Heirloom Tomatoes

Tomatoes are the most widely grown fruit in US home gardens. Proponents of heirloom tomatoes say they taste better than hybrids. I’ve tasted some mighty good hybrids, but then again I remember my “first time” with ‘Prudens Purple’.



Reif Red Heart


I define an heirloom as a variety that can reproduce from saved seed and that existed before World War II. Hybrid tomatoes are bred for production and disease resistance first and then flavor. You can not save their seeds as they will not reproduce true to type.

The best selling heirloom tomato is ‘Brandywine’ and it is now offered by most mainstream catalogues. The fruit is a dark pink and the leaves look more like potato leaves.

Brandywine


Unfortunately, so many individuals got involved in saving seeds from this variety that inferior strains came onto the market. Some ‘Brandywine’ tomatoes can taste pretty bland. Furthermore, it has not been a good producer for me and it is late season. I offer it because customers ask for it, but I would also recommend ‘Pruden’s Purple‘ for the northern grower, as it ripens a week or two earlier than ‘Brandywine’ with similar flavor.

Last summer I trialed all kinds of heirloom tomatoes, but the cool wet season topped off by by late blight thwarted most of my efforts.

My customers tend to be enthusiastic gardeners, so I will offer a good selection of heirloom tomatoes again. Among those that I will also definitely grow for myself are the following:

‘Moskvich’ - A really early (60 days) indeterminate, tolerant of cooler weather and with promised good flavor for such an early tomato. Most heirlooms tend to ripen late for my short season.

‘Earl of Edgecomb’ - This is an orange tomato with both “excellent yield and exceptional flavor .” It is an heirloom from New Zealand that matures at 73 days.

‘Cherokee Purple’ - A lot of serious tomato growers pick this one as having the best flavor. It’s on the late side, so I will try to put some good healthy plants in the ground.

I’m not a purist, and my garden will have just as many hybrid tomatoes as heirlooms. I grow the heirlooms more out of curiosity and for fun, hoping I’ll find a winner. The hybrids are the backbone of my tomato garden. Here is a list of other heirloom varieties I will be growing to sell.


Aunt Ginny’s Purple
Black Krim
Burpee Gloriana
Cabot
Cosmonaut Volkov
Early Rouge
Glacier
Kellogg's Breakfast
Kimberly
Koralik
Opalka
Oregon Spring
Pink Brandywine
Prudens Purple
Red Penna
Reif red heart
Siletz
Stupice
Sweet Home
Urban Beef Steak

Tomatoes

At Amanda’s Greenhouse we offer more than 50 varieties of tomatoes and in recent years the two best sellers have been ‘Big Beef’ and ‘Sungold’. I prefer ‘Sun Sugar’ more than ‘Sun Gold’. It is sweeter and still has enough of that tomato flavor to make it my favorite of them all (until my next “favorite” comes along. )

Here is the “tomato house” early last year.



Just about any full-sized vine-ripened tomato makes me happy, as they all taste 100 percent better than anything you can buy during the winter. I always try to offer plenty of early varieties so that all gardeners will have the opportunity to have some kind of tomato harvest, no matter what happens with the growing conditions.



Besides the popular ‘Early Girl’ I offer ‘New Girl’ which is very close to the same maturity date, but reviewers report better flavor and more disease resistance.

Earlier yet is ‘Stupice’, an early heirloom tomato with 2 - 3 inch fruits which also has good flavor. ‘Cosmonaut Volkov’ is a Russian heirloom that matures at 65 days and is quite a bit larger than ‘Stupice’. This one grows well in containers. Other early varieties are ‘Polfast’, ‘Applause’, ‘Polbig’ and ‘Legend’.

‘Celebrity’, ‘Jet Star’, ‘Big Beef’ and ‘Better Boy’ are among the popular midseason tomatoes.

When I moved to Cabot more than 20 years ago I bought a Canadian heirloom from Veseys for the name, ‘Cabot.’ It turned out to be a heavy and early producer. They dropped it from their line and the only place I can find it now is Sand Hill Preservation Center, a wonderful operation that specializes in heirloom seeds and poultry.

