Waiting...

Tomato Season, the main reason I garden.  I have saved seeds from the very best tomatoes for over 40 years effectively creating my own variety of tomatoes.  The darker the better for me, all the more flavor and juicy that I like so much.  My goal each year is to have a ripe tomato by the forth of July and this year I will beat that by 2 weeks!  Global warming anyone?  Yes, it is good for me (so far) but wrecking havoc in other parts of the world, from too much rain to no rain at all and we are getting water from the very bowels of this earth!  I wonder what that will do?
Interesting this new Pope and his scolding us like the wayward children we have become!  Unappreciative and dirtying our own home.  Yes, we are.  and you know there will be a price!
Nevertheless I am waiting with anticipation! Two, because I am a glutton.  Yes, I will eat two Bacon, Lettuce and Tomato Sandwiches! Oh how daring I am!

The Last Supper!

Today is Thursday and just last Sunday it was 80 degrees in Eugene, Oregon!  This is way unusual and beginning the Monday after it was 80 degrees, it has been raining every sense.  More like "normal".  The good news is that I found hidden deep in foliage, a nice big pink tomato!  From saved and sent seeds from Germany! Thank you, Christine!  So, off I dash to the store and get some great bacon and made my "Last"  BLT of the season!  Unlike the first BLT, where I know there will be many more, this last one is eaten with a bit of sadness, knowing there won't be more for a whole other Season!  But, man I am telling you, it was good!

 this is all I do when saving seeds, nothing complicated.

Nothing Better!

I think I live for these!  This was my first BLT of the season and there will be many more to come!

More tomato than bacon but the bacon was special ordered and arrived by mail from the midwest!

These sandwiches only work with home grown tomatoes, not the store bought kind.

This would have made a meal for four!  but I ate it all myself!

My second tomato of the season!  Grown in a 10 gallon bucket from saved seeds.

Sliced 1/2" thick!  perfect!

Not Available!

Have you had a real tomato recently?  If you don't grow them yourself they are difficult to find.
This time of year my garden is full of them, enough to give to neighbors with plenty left over for the food dryer.  These can never be commercial tomatoes. They have a short shelf life once picked and are the very best eaten right out of the garden.  I often cut a 3/4" slab from the center of the tomato and the rest goes to the dryer!  Nothing better than a BLT or a hamburger with a thick slice of tomato!  I experimented this year and grew some in 7 gallon pots and they produced well but offered fewer tomatoes.  Worth a try if you have limited space.  The advantage of growing your own garden is this is the only way to get these tomatoes and you know what is in them.  We eat far more poisons and pesticides and GMOs than we would care to know about.

Harvest Time

This is the time of year my garden turns into a jungle and produces more than we can eat.  I feel like a millionaire and the Powerball isn't until tonight!  Heirloom tomatoes, especially Cherokee Purple and Black Krim simply cannot be bought.  They have a shelf life from perfect ripeness to way too mushy of just three days.  No tomato has the flavor and texture and aroma that can replace the homegrown.
I am popular with the neighbors this time of yer and wen I have too many to give away I get the dryer out.  Today I sliced and diced and cut up about 25 pounds of tomatoes, what it takes to fill the dryer.

Five Seasons!

It has been almost five years since I discovered the cancer.  That is five years added to my perfecting the best tomato!  Tomatoes are self pollinating but they will also cross pollinate so as you plant different varieties close together the seeds saved will eventually become another variety or at least a variation.  I only save seeds from the heirloom dark varieties, some Japanese varieties, the darker the better.  I like Cherokee Purple and Black Krim probably the best.  They are packed full of flavor and have a soft juicy pulp.  Of course my favorite sandwich is a BLT but it is hard to beat a grilled hamburger with a 1/2" thick slice of tomato the size of the bun!  I can pick them every day now, plenty to eat and give away but not quite enough to get the dryer out.  Soon enough!
Here is what I picked from the garden this morning!

You say "Tomato", I say

 Well over a hundred of these flowers on the Trumpet Vine!

