Tangled Branches: Cultivated
happenings in and around my zone 6b gardens in northern Virginia and in central Virginia
Sunday, July 05, 2009
The Tomato List
Taking advantage of this rainy Sunday morning to catch up on some recordkeeping. I began this post on May 31, so you can see that my recordkeeping is badly in need of updating. To that end, I'm trying out yet another system - myfolia.com. I'm impressed so far, but it does involve a lot of data entry. This morning, I entered all the tomatoes.
However, I had already compiled this list of tomatoes and their catalog descriptions, so I'm going to go ahead and publish this post. But I have a feeling that this may be the last blog post of its type that I ever write because Folia does a much better job at this sort of thing.
I sowed all the tomato seeds on April 4, but didn't get the plants in the ground until May 31. The weather has been OK, not great. Not much heat so far this summer. Lots of rain after planting, then a short dry spell. Last week we got about .5" of rain all at once and we're getting a good soaking rain this morning. Most of the plants have small fruit by now, but I don't see much of anything on Persimmon, Virginia Sweets, and Green Zebra. Poor Green Zebra was cut down by a cutworm 10 days after planting. I stuck the cut stem in the ground and it rooted and grew, but obviously has been set back by the experience.
The Returning Veterans. These are all plants I've grown before and liked enough to plant again. The descriptions are from various catalogs, not necessarily the source of my seeds. Photos of the green fruit were taken yesterday in my garden.
Black Prince: Deep garnet round fruits really load up on these plants that stay fairly small. Tomatoes are medium-sized and full of juice and good, rich flavor. Originally from Siberia. This variety should be a favorite in most gardens. Indeterminate. 70 days.
Kellogg's Breakfast: HEIRLOOM Indeterminate An heirloom from West Virginia preserved by Darrell Kellogg, a railroad supervisor, in Redford, MI after receiving seed from a friend. An extremely large, sunny orange beefsteak with an outstanding flavor that is just unforgettable. (79 days)
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| Kellogg's Breakfast produces some cat-faced tomatoes, but the taste is fabulous. |
Black Russian: Cordon (Indeterminate). These medium sized black tomatoes grow on compact plants bearing plenty of dark mahogany-brown fruits, with a delicious blend of sugar and acid. Tomato Black Russian has a distinctive, complex flavour that has to be tasted to be believed.
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| Black Russian. I agree about the flavor of this one, but I get very few unblemished tomatoes from it I keep growing it because I love the flavor of the few good tomatoes I get. |
Matt's Wild Cherry: The wild tomato with luscious taste.
These small cherry tomatoes are packed with more taste than you can believe. 5/8- 3/4", deep red, round fruits have a tender, smooth texture, and loads of sweet, full flavor. High sugar content (118 Brix). Though the taste is superior, it doesn’t yield well and the fruits are soft, so grow on a trial scale at first. Teresa Arellanos de Mena, a friend of former Univ. of Maine AG faculty members Drs. Laura Merrick and Matt Liebman, brought seeds to Maine from her family’s home state of Hidalgo in Eastern Mexico. It’s the region of domestication of tomatoes, and where these grow wild. Matt gave us the seeds. Indeterminate. Days to Maturity or Bloom: 60
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| Matt's Wild Cherry |
Striped/Speckled Roman: (81 days) Indeterminate Developed by John Swenson, this tomato is a cross between Antique Roman and Banana Legs. The fruit are quite uniform and we noticed few disease problems. The are about 3 X 5" and quite heavy. The red color is flecked with short attractive orange stripes. The dense tomatoes are great for paste or processing, but flavor is so good you'll also want to eat them fresh.
German Johnson: 76 days. (Indeterminate) [Popular heirloom tomato from Virginia and North Carolina.] This is one of the four parent lines of the 'Mortgage Lifter' tomato. It is very similar in flavor. Pink-red fruits average 3/4 to 1-1/2 lbs. with generally smooth tops. Good for slicing or canning. Fruits have few seeds. Plants are very productive and fairly resistant to disease.