The idea of green or black or white tomatoes does not float my boat, but I will offer ‘Aunt Ginny’s Purple’ for its “....early - excellent yield of deep pink 1 - 2 lb beefsteaks with excellent taste. And I like the sound of ‘Reif Red Heart’ which promises “...large perfect red hearts around one pound ... super taste.”

Last year late blight found its way to my town and cut short the tomato yield, but an heirloom cherry tomato, ‘Black Cherry’, continued to yield for quite a while. The blight did in most of my other heirlooms, but that didn’t stop me from ordering 20+ varieties to try this year.

I’ll write about heirloom tomatoes in my next blog entry. The seeds are arriving here and very soon the gro-lights will be turned on in my living room.

TOMATOES - Late Blight

Tomato growers in the Northeast had a hard time last summer. Not only was our spring colder than normal, we had record rainfall. Tomatoes are natives of South America and they didn’t appreciate these growing conditions. To top it all off ... along came late blight which thrives with cooler, wetter weather.





My heirloom tomatoes were the first to bite the dust, although “black cherry,” which is much better than it sounds, continued to yield for a long time.


This disease started from infected seedlings grown in the south that were shipped to big box stores in the north.


The strain which caused last summer’s problem was the same strain that caused the Irish potato famine in the 1840’s. The blight releases wind-blown spores, and eventually most of us were hit, regardless of where we purchased our plants. Of course anyone reading this blog would only shop at locally -owned greenhouses, right?




KNOWING and PREVENTING Late Blight


For starters, if any of the diseased material ended up in your compost, definitely don’t use that near your tomatoes.


If you grow potatoes, don’t used saved potatoes as seed potatoes. certified clean.


Lesions on leaves will cross the center vein of the leaf.





Classic symptoms are large (at least nickel-sized) olive-green to brown spots on leaves with slightly fuzzy white fungal growth on the underside. Lesions on leaves will cross the center vein of the leaf.





Keep an eye on the foliage and remove and destroy anything that looks suspicious.


I will be planting more tomatoes in the greenhouse this summer. I have read that keeping water off the foliage slows the development of late blight. Home gardeners could try more potted tomatoes in spots under cover that get the sun.


‘Legend’ and ‘Juliette’ are both varieties that are said to have some resistance to this blight, so I will grow them as back-up. However the only thing I remember about ‘Juliette,’ which is a large cherry/grape type, is that the skin was really tough.


I’m almost finished with all my seed ordering and the next time I write I will list the tomatoes I am growing for customers and explain why I have picked those varieties.

2010 Resolutions and Ramblings

People often ask me what I do during the winter. I burrow in here, keep the wood stove going and spend way too much time on the computer. To help with bills I sell vintage clothing and accessories on eBay and Etsy. This gives me an excuse to get out there and hunt for treasures, one of my favorite pastimes

http://www.etsy.com/shop/VintagefromVermont

When you are on the computer a lot you make a whole new community of friends. I am a member of the Vintage Fashion Guild and I spend lots of time “over there” learning from my colleagues and sharing information and discoveries.

I also have an online group of gardening friends and am on several lists including Freecycle, AHS members (American Hemerocallis Society) , and one for folks who share a health issue with me.

I don’t “tweet” and can barely understand Facebook. Ultimately it is my great “real life” friends here in central Vermont who mean the most to me and who come first.

I have made two new year’s resolutions which may seem counterintuitive. 1) Get back to this blog and 2) Stay away from the computer for at least one hour after I get up in the morning.



Of course I am also perusing seed and plant catalogs and most of my orders are placed.

I buy in quite a lot started of seedlings (plugs)



Often the cost of a plug is just pennies more than the cost of the seed. The uniformity, easy of transplant and savings in fuel makes the additional cost well worth it.

I also start a lot of my plants under lights in the living room. Writing this blog makes me realize just how soon that process will begin.

New Annuals from Seed - Award Winners for 2010

Every year new garden seed varieties are named “All American Selections” because (supposedly/hopefully) they have superior garden performance in impartial trials across north America. I always try to offer all of the new AAS plants to customers.

