been demolished by squirrels, though Rowinski told the “Grosse Pointe News” that bunnies have been a bit of a problem.
Ideas I’m Going to Copy
There are three things Rowinski did that I’m totally ripping off next year. The first was this awesome cucumber tunnel trellis:
Emily and Sarah under the cucumber arch.
The second is the way Rowinski supported some of his pole beans. He calls this type of staking “Detroit-style” (you would find rebar in many of the vacant lots in the city — may as well use it!)
Love these bean supports.
The third thing I’m going to copy is Rowinski’s use of narrow beds. This is something that would definitely benefit those of us with small, irregular, or partly shady lots who are always saying “just one more bed!” I have a few areas I am already planning to use narrow beds in. I don’t have a photo of it, but there were several long, twelve to eighteen inch wide, beds along the edges of the garden. A simple idea, but a very useful one.
I was totally inspired by this urban farm, and more determined to increase our growing space next year. As a side note, due to funding issues, this was the last year for the Michigan State Fair. At 161 years old, our Fair was the oldest in the United States. We signed petitions at the Fair to save it, and I really hoped something would be worked out. But, Michigan Public Radio reported this morning that the last minute reprieve so many of us had hoped for hasn’t happened. It’s over. I hate to think that my youngest kids will never have the experience of feeding goats and alpacas, seeing giant pumpkins, or watching the pig races at the State Fair. This is a huge loss to so many families, and to our entire state.
7 comments
Grading the Summer Garden
It’s September! And even though the calendar still says it’s summer, as far as I’m concerned September 1st marks the beginning of fall. So it’s time to take a look back at the summer garden.
The new side garden was awesome all season. In the spots where we ripped out bush beans and corn, we recently seeded some greens for the fall garden.
The Garden FAILS
(Oh, crap. That headline is a sure sign I’ve spent too much time on Twitter.)
1. The cucumbers. I got them in way late (because my seedlings fried to a crisp in their little cell packs, and I had to direct sow them in the garden, which I didn’t get around to until late June.) I have gotten six cucumbers from six plants. Not a great yield. and I was so disorganized about it that they’re not even trellised, so I have scrawny cucumber vines laying all over the ground. Not good.
2. The pattypan squash. This was my first year growing it, from seedlings that I bought at my local fruit market, and I didn’t get a single pattypan from the four plants. This is mostly because I ignored the first small signs of powdery mildew (I had just started working for Planet Green at the time, and was slacking in the garden) and before I knew it, the plants were goners.
3. Corn. We had a gorgeous plot of corn this year. It grew tall and lush, and each stalk produced one pretty little ear. All was pristine until about two weeks ago. We were looking forward to harvesting the first few ears, as the silks were starting to turn brown. And wouldn’t you know it — the fracking squirrels decimated the entire plot, leaving us with not a single ear of corn. I hate squirrels. Next year, we’re caging our corn. The good news is, we have plenty of nice tall cornstalks for our outdoor fall decorating.
The last corn standing. The squirrels already ate the corn, but we're leaving the stalks because we like the way they look.
4. Zucchini. I wasn’t sure whether to put this in the success or failure column, but I guess that if you’re going for high yields of produce, my zukes would be considered a garden fail. I direct-sowed ‘Black Beauty’ zucchini in the small raised bed at the back of the house that doubles as our winter garden. It gets part sun, and I was interested to see how the zukes would do there. Well, if plants could talk, my zucchini would have been bitching me out this year. I can just imagine what it would say, as it sits there in the shade:
“Seriously? You’re planting me here? You’re kidding, right? I can’t believe people trust you to tell them how to garden. You’ve got to be kidding me with this. Oh, what the hell. Have a zucchini.”
I’ve gotten about one zucchini a week from the one plant in this bed, which isn’t really enough. On the upside, this was the first year since I started gardening that I wasn’t buried in zucchinis by August!
Summer Garden Successes
1. TOMATOES! Oh, yeah babe (as Emeril would say). My goal was to have enough tomatoes for fresh eating and for canning and drying, and we did it! We’re harvesting at least three pounds of tomatoes PER DAY (our highest yield was 17 pounds in one day — crazy!) There’s always a bowl of ripe little grape, cherry, currant, and pear tomatoes on the kitchen counter for us to snack on, as well as another bowl of nice, juicy slicers. We’ve canned 6 quarts of tomatoes, as well as two pints of good tomato sauce. I also have two pints of dried tomatoes in my freezer. I’m actually getting ready to do another round of canning — the plants went nuts this week again. I’ll write about my favorite tomatoes from this season in another post.
Canned tomatoes! Yay!
2. Beans. We planted both ‘Provider’ bush beans and ‘Kentucky Blue Lake’ pole beans, and both produced very well (of course, beans are almost zucchini-like in their ability to produce!) We snacked on raw green beans all summer, ate plenty of green bean side dishes, and I have several quarts of them frozen to use in soups and stuff this winter.
3. Carrots. We planted a lot more than usual, because our two oldest kids eat them like candy, and I’m so glad we did. They went in our new side yard garden, and they absolutely flourished. Of course, we had to do a lot of thinning because I was kind of heavy-handed when I planted the seeds, but I couldn’t be happier with how they’ve grown. We grew “Danvers Half-Long” this year.
All in all, it was a great summer for the garden. The fall garden is ramping up now, and soon, we’ll be planting the winter greens. There are several things I want to change for next year, and we’ve already decided to expand the garden again, adding a few more raised beds. But that’s all news for another post
What were your garden successes (and failures) this year?