Yummy Lunch

I've been growing Utah Celery, seeds from Food Garden Kitchen, and I absolutely love it. It had a slow start at first, and now, it's near the point of harvesting, so I've been clipping stalks here and there as needed to cook with but leaving the plant in place to continue growing. Aren't these just amazing? And I must say, nothing beats picking fresh celery, it's so crisp and tasty!

With the Persimmon tomato I harvested, I made a tuna fish sandwich with the celery and tomato slices.  Oh my word, was it ever delicious!!  Using fresh veggies from the garden makes any sandwich a thousand times better! 

The Aftermath of Hurricane Irene: Part 1

I had such a rough night with the Hurricane. I did not sleep a wink since our basement is prone to flooding when we get constant rainfalls.  Without fail, after hours of constant rain, water started coming into the basement through the floors, windows and bulkhead door.   Water was even starting to come in through the drain of the slopsink in the basement.  It's because the slopsink is connected to the sewer line and with the rainwater overloading the sewer system in the neighborhood, the water was coming back into the house.  I spend about 4 hours scooping out the water out of the slopsink with buckets.  The more I scooped, the more the water filled the sink. I kept at it even though I was exhausted because if I didn't remove the water, my basement would have flooded.  What an ordeal!  The next project on my list is to install a shut off valve to prevent water from coming back to the house. When the Hurricane finally passed us, I went outside to check out the garden.  I couldn't wait to see what was in store for me.  I was really surprised, the garden didn't look as bad as I thought it would.  I thought the wind was going to tear down the bean pole trellises, but they were still standing.  Yeah!

However, the same can't be said the same of the tomato plants.  You can't really tell from this photo, but many of the tomato plants  have all fallen over.

Here is a closeup, this tomato plant was tied to a wooden dowel and tomato cage, but that didn't help it  much.   It toppled over.   LOL.  I need to come up with a better trellis system.  I was pretty amazed that some of the tomato cages barely budged in the howling wind.  They did pretty good with protecting the tomato plants.  You'll see on the left a cage still standing.

Before the storm hit, I hesitated with picking the green tomatoes.  I ended up not picking them and hoped for the best.  To my surprise, these large Brandywines stayed on the vine!  I thought because they were so heavy that they would for sure be knocked off the vine.  I am so glad I didn't pick them because I prefer to have them ripen on the vine. Hooray!  I can't wait for the Brandywines to start changing color!!  I can't wait to try these tomatoes.

Outside the picket fence the plants didn't fare as well.  I guess because they had less protection from the wind.  I think the picket fence helped protect the other plants from the whipping wind.  Here is the bed with the tobacco and tomato plants.  It is a toppled mess.

A view from the other side of the raised bed.  The plants are still alive, they just need to be supported somehow.  To be honest, I'm not that sad that these plants were crushed.  It was the hubs hobby, not mine. :)

Here is the bed with some of the tomato plants.  Totally blown over.

Most surprisingly, I only found one green tomato on the ground.  A Yellow Pear!  Isn't it just amazing that all the tomatoes stayed on the vine?  I am sooo impressed!  Even after many of the tomato plants fell, the tomatoes stayed in tact.  I learned a lot from this big storm, that plants are pretty resilient even after Hurricane gust winds and torrential rainfall.  I hope everyone who was in the path of Irene came out of it safe and sound.

Picking Tomatoes Before the Storm

This has been quite the interesting week for us.  First we felt the Earthquake that hit Virginia, all the way up here in NYC!  Now we are preparing for a Hurricane.  An Earthquake and a Hurricane all in the same week?  Talk about an eventful week!  Watching the news about Hurricane Irene barreling it's way up the East Coast is very scary.  Tomorrow I'll be going out to the garden and put all the lawn furniture and garden pots in the garage for safe keeping.  We haven't had a Hurricane like this hit these parts in some time, so I'm beginning to worry.  In anticipation of the Hurricane coming our way, I went out to the garden and picked some Heirloom tomatoes.  My favorite is Tiny Tim.  I see now how it got it's name.  It's as small as a dime!  Cute.

I was watching the news today and saw that I live in Zone A, a flooding and evacuation zone of the NYC area.  Mayor Bloomberg said he would announce on Saturday morning whether he will give the order for a mandatory evacuation for residents that live in the orange areas of the map below.  That big orange blob in Staten Island, that's where we live.  Crap.  Double crap!  Tomorrow, I have to go into the basement and move all the boxes to the 1st floor just in case it floods like it did 2 years ago when we got 24 hours of non-stop rain.  I'm thinking about all those people who live on the East Coast, hoping and praying that everyone stays safe and sound.