Rookies. New to the garden this year. I chose them for various reasons. Recommendations from fellow gardeners always have great influence. In general, I like strongly flavored tomatoes which are not too sweet. While reading catalogs over the winter, I often found myself noting which tomatoes were said to have "great taste", "assertive flavor" and the like.
Copia: These very beautiful tomatoes are a stunning combination of fine-lined golden yellow and red stripes. While visually exciting, the real treat comes when you cut them open. Their gold flesh is streaked with red and is very juicy, flavorful, and sweet. A stabilized cross between Green Zebra and Marvel Stripe, these tomatoes weigh about one pound each, They were named in honor of Copia, the American Center for Food, Wine and the Arts, in Napa California. Indeterminate. 85 days.
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| Copia. It appears this one is going to be a "cracker". |
Virginia Sweets: NEW FOR 2009. This heirloom variety is simply one of the best tasting, best producing gold-red bicolors we have ever grown. On top of that, the tomatoes are stunningly beautiful and enormous, weighing at least 1 pound each. Golden yellow beefsteaks are colored with red stripes that turn into a ruby blush on top of the golden fruit. Flavor is sweet and rich, and harvests are abundant. Indeterminate. 80 days.
Green Zebra: A unique and delicious salad tomato. 3 oz. green fruits ripen to amber-green with darker green stripes. The light green flesh is very flavorful, sweet yet zingy. This one is a real taste treat. Indeterminate. 75 days.
Lida Ukrainian: mid, SD, RL, prolific set of globe shaped 4 to 6 oz. fruits, very meaty, very good taste on the assertive side, meaning not mild.
Bloody Butcher: early, Ind, PL, deep red salad tomato, 1 to 3 oz. fruits, good taste, high yields. Resembles Stupice in both plant habit and fruit size, but fruits are a darker shade of red. Fruits start early and bear until frost.
Break O'Day: early, Ind to SD, RL, very good yields and excl taste, globe fruits of about 8 oz. Originally from a cross between Marglobe and Marvel in 1923 and introduced in 1931.
Noire des Cosebeuf: mid, Ind, RL, high yield of 6 to 8 oz. dark pink/purplish oblate fruits, scalloped shoulders, assertive taste.
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| Noire des Cosebeuf. This one will have an interesting shape, if nothing else. So far no cracking, catfacing or other uglies. |
(The Other) Persimmon: 88 days. (Indeterminate) [Introduced about 1982.] Beautiful persimmon colored, rose-orange fruits range between 12 and 16 oz., though early fruits can weigh up to 2 lbs. Ripens from the blossom end to the softly dented light green shoulders, gradually acquiring a rose orange hue. Vines are vigorous, well branched and produce 1 to 2 fruits per flower cluster. 'Persimmon' is one of our personal favorites for inviting color and rewarding flavor.
Lastly, I'd like to recommend a couple of my favorite sources of information about tomatoes and other plants.
Tatiana's TomatoBase. A wiki about hundreds of heirloom tomato varieties. Also, peppers, garlic and other vegetables, but the tomatoes are the main thing.
Tomatoville. A forum for tomato growers. Some of the big name heirloom tomato growers participate.
Monday, March 09, 2009
Kitchen Gardens and More Crocuses
We spent a good part of the weekend working on the vegetable garden at Tangled Branches South. I'll have a lot more to say about this as the season goes on, but I wanted to share with you a couple of old-time resources I found while researching an upcoming post on my genealogy blog. (Yes, there will be gardening content in the next genealogy post.)
I wondered what varieties of lettuce were commonly grown in 1894. A Google search for kitchen gardens and 1894 turned up a modern-day anthology of edible-garden wisdom from the 19th century. The Kitchen Garden Guide is a free downloadable publication. I didn't have any prior knowledge of it before this morning, and I'm naturally suspicious of free anythings, but this appears genuine and non-spammy. However, if you want to go direct to the source, at least one of the books excerpted by The Kitchen Garden Guide is available in its entirety from Google Books.
