Tales of Tomatoes

It's TIME. Time for TOMATOES! It is with great relief that this summer has provided the garden with (so far) a healthy group of tomato plants with a plentiful crop ripening on the way and getting ready to keep me too busy!

Roma tomatoes are the way I grow. Why? Better for canning. When it comes to canning, and other cooking recipes, this is the tomato for you. Think about how juicy tomatoes can be- a lot of water content! When cooking down tomatoes for sauces or even for use in a salsa all that water is not very desirable. With Roma tomatoes you get more 'meat' and less water than you do with other varieties.

2010

2009

After the tomato famine of 2009 I think there has been great expectations for a good harvest this year. While I have read of some late blight in other areas of the Northeast and even in New York it is nothing like last year. My garden and that of everyone I know of- has been blight free (so far). Compare the two tomato patch images above. The photos are taken nearly to the day a year apart! And what a difference! Last year at this day my tomato plants were DEAD! They slowly wasted away from the notorious late blight. It started with only one sick looking plant and in days the whole crop went from lush green growth to dead rotting plants. Needless to say 2010 is already looking very good.

It was interesting when I learned that the late blight spores cannot survive the winters of the north and that spores actually migrate from the south to the north through wind- every year. So why was 2009 so bad? Last years cool and moist climate just happened to be the perfect breeding ground for blight to spread like wildfire. This year in contrast has been very much the opposite- sunny and warm.

Sunshine is the enemy of fungi. So is circulation. If you keep that in mind it now makes sense why tomatoes are traditionally staked or supported in some way to hold the plants upright (as they will sprawl everywhere if you don't train them well). There are countless ways to stake tomatoes and its always fun to see some gardeners creativity or efficiency in doing so. I've used tomato cages, but I don't like them- too weak. My technique so far has evolved from wooden stakes to U posts driven into the soil when the transplants go into the ground. As the plant grows I do two things- train and prune. I use cotton twin to gently lasso the branches to the post. After I've trained the plant to grow in the direction I want it to (UP), I take that moment to prune off all the lower leaves, especially any leaf that touches the ground. Moving from plant to plant in this manner the process is repeated every week or so until necessary.

Training or staking keeps the plant under control and off the ground improving air circulation around it in the process. Pruning encourages the redirection of energy, but it also improves the air circulation even more around the base of the plant- which is a good battle plan against blight! Another benefit is that the tomatoes are easier to see and reach when the time to pick them has come. Other blight prevention strategies are to lightly cultivate the soil around the plants (airs out the soil), and to avoid getting the foliage wet when watering (water the ground, not the leaves).

One thing I wanted to try this year, now that there are tomatoes the play with, is sun dried tomatoes. I used a recipe for 'Oven-dried tomatoes' found in Put 'Em Up by Sherri Brooks Vinton. The tomatoes (again Roma is preferable) are cut in half lengthwise and tossed in an oil (olive seems best). The slices are to be arranged with the cut side up on cookie sheets and left to slow roast in the oven at 220 until they shrivel and start to burn singe a little. Store them in the freezer in clean freezer safe jars. I used one of my mason jars I had hanging around already in the kitchen.

And you have 'sun' dried tomatoes. They look pretty authentic! I'm wondering if there is any seasoning that could be used on the tomatoes. This can be something to experiment with. In the meantime, salsa is my next tomato project.

On a tangent, I'd like to say farewell to Angie Cat, our foster cat who returned home this past week. This was my last picture of her as she accompanied me while I harvested the tomatoes photographed for this post. Misses outdoors extraordinaire will be missed for sure, but she is enjoying her family reunion from what I hear. Good luck Angie!

Eat what you can, can what you can't

 Salsa verde, beet greens, zucchini relish, pickled beets, raspberry vinegar, cucumber relish and pickles.

On inspecting a canning supply display at a local farm store, I saw a cute little saying on a small plaque which said: Eat what you can, can what you can't. That pretty much sums up the summer garden at this point in time. The pests seem to be under control (no more ground chunk battle stories) or the plants are so big it doesn't matter (slug wars are on hold). The weeding is less frenzied, I find that I am weeding to keep the rows looking nice and not necessarily to keep them alive. While I am still sowing seeds here and there occasionally for a fall crop, its not the mad rush of planting that was May and June. The main garden activity now is - preserving.