Update: I found this interactive map on Weather.com and it tracks the storm.  It's a good tool to use to see where the storm is heading.

Waiting for the Heirloom Maters

I've been anxiously waiting for the heirloom tomatoes to turn color so that I can taste these beauties. My plan this year was to grow as many varieties that I could so that I could zone in on the varieties that I thought tasted the best and therefore would make a return appearance in the garden.  I plan to save the seeds for the heirloom varieties that I think are the tastiest.  Here is Chocolate Cherry, they are turning into a cool brown color.  They should be ripe soon, and I can't wait to try these.  I originally received these seeds from Wintersown.org.  It's a great place to get tomato seeds.

This is a Persimmon Tomato, seeds given to me by Snarky Vegan.  This plant actually got a disease so this is the only tomato on the plant.  That makes me super sad.  I planted a few Persimmon tomato plants, it's now a waiting game to see if the other plants get diseased.  I hope not.  This tomato is finally showing a blush of color.  It sure is a pretty brilliant orange color and really does look like a Persimmon.  I see now how it got the name.  I put bird netting around all of my tomato plants because last year we were plagued by squirrels stealing the tomatoes before we got a chance to eat them. This year I proactively tried to prevent the squirrels from taking the maters, even though they stole my peaches and grapes.

This plant has Pink Brandywine.  I got seeds from Our Engineered Garden. I am amazed by how large these tomatoes are.  They will easily be 1 pounders.  I can't wait until the tomatoes turn pink.  They will be delicious I'm sure.

I plan to save seeds and start a seed bank so that I can share with fellow gardeners.  It was fun to grow so many varieties of tomatoes this year, it was so exciting to see how large each tomato got and what color they would turn.  I've never grown any of these varieties before so it was all new to me.  But I must say, it was also a lot of work.  We ended up having 75 tomato plants, much of which I didn't even sow, many were volunteer tomato plants.  Here is one of the raised beds with the tomato plants.  I packed 15 plants in here and it's a total tomato mess!  I definitely need to do a better staking system because the plants were drooping all over the place.  I put tomato cages around some of the larger plants and then tied the other plants to the cages.  Even though we had a whopping 75 tomato plants, a few died from disease, some were destroyed by storms, and others just never produced a lot of tomatoes.  Next year, I definitely want to limit the number of varieties that I will grow, because I was definitely overzealous this season with the planning.  Initially my plan was to grow as many different varieties to see what tasted good and continue to grow the ones I liked in the future.  However,  when it came down to organizing all the plants and seedlings, and isolating the blooms, for each plant it became completely overwhelming.  There are some plants in which I never ended up isolating the blooms, so I hope the seeds saved will be really true to parent.  With so many tomato plants, I actually didn't have time to devote to my other vegetable plants.  For example, I didn't grow enough Pepper, Eggplant, or Squash Plants.  And plants I didn't get a chance to sow properly were my herb plants, Chamomile, Sage, Cilantro and the some vegetables that I never ended up sowing at all were Parsnips and Kale. I wanted to try those this year, but the tomato frenzy took over my life.  Definitely next year, I will create an herb garden, and definitely less tomato plants.... I hope!

Update: Hurricane Irene is heading straight for the East Coast and everyone is preparing for the rough stormy weather.  I am beside myself with worry about my tomato plants, some are so tall and I don't know if they will survive the winds.  Hardly any of the tomatoes are turning color yet.  Ugh.  I'm hoping for the best.  I hope everyone who is in the path of the storm stay safe and sound.  And their gardens too. 

Tomato Isolation

I am growing a whole lotta tomatoes this year that I plan to save the seeds from. Since the plants are planted right next to each other, many of my fellow garden bloggers recommended that I try to isolate the blooms so that the tomato plants didn't cross pollinate.  I had bought these organza bags and fully intended to wrap each bloom.  Let's just say I was over zealous, because I couldn't keep up with all the blooms!  LOL. 

So I wrapped some of them, but it got overwhelming so I sorta gave up.  D'oh.  I'll try again next year when I don't plant 22 varieties of tomatoes.  What was I thinking???

Sungold Love

The only tomato that is ripening on the vine right now are the Sungolds.  This is my first time growing these yummy little golden morsels.   They will definitely make a comeback in the garden next year.

