Luscious. Juicy. Red.
Who can resist the tomato? Depending on what survey you are reading, they are the first or second most popular garden planting. (Competition with the potato.. another deadly nightshade plant.)
For me, as I improve in all things gardening, it’s my intention to get crazy good at preserving the seeds of the most delicious heirloom varieties. Last year, I bought a fantastic heirloom from a local grower and saved the seeds. I fermented them and started them, but I think I’ll probably only have 2 that make it into the garden. (I also plan on stopping by the grower’s house and asking her for some transplants!)
So this year I got some nice and obvious varieties from seedsavers.org… brandywine, trophy, zebra.
For my money (and effort and appetite) the brandywine is heirloom perfection. Delicious. Prolific. Resistant. It’s like me only healthier and tastier.
Nice to find a full blog entry on this from the folks over at tomato casual.
Filed under: Uncategorized , frost
So tonight…
It’s coming!!! Run for your lives!
A Freeze Warning. So, don’t drink milkshakes too quickly. Don’t eat big bites of ice cream. And for the love of all that is holy…
PROTECT YOUR PLANTS! Good god! Wrap them in blankets! Throw your bodies on them! Smother them with your pasty white flesh!
The weather forecasters would have us battoning down the the hatches tonight here in Connecticut where it could get to <GASP> 32 degrees. Or maybe 29 degrees.
So, the truth is that most of the early plants should be able to handle this. I am slightly worried about my potatoes and my new seeds, but seriously… it shouldn’t be a problem.
That doesn’t mean I won’t be stripping the closets bare in search of the warmest, fuzziest things to wrap my poor, poor, delicate plants in. You may even see me chanting at the moon, begging for some silly biodynamic craziness about moon cycles. Whatever it takes. Come on stars! Align! Bring the heat of all of your hydrogen! Or helium… or whatever it is that makes you so hot.
Filed under: Uncategorized
So the rain came down and down and down. Everything drank it up – including my beds and my pathways. It really seemed like extra rainy rain.
Garden seemed to enjoy it. Some soil got washed off of my beds. The trouble is that my beds are raised a few inches, but I don’t have them framed. Once the beds tighten up with more moisture and plant roots it should be fine. Next year, if this layout works for me, I’ll frame the beds. Probably. If I’m not too fat and lazy.
Qu
ick stroll out in the garden just now and the peas are coming up nicely. Some chard just in front of them. And a cat. Sniffing around the peas to probably pee. Shooed her away.
Lettuce transplants look great and I tasted a leaf from one of them. Very nice.
There is a frost warning for tonight. Uh oh! Looks like somebody jumped the gun! We’ll see. I think we’ll be okay.
So, cancel the ark. Send a dinghy because it’s pretty much supposed to rain after tomorrow and never stop.
Filed under: Peas, soil, vegetable garden, vegetables , beans, frost warning, lettuce, Peas, rain, soil
Do… not… mock the weather gods.
They will smite you with lots and lots of rain.
My poor little seeds and seedlings are being eroded as we speak. Soil is peeling off of the beds. Water is pooling in the pathways. It’s not pretty.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Very exciting.. Kyle noticed that the lettuce was sprouting…. and…
a bean!
Very fun. We’ll have to thin that lettuce, but we’ll wait to see which ones look the heartiest.
Filed under: Uncategorized
It’s not like I’m trying, but my dog gets into just about every shot I take of the garden. He’s an 8-year old border collie named Benny. Sweet, sweet dog that is not quite as intense as most borders (I chose the most laid back puppy from the litter), but he still wants a farm job just about all the time.
He picks his spots on the garden and runs right to one of them the second we go outside. He never goes into the garden, but he does stick his nose right down to the fence line and from time to time scratches away at some of the soil outside the fence as if he’s trying to get to the worms or moles or whatever.
It probably does nothing, but I do like to take his fur and lay it down on the ground outside the fence of the garden. I like to think it keeps rabbits, chipmunks and burglars from swiping my veggies.
That’ll do dog, that’ll do.
Filed under: Uncategorized
I’ve slowly been working in seeds and transplants. I don’t want to get too sucked into this unusually warm Connecticut weather, but it just feels like stuff needs to get planted!
This weekend was a bit more seasonal. In the 60s, overcast. I just got back from a Minnesota business trip.. where it rained like it was going out of style. I missed the bright, warm sun of this weird Connecticut spring! But here I am back to reality.
Today I got arugula seeds started, miner lettuce seeds going, black radish, radish mix, carrots, pole and bush beans all started from seed in the garden. In the meantime, the mesclun mix from the Gastrocast seed special have sprouted. Kale has sprouted. The peas in the garden have sprouted and the peas in the earthbox are getting heartier.
Honestly, I’m most excited about the pole and bush beans I planted. The pole beans are a mix of kentucky wonder pole and borlotto beans from the Gastrocast seed special. Last year the three bush (provider) beans I planted were CRAZY productive. That’s what I’m looking for. I think the pole beans will be gorgeous running up the simple wooden teepee I built.
Soon I will need to thin the kale and mesclun. The mesclun transplants I put in are doing very, very well. I ate a few leaves today. Delicious!
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Wide shot with guard dog
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Peas sprouting in the garden!
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Chard transplants near peas
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Broccoli and lettuce transplants
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Delicious lettuce mix transplants
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Kale and Mesclun sprouts.. thin soon!
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Peas in the earthbox
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Closer peas in the earthbox
Filed under: Peas, seed starts, vegetable garden, vegetables , arugula, beans, gastrocast seed special, Peas, radish
We’ve all got tons of gardening books I’m sure… but it sure is fun to read about how other people struggle with growing stuff!
The $64 Tomato is really more a collection of sequential essays, but there is a story that is told. William Alexander wrote this book – his first – to chronicle his years as a gardener in the yard of an old house in the Hudson River valley.
The book is funny and fast. All of us can appreciate his approach, his genuine desire to grow apples organically (ultimately winding up with a slow progression of natural pest control efforts that ends in shock and awe fashion with waves of WMDs), his love of a brandywine tomato (a love shared by a rascally groundhog), and his evolution into a nearly self-sustaining small-scale farmer.
The stories work as fantastic gardening anecdotes, but along the way there is plenty to learn about the author, his family, and their lives in an old house in a small town.
Well worth the read. And do not follow his math on the $64 tomato. It’s depressing. But, we don’t REALLY get into gardening to save money right?
Filed under: reviews , $64 tomato, gardening book review, vegetable gardening
Friend! Especially their delicious green tops. And actually the fruity rooty part too. Good for you too.
I’ve never grown them and I’m going to try just a few this year. In preparation, I found this very cool blog about it from In My Kitchen Garden (an offshoot of farmgirlfare). Great information.
Direct sowing is the way to go. Soak em a bit. Stick em in the dirt.
If it goes well, I’m going to go for a late summer sowing also.
Filed under: beets, vegetable garden, vegetables , beets, vegetable garden
I’m probably one of, I don’t know, 16 million people linking to this article by Michael Pollan in the NY Times Magazine. In it, he covers why we should bother trying to do things to improve the earth. And the majority of his point is spent covering why it should be more than switching our evil, energy consuming lightbulbs into less evil, less energy consuming lightbulbs. Plant a garden says Mr. Pollan.
The general scientific consenus is that the climate is changing and that man has had an impact. For many, this still feels unsettled, but… it’s settled.
Pollan’s comments on growing gardens (with a lot of history included) is fun to read as is always the case with him. Check it out. Feel good about your gardens.
In fact, feel smug.
Filed under: vegetable garden, vegetables , climate change, garden, global warming, michael pollan
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