Last night we roasted a bunch of hothouse tomatoes in The Egg and then chopped them up and combined them with some sauteed onion and garlic and the first of our own basil. Not too bad a pasta sauce if I do say so. Next time I might forgo the oak chips in The Egg, though. It was a wee bit smoky.
The recent cold weather in Florida has caused a major shortage of tomatoes in the rest of the country. This has caused some fast food restaurants to stop using tomatoes in their food unless specifically asked to. Not that this is a bad thing based on how bad those tomatoes usually are.
On the bright side, I’ve ordered my seedlings rather than starting seeds this year. With so many varities available as live plants it seemed like too much trouble to start my own. But the snow had better melt soon as I asked for a “first half of April” delivery.
What was I thinking?
After a wonderful Christmas in Colorado which found the Principessa conquering high-altitude Yorkshire Pudding, (which turned out great at an altitude of 8500 ft. I might add) and Segundo and TB making a gingerbread village we returned to a mailbox stuffed with seed catalogs. I promised The Principessa I would only grow 2 kinds of tomatoes this year. The red kind and the not-red kind.
Some of you have asked if we’ve had any problems with the fungus that is affecting tomato growers up and down the east coast. Well, it’s good news/bad news….While we haven’t had any evidence of the Late Blight that is grabbing the headlines, we’ve been battling our usual problem with Early Blight that always affects us during particularly wet summers.
Excuse me, I need to go fire up the sprayer. Again.
On Tuesday this week we had our first meal from our own tomatoes. A simple pasta sauce made from about 10 Super Marzanos, a little onion, a little garlic, a little olive oil and a HUGE handful of basil. Spectacular. The meal used up all of our ripe tomatoes (except the cherries, we’re swimming in those) but we’re going to be able to eat the first slicers this weekend. We’ll keep you posted.
Rain, Rain…..you know the rest. All this rain has seriously dampened even my motivation to write. The second wettest June on record. And it’s not doing the garden any good at this point. We’re hoping for a better conditions on the 4th.
Some good news, though, we picked our first tomatoes this week. As usual, they were a couple of Sweet 100’s. But when I picked ’em I realized I hadn’t even posted this years line-up. So, here it is:
Sweet 100’s
Chocolate Cherry
Gold Nugget (also a cherry)
Ramapo
Moreton
Costoluto Genovese
Cherokee Purple
Pineapple
Old German
Purple Russian
Brandywine
Old Italtian Plum
Super Marzano
For a total 25 plants. At least initially. We’ve already lost one of the Sweet 100’s. It turned yellow from the base up in just over a week. Weird.
I should have figured this out before. The hundreds of seedlings that were coming up from the compost I added to the garden are TOMATOES!. After my mother-in-law, M, pointed out that they couldn’t be carrots since carrots seed from the greens on their tops, I let some of them get a little bigger. Turns out every time I cored and seeded a tomato last summer and added to the composter, I was reseeding my ‘maters.
So the dumb-asses folks at Gardener’s Supply couldn’t come through with the goods and plans for the new raised bed have been changed. Back in the depths of winter we decided to build raised bed #3. Since the Big Pine was taken down last year the very back of the yard gets a lot more light. We figured we’d get another bed in back there to take the usual overabundance of seedlings that we usually don’t have room for.
I called up to Burlington, VT, the home of GS to inquire about the status of the Raised Bed Corners I had ordered back on 4/29. Originally back-ordered to 5/11, the date on the site had changed to 5/28. Sure enough, when I called they confirmed the later date and went on with something like “oh, yeah, those are made here in Vermont and we can’t get them out any faster”. To which I wanted to say “Well call over to Mason/Jay-Sun/LotDog at the metal press and tell him to put down the bong and put in some overtime, ‘cuz Phish tour hasn’t started yet”.
I wanted to say that. But instead I just said “I’ve got tomatoes to plant, that won’t work. Please cancel my order”
So I’ll be tilling a hole in the ground and just planting in the dirt we’ve got. Just like they did it in the old days.
We’re still nursing our aching selves back to fighting form but we got a lot accomplished last weekend. All of the tomato and herb seedlings under the lights got repotted into larger containers. We planted all the stuff I bought last Friday. And The Principessa and The Principessa-Mum weeded, mulched and edged the front yard. With new edging no less! It looks spiffy!
With highs this weekend forecast in the 80’s we’re trying to not overload ourselves for next weekend.
It seems the voice crying in the wilderness (namely, me) for some bi-partisanship for tomatoes has been heard. Probably no thanks to yours truly, love apples will adorn the WH veg garden. They’ll have to enjoy their tomatoes since they won’t be eating any of those berries this year.
JerzeeTomato 