My Favorite Varieties - 2015 Summer Garden

Romanesco zucchini

Variety is the spice of life, right? With that in mind, I thought I would share with you my favorite varieties from our summer garden. I tried several new varieties this year and many of them were hits! Maybe you will find something new to try next year.

I think the most shocking winner for me was the Romaneso zucchini. I am not a lover of zucchini, but this type has won me over with its delicately crisp texture and sweet flavor. Everyone who tried it said the same thing, "This is the best zucchini I've ever tasted." With raised longitudinal ridges, it creates beautiful gear-shaped slices. I love it lightly sauteed in butter and sprinkled with tarragon.

The tomatoes always steal the show in the summer garden. I grew 12 varieties and my favorite was Black Krim. This is a hearty, robust, flavorful tomato.

Black Krim tomato

One look at the deep color and you can just imagine the rich complex flavor. It tastes how it looks.

Black Krim tomato

Pineapple Hawaiian tomato is light and fruity. This was my most prolific grower. The fruit is incredibly sweet, and when the sun hits it the bright orange color glows. It has a pink blush at the bottom too, making it even prettier.

Pineapple Hawaiian tomato

Pineapple Hawaiian tomato

What a treat it was to share my Black Krim and Pineapple Hawaiian with my dear friend, Jane, on our little get away to Ventura Beach. This is why we put up with the traffic to live in L.A. One hour in the car and we are at the beach, at the ski resort in the mountains, in the desert, or in farm country.

The tomatoes were fabulous with pita chips and red pepper hummus, topped with fresh tarragon and basil.

When I bit into my first Red Pear Abruzzese tomato, it finally made sense why tomatoes are considered a fruit. By far the sweetest tomato I have ever eaten, this one is like candy.

Red Pear Abruzzese tomato

Red Pear Abruzzese tomato

Out of the 12 pepper varieties I planted, my favorite are these Italian heirlooms. Quadrato Rosso D' Asti is a red sweet pepper which is deliciously flavorful with a slightly spicy finish.

Quadrato Rosso D' Asti bell pepper

Its yellow cousin is Quadrato Giallo D' Asti. Isn't it beautiful? It's also crisp, sweet and tasty.

Quadrato Giallo D' Asti bell pepper

This little melon is not much to look at, but it is fantastic. Sakata's Asian Melon is a small crisp melon that is intensely sweet with a hint of cucumber flavor. I will grow this one every year.

Prosperosa eggplant is stunning with its embre effect. The plant was a prolific producer and its upright growth habit takes less room than my spreading Kamo eggplant. 

I purchased all of my seeds from Annie's Heirloom Seeds. (I am not compensated by them in any way, I am just a customer.) One thing I like about them is they have collections of seeds which makes trying new varieties easy. This bush bean collection was just fabulous. They call it "Annie's Rainbow Beans" and it contains Contender, Golden Wax, Royal Burgundy, and Dragon's Tongue. 

And finally there are the Cosse Violetta pole beans. With flowers this pretty, and pods that are striped then mature to a deep violet, these are a stunning (and delicious) addition to the summer garden.

I hope you are inspired to try a new variety next year. Now I am off to start looking through seed catalogues for unusual additions to try in my winter garden. 

Oh, the possibilities!

A Handful of Tomatoes and Such

Here are a handful of the tomatoes we have harvested so far.

Red Pear Abruzzese

Red Pear Abruzzese

San Marzano

Amish Paste

Amish Paste on the left, with 3 San Marzano

Black Krim

Black Krim

Black Krim

Cherokee Purple

Cherokee Purple

Thessaloniki

Thessaloniki

Pineapple Hawaiian

Pineapple Hawaiian

I had to throw these in there, couldn't resist.

Kamo eggplant

California Wonder bell pepper

Happy gardening!

Tomatoes with Basil on Himalayan Sea Salt Block

Never have I ever had such flavorful tomatoes. Ever. Homegrown tomatoes are worth the effort, aren't they? If fresh tomatoes are your thing, you must try seasoning them on a salt block. Imagine turning up the flavor to the point it is almost too intense. That's what the salt block does. 

The build-up started in winter, painstakingly choosing tomato varieties out of seed catalogs, dreaming of tasting the first one of the season. Now, after all that time and concern, the fruit of our labor is ripe! 

This Cherokee Purple tomato is like a work of art, perfectly round and deeply colorful. It is my third tomato of the season. Oh, they are precious, those first few. It tasted even better than my imagination.

Luckily for us, our daughter bought her dad this Himalayan salt block for Father's Day. 

