Potting up

I've started potting up the tomatoes for this year - 26 so far, but I have lots of seedlings and lots of pots, so there will be a fair number more to follow.  Of the 20 varieties Mom started for me, one seems to have vanished entirely, and there's only one or 2 of a few kinds.  I have a friend with a few sorts that I don't have, and we're planning to trade a few plants.

My list for this year is:

1. Petit Moineau
2. Black Cherry
3. Sweet One Millon
4. Gold Nugget
5. Sungold
6. Wild Cherry
7. Ildi
8. Micro Tom
9. Hawaiian Currant (this is the one that I don't have any of)
10. Siletz
11. Super Marmande
12. Keeskerneti (I got the seeds for this one at a seed exchange, and cannot find it online, so no idea what it is like)
13. Big Rainbow
14. Mahlor Roth's Orange Brandywine
15. Roma
16. Principe Borghese
17. Silvery Fir Tree
18. Amish Paste
19. Stupice
20. Costoluto Fiorentino

Big Rainbow and Petit Moineau are favourites from previous years, and this year I plan to save my own seed from them and other favourites.  The ones I don't like as well, I'll keep planting the seed I have til it is gone, but won't save any myself.  I'd like to eventually get half a dozen or so favourites that I'll grow every year, and still keep trying a couple of new sorts each year.  

 

The new varieties I'm trying this year are black cherry, siletz, super marmande, Mahlor Roth's orange brandywine, and costoluto fiorentino. And the hawaiian currant, that I'm hoping to get a seedling for from my tomato growing friend.  

Beyond the tomatoes, I have peas up, setting flowers already, mache ready to harvest, and we've already been eating radishes and pac choi.  Nothing else is ready to eat yet, but my herbs are taking off like mad.  I'll definately be drying or freezing lots, depending on the type, and adding them fresh to anything I can!

Rainy Weekend

Saturday - Last weekend, Easter weekend, was sunny.  Four glorious days of non stop sun.  I got a fair bit done, and made plans to do even more this weekend.  This weekend, however, is not even close to as nice.  I'm sitting on the couch, still in my housecoat, watching rain and thinking about the asparagus bed I wanted to weed and fence off from the dogs, and about the heathers and small shrubs waiting to planted along the grassy strip  along my driveway as part of my quest to get out of mowing. *sigh*

Fast forward to Sunday, and look, true to it's name, it's sunny!  I just got in from weeding my asparagus, and it's warm enough I'm going to change out of my hoodie and into a t-shirt with my shorts before heading back out there.  While weeding the asparagus, I noticed the first sprouts of my nemesis, bindweed.  For those of you who don't know bindweed, it's worse than any weeds you have.  I promise. I'll get more into bindweed in another post.  This is just a quick update between jobs.  If the weather had stayed rainy, you might have gotten more.

My asparagus is coming along beautifully this year, and I even ate a tiny tip I broke off by accident.  Delicious!  I planted the asparagus 2 years ago when I first bought the house, and this will be the first year there is any to eat.  The poor stuff got off to a rather rough start.  I put the offer in on my house, bought some locally grown asparagus crowns at a Seedy Sunday, and then waited 2 agonizing weeks to take possession of my new home.  As luck would have it, between horrible weather and trying to get carpets up, floors refinished, painting done, and moved in, the asparagus got put on hold til it was in a rather sorry state.  Limp and dry, I figured I'd plant it, let it act as compost, and then I could replant next year.

That first year there were only a few very skinny stalks, but nearly every crown made it!  Last year was better, but the dogs kept running through the bed, breaking off fragile stalks.  This year, finally, I'll get some!  I can't wait!  I figure another couple of days and there will be enough for 3 for dinner.

Spring 2013

Ok, I am aware that it has been 3 years since my last post, but lately I've been getting pressure to resurrect my blog (you know who you are, Vanessa!)  This year I'm trying square foot gardening for the first time, and I'll keep you posted regarding my success (or lack of success.)