For 2010 four flowers have been selected as the top new varieties and I will be growing all of them.

Gaillardia ‘Mesa Yellow’ is the first hybrid blanket flower on the market. It is bred for prolific flowering and compact growth with three inch blooms. Gaillardia burgundy overwinters in my gardens, so I have to wonder if this will be a perennial as well. I like the burgundy gaillardia, but it does demand considerable deadheading.



Snapdragon ‘Twinny Peach’ is a double flowered shorter snap (to 12 inches) with a blend of pink tones. The photos make me think of the bloom on stocks. I love the taller snaps for cutting and to me this is more of a novelty plant, albeit very pretty.



Viola ‘Endurio Sky Blue Martien’ (yes, that spelling is correct) was selected “... for its unique spreading/mounding and vigorous garden performance.” It is recommended for edging garden beds, window boxes and hanging baskets.



Zinnia ‘Zahara Starlight Rose’ is the last of the honorees and the one variety I am really excited to try. I have a hard time with zinnias and powdery mildew, and this one supposedly has good resistance. With a 2.5 inch bloom it should be a pretty flower for smaller bouquets as it is 12 - 14 “ high.

Houston - We have had Frosts - What is Blooming Now

Above is "iron weed" or veronia noveboracensis. I don't remember where I got this plant and I always forget about it until the fall when I am desperate for cut flowers and this one is perfect. The dark blue/violet goes nicely with mums and it is long lasting in bouquets.


Summer phlox can be problematic. Deer find it tasty and some years powdery mildew takes it down. This particular phlox is 'Laura' and it seems to be both disease resistant and long lasting in bouquets - and ... very fragrant.




Cimicifuga (white plumed flowers above in foreground) provide a dramatic fall statement. The common name is 'bugbane'. The horticultural folks have decided to reclassify the plant and now it is 'Actaea racemosa', but I finally got comfortable pronouncing cimicifuga - and so it will remain at Amanda's Greenhouse and Perennials. I don't care for the species as it spreads and becomes rather sparse, but cimicifuga ramosa atropurpurea forms a huge vase-shaped specimen plant that always delivers in September and October.


Joe Pye Weed (Eupatorium purpreum) is another guaranteed fall bloomer. It's a "weed" only in the sense that it is a wild plant in north America. It's an OK cut flower and I'm told it can be dried. 'Little Joe' is a new shorter introduction, and I'll be able to report next year on how well it does, as the native Joe Pye can easily be 6 feet tall.




Step away very slowly from this plant, (macleaya cordata or 'plume poppy'.) It is mightily invasive. I might recommend it for the edge of a pond or background in a very wild setting, as it really is lovely in its own overbearing way. I unknowingly planted it among other perennials in a row and have been fighting it back the last ten years. Right now a woodchuck has a happy home in its center. (Plant seen above and below).











I love artemesia lactiflora (white mugwort) for its late blooms and the fact that it is non-invasive, unlike many other artemesias.


Above is sanguisorba canadensis, another very late bloomer that I use extensively in my fall bouquets. The common name is 'Canadian burnet' and when not blooming it has pretty serrated foliage. This one is vigorous, but controllable.

Now I have to figure out how to make my photographs larger for this blog. And I am already ordering for next year!

MUM's the Word ....

September is peeking around the corner and we are overwhelmed with mums.



I must have had a few senior moments when I was ordering the cuttings last spring, because we have about 500 more than usual ... AND it is a bad year for mums. The early cold weather made them set their buds early. We are selling many of them for $3.50 each or 5/$15. The darned pots cost us 50 cents each!

Four greenhouses are filled, as well as any available landscape fabric on the ground.



We buy rooted mum cuttings in late May and into June. They get planted and established in 4 inch pots and then as the greenhouses clear out of annuals we start bumping the mums up into larger pots.

There’s constant watering, pinching and shaping, and fertilizing involved, so it’s probably not worth the effort. But it also seems a shame to have those greenhouses empty when they could be working.



