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.

My First Garden

As a long time condo dweller (and the shady side of the building at that) I'd never gotten any farther than a few hanging baskets of flowers in the way of gardening... until last year. Last year at this time, I was living on a nice little piece of property, just over half an acre, that BEGGED me to grow something on it. Full of enthusiasm, but very little know how, I proceeded to start digging garden beds. I ended up with several beds, and then I went seed shopping.

The seed companies saw me coming.... every single package sounded sooooo good, so easy to grow. Even veggies I don't especially like sounded good. I bought more than I needed, then went out and bought more. Then I started my seeds on not quite bright enough window sills, and ended up with lots of long, lanky tomatoes and squash plants, and some rather sad lettuces. Most ended up getting sent to Mom's little greenhouse 'til it was warm enough to put them out. They just outgrew my limited windowsill space.

The garden did quite well, I was pleased with it, but I never did find room in the garden for all my seeds, and ended up doing my peppers and tomatoes in pots. The did quite well, especially the tomatoes. The varieties I had last year included Early Girl, Sweet 1,000,000, Brandywine, Pink Ice Cherry, Red Grape, Tumbler Red, Better Boy, and I think a few others that I've forgotten. Many of them were impulse buys at the nursery, not from seed.

Tomatoes have always been one of my favourite veggies, and this year, as I have less space to work with, I've decided to focus mainly on them. Because I have less space to work with, and will have to have all or most of my tomatoes in pots again, I figured I'd better limit myself. So far I have only 17 varieties of tomatoes started, most of the seeds up, and as well, keep looking at Stupice, Cherry Roma, and various members of the Brandywine family. Apparently I'm not very good at moderation.

My currently started tomatoes are Big Rainbow, Roma, Ildi, Yellow Pear, Super Sweet 100 Hybrid, Sungold Hybrid, Red Grape Cherry, Wild Cherry, Ardwyna Paste, Scotia, Petit Moineau, Black Russian, Omar's Lebanese, Dutchman, Djena Lee's Golden Girl, Golden Sunburst, and Aunt Ruby's Green.

Super Sweet 100, Yellow Pear, and Sungold are from a mixed package, so I'll not know what I have 'til they are ripe. The same is true of Black Russian, Omar's Lebanese, Dutchman, Djena Lee's Golden Girl, Golden Sunburst, and Aunt Ruby's Green. The Red Grape Cherry tomatoes were my favourites from last summer, and the seeds are from 2 little tomatoes I found on the back patio a week ago. I have no idea if they'll sprout or not. The Scotia, Wild Cherry, Petit Moineau, and Ardwyna Paste are locally grown, from last weekend's Seeds of Diversity Seedy Saturday in Port Alberni.

At the moment, there are lovely flats of seedlings and seeds in the garage on heatmats, under grow lights, along with all Mom's planting. I'll try to post pictures soon.