How to Make the Garden Pay By Tuisco Greiner
Interesting that the author regarded head lettuce, and then only the best inner leaves, as the pinnacle of lettuce-growing. A hundred years later, confessing to liking iceberg lettuce would leave your gourmet credentials as limp as the leaf lettuce you had to eat.
I've always preferred head lettuce, and then only the inner leaves. No fowls to feed the outer leaves to here, sadly. Greiner follows up his cultivation techniques with a list of varieties. He says there are so many good kinds available now, it was hard to narrow it down for publicaiton.
I can confirm one bit of information from the book. In the winter of 2007-2008, I grew a mix of lettuce varieties (free seed) under a double layer of Agribon fabric. The leaf lettuce rotted (froze, whatever), but the head lettuce survived and made delicious salads very early in the spring.
Meanwhile, back at Tangled Branches North, the Ruby Giant crocuses have burst into bloom. This may be my favorite crocus, another one of the type called snow crocuses or bunch crocuses. Its proper name is Crocus tommasinianus 'Ruby Giant', native to hillsides and woodlands from southern Hungary through the northern Balkans. It seems perfectly happy in my northern Virginia woodland, returning and increasing every year.
That's an old clump, and the flowers really are that close together. I went a little bit crazy with the pictures and uploaded 5 of them, but it is one of my favorite crocuses.
Labels: books, crocus, lettuce, potager
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
First Garlic Bulbs, Swiss Chard, and Green Onions
My curiosity got the better of me over the weekend, and I dug up one of the garlic plants just to see what was happening underground. A lot! This is the biggest, best garlic I've ever grown. The variety is Romanian Red - one of five varieties I planted last fall.
I used one clove of it in an Indianish dish of potato and Swiss Chard, and left the rest outside to dry on the deck. The papery skin started to turn purplish overnight, so I assume when it's really ready to harvest, the color will indeed be red (or something like it).
I've been thinning the Swiss Chard and trying to find ways to cook it that we like. So far, I've tossed it in with some frozen mixed vegetables; tossed it into a Thai pork, green bean, and basil stir-fry; and the aforementioned Indian-inspired dish.
I should have planted more onions! I keep pulling them up for green onions and I'll never find out if any of them make good bulbs. So far both the Rossa Lunga di Firenze and New York Early are both very mild in taste.
The vegetable garden is coming along nicely now, except for the Colorado Potato Beetles. I had never even seen one before this year and now they're everywhere. I'm handpicking the adults off whenever I see them, but I noticed their egg clusters on some horse nettles that are sprouting as weeds. I can keep the horse nettles out of the garden with a little effort, but I'll never get it all out of the "meadow". As my garden is about 80% tomatoes, peppers, eggplant and potatoes, and Colorado Potato Beetles will eat anything Solanaceous, this is a little bit worrying.
Labels: garlic, potager, swiss chard
Monday, June 09, 2008
Adventurous Foodies
Last year the deer helped me out by keeping the greenbriar trimmed. This year, not so much.
Instead they've been comparing notes on the merits of the vegetable garden. The word has gotten around that garlic scapes are delicious with a bit of fennel.
We seem to have a deer population of adventurous foodies. They've sampled several of the plants intended to be deer repellents - garlic, onions, fennel, rosemary, basil, sweet marjoram. Last year we had very little trouble with them concerning the plants we wanted to eat. They nibbled on a pepper plant or two and that was it. I imagined that my idea of deterring them with strong-smelling herbs was working. This year, well, we'll see.
Meanwhile, have you ever tried Greenbriar? I understand it can be cooked like asparagus.
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Updates, a Life Bird, and Potager's Progress
It occurs to me lately that much of the good stuff on this blog happens in the comments, and as a result, doesn't get the prominence it deserves. Also, I tend to write of mystery plants, birds, bugs, etc. and then don't update the post when I learn the ID. Soooooo.....this post is to tie up some loose ends.
