The Tomatoes Are In

On deck supply, July 29, 2012

      The success of my gardening year is totally dependent on the quality of the tomato harvest.  As long as it is a good tomato season, everything is okay.  If I could plant only one crop in my garden, it would be tomatoes.  If I could plant only two, it would be tomatoes and more tomatoes.  I know the tomato season is in when there are more tomatoes on the porch than we can currently eat.  Or when I can give away some tomatoes because there are more in line.  There are enough now to start freezing some.  So although I am complaining about the heat, I should actually be thankful for the tomatoes.

      When you want a lot of tomatoes, you have to plant a lot of plants.  This is the tomato section in the back garden with two rows of 17 plants in each row.  I have learned my lesson to stake and desucker tomato plants in order to get tomatoes that you can find.  A plant on the ground with lots of slug eaten tomatoes is not a thing of beauty.

        Same two rows of plants, but from a different angle.  The two tomatoes in front are Cherokee Purples, one of my favorites.  But so are the Brandywines, Black Krims, Chocolate Cherries, Yellow Jubilees, Marglobes, and many others in the garden.  Note the row of peppers growing in front of the tomato plants to take advantage of the sun at the base of the plants.

Closer shot of the Cherokee Purple

      We actually had rain the other night.  One point one inches in fact!  What a blessing.  These are some clumps of unripe Chocolate Cherries the morning after.

And a volunteer cherry tomato plant

      And these are the Glacier Tomatoes, an extra early tomato that is supposed to ripen in 55 to 60 days, and does.  And has a pretty good tomato flavor to boot.  They are rather prolific, and got the season off to a good early start.  Yet they are still producing heavily now, and make a very good salad tomato.  I will be saving some seed for next year.

      This tomato jungle is what results when you let the plants grow on their own.  Lots and lots of branches, and tomatoes on the ground that are hard to find.  I usually end up cutting off the first six or eight branches at the bottom of the plant, keeping only the central leader.  This is what the same plants look like just minutes after a good trim:

      The critters have done a lot of damage this year to the fruit on the vines.  In this dry summer, even hard green tomatoes are being eaten for their moisture.  And not just bird pecks.  Big chunks of tomatoes gone in short periods of time.

A now worthless Dr. Wyche tomato

Two Brandywines, lost before their prime

      So this summer I have been picking tomatoes just as they start to ripen, as they get that first tell tale color change.  I would rather have vine ripened tomatoes, but you see the results above of waiting too long to pull the tomatoes from the vine.  The very first picture shows the tomatoes ripening on the porch, and they taste just fine.  I will let the tomatoes ripen on the vine at my park plot, as there are thousands of tomatoes there to satisfy lots of critters.  I expect to get at least some vine ripened fruit there.
      But so far, so good.  The tomatoes are in!!

Pretty Harvest

      What a difference a few hours can make!  It is so nice out this afternoon, a big change from being caught in a rain squaw in the garden this morning.  Both the temperature and humidity have dropped.  We will be complaining about the forecast high of only 59 degrees for Saturday, but it will feel nice.  And make for some no sweat gardening weather.
      And now we have a tale of two gardens.  The fall crops are doing fine at the Bellevue Park garden, but the tomatoes are suffering and there was not a single pepper picked all summer long for me.  Yet at home I am still getting tomatoes and peppers, but the harlequin beetles are trashing the newly planted cole crops.  I don't really have an explanation.  But I still have tomatoes!

Back yard pickings, 9/29/11

      The pepper on the left was a nice surprise discovered on the ground, but in flawless condition.  The yellow tomato in the middle is Dr. Wyche, and the purply one on the right is a Black Krim.  Dinner is going to be yummy.
      A few days ago I gave Bob King a small bag of Egyptian Walking Onion bulbs.  Today he returned the favor with a nice little supply of yellow onion sets.  They were planted at the park, in the west end of bed #2, on the north side behind my planting of the walking onions.

Yellow onion sets planted 9/29/11

Still Pickin

      The tomatoes over at the park are nearly finished except for an occasional Chocolate Cherry.  Yet in the back yard garden, many are still in decent production.  I believe it is the result of 30 years of organic additions making the soil not only hold water better, but yet not compact so as to also drain better.  Best of both worlds?
      We went to a party Saturday morning and I wanted to take something.  What better than a selection of tomatoes and peppers picked that morning.