I absolutely love the taste of these orange cherries.  They are sweet with a burst of flavor.  I only wish they were heirlooms so I could save the seeds.   Granny told me they were hybrids.  Does anyone know of a similar tasting tomato that are heirlooms?

Fertilpots & Tomatoes

Last month, I won a giveaway for participating in Garden Chat on Twitter.  Among the prizes was a set of Fertilpots cellpacks, which are biodegradable wood fiber pots.  I was so excited to start seedlings in these fiber pots, I've never used these Fertilpots before.  The cellpacks have 10 cells.  I decided to plant all my tomato seeds in these.  I'm a bit overzealous with tomato plants this year, Annie's Granny was my inspiration, she grew so many interesting varieties last year to taste them and weed them out, many which I never even heard of.  She told me that she got her tomato seeds from the organization Wintersown.org, and I did the same this year, along with trading with other bloggers for the rest of the heirlooms I was seeking.  I didn't grow up eating a variety of tomatoes, the only ones we ate growing up were the Romas and beefsteak.  So when I discovered that there were hundreds of different varieties, oh my has my life changed!  I love love love tomatoes, I can sprinkle then with salt and eat it like an apple.  My husband on the other hand, only likes them in 3 forms... as marinara sauce, ketchup and salsa.  He hates tomatoes in their virgin form, they have to be doctored up like no one's business.  LOL.  I planted a whopping 22 different varieties including Tiny Tim, Isis Candy, Chocolate Cherry, Black Mystery, Druzba, Green Zebra, Manitoba, San Marzano, Brandywine, Paul Robeson, Hillbilly, Cherokee Purple, Rutgers, Jaunne Flamme, Sungold, German Johnson, Giant Belgium, Hovarth, Palmira's Northern Italian, Pineapple, Purple Calabash and Persimmon.    Where I will put these all will be another story... hahaha  I can't wait to try all these different kinds of tomatoes.  Yum!

I was so excited that two cellpacks fits in one of those Jiffy plastic greenhouses.  I like using these plastic greenhouses because they have plastic clear lids, and therefore act like a greenhouse.

 

I put a mixture of potting soil and Jiffy seed starting soil into each cell.  I like to mix the two because I find that seed starting soil is too light for watering.  All the water seems to sit on top of the soil and doesn't drain well. 

And here are the seedlings coming up.  Each of these got repotted into bigger pots to get larger, and then they will be transplanted into it's final spot.  Go Isis Candy go!

WinterSown.org

I owe a big THANK YOU to Granny for pointing me to this great tomato seed source, WinterSown.org.  All summer long I followed her tomato growing adventures (here and here) on her blog Annie's Kitchen Garden and was so amazed by the different types of tomatoes she was growing.  Granny was growing a whopping 41 tomato plants!  So inspiring!  I had to ask her where she got seeds for all these different types of tomatoes, I'm a gardening newbie and only grew 3 tomato varieties last year.  She let me in our her secret, she told me about WinterSown Educational a non-profit organization, right in my area in East Meadow, Long Island, NY.  I never even heard about this organization and it's less  than an hour away!  How funny that a gardener in Washington State, 2700 miles from us, introduced me to something that is "in our neck of the woods", a mere 44 miles away.   How could I not know about such a cool gardener's resource that is literally our neighbors?  Another true testament of how wonderful this garden blogging community is.  Always ready to pass on the knowledge!  WinterSown's website educates gardeners about sowing hardy seedlings in the winter.  From their website, "Winter Sowing is done outdoors during Winter using mini-greenhouses made from recyclables; there are no heating devices, no energy wasting light set-ups or expensive seed starting devices."  Alison over at Bonney Lassie has been encouraging me to Winter Sow plants all winter.   Alison sent me an article on Wintersowing written by Trudi Davidoff, the President of WinterSown.org.  I think I'm going to take the plunge and try it with some hardy seeds I've recently obtained.  I'm going to use Dave's Method on The Home Garden.  He uses juice bottles as a mini-greenhouse.

WinterSown.org also is a seedbank of sorts, in that they accept donations of seeds (veggies, fruits, flowers, trees) and provides 6 free small-count seed packs of their choice to gardeners, or 12 seed packs for a small donation through their SASE program.  They also distributes the seeds in bulk to worthy organizations (school, youth group, senior center, garden club etc.)  I just love an organization that promotes gardening for pennies, and encourages you to do so with low costs such as recycled containers and free seeds.  It just re-emphasizes that anyone can start a garden, it doesn't have to be an expensive hobby.  If you have extra viable seeds you want to donate, you can see their donating instructions here.