Thanks to bek, I now know that the mystery oak galls are Wool Sower Oak Galls.
Thanks to the kind folks at bugguide.net, I believe my first bizzare-o insect of the year was the caterpillar of a Red-Spotted Purple butterfly.
Thanks to Squirrel, I knew that yesterday (or was it Thursday?) was International Migratory Bird Day. I celebrated it by doing some front-porch birding and saw a life bird. But Ms. Smarty-pants here was so confident of the ID that she failed to observe all the field marks and now is uncertain. When I first saw the all-blue bird in the treetops, I immediately thought Indigo Bunting, and kept right on thinking that until just before I lost sight of the bird. In those last few seconds, I thought I saw a rusty red streak on the flanks. Hmmm, well, the Blue Grosbeak has a rusty red wing bar, and furthermore, this seemed larger than a finch-sized bird. So now I'm about 70% sure that I saw a Blue Grosbeak, with a 30% chance that it really was an Indigo Bunting. Either way, it's a life bird for me.
Other birds of note yesterday were Great Crested Flycatcher very close to the house in the morning, and in the afternoon by the vegetable garden 2 Pileated Woodpeckers in some kind of altercation, with one pursuing another across an open field. They're even more awesome in flight with red crested head and bold black and white wings.
Still no ID on the big mystery seed pod, but I found another just like it while working on the vegetable garden yesterday and ta da! - it has at least one seed in it. I'm going to plant it and see what sprouts.
Wild orchid foliage? This is what I noticed last weekend, and recently found another one some distance away. I was waiting for a good sunny day to take a photo, but had to settle for using the flash.
And when I said the ditch had turned blue with Salvia lyrata? This is what I meant.
Lastly, Happy Birthday to my vegetable/herb/cutting garden and/or nursery bed. I'm going to keep calling it a potager. Early in May last year, we starting digging. One year later, we're still digging, but there's visible progress. We're messing up the symmetrical layout this year by adding a column of beds along one side and potato bins on the other. I plan to bring it back to some kind of symmetry, but probably not this year. And I've just discovered that the lower part of the garden has a drainage problem. Last year, no rain, no drainage problem. This year, lots of rain, big drainage problem. The sage, rosemary, horehound and shallots are all drowning, but the garlic doesn't seem much affected. Four rosemarys were supposed to anchor the corners of the design, but one got chewed off last fall and the drowning one looks like it's on the way out. I either need to fix the drainage problem or rethink my design, or both. (Disclosure: I cropped out the poor suffering waterlogged plants on the left side of the photo.) 
A few closeups from the potager:
The Mexican mint marigold either self-sowed or lived through the winter sheltered by Provencal thyme.
We're going to have some very large garlic bulbs this year.
The rue is just starting to bloom.
The black swallowtail caterpillars are back! This year I hope they come visit when they're grown up.
Labels: birds, butterflies, oak galls, orchids, potager
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Cooking from the Garden, Early March
I never expected to be cooking anything from the garden early in March, but that's exactly what I've been doing over the last couple of weeks. I've written up three spinach meals over on my food blog.
The overwintered spinach (Bloomsdale Long-Standing) is in very good condition - sweet and tender leaves, but with a good substance that's excellent sauteed. I pulled up one green garlic stalk to mix with the spinach for last night's frittata.
I can't decide whether the one radish (French Breakfast) was a garnish or a salad, but it was very mild in taste. They're still a bit too small to harvest.
I expect to get one more good harvest of spinach from my winter experiment and then I'll pull up those plants and replace them with some transplants currently in the cold frame.
Labels: garlic, potager, radishes, spinach
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
A Good Day in the Garden
Yesterday was one of those days I wish I could save up for later. I had the whole day to myself in the country.
It was mostly sunny with just a few clouds. It was just warm enough to be pleasant, but not too warm for working in the garden. I basked in the sun. Really I was weeding, but it felt like basking.
The frogs were singing. So were the birds, but the frogs were louder and more insistent.