The only true perennial mum around here is Chrysanthemum rubellum ‘Clara Curtis’.



It’s pleasant enough and does provide late summer flowers, but it spreads a bit too fast and tends to bloom unevenly for me.

Blooms of Bressingham have introduced the Igloo series of mums, with a hardiness rating of 5. I chose “Rosy Igloo” because the photo looked like a reddish rust orange, a color which has been popular with our customers in the fall.


The actual bloom here is more of a washed out copper from my perspective and they have disappointed me..



If this mum does overwinter, the trick is to pinch it back right up to July 4 for a bushier fall bloom. We have some in the ground so they will be tested here. It’s possible that they will pick up more color from being planted in “real” soil. If they survive the winter I may try the yello Igloo next year.

Great Flowers - Poor Sellers

Oh fickle customers - they do seem to snap up whatever is blooming in the six-packs in the spring, and bypass the “starts” that are still green. I am at fault too, as I should whip up some nice POP (point of purchase) posters to show folks what they will be missing. Every year I offer some “hard-to-find” annuals, and every year I end up with most of them still on the shelves by mid-summer.

For example, blue didiscus (below.) It’s kind of like a smaller version of the white queen anne’s lace, very pretty as a filler in summer bouquets.



Lavatera comes in various shades of pink and a shorter white version and once it starts blooming it is loaded with hibiscus like flowers and makes for a great cut flower. This time of year I am cutting lavatera every day.



Sanvitalia procumbens ("creeping zinnia") is great for hot dry areas.



Tithonia (“Mexican Sunflower”) is a nice splash of color for the summer garden. The stems are hollow and it is not good for bouquets, but it is a show stopper.



While rudbeckia (black-eyed susan) can be a fine perennial (I think the best is 'goldsturm'), there are also many nice rudbeckias that I grow as annuals, including ‘Indian Summer’, ‘Prairie Sun,’ ‘Tiger Eye,’ and the ‘Toto’ series. Next year I will offer ‘Cherry Brandy,’ the first red-flowered black-eyed susan grown from seeds.



I have always thought it would be a good idea to have a “Gourmet Corner” in one greenhouse for the hard-to-find flowers. Maybe This will happen "next year”?

More Bouquets for Farmers' Market

I thought it would be fun to take various containers and use them as vases for my flowers for farmers’ market. I chose an old tea pot that had a crack, so it couldn’t be used for tea; a sweet pottery vase; a little brass vase; and an older planter with a chip, among other things.

They were meant to be whimsical and quirky, but I sold them all right away to one person to be used for a wedding! I don’t think they even noticed the containers - she just liked the flowers... and at $7 a bouquet, it was a bargain. (Sorry, the second photo should have been rotated one more time...)

Wedding Flowers for a Friend

One of my best friends is also an employe of 14 years, Rose Bothfeld. Her son, Raymon, got married this weekend and I volunteered to make the table bouquets for the wedding as a gift. It turned out they needed 22 bouquets. Rose and I picked flowers Thursday evening at a friend’s flower farm to supplement what I could provide from my gardens.

I am most comfortable making bouquets with oasis, as compared to “loose” bouquets. It’s really easy and most florist are fine with selling you a few containers and a brick of oasis. I take the round container, place in a hunk of oasis and then moisten it thoroughly with water with preservative.




Then I usually make a general foundation of foliage. Astilbe and peony leaves work great for this, but I also use hosta, amsonia and the dark leaves of ninebark.




I can do this a day or two before the actual bouquets get done. One nice thing about giving the flowers as a gift is that I was told any color combination was fine. So some tables got blue bouquets, while others got shades of yellow with ornamental grass and many just got wild mixes.

They came out really nicely and I was proud to deliver them Saturday afternoon. The first photo is the bottom layer of the truck.












The bridegroom is a farmer and he met me at the house in soiled clothes (“I still have to tie up the cows”). He had three hours until the wedding and he said his tux was ready.

This was a real country wedding with potluck dishes and BYO drinks. And then there was this - a Vermont wedding really needs a pig roast!