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torquillYesterday, I hit Navlet's to get starter mix (and some French terragon, mint, and coriander seed while I was at it). I went home, filled two six packs with the starter mix, filled some yogurt cups and a larger pot with potting soil, and pulled out my seed stock.
I put a small sweet potato from last year's harvest in the large pot, and sowed some sage, basil, and coriander in the smaller ones. Then it was on to the tomatoes.
I've been filling seed orders anyway, so the boxes were out and my tomato seed pack database was already up. </geek> I pulled Aunt Ruby's German Green, Black Krim, Brandywine (Joyce's), Brianna, Costoluto Fiorentino, Diener, KBX, Noir de Crimee (again), One Ball, Rutgers, and Vorlon. Six of those are seed increases, and Costoluto Fiorentino may not make it if the two old seed I have don't revive. We'll see. I'll be adding Sara's Galapagos once my order from Sand Hill comes (to give me virus-free seed), and I'll start that alongside the peppers I'm expecting from a seed trade. Still, at two plants apiece -- only one for Sara's and NdC -- it's a light tomato year. I need a break after getting flooded last year, and I don't know what my summer/fall schedule is going to be like yet. I'll use the extra space to try some new peppers.
As for the varieties: ARGG I've done before, liked, and I'm refreshing my seed stock on it. It's a huge green beefsteak, but lacks some of the grassy flavor those often have, tasting more like a melon instead. I like it better than Dorothy's Green from last year.
Black Krim is a classic, and I missed it. It used to be a staple for me alongside Kellogg's Breakfast and Mortgage Lifter, all three of them perform incredibly well here.
I know nothing about Joyce's strain other than it's gotten a lot of talk in the last two years. Someone spontaneously sent me some, and since Brandywine in general seems to like our climate, I'll give it a shot. Seed increase if it does decently.
Brianna is well-regarded by Dr. Carolyn, which is enough for me. It's my other potato-leaf pink.
Costoluto Fiorentino came, misspelled, in my first-ever seed order from a garage operation in 2002. It never got a fair chance in the early days, but it's supposed to be a solid Italian red. If either of my remaining seeds germinates, we'll see how it does. Seed increase, needless to say.
Diener, a.k.a. Santa Clara Canner, is a real piece of history, one of the solid old red slicers that helped build the old canneries of the southern Bay Area and points south. I'm growing it as a canning tomato, naturally, but it's one of the more unusual canners in that it continues producing all season rather than doing all its fruit in a rush. It supposedly doesn't mind heat either (which would make sense given its origins). It's been on my list for a while. It was from a small-quantity trade, so it'll be a seed increase if it does well.
KBX has me curious. It's another variety that's gotten a fair amount of talk, as it's apparently a potato-leaf sport of the renowned Kellogg's Breakfast. Since the regular-leaf KB can grow to six feet tall and flood me with 1-pound orange monsters, I have to wonder what a more vigorous version is like. Potato-leaf plants resist mites better, so that's a definite plus for me anyway. I can do a seed increase while I'm at it.
Noir de Crimee did so poorly last year that I swore it would never come back... until I tasted it. High heat makes this the sweetest tomato I've ever had, rivaling Sungold for flavor. The fruits were quite small, but that may have been stress; still, it made them ideal for whole canning. It'll get the best mite-fighting spot in the garden, and we'll see what it does.
One Ball was a variety I got from the Seed Savers Exchange Heritage Foundation, which still lists it. The entire description: "84 days, size and color of a one ball, volunteer in source's garden, from MI SK M, SSE Tomato 1310." No one else has offered it in the seven years I've had the seed; I picked it up because the analogy to a pool ball intrigued me, and I like mysteries. Woman's Name Starting With A turned out well, so I'll see what this one does for me. I hope it's not a determinate...
Rutgers is another classic, developed by the University to supply a better canning tomato; similar to Diener, it's a vining red slicer. Wisconsin 55, a variety developed by UWis for the same reason, grows very poorly in this climate, but I'm hoping one from New York won't do so much pining for the fjords. I need a seed increase on it if it does well.
Vorlon is a perennial favorite. I sowed a few extra to give away, and I'll be giving out the fruit too if it's a good year. Speak up if you want a seedling.
My tomato seed database has really helped me keep track of which varieties I do and don't have, how many seeds I have, their age (very important -- it doesn't matter if I have 600 seeds of something, if they're more than ten years old), and the variety characteristics. I can easily search for determinate (patio-friendly) varieties, early varieties, or ones where I have less than five seeds. Keeping it updated is pretty painless, fortunately. I keep a smaller one for peppers, but it's the 115+ tomatoes I really need help with.
