I spent six hours repotting tomatoes on Saturday. And if that sounds right up there with a root canal, you wouldn’t be far off at all. I think I’ve about reached my natural limit of tomato plants I’m willing to nurture, and next year all the people I’ve started some for are absolutely SOL. The demands in time and effort are close to maxed out and it seems like forty adolescent tomatoes is all I can handle. See if you live in a normal climate, you’d start your tomatoes something like four weeks before last frost. They would have to be replanted once, from peat pods to four inch pots while they are still a manageable three inch size, and happily occupy maybe six square feet by the time they go outside.

Living in Calgary though, requires the starting of tomatoes in oh say, late March or so, while they won’t see the light of day until approximately oh say, June. In those three months, the baby tomatoes are guaranteed to outgrow their four inch pots and become hugely tall and root-bound. Apparently you don’t want that to happen since it’s bad for the roots, limits the uptake of nutrients, and is stressful for the plant, and who wants to eat stressed out tomatoes? Not me, man.

So when they reached what I thought was a good height of ten inches or so (although as with all my plans I was a week behind), I repotted the tomatoes into empty 2L milk and pop bottles. Why bottles? Well, I did mention forty tomato plants, right? And each large-ish plastic pot at the garden store (and the home hardware store, and the superstore) was approaching four dollars. You do the math. I could buy caseloads of tomatoes for those prices. Plus, and this is huge, I wanted to plant the tomatoes deeply, burying the bulk of each long stem because tomatoes are able to grow new roots out of the fine hairs they’re covered with, and a large root ball means a healthy plant. Well, every single 8” pot was wide and squat. Perfect for petunias perhaps, but completely opposite of the tall narrow pot I’d wanted for the tomatoes.

A container collecting frenzy ensued, with my boyfriends’ six-litre-a-week milk habit coming in quite handy.  (No I’m not kidding, I wondered if we should get a cow on several occasions.) Finally I had a table covered in clean 2L jugs with cut-off tops and punctured bottoms and it looked like the bottle depot exploded all over the table.

Then it was a routine of moistening potting soil in two huge bowls, removing the cat off the counter, adding some soil to the bottom of each container, gently shaking the plant upside down to dislodge it, dropping the plant down the well, adding more potting soil, removing the cat again, watering the plant, using a chopstick to poke a hole to the bottom of the container and watching half the soil disappear in a river of mud down to the bottom, adding more soil, water, label, and finally locking the cat in the bedroom. Repeat X 40.  I am not the most patient person, and the fact that I didn’t lose it once, speaks volumes to my newly cultivated zen-like attitude. Chop wood, carry water and all that.

The cool thing out of the deal is that in clear containers you can clearly watch the trickle of moisture down the sides and have a semblance of how dry your plants are getting. The downside is that my plants now take up a dozen feet of space and require some yoga skillz to water.  

***Speaking of watering, some of the plants (especially the paste variety – Ardwyna) were looking a bit…. ragged. They were tall and spindly, not bushy and in general looked like survivors of a tomato-pocalypse.  Some of their lowest leaves were yellowing too. I googled all the symptoms and the consensus was a mineral deficiency that can be cured with Epsom salt. So when I was done the Herculean task of repotting them, I watered them with a very dilute Epsom salt solution. Lo and behold, they all greened up, grew some more leaves and smartened up in general. I did not have this problem last year, so I am at a loss to imagine why they needed those nutrients, but there you go.

I’ve also started cukes and zucchinis this weekend, and they’ll be coming up too. God help me.

I’m back from sunny Cuba, and unlike my last trip it was a rather mediocre vacation, mainly due to the family choice of hotels. Travel tip – if you’re going to Varadero don’t stay at the tip of the peninsula. The marshy and boggy land spawns mosquitoes like Manitoba’s forests do, and no amount of spraying they do can diminish their staggering numbers. Also the beaches suck.  But days were still sunny and beautiful, we saw our friends and got the customary sunburn so of course it wasn’t all bad.  

While I was gone Iceland exploded in a truly cool and expensive eruption and I wanted to share a link to the coolest photos of the volcano I’ve seen to date. Here. Nothing drives home the power of nature better than events like this and it’s impossible to see the photos without appreciating just how powerful the planet is and how insignificant we are.

The garden is feeling neglected, so my to do list this week includes deeply watering my trees since we are in a drought and they could use a long soak, repotting my tomatoes into tall containers – likely pop and milk jugs one more time before they go outside, and planting peas. Since we’ve had such a warm spring I could’ve done this already, but I procrastinated so in they go now, along with lettuce. Since we’re still a month away from last frost I should still be good for time. This year I’m planting an heirloom variety that happens to be a bush pea since they climbed too well last year and were flattened by the winds into a messy jungle. I also need to rake the grass somewhere in there… busy time spring is.

