Tangled Branches: Cultivated

happenings in and around my zone 6b gardens in northern Virginia and in central Virginia

Saturday, August 09, 2008

Midpoint of Summer

My annual post about the beginning of autumn is past due. I started writing this on Thursday, the astronomical halfway point between the summer solstice and the autumnal equinox, and traditionally the start of autumn in Europe and northern Asia. Or is it the midpoint of summer? That's what Wednesday's entry in Baer's Almanac said. I suppose it's a half-empty/half-full sort of judgement.

It's not hard to find signs of autumn, if that's what you're looking for. The black gum (Nyssa sylvatica) trees start to take on their fall colors very early (especially if they're drought-stressed?).

Goldenrod started blooming several weeks ago, but I notice more and more every day.
There are flower buds visible on my 'Purple Dome' asters.
I saw a huge patch of pale pink Lycoris in somebody's yard in central Virginia last weekend.
A gust of wind brought down a shower of green acorns yesterday.

However, since starting vegetable gardening in earnest last year, what's really on my mind at this season is tomatoes and peppers. Especially peppers.

This year the freezer will be well-stocked with enough chile peppers to last until next August.

Labels: astronomy, autumn, peppers, seasons, vegetables

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

Sunday, August 05, 2007

Tomatoes!

Need I say more?

Labels: potager, tomatoes, vegetables

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Cooking from the Garden

Now that the garden is starting to produce some produce, I'm going to try to post a few things on my poor neglected food blog.

Last weekend I harvested the first chile peppers. I was hoping for more heat from the Chile Grandes and the Aci Sivris. I'm counting on the Serranos for salsa and Indian food, but they're just starting to form fruit. If they're not hot, I'll be very disappointed.

Labels: chiles, potager, vegetables

Friday, May 11, 2007

Breaking New Ground

For 20 years I've wanted a vegetable garden, and now that I have space for one, I'm turning it into a potager. Do you think I've been living in DC too long?

When we bought the place in the country, one of the things we wanted from it was a place to grow vegetables. We had grand visions of sweet corn, tomatoes, beans, squash, peas, lettuce, carrots, potatoes, eggplant, peppers, okra, onions, garlic, spinach and on and on and on. And we may still do that someday, but for right now, we just don't have the time. I also had grand visions of a long sweep of shrubbery and trees bordered by every flower you can imagine. Well. No, I don't think there's going to be time for that either. So I scaled things back a bit and ended up with this manageable plot.

The idea of the potager seems to be part of the gardening zeitgeist. 129,000 hits on Google for "potager" for pages updated in the last 3 months. Is it no longer good enough to plant a few rows of vegetables out back - now it has to be pretty? Or maybe we're just saying potager instead of vegetable patch because it sounds more upscale? Or has the publishing herd just latched onto a new topic? I don't know. Something to ponder while I plant. And it's ironic, because I've been planting my tomatoes together with ornamentals for a couple of years now, trying to get them into the sun while hiding them from the homeowners' association. Now I don't have to do it and I'm doing it anyway.

So I've got the geometric layout and started my tomatoes, eggplant, herbs, y muchos chiles. Good so far, but where are the ornamentals? They're going to be tucked in here and there in any leftover space. OK, where are the vertical elements? Maybe the deer, munching the whole thing to the gound?

Labels: CeVA, potager, vegetables

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