I braved the drizzle today and cleared the old plants out of the tomato patch, then weeded a bit more than half of it. Five or six years of diligent weed control has exhausted the seed bank to the point where half the ground is bare to start with, and much of the rest is wild geranium, a not-unpleasant plant I sort of encourage because it chokes out other weeds, yet it's easy to pull and not noxious in any other way. It has a pleasant spicy scent, actually. There's some wild mustard and miner's lettuce, which aren't bad either. This may end up being the easiest weeding year yet. Then comes the digging, though, and the ground is now very soggy...
I have a few volunteer potatoes out there, which I may decide to leave in place and ignore. White potatoes do poorly in my garden, attracting rapacious insect life and demanding far more water than their yield can justify. If I'm going to put out that much water on a starchy tuber (sweet potatoes are drought-tolerant) I'm tempted to try taro instead, which is less likely to get hammered by mites. If the potatoes can survive neglect, though, I won't get in their way.
I need to plan out my herb garden for the front strip, which has been getting its final mulching. I'll get some bubblers and splice them into the pipe I laid out there, then amend a plot and move the rhubarb into its final home... and construct a real perennial herb garden in the far corner. Rosemary, oregano, thyme, sage, all those typical Mediterranean herbs, certainly, which don't mind the drought; English ones like peppermint, nettles, horehound, catnip, and lemon verbena; lemongrass, ginger, and possibly my kaffir lime will get moved out there; licorice, if I can swing it, for its medicinal properties; and that French terragon I found at Navlets, the potent sort you can't grow from seed.
It'll take some engineering to meet everything's water needs while containing the invasives, but it can be done. I'll start with raised pots for the peppermint and licorice, isolation pots inside those to contain the seeds from the nettles and horehound, and some creative drainage and sheltering tricks for a few of the more fussy things. I want to be able to grow just about everything we use short of the truly tropical spices like cassia and cloves. (I'd add a small Turkish bay tree, but there's one of those a block or two away.) Annuals and simple biennials will stay in the veggie garden, of course, along with the garlic and shallots. I should pick up some live cumin, ajwain, and fenugreek seeds to go with the parsley, dill, cilantro, and basil... I wonder whether the seeds from the Indian market are viable.
Spices are the heart of cooking to me, which may be part of why I love Thai and Indian food so much. With Thai, I have the advantage that I really can grow everything I need for a curry except the coconut, but I can still do a bunch of the Indian spices. A Mediterranean climate can sustain a lot of other things as well, so I should be able to get a good selection with a bit of care. Never a bland moment. :)
I put a small sweet potato from last year's harvest in the large pot, and sowed some sage, basil, and coriander in the smaller ones. Then it was on to the tomatoes.
I've been filling seed orders anyway, so the boxes were out and my tomato seed pack database was already up. </geek> I pulled Aunt Ruby's German Green, Black Krim, Brandywine (Joyce's), Brianna, Costoluto Fiorentino, Diener, KBX, Noir de Crimee (again), One Ball, Rutgers, and Vorlon. Six of those are seed increases, and Costoluto Fiorentino may not make it if the two old seed I have don't revive. We'll see. I'll be adding Sara's Galapagos once my order from Sand Hill comes (to give me virus-free seed), and I'll start that alongside the peppers I'm expecting from a seed trade. Still, at two plants apiece -- only one for Sara's and NdC -- it's a light tomato year. I need a break after getting flooded last year, and I don't know what my summer/fall schedule is going to be like yet. I'll use the extra space to try some new peppers.
As for the varieties: ARGG I've done before, liked, and I'm refreshing my seed stock on it. It's a huge green beefsteak, but lacks some of the grassy flavor those often have, tasting more like a melon instead. I like it better than Dorothy's Green from last year.
Black Krim is a classic, and I missed it. It used to be a staple for me alongside Kellogg's Breakfast and Mortgage Lifter, all three of them perform incredibly well here.
I know nothing about Joyce's strain other than it's gotten a lot of talk in the last two years. Someone spontaneously sent me some, and since Brandywine in general seems to like our climate, I'll give it a shot. Seed increase if it does decently.
Brianna is well-regarded by Dr. Carolyn, which is enough for me. It's my other potato-leaf pink.
Costoluto Fiorentino came, misspelled, in my first-ever seed order from a garage operation in 2002. It never got a fair chance in the early days, but it's supposed to be a solid Italian red. If either of my remaining seeds germinates, we'll see how it does. Seed increase, needless to say.
Diener, a.k.a. Santa Clara Canner, is a real piece of history, one of the solid old red slicers that helped build the old canneries of the southern Bay Area and points south. I'm growing it as a canning tomato, naturally, but it's one of the more unusual canners in that it continues producing all season rather than doing all its fruit in a rush. It supposedly doesn't mind heat either (which would make sense given its origins). It's been on my list for a while. It was from a small-quantity trade, so it'll be a seed increase if it does well.