Morning harvest, 9/17/11

      The big yellow tomato is Dr. Wyche, a most welcome volunteer from last year.  I am trying to save seed this year from three different tomatoes from the Dr. Wyche vines.  Just below and to the left are Brandywine tomatoes and just below and to the right are Cherokee Purple.  The dark cherry tomatoes to the right of the Cherokees are the Chocolate Cherry tomatoes.  The little tiny ones to the right of the picture are unknown annual volunteers that I like to think of as Wessie do tomatoes, after my Grandson Wesley who loves to pick them.  Basil, bell peppers, Cayenne. and an unknown pepper round out the harvest.  Simply scrumptious.

Good Riddance Irene

      The hype for Hurricane Irene started at least a week before the storm arrived.  Unlike most storms however, she held pretty much to the anticipated path, which put Wilmington smack in the way of a big storm.  So preparations needed to be made to harvest veggies, move potted plants, tie down outside furniture, and clear off the porch.  I expected the gardens to be pretty much trashed, so I took pictures before Irene to compare with the later damage.

Backyard garden, 8/26/11

      The morning of Friday, August 26th, was misty and humid, lending an eerie feel to these pictures.  The sun flower in the background in the middle of the photo had finally had its first bloom on August 25th, the plant having grown to a height of about 12 feet!  Surely its days were limited with the hurricane coming in.  The plant was tied to a 4 x 4 pole at about the 5 foot level.  I expected it to break off there, as the sunflower plants are fairly brittle.

 

      The patio furniture was taken off the deck and tied to the ash tree.  The picnic table was flipped onto its back on the deck, and the little kids playhouse to the right of the picture was lashed to the maple tree.  A good move as it was to blow over in the storm, but it remained tethered to the tree.

Pre-storm back yard harvest, 8/26/11

      I picked most of the acorn squash for fear of them absorbing too much rain water.  Same for the white "Casper" pumpkin.  I was given the Casper seed, so tried it out.  The plant has been much hardier than the normal orange pumpkins, and looks to give me five or more nice little ghosts.  The cucumber plants have also lasted much longer this year, knock on wood.  The yellow tomato at the bottom right corner is "Dr. Wyche".  I was thrilled to see this first fruit develop, as I had grown Dr. Wyche last year from a gift plant.  It is a nice tomato, and I had unwisely failed to keep any seed from last year.  When a couple of volunteer plants popped up in the area where I had the plants last year, I transplanted them into the tomato row.  I now have two plants, and have already saved some seed for next year.  The tomato is big and meaty, has great flavor, and has an appearance that reminds me of a fruit like a mango.  Glad to have it back.
      It has been a good pepper year for me already, with many different varieties coming in.  The only hot one is the cayenne, and we actually ate one of the red ones last week and enjoyed it.  I found a recipe for green pepper soup which looks delicious, and am anxious to try that one.

Temporary indoor shelter

      All of the harvest from the porch had to be moved into the dining room.  The porch furniture came in too, and the shelves on the porch were put on their sides.  Now it is off to the park to document some shots before the storm.

Bellevue Park community gardens, 8/26/11

My Bellevue plot #84, 8/26/11

      Hurricane Irene finally hit on August 27th.  We in Wilmington were hit with 6 to 8 inches of rain, but did not seem to get the wind that had been expected.  We lost our power for 11 hours, just shy of the time to panic about our freezer.  The sunflowers at the park faired about as expected, with most of them toppled over or broken.

Bellevue Park, 8/28/11

My plot, 8/28/11

      The sunflowers on my plot got beat up pretty badly, and the pole bean trellis on the right side of this picture got snapped off.  It was repaired by strapping on a new upright to the piece still in the ground.  The beans seemed not to care, though there is a heavy infestation of Colorado bean beetles.  Unlike my peppers that have done well at home, there seems to be something at the park that kills off the plants at my plot.

My back yard sunflower, 8/28/11

      My sunflower out back made it through the storm without breaking or toppling!  Cindy and I went out the next morning as it was still quite windy, and put up an emergency 10 foot metal pole as support.  You can see the yellow crime scene tape put to good use.  For a couple of days the plant wilted as a result of too much water, but it looks to be recovering nicely.  The "too much water syndrome" has hit many of the tomato plants, so I think the tomato season will be downhill from here.  But overall, we were extremely lucky with what little damage we had.

This Casper made it fine on the vine, 8/28/11