A harvest of beets minutes after being pulled from the ground and minutes before being pickled.

Growing your own food provides you with such a fulfilling sense of self sufficiency. Eating produce grown with care (as much as one can), without the use of harmful chemicals, picked at its peak and as fresh and as local as you can get- ah what a feeling it is!

Freshly picked tomatillos and Hungarian wax peppers, just before being turned into salsa verde.

While we are utilizing what is currently ready out in the garden to base entire meals out of... what about the rest of the harvest and the rest of the year? At this time of the year gardens everywhere are producing more than their caretakers can consume. Why leave that fulfilling sense of self sufficiency in feeding your family with the fruits of your labor for only a few short months of the year? That's where preserving techniques such as canning come to play. Eat what you can right now, and can what you can't - and eat it in ... for example... February. Eat from your garden year round by taking full advantage of preserving methods now while produce is in full harvest mode.

Changa showing off a milk crate full of cucumbers.

Something new I am trying this year is recording in my garden log the quantities of vegetables I harvest everyday. At the end of the season I will tally things up to get an idea of what the garden was able to produce this year and then eventually compare it to harvests of years to come. I'm also recording what I've been canning. How many jars of this or that and the size of the jars too. This will also be interesting information to have to compare to over time.

Lately I've been canning a lot. Which is my excuse for my less than frequent posts. In the last month I've canned:

6 -pints dilly beans

7- quarts pickled beets

2- quarts beet greens

3- quarts dilled pickles 

9 pints of dilled pickles

4- pints of zucchini relish

22- 1/2 pints of salsa verde

13- 4oz jars raspberry vinegar

25- 1/2 pints cucumber relish

Canned goods from just one month.

This is only the beginning too. The salsa verde- only used up a small fraction of the tomatillos that are growing out there. There are more bean plants growing (succession plantings) and more dilly beans to be canned as a result. The pickled beets only used up half of the beets that are out there. Not to mention the tomatoes (who *cross my fingers* are still disease-free and as happy as can be) that are JUST getting started. Tomatoes alone can consume a lot of canning energy!

Into the Cucumber Jungle

Enter the jungle. The cucumber jungle.

How many cucumber babies can you spot?

Tentacles or tendrils?

A strong grip.

A baby cucumber with its flower still attached.

A maybe too big cucumber.

The cucumber haul for the day.

This summer I am thankful for all the cucumbers that I have been able to enjoy from my own backyard. At nearly $2.00 each at the grocery store this seems to be a very economical vegetable to grow! At a steady pace we have been munching away everyday and still can't keep the numbers down. This is my first successful year growing cucumbers- and now I have cucumbers up to my ears!

The First Tomatoes of the Season

Celebrating... the first garden tomatoes of the year! (cue-fireworks)

My cherry tomato that has been growing in a container by the kitchen porch is starting to ripen its fruit. This is the first year I have tried container gardening seriously. Tomatoes are popular as a container plant. The choice of cherry tomato was because they seem to be more of an impulsive snacking plant... meaning the fruit is eaten in situ. Just like my peas this year (which I have hardly made any posts about, because they've all been eaten on the spot) have rarely made it out of the garden and even more rarely to the house.

One year at a community garden I grew a few cherry tomato plants. They were bountiful to be sure, but since I hardly visited the plot everyday, many of the cherries went neglected and uneaten (falling to rot on the ground even). When the fantastic and frantic rush of the tomato harvest is upon you, what will you spend your energy harvesting: 'regular' large tomatoes or tiny little cherries? In the end the bigger ones which served the most food value in canning were given the most harvesting attention and the cherries were left behind. Having a cherry tomato plant that is nearby the house, however, makes it easily accessible. One inconvenience is that with container plants you need to water them more regularly as they can dry out faster and with this hot summer it has been a challenge to keep all the plants content. It seems that the container cherry tomato has been a success thus far and considering the rate at which we have been snacking on the fruits, more plants are definitely in the plans for next years container garden.