P-p-p-peas

I also need to sort out a solution to hardening off my tomato seedlings. It was a pain in the butt when I only had nine plants, but this year I’ve got triple that amount and hauling them up and down the stairs is a dangerous and time consuming proposition. I’m contemplating rigging up some sort of permanent like shelter a week or so before they go outside. Anyone have any solutions to this problem? This seems like the most PITA part of the whole seed starting process.  If my interest in growing food continues (and I have a feeling it will), I may simply have to get a greenhouse and save myself the headache.

My cats rule and I love all three of them in very different ways, but the depths of my white deaf boy’s weird behavior know no bounds. He’s recently learned a new trick – locking himself in the bathroom and hollering on top of his lungs to be let out. His process is as follows: he goes into the bathroom and sniffs around for a few minutes. Then he backs into the bathroom door butt first until it closes. Then he turns around and starts yelling at it indignantly. If we’re not careful and leave a wedge of some sort he’ll spend the whole day locked up in there alternating between screaming and sleeping until we get home and let him out. He’s so special it hurts.

Anyhow it’ll be a busy week and I’m thrilled that summer feels around the corner.

In a burst of optimism and positivity I’m doubling our tomato plantings from nine plants to eighteen this year. Last year only four produced at all, given our sad lack of summer and other weather prevarications, and we only ended up with a counterful of fruit, dashing hopes of tomato sauces and salsas.  But lessons were learned (namely Calgary weather sucks), and this year I started eighteen seedlings all to myself. Not to be outdone, my significant other decided that he has superior skillz in tomato raising. He thinks he can get twice the harvest for half the work. He feels that I spend way too much effort on these guys what with all the planting, lights management, kelp fertilizing and hovering that I did. He is convinced that all HE has to do is stick them into pots on the deck and leave ‘em alone. To this I say, bring it on. I’ll pit my maxi-kaps and feeding techniques against his pots any day. So he started several plants of his own. This year if the (weather cooperates) we’ll either be drowning in tomatoes or buying a greenhouse.

But I’m trying all sorts of varieties this year, from the faves of last year – Ildi, Valencia and Carbon to maters I’ve never heard of – Ardwyna, Slava and Silvery Fir. Below is what I’ve started this year, from small to large with a hybrid thrown in for comparison. I want to know if the superior yields of a hybrid tomato can be pitted against the best of heirloom taste. All descriptions are from the sites that sell them. Photos are from all over the place. (Actually it’s hard to believe but there are very few photos of some of these, often just one! So if I take photos as they grow I’ll be doing a valuable public service. Yeah.)  If you’ve grown any of these before, let me know how they were – cause I’m seduced by all of them.

CHERRIES:

Ildi

Tiny lemon-yellow and lemon-shaped, zesty tomato on 1-2 ft vines. Produces hundreds on a plant. Great for containers. Early. Grow outside.

German Lunchbox Cherry

Photo by Cpt. Obvious

Deep pink colour, oval shape. Semi-determinate plants produce well and start to ripen early. Exotic rich flavour, starts out acid, then sweet. Grows well in the greenhouse and keeps for weeks once picked. Rated 10 for flavour. Rare.

Sungold

Photo by tradeswindfruit.com

This interesting variety has an absolutely unique tropical taste when it is orange – not quite red and not quite gold. Rich and fruity tomatoes droop in long trusses on vigorous vines that keep on producing all summer. A must for garden snacks. Resistant to Fusarium wilt race 1 and Fusarium wilt race 2. This variety requires more heat and time to mature completely.
Vine (indeterminate), Matures in 65 days. (hybrid seeds)

EARLY:

Russian Red

Photo by koanga.org.nz

First to ripen in a very cool season, of the larger varieties. The fruit has broad shoulders and pointed bottoms. Semi determinated plants give decent full season production. Texture is meaty, nice acid/sweet rich flavour, great slicing tomato that keeps well on the vine and once picked. Rated 10 for flavour. Rare heirloom

Slava

Photo by tomatofest.com

From the Czech Republic. Name means “glory” and it is a glorious one. Blight resistant.

Silvery Fir

Photo by motherearthnews.com

Bright red small fruit, famous for its very unique dense carrot-like foliage. Determinate plants produce very well and early. 2-3 feet. Texture is moist, skins are tender, and tomatoes have a very strong, lingering flavour. Excellent sandwich tomato and a favourite for cheesemelts. Rated 10 for flavour. Russian heirloom.