It was a perfect gift for him. He loves cooking and cooking gadgets, trying new recipes and experimenting. We had never heard of cooking on a block of salt. Apparently it's a thing. There are whole cookbooks about it. Ours is about 1 1/2 inches thick and it rests in a metal tray. When it was new it was pale pink, now it is stained from using it to cook meat on the barbecue. 

It is incredible how the salt block intensifies the flavor of the tomatoes. Just place the slices on the block for one minute per side (or less) and sprinkle some chopped basil on top (or not). The juice of the tomato causes the salt block to melt a bit, evenly infusing the tomato with salt. 

I tell you, the flavor will knock your socks off. 

Thank you, dear daughter, for the Father's Day gift.

Love, 

Mom

Preventative Medicine for Tomatoes

Last year my tomatoes really struggled. It was bad, and not just for me but for many in my neck of the woods. By mid season I was pulling one plant after another due to some malady which caused stunted growth and curled leaves. Because there are so many things that cause those problems, I am not able to pinpoint exactly what happened. I suspect it was a combination of things including mildew, lack of pruning, watering issues, cold weather spells during June, and maybe a virus. It's such a sad thing for a gardener when the whole tomato crop fails. Looking on the bright side, I did learn some valuable lessons and this year I am doing things differently.

This year is the first year that I started my tomatoes, pepper and eggplants from seed. They have been in the ground for a few weeks and they are really starting to grow. We're at the point in our season when everything is growing and the pests are at a minimum. It is that magic time of year before the mildew sets in, and before the hot sun scorches or wilts our more sensitive plants. 

Mortgage Lifter and Amish Paste, waiting for a trellis.

The tomato plants have zero blemishes. I know I shouldn't say that because it may be tempting some mildew fairy to come my way. I know the problems are coming but I am enjoying looking at those healthy little babies of mine everyday until the drama starts.

Brandywine

To combat the mildew that is inevitable I am determined to do a better job of pruning this year. In the past I have taken the approach of letting the tomatoes go crazy and then spending the summer trying to control them. This year I am removing all of the suckers except one or two. This will create plants with fewer stems, and less crowded leaves. I'll also be careful to remove any leaves that touch the ground which allows the fungus in the soil to get onto the lower leaves and infect the plant. By keeping up with the pruning, there will be more air circulation between the leaves which should help.

Another change I made this spring is that I'm hand watering my garden. I have tried different types of irrigation hoses, and right now I have both soaker hoses and pierced hoses. My frustration is that every type I've tried still creates areas where the water sprays up into the air or onto the plants. The moisture on the leaves contributes to the mildew. When I hand water, I take care to keep the water off of the leaves using low water pressure. The advantage of hand watering is that you can accurately control how deeply you water, and tomatoes like deep and less frequent watering. So the hoses are there in case I don't have time to hand water, but for now I am really enjoying this pleasant garden chore. I find watering to be relaxing and a great way to stay connected and involved in what is happening out there.

Another method of controlling mildew is to spray the tomatoes with baking soda in water. This changes the pH on the leaves making it harder for the mildew to survive. Mix one tablespoon of baking soda into one gallon of water and thoroughly wet both sides of the leaves once a week. I started doing this as soon as the plants were transplanted instead of waiting until signs of mildew appear.

The final change made with this year's tomatoes is that I have been spraying them every 3 weeks with aspirin dissolved in water. There are numerous articles about why aspirin is helpful and without going into much detail, it apparently stimulates the plant's immune response, helping it to fight disease. Use a non-coated aspirin dissolved into one gallon of water and thoroughly wet the leaves. 

So far, so good. The plants are thriving and setting on lots of blossoms. 

Fingers crossed!

Protecting Tomato Transplants from Cutworms

A cutworm (or some other critter) killed one of my precious tomato transplants that I grew from seed. 

RIP San Marzano. Luckily the internet is a vast source of wonderful ideas. It seems that a plastic barrier will keep the worms (and other creepy crawlers) away from the plants. Of course! So simple and easy, provided you have a small backyard garden and not hundreds of plants. 

My seeds were started in newspaper pots, 

then transplanted to plastic cups, so I already had the cups.

I cut the bottoms off of the cups to make the rims that would stand guard to protect my tender transplants. It seemed to work best if there were two cups stacked together because they were more stable and less likely to crack.

I realized after I cut these and took these pictures that more needed to be cut from the bottom of the cups or the rims would be taller than the plants. For shorter plants, make shorter rims so the plants get sunshine.

I carefully dug a small trench around the plant with my finger to make it easier to push the rim into the ground.

Then I gently packed the soil around the outer edge of the rim so the bugs couldn't crawl through any small gaps.

The cups were already labeled so that worked out just great. 

The plastic rim also keeps the mulch away from the stems which is recommended.

...and they all lived happily ever after.