I saw two butterflies - first of the season. They were busy and so was I, so I didn't go chasing them to see who they were. One was orange on top like a Painted Lady and the other was white like a Cabbage White. Probably was a Cabbage White.
The garlic is up and growing despite being trodden upon by the deer. The shallots, which I had almost given up on, are sprouting. Spinach, and a few lettuce plants, survived the entire winter under a floating row cover.
I chopped fresh herbs - parsley, garlic leaves, lemon thyme, and radish sprouts - and sprinkled them with abandon on my lunchtime soup.
While digging up a bed to plant radishes and salad greens, I found two potatoes from last year. In perfect condition. Except for the one I cut in half with the spade.
The newly planted (last December) crocuses are blooming. The tulips made it through the winter without being eaten. I wonder if they'll make it through the spring.
I took a lot of pictures in the morning, but haven't uploaded yet. Maybe later today. If you're looking for me, I'll be in the garden.
Labels: bulbs, butterflies, herbs, potager, potatoes, seasons
Monday, December 31, 2007
The Cycle
As the clock ticks out the last few hours of 2007, I find myself wondering why the Roman/Julian/Gregorian calendar seems so arbitrary. Shouldn't we mark off the years at some meaningful point in the Earth's orbit around the sun? A solstice or an equinox or something? But we don't. For thirteen years or so (1793-1805), the French started the New Year at the autumnal equinox, coinciding with the grape harvest. This makes a lot more sense to me, especially given the prominent role played by alcohol in our New Year's celebrations. Got your party hat on yet?
I like the idea of representing the year as a circle (because it is, really) and there's an elegantly information-packed circular calendar available as a free download at The Natural Year. This nifty chart shows the length of days, the moon's phases, weather cycles, and more. All the data are based on the author's location near Kansas City, but the broad trends apply across a swath of North America.
In late afternoon today I headed out to the vegetable garden, where lettuce, spinach and dill are still growing under their Agribon covers. I picked enough lettuce and spinach for a salad, and parsley and thyme to flavor our souffle for dinner tonight. That's a part of the annual cycle I plan to explore more fully in 2008 - the idea that I can harvest something fresh to eat most of the year. And I had to wash aphids off the lettuce!
Labels: calendar, potager, seasons
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
The Gardener's F-Words
Frost.
Freeze.
Flurry of frantic activity following frost forecast.
And then nothing much happened.
This all began on Saturday. I started cleaning up the potager because I wanted to use the space to plant garlic. I had to pull out fully functional tomato plants to make room, incurring a great deal of mental anguish in the process. But later in the afternoon when I checked the weather forecast, patchy frost was predicted for Sunday night. OK good, I thought, then it's time for the tomato plants to go anyway. I also picked all the ripe red peppers and a few green ones to put in the freezer.
The next day, Sunday, the weather forecast had changed to widespread frost. Now I had to decide what to do about the pepper plants, and whether I wanted any more green tomatoes. I ended up picking most of the green peppers and tomatoes, and covering a few pepper plants with Agribon. At that point I had to leave the potager and return to northern Virginia, and I always ignore the first frost forecast in northern Virginia.
The next morning, Monday, the weather forecast contained a Freeze Watch. Then, that afternoon a Freeze Warning was issued - the forecast wording mentioned a hard freeze. Well, I thought, maybe they're serious this time. So I brought all the potted plants into the garage and snipped some cuttings from some Cupheas which were planted in the ground.
So, imagine my surprise this morning when not even the basils showed any frost damage. This was in northern Virginia - I won't know how things fared in central Virginia until the weekend.
In the meantime, I have lots of green tomatoes to use up. We're going to end the tomato season the way we started - fried green tomato BLTs! (And green tomato chutney, and green tomato salsa, and ?)
And lastly, a nice f-word: Fritillary.
They were fluttering around as I was pulling out the tomato plants on Saturday. The Verbena bonariensis was still blooming and attracting butterflies, if you can believe that.