They also have a SASE program for different types of tomatoes.  How the SASE program for tomatoes work is that you fill out their seed selection form and send them a Self Address Stamped Envelope with two stamps on the envelope.  They will send you 6 varieties of tomato seed packs free.  All packs are small count seed packs that contain a minimum of six seeds each pack.  Many of my packs had more than 6 seeds.  If you are like us and are tomato growing newbies, this is a great way to grow different kinds of tomato varieties and taste them without committing to spending a lot of money buying seed packets of something you might not like.  If you want to try more than 6 varieties, you can send them a monetary donation that starts at $5.  $5 donation for a gift of 10 Varieties (6 choices & 4 defaults). A $10 donation for  a gift of 20 Varieties  (12 choices & 8 defaults) and so on and so forth.  All donations are tax-deductible.  I really encourage you to donate to this non-profit.  What they are doing is wonderful and the money will keep them going.  Here's more info about WinterSown.org.

I sent them my $5.00 and requested these tomato varieties.  I was so giddy when I received my SASE from WinterSown in the mail today.

1. Black Mystery ~ Beautiful brick-tone fruits, nice for slice or salad, most weigh a half-pound, delicious, IND, 72+ DTM
2. Beefsteak ~ Classic heirloom, meaty fruits usually weigh over a pound, IND, 80 DTM
3. German Johnson ~ Virginia heirloom makes large deep pink beefsteaks, yum and pretty, IND, about 80 DTM 
4. Giant Belgium ~ Deep pink beefsteaks can weigh up to two pounds, meaty fruits have excellent flavor, 80+ DTM, IND 
5. Tiny Tim ~ Abundant, yum red cherries on dwarf plants, nice for containers and planters, DET, 58+ DTM 
6. Rutgers ~ Red fruits weigh about 6 ounces, well known reliable cropper, DET, 75 DTM 
7. Chocolate Cherry ~ Clusters of maroon-brown fruits, 1" each, delicious, IND, 70 DTM 
8. Manitoba ~ Favorite for short seasons, produces loads of good tasting red fruits, 4 - 6 ounces each, DET,  about 70 DTM 
9. Isis Candy ~ Warm yellow cherries are uniquely marbled with a red blush to full streaks, lovely and delicious, IND, 80 DTM 
10. Jaune Flamme ~ French heirloom has golden-orange fruits, about three ounces each, delicious and pretty, IND, 70+ DTM 

WinterSown was out of Beefsteak, so instead they send me the following alternates.

1. Hovarth ~ Red fruit, IND, 80+ DTM
2. Druzba ~ Bulgarian heirloom has pretty red globes, can weigh over a half-pound, great flavor, IND, 80+ DTM 
3. Palmira's Northern Italian ~ 75-85 days, IND, regular leaf, 6'+ plants, up to 2+ lb red fruit, good tomato taste, slightly more acid than sweet, few splits, very vigorous, productive, 40 lbs/plant.

Along with some bonus seed packs.

1. Romanian Sweet Pepper  ~ Pretty pepper, ripes from ivory, to orange and then red.
2. Dill

When I received the seeds, it also came with this Pamphlet with step-by-step instructions and images on how to save your own tomato seeds.  So very cool!  I'll be using this technique this summer with the tomatoes I grow, and then I can give back by donating the tomato seeds back to WinterSown.org.  If you're still looking for tomato seeds, I definitely recommend checking them out.

Sadness in the Garden

My husband came into the kitchen the other day, and said, "Honey, you have to see what's going on in the garden!" The first thing I thought was, oh no, not the bugs again! Nope, this is just as bad! Look at all of our tomatoes that have blossom end rot!

I googled what could be causing this. The 2 main reasons were moisture stress or lack of calcium in the soil. I suspect that it's the uneven watering of the garden. It has barely rained in 2 weeks and it's been in the 90s and 100s. Sigh....

A friend of ours also suggested that we add some crushed eggshells to the soil to add calcium. We'll try that to see if it works. Luckily, there are some fruit with no rot, so hopefully all is not lost. :(

Does anyone have any advice on how to fix this?

Finally some baby tomatos!

We've been watching the tomato plants like a hawk, and finally, we saw something to smile about! 3 baby roma tomatos. Oooh, this is so exciting! I can't wait until they get biggers so we can make some marinara sauce. Yummy!