Ardwyna Paste

Photo by stellarseeds.com

Long, fat and tapered. Good in large containers and greenhouse. Excellent flavour for sauce. Few seeds. Early and abundant production.

FULL SEASON: (the hardest to grow in Calgary, but man oh man – the payoff)

Valencia

Photo by hillsidecommunitygarden.com

This is a huge golden orange, almost round fruit, very solid and heavy. Has a meaty texture with a sweet flavour and a touch of acid. Excellent slicer. Rated 9 for flavour. Indeterminate.

Carbon

Photo by rareseeds.com

Taste test winner in 2007 and 2008! 8-12 ounce uniform tomatoes that ripen to dark red with blackish overtones. Deep red interior. Fruits are flattened round and smooth, without cracking or blemishing. Rich, sweet, complex flavour. Excellent for salads and sandwiches. Indeterminate.

Sudduth’s Brandywine – no photo

Grown by Sudduth family for nearly 100 years. Up to 2 pounds. Dusty rose. Unsurpassed acid but unique and complex flavour. Indeterminate.

Yellow Mortgage Lifter

Photo by tradeswindfruit.com

Bright yellow colour.Nice meaty texture and thin skins, with a rich, medium zesty flavour .An excellent producer on semi determinate vines.Always dependable, best grown outside.Rated 10 for flavour.

Big Beef – the dark horse for comparison

Photo by gardenharvestsupply.com

Big Beef tomatoes are really big, 10-15cm (4-6″), unblemished tomatoes grow in record time on vigorous vines. Firm, meaty and wonderfully sweet with an acid balance that gives a rich taste that always wins at taste trials. AAS winner. Grows to 1 pound. Round to globe-shaped. Flavor is full and hearty with lots of sweet juice balanced with that wonderful tomato acidity. These giants slice up perfectly for big sandwiches. Fruit stays large even at the end of a long harvest season. Resistant to Fusarium wilt race 1; Fusarium wilt race 2; nematodes; Verticillium wilt; Tomato Mosaic virus. Big Beef requires more heat and time to mature completely.

One of the neatest parts of the year is upon us – browsing the gardening catalogues for next seasons’ seeds. Now, I’m the last person to get all excited by catalogues (I have weird Sears associations), and gardening too (it’s a lot of work people), but on a damp and chilly February day there is nothing better than to day dream of summer, sunshine and fresh veggies.

There are several reasons I garden – one is the need to maintain the beautiful flower beds I inherited from the previous owners, two is the desire to learn to grow my own food and increase my independence, three is the desire to learn something new once in a while, four is the incomparable taste of produce straight off the garden bed, and five because I love to eat.

While preparing myself for the first forays into gardening I read a load of books, websites and the like. The great Gardening When It Counts was an invaluable guide into the fascinating world of seeds, from the seed growing market to seed trials which reputable companies perform. I learned seed quality, the many assets of fine seeds and how not to fail at growing them. All of this was not as boring as it may sound as Steve Solomon is an excellent writer and storyteller. He sold me on searching out fine seed varieties NOT the wee plants from your local garden centre and taught me to ensure success.

I turned to Salt Spring Seeds for a vendor because of the great variety of heirloom seeds that they carry and because they provide real taste descriptions not just the catalogue jargon that larger companies have. Then we were hit with the worst summer in history and all my yields were off, but that’s beside the point because my fewer than expected tomatoes kicked the pants off my pro gardener father-in-laws tomatoes. His were fine, but average – like very good supermarket tomatoes. Mine were a revelation. This year I am browsing their site yet again, and suffering from analysis paralysis while I do so, because their offerings are larger than ever.

How do you decide between the ‘taste surprise of 2009’ and ‘picture perfect fruit with rich sweet flavour’? Do I want rich and fruity with some zest or unsurpassed acid but unique and complex flavor? That’s like asking a mother to pick her favorite child. I wish I could grow them all, but in all seriousness I guess I’ll just order way too many seeds and frantically try to find room for the huge plants they will inevitably become.

** By the way the beauty above is Valencia – one of the best tomatoes I’ve ever tasted.

*** Also check out the wonderful idea on organizing your seeds by when they should be started from Old House, Old Garden.

Anyone who knows me, knows that I’m a summer person through and through. I love long days that don’t seem to end, I love seeking shade from the hot sun in the sky, I love how easy it is to get dressed in the mornings what with the not looking for stray mittens, hats, scarves and debating whether a face mask is going too far or not. I love slipping into sandals and not worrying about socks, boots, and cracking your head open on residential roads that never see a plow. I love summer food – the bounty, the abundance, the freshness, the perfect ripeness of a sun warmed strawberry or a tomato.