Labels: frost, potager, seasons
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Tasting Notes: Chile Peppers
As much as I like tomatoes, I think chile peppers are my true calling. Trying to grow them in northern Virginia was an exercise in frustration. There was never enough sun for them there on our wooded lot, and my impression is that they don't really like clay soil. I planted hot varieties, but was always disappointed in the heat level of the fruit. Ah, but this year, in central Virginia, where the garden is sunny and sandy, I got to fulfill my chile desires. And I only put in 17 plants! What was I thinking?
Now, none of these are the very, very, very hot kinds. I like chile heat, but I want to taste the rest of the ingredients in a dish as well. And oftentimes, there are other interesting flavors lurking in the background of these peppers - the ones that intrigue me have a sort of sweet-fruity taste in addition to the heat.
So, in descending ascending (see? another example of declining brain cell count) order of heat (which is purely my own perception - no Scoville units here) here's the list. By the way, I planted 2 plants of most varieties, and 4 of the Serranos.
Jackpot - These were free seeds, so I planted them. This is a bell pepper and there's no heat to these, but I'm including them (and the next one) on the list anyway. 'Jackpot' is a long, thin-walled bell pepper. I don't love bell peppers and so never planted any before, but after many years of marriage I learned just this summer that my spouse likes them. I swear he never mentioned it before. Anyhow, these peppers are fine, if you like bell peppers, but there are thicker, blockier ones available.
Papri Sweet - This is a long pepper of the type I call "New Mexico" peppers. It has no heat, but is fairly thick walled for its shape. I don't have any strong feelings about this one either way - it's pretty good for what it is.
Aci Sivri - A long cayenne-shaped pepper, which is yellow-green before ripening. This has a bit of that fruity flavor that I admire. The heat was variable on these - some were pretty hot and some had little to no heat.
Czechoslovakian Black - A jalapeno-type pepper, purple-black before ripening, and deep Chinese-lacquer red when ripe. The second-prettiest pepper plants I grew this year - the flowers are purple, the dark fruits are attractive before they ripen and after they ripen they're even better. Unfortunately, I have no photos of a ripe one. The heat is moderate, but there's also a fruity-sweet flavor which intensifies when the peppers are ripe. This is one of my favorites.
Chile Grande - Another New Mexico type. Early in the season I thought these had no heat at all, but they surprised me later on - turning out to be one of the hotter ones I grew. I used them seeded and cut into long strips where I wanted a pepper flavor in a dish.
Serrano Tampiqueno - The Serranos I knew before this year all looked like a smaller slimmed-down version of a Jalapeno, but this one has a somewhat different shape - more blunt. It has the same great Serrano flavor, which I think is superior to Jalapeno. They really don't develop any heat until the fruits are green-mature. This can be tough to discern while the fruits are on the plant, but what I've noticed is that the color turns a deeper green when they're ready. They're also very nice when red-ripe, with a bit of that fruity flavor.
Pinocchio's Nose - Long, long, long thin peppers of the cayenne type. I measured one at 11 inches long. This was best suited for adding heat to a dish, but I didn't detect much other flavor in it. Worth growing just to see the long fruits.
Bellingrath Gardens Purple - I guess this is considered an ornamental pepper, but we eat the fruit. And it is ornamental - dark purple-black leaves with small purple flowers and tiny black fruit ripening to orange-red. I went back to this one again and again when I needed extra heat in a dish. But I think it would make a fabulous Halloween decoration, and I'm writing this down here in hopes of remembering it next year. Imagine planting these in a black container with a ghostly Artemisia or dusty miller, and maybe a salmon-colored Osteospermum, and arranging a pumpkin or two around the container. Must remember this next year, must remember this next year, must...
I'd grow all of these again. There isn't a bad one in the lot. All the plants were nibbled on to some degree by wild critters (deer? rabbits?), but I still had plenty of fruit. I didn't notice if the critters ate the fruit or not, but they definitely pruned the plants for me.
Next year, I'm going to add Poblanos and more New Mexico style chiles. Maybe, possibly, a habanero. We'll see.
