First Tomato of 2012 and Other Vegetable News

One of the happiest days of the year has arrived--the first tomato has ripened in my garden!

It is a Sakharnyi Pudovichok variety that I grew from seed obtained through Tatiana's Tomatobase this spring. She indicates that it is a "Russian commercial variety introduced in 2006 by Russian commercial vendor 'Sibirskiy Sad'."

I probably should have picked it yesterday, as it's a little soft today, with a few holes where some critters took samples.

At 256 grams, it is a BIG tomato.


































Not to be outdone, 2011's first tomato of the year, a Mortgage Lifter, grown in a pot at the side of the house, is pulling in a close second. I picked it today so it wouldn't get "sampled" but I probably won't slice it until tomorrow.

It's smaller, 149 grams, but still a good size for a container grown plant. And I know from last year that it will have excellent flavour.

This was the first tomato plant I've ever grown from seeds that I saved myself (as opposed to buying the seeds from someone else.)




















The other 14 tomato plants (yes, I did get carried away) are growing like weeds.

Most of them are at least 6' tall now, and some I'm trying to train to grow horizontally (just so I can spend less time on a ladder.)

I mostly grow indeterminate heirloom tomatoes. Indeterminate means that they keep growing and producing tomatoes right up until frost. Determinate tomatoes grow, set a big batch of fruit, and then stop. I like indeterminate because a) I get a kick out of growing oversize plants and b) I like to have fresh tomatoes for as long as possible. If I were interested in canning them I would prefer determinate tomatoes so I would be able to do them all up at once.

The heirloom tomatoes tend to grow bigger than the modern hybrids as well, because the modern hybrids have been bred to grow for ease of commercial production--fields full of 8' tall plants would be unwieldy on a commercial scale.

In other vegetable news, the zucchini are having a rough time. One zucchini plant should be more than enough for all our needs, but I put in three plants because I know I have a problem with striped cucumber beetle (an evil, disease carrying creature.)  Sure enough, two of the plants are on their last legs already, after having produced one mature zucchini each. Hopefully number three will remain resistant long enough for us to have a few nice stirfries...

Zucchini #3 on the left in the top picture and front and centre in the bottom picture. Zucchini #2 on the right, after succumbing to the diseases spread by the evil Striped Cucumber Beetle.

In happier news, the garlic harvest has cured and it's pretty darn fantastic.

Hopefully this will last us for most of the winter. I'll use several heads from this as "seed" in October.

And here are a few shots of the front garden (these don't go with the title of this post, but if I don't put them up now it will suddenly be next weekend before I get to it, and it will all look different.)

The plantings in containers are really coming into their own now. Coleus 'wasabi' (the lime leaves you see in the planter) grows like it's on steroids. It was a new introduction for this year (I first saw it at the Garden Making magazine booth at Canada Blooms) and it's certainly a plant that you gives you your money's worth. I've pinched it back several times to keep it from overwhelming the rest of the garden.

Another new plant for me this season was the "potunia" petunia you see in this picture (the peach/orange flower hanging over the left edge of the pot.) The tag said it would produce mounds of blooms on a compact plant, with no need for deadheading--and it's delivered! I was so impressed with how it started off the season that I purchased 3 more (in purple and red) for the planter on the side of the house. A definite improvement on the old cultivars that would get leggy and require constant deadheading.

The liatris (the purple flower spikes) has been very happy this year. I've had to create a set of stick braces to keep it from reaching out and grabbing passing pedestrians. The bees love it.

There's a lot going on in the front garden...

While the back, home to vegetables in the sunny parts, and more cool foliage plants in the shady parts, is a bit calmer.

Seed Starting Update

My little seed-starting experiment is humming along nicely. Maybe a bit too well, actually. I started my first batch of tomatoes ("Mortgage Lifter") on March 12th. Let's just say they've been enthusiastic growers...

Tomato "Mortgage Lifter"

These tomatoes are close to a foot high. Today is April 19th. I don't think I have to wait until the Victoria Day weekend to plant them out, but given the fact that we had snow squalls here on Saturday, it's not going to be any too soon. Thankfully, my father was kind enough to build me a cold frame a couple weeks ago, so I should be able to transfer them out there shortly.

Even though they're pretty huge, all of the tomatoes are healthy looking, and seem to be developing good strong stems. I usually put an oscillating fan on them for an hour or more every day, to help develop strength in the stems (apparently the motion of bending back and forth in the wind stimulates them so that they grow sturdier stalks.)

Here's a shot of my entire operation:

 The reason the light stand is encased in snow fencing?

Pepper aka Plant-eating-cat

Her name is Pepper. She thinks plants of all kinds are delicious.

Snow fencing seemed like a good idea, and so far it's working. A little bit of a pain every night when I water and check in on everything, but at least the plants are all in tact.

I have another variety of tomato growing--Bloody Butcher--which I started on March 19th. They're a little more manageable in size.

Tomato "Bloody Butcher"

My Aunt Mollys' Ground Cherries (or Physalis  pruinosa) is coming along ok. They're supposed to (according to the websites I read) grow like tomatoes, but I'm finding that they're a lot slower growing. I planted them on March 19th, just like the Bloody Butcher tomatoes, and they're so much smaller I haven't even transplanted them up to individual pots yet.

'Physalis pruinosa'  or Ground Cherries

And lastly, I have some Clematis 'Radar Love' going, along with some Turkey Grass.

Clematis 'Radar Love' on the left, Turkey Grass

on the right.

I had a bit of excitement the other night when one of the shop lights I had just purchased (to replace one of the original set that my friend gave me with the light stand) started smoking. I quickly unplugged it, check to see that the light tube was in properly, and plugged it in again. This time it started smoking from the other end! So that one's going back to Home Depot (sorry HD, I keep trying your lighting products and I keep having problems--smoke coming out of a fixture freaks me out.) I picked up another shop light at Lowe's the other night and it seems to be doing much better (looks to be built a bit sturdier too.)

I bought new flourescent tubes too, after reading what Ken Brown had to say about which kinds were best (hint: cheap works just fine, thank you). 

The other interesting thing I learned was that playing with tomato plants doesn't agree with my skin. I couldn't figure out why the backs of my hands were so itchy and had little bumps on them, until I did my nightly watering & check-up and figured it out.

It's a small price to pay for the fun of watching things grow (and it's a good thing I have this to play with inside, as someone seems to have forgotten to tell mother nature to knock off the snow!)