I'm going to branch out from just talking about tomatoes, but I will post about them a fair bit, as Mom has 20 varieties started for me.  I also want to save seeds from my favourite tomatoes this year.  Some of my gardening goals for this year are building a pergola for growing hardy kiwis, and moving my strawberries into a raised planter to hopefully help eliminate problems with bindweed.  Bindweed grows a little too well in my yard, especially in my strawberry bed.  

So far this year, I have some cool weather veggies in, and my peas, radishes, mixed salad greens, onions and pac choi are up.  I'm hoping to be eating homegrown salad within a week or two!  I'll pick a topic and go into more detail in my next post.  While you're waiting, get outside, dig in the dirt, and plant something!

Almost ready to go outside!

I found this little guy after bringing in a huge armload of rhubarb for dessert. He's cute now while he's small, and I put him back outside (I don't like killing anything) but I sure hope I don't find him on my tomatoes when they go outside. So far our biggest problem has been a mouse in the garage where the Lantzville Grow-Op is. As you can see from the pictures below, the mouse is back, and last night it nipped leaves off a lot of our pepper plants. I sent my cat Zoya out to deal with the problem, but she had become a bit of a gourmet snob since she's decided she's an outdoor cat - so long as the weather is nice - and apparently free range mice taste better. She sniffed around for a few minutes, then turned up her nose and demanded to be let back into the house.

The tomatoes have gotten so big so fast. They've been growing so quickly that the heat mats have been unplugged hoping to slow them down a little, but they're still growing like crazy. Mom and I spent half the day today mixing and fertilizing wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow full of potting soil for the tomato pots and the planter boxes. I'm still not sure where I'll find enough pots for them all. Or enough dirt to fill them all! Some of the cherry and currant types will go in hanging baskets, but there are only so many places to hang them. We're hoping to start transplanting them into their big pots soon, though it will mean keeping them all under the patio roof, and covering them at night for a while yet. And I'm reluctantly starting to look for new homes for some of my babies. I did a rough count - I have between 140 and 150 little tomato plants out there. Ideally, I'd like to keep 40 or 50 plants, but I'm really not sure I'll have the room.

Tonight we did pizza on the barbeque for dinner. I'd never tried this before, and though the crust was a little over cooked, they were really good, and I'd definitely do them again. I love dried tomatoes in pretty much anything. I have lots, because we had so many tomatoes last year I ended up drying pounds and pounds of them. Here is the basic recipe for the sauce I used for the pizza. It turned out really good.

Improv Pizza Sauce by BJ

1 small can of tomato sauce

1 generous handful (maybe around 1/2 a cup) dried tomatoes

3 or 4 cloves of garlic, minced

a couple of tablespoons of chopped, frozen basil (in the summer I'd use fresh)

a couple of tablespoons of chopped fresh oregano

a bit of sugar

salt and pepper

I simmered it all over low heat for an hour or so. I did have to add a bit of water, as it was getting rather thick, but it turned out rich and tomatoey, and very very good.

Ok, I admit, I've been getting neglectful. This is at least in part because the tomatoes aren't really doing much these days. Just sitting on their heat mats, growing, waiting for the weather to be warm enough to go live outside. I've been doing some yard work, making room for the tomatoes, and wondering where on earth I'm going to find enough pots and enough dirt for them all. Luckily, I've had lots of offers of homes for any extras.

Last weekend I planted peas out in one of the garden beds, Improved Laxton's Progress shelling peas, and Cascade snap peas, and found the first sprout yesterday. That was kind of exciting, since I love peas. I've found a recipe I'd like to try when the peas and potatoes are ready:

New Potatoes and Peas

4 big new potatoes, quartered, or lots of baby ones

a cup or 2 fresh peas

bit of basil, chopped

pepper

salt

2 tbsp butter

2 heaped tbsp sour cream

fresh parsley, chopped

Boil potatoes til almost cooked, add peas and basil. Cook til peas are done. Drain. Add remaining ingredients and heat slightly. Top with parsley.