I plan to update this post with pictures later, when I take my Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day photos, but I want to post this now before we head out the door to the Virginia Wine and Garlic Festival. And I'm working on a post for my food blog on all the chile condiments in my kitchen, inspired by Ki.
Updated October 14 with photos. Click through for variety names.
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Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Tasting Notes: Tomatoes
Tomatoes kill brain cells. How else to explain the fact that I started this post at the end of August, and now can't remember most of what I intended to write? We've been eating a lot of tomatoes - that must be it.
So then, this is an abbreviated summary of the tomatoes I grew this year, in order of size:
Ildi - A yellow pear tomato. It was definitely the most prolific tomato I grew. That's probably the nicest thing I can say about it - the skin was unpleasantly tough and the flavor was average. While I was cleaning up the garden, I tossed some of these on the ground and left them there for a few days and they were untouched by any wild critters. What does that tell you? I won't grow this one again.
Black Cherry - A round cherry tomato of middling size, it ripens to those green/red/purple colors that usually mean good flavor (see Black Russian below). That flavor was was I was after when I bought the seeds. Unfortunately, I didn't find that flavor, and I wouldn't grow this one again.
Thai Pink - A small plum tomato, rather firm when ripe, but juicy rather than meaty. I wasn't all that keen on this one until I found a recipe that suited it exactly - Tomatoes in Spicy Yogurt Sauce - which calls for whole peeled tomatoes. I'm not sure what else 'Thai Pink' is good for, but the taste and size are just perfect in that dish. I may grow it again just for that - we really liked the recipe. On the other hand, I think a tomato like 'Juliet' would work just as well. And I've never grown 'Juliet', so I may rotate that one in and 'Thai Pink' out.
Bonito Ojo - A small round tomato (> golf ball, < tennis ball). A huge quantity of fruit ripened simultaneously early in the season. The flavor was very tart, good for salsa, but I don't need/want that many small tomatoes all at once. It was also prone to cracking. I probably won't grow it again.
Eva Purple Ball - Eva is the beauty contest winner - almost no cracking or blemishes; nice sized (> baseball, < softball) with pink skin over red flesh. The flavor is only OK. If you must have perfect-looking tomatoes, this is a good choice. If you want perfect-tasting tomatoes...well, I think there are better ones.
Striped Roman - A long, thick 'Roma' type; very meaty. It has a marvelous sweet-tart flavor tending toward the tart side. This has been a favorite for several years now, and I expect I'll be growing it as long as I'm gardening.
Black Russian - A large green/purple/brown/dark red tomato. This is my favorite for flavor - a deep, dark, almost smoky, essence of tomato flavor. The downside is the disappointment at how many I lost to cracking and rotting. I'll grow this again next year, but if I could find a variety with the same flavor and less cracking, I'd evict 'Black Russian'.
Cherokee Purple - A large pink/purple beefsteak type tomato. The flavor is notably sweet; I was expecting something more like Black Russian, but it's not at all like that - much sweeter. This will probably be invited back next year, but if I end up with too long a list of new ones to try, then maybe not.
Kellogg's Breakfast - This wins the prize for size; the yellow-orange tomatoes are very large, and incidentally, this was the first of the large ones to ripen. The flavor is surprising for a yellow tomato - quite flavorful and sweet; I'm wondering how similar this is to Persimmon, which some other bloggers have written about this year. I'll grow this one again next year.
Updated 5:15 pm with link to recipe for Tomatoes in Spicy Yogurt Sauce.