KBX has me curious. It's another variety that's gotten a fair amount of talk, as it's apparently a potato-leaf sport of the renowned Kellogg's Breakfast. Since the regular-leaf KB can grow to six feet tall and flood me with 1-pound orange monsters, I have to wonder what a more vigorous version is like. Potato-leaf plants resist mites better, so that's a definite plus for me anyway. I can do a seed increase while I'm at it.
Noir de Crimee did so poorly last year that I swore it would never come back... until I tasted it. High heat makes this the sweetest tomato I've ever had, rivaling Sungold for flavor. The fruits were quite small, but that may have been stress; still, it made them ideal for whole canning. It'll get the best mite-fighting spot in the garden, and we'll see what it does.
One Ball was a variety I got from the Seed Savers Exchange Heritage Foundation, which still lists it. The entire description: "84 days, size and color of a one ball, volunteer in source's garden, from MI SK M, SSE Tomato 1310." No one else has offered it in the seven years I've had the seed; I picked it up because the analogy to a pool ball intrigued me, and I like mysteries. Woman's Name Starting With A turned out well, so I'll see what this one does for me. I hope it's not a determinate...
Rutgers is another classic, developed by the University to supply a better canning tomato; similar to Diener, it's a vining red slicer. Wisconsin 55, a variety developed by UWis for the same reason, grows very poorly in this climate, but I'm hoping one from New York won't do so much pining for the fjords. I need a seed increase on it if it does well.
Vorlon is a perennial favorite. I sowed a few extra to give away, and I'll be giving out the fruit too if it's a good year. Speak up if you want a seedling.
My tomato seed database has really helped me keep track of which varieties I do and don't have, how many seeds I have, their age (very important -- it doesn't matter if I have 600 seeds of something, if they're more than ten years old), and the variety characteristics. I can easily search for determinate (patio-friendly) varieties, early varieties, or ones where I have less than five seeds. Keeping it updated is pretty painless, fortunately. I keep a smaller one for peppers, but it's the 115+ tomatoes I really need help with.
I braved the drizzle today and cleared the old plants out of the tomato patch, then weeded a bit more than half of it. Five or six years of diligent weed control has exhausted the seed bank to the point where half the ground is bare to start with, and much of the rest is wild geranium, a not-unpleasant plant I sort of encourage because it chokes out other weeds, yet it's easy to pull and not noxious in any other way. It has a pleasant spicy scent, actually. There's some wild mustard and miner's lettuce, which aren't bad either. This may end up being the easiest weeding year yet. Then comes the digging, though, and the ground is now very soggy...
I have a few volunteer potatoes out there, which I may decide to leave in place and ignore. White potatoes do poorly in my garden, attracting rapacious insect life and demanding far more water than their yield can justify. If I'm going to put out that much water on a starchy tuber (sweet potatoes are drought-tolerant) I'm tempted to try taro instead, which is less likely to get hammered by mites. If the potatoes can survive neglect, though, I won't get in their way.
I need to plan out my herb garden for the front strip, which has been getting its final mulching. I'll get some bubblers and splice them into the pipe I laid out there, then amend a plot and move the rhubarb into its final home... and construct a real perennial herb garden in the far corner. Rosemary, oregano, thyme, sage, all those typical Mediterranean herbs, certainly, which don't mind the drought; English ones like peppermint, nettles, horehound, catnip, and lemon verbena; lemongrass, ginger, and possibly my kaffir lime will get moved out there; licorice, if I can swing it, for its medicinal properties; and that French terragon I found at Navlets, the potent sort you can't grow from seed.
It'll take some engineering to meet everything's water needs while containing the invasives, but it can be done. I'll start with raised pots for the peppermint and licorice, isolation pots inside those to contain the seeds from the nettles and horehound, and some creative drainage and sheltering tricks for a few of the more fussy things. I want to be able to grow just about everything we use short of the truly tropical spices like cassia and cloves. (I'd add a small Turkish bay tree, but there's one of those a block or two away.) Annuals and simple biennials will stay in the veggie garden, of course, along with the garlic and shallots. I should pick up some live cumin, ajwain, and fenugreek seeds to go with the parsley, dill, cilantro, and basil... I wonder whether the seeds from the Indian market are viable.
Spices are the heart of cooking to me, which may be part of why I love Thai and Indian food so much. With Thai, I have the advantage that I really can grow everything I need for a curry except the coconut, but I can still do a bunch of the Indian spices. A Mediterranean climate can sustain a lot of other things as well, so I should be able to get a good selection with a bit of care. Never a bland moment. :)