But I live in a northern land, three thousand feet above sea level, at the foothills of majestic mountains and surrounded by wide prairies. Winter is a fact of life here, and it’s often harsh. Temperatures plunge deeply and without warning, snowfalls bury the city making roads impassable, and winter often lasts beyond all rhyme and reason. This is not a winter from an LL Bean catalogue where families frolic in the sunny meadow building a snowman and sipping hot chocolate. You just know the weather in those photos is hovering just below zero, while you contemplate the arctic parka from Canada Goose while there’s a blizzard outside.  And while always welcome in the winter, Chinooks unleash their own mayhem raising temperatures by thirty degrees in hours turning roads into deep slush piles and melting everything in sight.  In fact, I’ve recently cultivated an appreciation for skiing, to my own surprise, just so that there’s something else to do besides hibernate by the fireplace.

So around here we need the fall, bittersweet that it is, to ease the transition between the summer fun and the bitter short days of winter. We need to feel the shock of that first night below zero and to begin acclimatizing so that in January we can wear a t-shirt on a sunny + 10 day with impunity.  We need to watch the leaves change colors, and bunnies replace their brown summer coats with snow white down. We need to start making stews, chilies and roasts because the oven is just another convenient way to warm the house. It’s like a fireplace only tastier.

Because all too soon we’ll be surprised to see this on our doorstep (only twenty days after our summer high of 32 C), which is nature’s way to dispense with slow acclimatization and just employ some shock therapy on our hides. Just to keep us from getting complacent and all.

 Photos  by my talented friend Warren Sable who actually knows how to use his camera.

We are definitely in the home stretch of fall here in Alberta. We’ve already had some frost warnings and are due for some snow this week, if the weather network is to be believed. To that end I have finally harvested all my tomatoes, peppers and zucchini, ready or not.

In the case of tomatoes and peppers, the answer is definitely not. I still find it shockingly hard to believe that tomatoes that I started in MARCH are still not ripe on the vine. The only logical explanation I can find is that they went into serious hibernation for all of July, growing tall but no more, that and the fact that they’re heirlooms. Cause it can’t be normal to take six months, can it?

Anyway, I lost two tomato plants to blossom end rot, both of them Valencia’s which is quite sad since they are absolutely fantastically delicious. They are like balls of sweet, complex golden sunshine and the few tomatoes that were salvageable were simply the tastiest of them all.  Now I know that they have the least resistance, since no other tomato variety suffered.  So at the end of the day I am left with a few dozen ripening, but far from ready, tomatoes of various shades and sizes. As they ripen I eat them straight out of hand since this seems like a decadent thing to do each day, and is far healthier than any other snack I can think of. Typically a small handful and one or two large ones are waiting for me in the evening, and tonight I need nothing more than a BLT to make my day.

I also have about two dozen peppers, which is actually not a bad amount, given that I only planted three little plants that shivered in the yard, until the sheltering bulk of zucchini covered them from the wind. And the last two squashes – one large and perfect for stuffing, and one small and tender, great for a quick stir-fry.

Now all that’s left to do is garden clean-up. And eating. And dreaming of next years’ garden. Cause after a summer like this one, it’s gotta be all uphill.

Since I’m a first time gardener, and know next to nothing about tomato varieties, other than the fact that store bought ones taste like crap, one of the things I was very excited about is discovering what heirloom varieties of tomatoes taste like. If memory serves, I went to the Salt Spring Seeds website and browsed for a very long time, seduced by magical sounding descriptions. Then I sat down, composed myself, and ordered about five varieties of tomatoes.

Sometime late March I started the seeds, watched the miracle unfold as they grew and got tall and strong, and waited like a mother hen to take them outside. Then Mother Nature showed her capricious side by throwing down the worst summer I’ve ever seen in Calgary. And two of my tomato varieties got blossom end rot from a non-stop cold rain in June. And now, only now, the smallest of my tomatoes, two cherry varieties are seeing it fit to ripen. Did you know it’s September 21 today? And I started them in March? I don’t care who you are, that’s a mighty long time to wait for tomatoes. And the bulk of them are green… but that’s a post for another day.

Anyhow, I picked a couple of the ripe and ready cherries to see which one would be the winner for next year’s garden. (I guess I definitely have the gardening fever, although right now I’m so tired of baby-sitting plants non-stop for six months that I’m actually welcoming the long break.) The two contestants as pulled from Salt Spring’s website were:

Pearly Pink Cherry

Squat-shape. Very shiny skins. Semi-determinate plants. Massive producer. Meaty texture with a unique zesty flavor. Ideal for salad use. Rated 10. 75 days. (Ha ha ha ha ha! Whew.)

