First Plants!

I tore out the ugly mess of last year's potted tomatoes today (Elliott and my landlord are probably happy about that!) and replaced one of the dead tomato plants with my little Martino's roma tomato. I'm so happy to have plants planted! I planted him in Home Depot's budget potting soil (which appears to be mostly sawdust). He got a couple tablespoons of E.B. Stone's Sure Start fertilizer and a couple tables spoons of John and Bob's Soil Optimizer. The latter I picked up at Armstrong Garden center over the weekend while attending a (mostly useless) free seminar on tomatoes. The "expert" raved about this stuff so I thought I'd give it a try this year.

I also dumped all the dead potted plants on the side yard and front porch. I wish I'd done it months ago as it looks so much neater now. Oh well...now I can fill them up again when I get a chance :) Update 4/2: I planted 8 sweet pea seeds around the roma, leftover from my fava bean/sweet pea planting. My hope is that they will climb the trellis while my tomato grows inside, and by the time the tomato gets really going the sweet peas will be spent. It may be too warm a spot there for my sweet peas though. I suppose we shall see!

Tomato Time

I went to Laurel's plant sale yesterday with my friend Karen and I managed to hold myself to only buying 3 plants. While I am somewhat proud of myself, I do have 8 more ordered that should be ready next week, so it's hardly holding myself back at all....though I did have 14 tomato plants last year so at least I've managed to cut back a little. Here's what I bought: Martino's Roma 75 days. This extremely prolific plant produces a huge yield--the fruit loads up in amazing quantities on a small 3 foot plant. Its yummy crop of 3" red pear-shaped Roma tomatoes that are great for cooking and sweet and luscious enough to enjoy fresh right out of your hand. Very meaty with few seeds, highly productive, marvelous for canning and for your favorite tomato sauce recipe. The flavor intensifies exponentially during cooking. Green Zebra 72 days. Visually enchanting, abundantly productive, this 2-inch round fruit ripens to a beautiful amber gold with dark green zebra-like stripes over the amber background. Inside, the flesh is beautiful, sparkling green. Another wonderful variety from Tom Wagner, it is gorgeous to behold, tangy and deeply sweet with lingering flavors. This exquisite tomato was chosen by chef extraordinaire, Alice Waters, for her restaurant, Chez Panisse in Berkeley, California and was among the first varieties to trigger the renewed interest in heirloom tomatoes. In my top 5.

Blood Gulch

85 to 90 days. Wow! This tomato is my new favorite. Cut into this magnificent fruit to reveal the deepest, darkest, blood-red flesh I've ever seen in a tomato. Decadent and delicious! A deep reddish-purple with luminescent green streaking, this 2 to 3 ounce fruit is an offspring of a pure platinum-silver tomato with darker silver stripes. This beautifully bizarre and stunning tomato is descended from that silver tomato discovered by Krystal Elser in a patch of Black Zebras. Krystal saved 8 seeds, 2 germinated. Grown out and stabilized, two delightful varieties resulted from that silver pearlescent fruit. Blood Gulch and Valhalla, also available this season. This is how a lot of the heirlooms came about. Mother Nature at her best! A Laurel's exclusive.

Squash and Melon Seedlings!

Success!




Apparently it was the sun baking the seeds that contributed to the epic fail of my first flat of squash/melon seeds. I have been much more successful with this second round as at least one seed of every type has now popped up!



Many of the squashes are starting to work on their first true leaves while the last of the melons are working their way out of the soil.

Fail

So I think I cooked my seeds in the sun because almost none of my melon or squash seeds sprouted and of the couple that started to break though they very quickly dried up and died. Hopefully it was my mistake and not that the seeds are dead. With this hope in mind, I've replanted the whole flat and I've got inside, sitting on top of our fish tank where it stays nice and warm (instead of outside baking in the sun).

The second flat (which I kept inside and seeded a couple days ago) has started sprouting. The cucumbers were the first to sprout, followed by the basils.

A fresh start

Clearly, I am terrible at keeping a journal of any sort. I haven't posted in months and my garden has been almost as neglected. So, with Spring just around the corner, a new batch of seeds flats, and an iPhone to hopefully make it easier to post...I'm beginning again.



I've got melons, squash, peppers, eggplant, cucumber, and a variety of herb seeds in seed starter mix.



A couple courageous melons have started to creep upwards and I look forward to seeing their more timid flat mates soon. Boysenberry starts from my Aunt Steph are also waking up for Spring.




This morning I sprayed Round-up on the weeds that infiltrated my beds over the winter and I look forward to their slow death that will ensue. By the time my little seed children are ready to go out and play, hopefully I'll have the beds weed free and dug to fluffiness. Beet, carrot, radish, chard, and pea seeds are at the ready and will hopefully make their way into the garden in the next week.

It's good to be back with my hands in the dirt!

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