I've been looking at recipes for tomato wine online, but the reviews I've found don't exactly inspire me to want to try it. I might if I end up with way too many tomatoes, but I think I'd be more likely to dry them. Anyhow, I'm off now to go check on the tomatoes. I will keep you updated on their progress.

My Canadian Varieties

Well, in my last entry, I somehow forgot about my poor little Petit Moineau, a currant tomato from Quebec. I was especially excited about that one when I got it at the seed sale, because it's Canadian, so it qualifies for Seeds of Diversity's Canadian Tomato Project. At the time of my last entry, that was the 3rd tomato still not up, but I'm happy to report that on Friday (March 26) the first of my Wild Cherries came up, and on Sunday (March 29) I noticed the tiniest little sprouts in my pot of Petit Moineau! Now I have lots of Wild Cherry up, and 11 little tiny Petit Moineau. They look littler than the other varieties. Some of my older ones, especially some in the heritage rainbow seed mix (6 different types of different coloured tomatoes) have their second set of leaves, that are already recognizable as little tomato leaves. The Red Grapes are still not up.

I only started with 12 varieties originally, but while surfing around online, looking at different tomato varieties, I discovered the Seeds of Diversity website. ( www.seeds.ca ) They have a Canadian Tomato Project that intrigued me. Basically the idea is to get as many Canadian gardeners as possible growing Canadian tomato cultivars, and tracking the results. More information is available on their website. This appealed to me, so I was at their next Seedy Saturday, and the Canadian tomatoes I came home with are Petit Moineau, and Scotia.

Scotia, from what I've been able to find, was developed in Nova Scotia. Back in the 50's if I remember correctly. They grow on a small, determinate plant, and are early. 60 to 70 days to ripe tomatoes, so I'm excited about that. I've been drooling over tomato recipes, craving fresh tomatoes since I started planting! Scotia is a small (4 oz) round red tomato, apparently with a very nice flavour, and good for using green in relishes and such. I'll have to let you know later in the season! Though never having had green tomato relish, I'm not sure I'd be a good judge of it.

Petit Moineau, which according to babelfish.yahoo.com, means little sparrow, is a little currant type tomato. I think the size guidelines for currant type are 3/4 of an inch or smaller. There doesn't seem to be much information available on them, beyond them being small, red, and very sweet. They are an indeterminate, vine type plant. Again, fairly early, from what I can gather.

I'm going to continue looking for good recipes to use all these tomatoes, and I will post any really great sounding ones I find, and some old favourites. Feel free to share yours too!

Planting

Almost all of my tomatoes are up now. I noticed today that Scotia and Ardwyna Paste are both up, so the only ones I'm waiting for are the Wild Cherries and the Red Grape Cherries. I'm not holding my breath on the Red Grape Cherries. The are from seeds I got out of two slightly mushy tomatoes from under the hanging basket they were growing in last summer. The most likely reason for those two tomatoes still being there is that they didn't ripen before the frost killed the plant, so they may well have been immature.

The Scotia, Ardwyna Paste, Wild Cherry and Red Grapes were all planted on heat mats, under grow lights last Sunday (March 21) and everything else went in a week or two earlier. We currently have 4 flats, with mostly peppers and tomatoes, and some blacktail mountain watermelon, hale's best cantaloupe, baby bok choy, lettuce, that kind of thing.

The picture below is the current set up, with the lids on. We have to keep the lids on, as there is a mouse in the garage who has nipped the tops off lots of plants. The lids are off for most of the day, and my cat, Zoya, guards them.

The other pictures will give you a general idea of how big the plants are... about an inch high, I guess. Some are just barely starting to get their second set of leaves. They were started in a peat moss and perlite mix, with a bit of lime and superphosphate added, in small pots in flats, half a dozen to a dozen in each. We did 2 or more of the multi variety seed packs, just to make sure we got some of everything, though I guess I'll have no idea if I have some of everything until the tomatoes are ripe. When they were an inch or so high, the seedlings got transplanted to individual 2" peat pots, where they will stay 'til they are ready for their big pots in the garden.