Ildi Tomatoes

Tiny lemon-yellow and lemon-shaped, zesty tomato on 1-2 ft vines. Produces hundreds on a plant. Great for containers. Early. (A-ha ha ha ha ha!! Let me just wipe the tear from my eye…)

Since they’re both small tomatoes, I didn’t bother cutting them up, I just ate them. And ate them. And ate some more. These decisions are not to be made lightly you know. The pearly pink cherries were… plain. They tasted like really fresh, decent, local, store bought tomatoes. They were a bit on the bland side, they lacked personality or pizzazz. But Ildi’s on the other hand were awesome – they had that fantastic tomatoey flavor that makes growing tomatoes worthwhile. Juicy and sweet they were just great, and a clear winner of the two.

Neither plant yielded as much as promised, (and nowhere near as early), but it’s really not their fault. It was an incredibly awful summer for growing stuff, and I can only expect better results next year. I likely got three dozen Pearly Pink Cherries per plant, and while I did get clusters of Ildi’s, they contained more like 10-15 tomatoes per cluster, not 50 as some sites reported. And both plants are ready to keep going they really are, but unfortunately the weather is not on their side. We’re currently getting frost warnings now, and it’s a matter of days not weeks before the season is done for good.

LOOK AT ALL THE FLOWERS!

Edited Sept 24/09 – You know what? I take back what I said about Pearly Pink Cherries.  I must have had a couple that weren’t that ripe, but now that I’ve eaten a few handfuls, I can confidently say they are very good. Perhaps they lack a hint of the complexity that makes Ildi special, but I would NOT kick them out of bed for eating crackers. So I will happily plant them again – they’ve been my lunch staple the last few days and I’m converted.

The longest wait in the world is finally over!

The tomatoes are starting to ripen!!!

At first it was just the cherries:

And now it’s even the big guns:

I don’t think I can convey just how thrilled I am. I am prouder than a mother hen, given how just long this has taken. Seriously, these tomatoes have a world record for a delayed harvest. I started my seedlings on a cold winter day which is indelibly marked in my mind – March 22.  (Next year January?) Then I had to wait and wait and wait and wait, and April, May, June, July AND August rolled by. I was wondering if I got some sort of developmentally challenged tomatoes, and with deep envy I read all the posts of abundant harvests in the blogosphere.

But it looks like a warm September is giving them a bit of a chance, and they are finally, FINALLY almost ready for harvest. I know this season has sucked across the continent, with battles of drought, excess rain, late spring, late blight and clearly late growth, and I’m not getting a bumper crop by any stretch, but the thrill of seeing these babies ripen on the wine makes up for all the worrying and waiting.

Taste tests coming up!

 In my garden all the flowers are shedding their last blooms, throwing off seeds and fluff and enjoying their last few weeks of light. Here’s some Friday photos of my last fall flowers.

For me fall is always bittersweet. On one hand it’s a beautiful season with everything changing colors and dressing up in striking yellows, reds and oranges, and on the other hand it’s the sadness of shorter days, the first hints of frost in the air, and the dying of the greens as they prepare for their long hibernation.  I’d take summer over any other season any day, but if I lived in the land of summer, I’d have to put up with year round spiders! So I don’t.

Normally I turn to Google to solve my quandaries, but for some reason, in this case the effort proved worthless. Experienced gardeners already knew the answer, and all I could find was chipperly ignorant answers from other first time gardeners. (Speaking of, I drove by a church readerboard the other day that proclaimed “Google does NOT have all the answers.” I guess that proves them right. Made me laugh.)

For weeks while I waited for something, anything to happen with the tomatoes who were flowering leisurely, I circled the plants like a hungry shark waiting for some sign of a bulge. Would it come from behind the flower like a cucumber?  Would it form inside the flower itself? I didn’t want to miss the moment that would answer this cruicial question so every day I checked for the telltale little green ball that would tell me my efforts would be rewarded.

And when finally, my first plant, the Black Prince, decided to reward my patience, and I had my answer. So I thought I’d share it with anyone else who may be wondering how exactly the magic happens and where to look for it next time. And then the photo turned out blurry. And then I cried. But I’ll post it anyway, because a crappy photo still solves the mystery once and for all. The flower wilts, people, wilts! And from BEHIND the wilted flower the tomato starts peeking out. First as a teeny little pea, and rather quickly grows to a large orange that proceeds to turn lighter and lighter until allegedly, it begins to ripen. But I’ll try and take a photo of that as it happens. Does it start on top? Side?…