Labels: potager, tomatoes, vegetables
Monday, September 17, 2007
Anniversary/Bloom Day/Photo Tour
In two weeks, we'll celebrate the first anniversary of our retirement cottage in central Virginia. That is, it's supposed to be our retirement cottage, but the spouse is dragging his feet on the retirement thing. We'll continue to stay there on weekends for the foreseeable future, but neither garden (NoVA or CeVA) gets my full-time attention. Nevertheless, I'm pleased with how the vegetable garden (dare I call it a potager?) turned out this year. So, trying to kill 3 birds with one stone, this is an early anniversary "neighborhood" photo tour of how the garden looked a week before Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day. I posted these pictures on Picasa last week, but didn't get around to writing anything here.
| I cleared a garden space out of the abandoned field at the front of the property. We've kept a small border around the garden mowed, but all around that is "weeds" and a few trees. This is the back row of the potager, looking toward a willow oak tree beyond. |  |
| The flowers in the foreground above are Nepeta transcaucasica 'Blue Infinity' and Dianthus 'Rainbow Loveliness' |  |
| The misty morning left jewels behind. |  |
| Stepping around that back row, and looking across it back toward the house, the center of the potager is home to a sundial - a gift we received many years ago from friends we've lost track of. Flowers in this picture include Verbena bonariensis, Agastache foeniculum, A. foeniculum 'Golden Jubilee', 'Marvel Bronze' Amaranth, Salvia farinacea 'Evolution', Tagetes lucida, and Salvia farinicea 'Strata'. |  |
| Just behind us, in the "weeds", is this pale blue morning glory. |  |
| Continuing around the back row and looking down the path in front of it we see tomato plants covered in plastic deer fence. I know it's ugly. Next year I'll try to come up with a better solution. Bordering the tomatoes are rosemary, rue, bronze fennel, Achillea 'Summer Berries' (was hoping for brighter colors from these), and the previously seen Salvia farinacea 'Evolution'. That sequence of plants repeats in a mirror image on the other side of the central path. |  |
| Turning to the right, instead of following the path above, we're distracted by my new favorite butterfly - the Common Buckeye. |  |
| The butterfly flew away and we continue on the path on the southeast side of the potager to look back at the center from another angle. Some of the plants visible here are 'Striped Roman' tomato, 'Papri Sweet' pepper, 'Chile Grande' pepper, 'Mexican Cinnamon Spice' basil, Thai basil, Salvia farinacea 'Strata', Tagetes lucida, 'Serrano Tampiqueno' pepper, sweet marjoram, and 'Sweet Petra Dark' basil. |  |
| The sun has completely burned off the mist, leaving a brilliant blue sky. We're thinking another cup of tea would be good about now, and so we leave the potager and head back down the path to the driveway and the house. |  |
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Labels: CeVA, in bloom, potager
Sunday, August 05, 2007
Tomatoes!
Need I say more?
Labels: potager, tomatoes, vegetables
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
More Things to Do While the Tomatoes Ripen
Eat potatoes.
They're a variety called Cranberry Red, or at least that's what they are called by Territorial Seed. There is some controversy. Oh, and I also dug up a couple of the russet ones (forgot the name), but I was more interested in the pink ones. We've been buying the pink ones or similar for several years at the Arlington Farmer's Market, and we liked them to the point of being disappointed when they weren't available. So they were one of the first things on my list when deciding what to grow in the new central Virginia vegetable garden.
I harvested just a few last weekend, and you wouldn't believe the fluorescent highlighter pink color of the skin. The picture doesn't quite capture the luminescent quality. Since these were the first ones, I cooked them very simply to see if they were any good. They were, but maybe not as good as the ones we were getting from the farmer's market. Or else I've magnified the taste of those in my memory. These seem more watery, and I wonder if it's because I grew them in straw and gave them plenty of water when it didn't rain.
But if you just can't wait to see some ripe tomatoes....come to the county fair with me.
Having been disappointed by county fairs in northern Virginia, we thought we'd see what central Virginia has to offer. Last weekend we attended the Orange County Fair. Weeeeelllll.......what to say? I sure wish I was in the Midwest at fair time. My biggest disappointment was no poultry exhibit; there was a statewide ban on poultry exhibits until July 31. We may try the Albemarle County Fair this weekend. I hope I can see chickens. Tomatoes? I should have my own by this weekend.
Labels: county fair, potager, potatoes, tomatoes