This one is grown in a six gallon pot!

You gotta be a millionaire or do it yourself! 

Tomato!  Oh man, I feel rich this time of year!  My house is painted!  I am done with the spraying part anyway and have the white trim to go.  I am in no hurry and will do it one section at a time, the same way I got the house painted.  I had to look at this job in bits and pieces because the whole project would have become overwhelming.  I would just say to myself, "today I just have to paint one wall" and eventually I met myself at the beginning where I began.

Trumpet Vine Entry to my garden

This one might get eaten today!

I spend every morning in my garden, a little weeding every day and that too does not become a big job.  I think this year will be a bumper year for the garden.  We had a pretty nice Spring and I have been eating tomatoes since June 25th, the earliest ever.  Now the "Big Ones" are ripening!  These are the one pounders from all varieties:  Black Krim, Cherokee Purple, my two favorites, and Lemon Boy, Brandy Wine and others that I have forgotten their names.  I save the seeds from season to season and each year they get bigger and better and healthier. I can't imagine a summer without homegrown tomatoes and I wonder how we got fooled into accepting store bought tomatoes?

 Getting Bigger every day!

 My garden pool where I go skinny dipping!

Between Raindrops

 The photo I take often because it changes so fast!

 Pot is made from steel and covered in slate: snap peas.

 Snap peas grown in a pot I made.

 These are experimental, grown in 18" sections of PVC pipe, easy to water and control weeds, my first tomatoes were on these plants.

 Never before this early!

 Nice, healthy tomato plant!

Paths from bark mulch, lots of metal

 Copper panel

Bridge to house side. Pollen tassels are everywhere!

 Row of tomatoes started from seed saved from my best tomatoes from last year.

We had the most beautiful first week in May, nice and warm and even hitting 80 degrees.  For the first time ever I tilled my garden in April and it got off to a great start.  Since then it has been raining every day and seems more like coastal weather, rainy and windy and cold.  The flowers get the worst of this, the vegetables go into hibernation and the tomatoes go into shock.  It might be the end of June before they recuperate. I would hate to be a farmer.  They must be the consummate gamblers.  Too hot, too wet, too cold, too dry!

 My Slate Walled Greenhouse

 IN the garden

These are some photos I took this morning between rain showers.

 My shop and Garden Entry with Trumpet Vine

 My little pool, too cold for skinny dipping!

My Baby Daughter

She should be getting frequent flyer miles.  She is a lawyer now, living and working in Washington D C but when she gets the chance, flies here and there, to visit with us, off to California for a wedding (not hers!) or to Texas to visit her sister.  My family is scattered over the Country, a result of this lousy economy.  You go where the work is.  They are getting older and as the mirror attests, so am I.
   My daughters are fearless, not afraid to tackle new things, not afraid to move away to where the action is, seemingly not afraid in this scary world at all.  They are both hard workers and I am lucky that they choose to spend some of their money on a visit to me!  It is expensive to fly across the country and that money could be going for a new car or an ipad or whatnot.
   My youngest daughter likes to cook and maybe should have gone to a culinary school.  Instead she went to Law School and wants to represent the down and out, woman's rights issues, immigration issues and all low paying legal forums.  She is not a corporate attorney.Not a great way to get rich but doing what matters to her.
   I am the lucky recipient of her cooking skills and she always raids the garden while here to see what is available. The tomatoes are coming on fast now and some peppers were ready so we had Chili Rellenoes, one of my all time favorite meals.  On a different day I made her a Bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich the meal of Kings, if they were so lucky!  I always feel like a millionaire this time of year, the garden provides so much in abundance!  I have lost the photos of these wonderful meals but when able I will post them.

The Perfect Tomato

I am sometimes asked how I get my tomato plants to be over seven feet tall and what is the secret to the lush growth and dark rich fruit of my plants.  I will tell you everything I know.
   It begins will soil preparation as you might suspect and I have been working on my soil for over forty years.
Mine is a mid-sized plot for a city garden, about 40' x 50' and raised with concrete curbing about 18" higher than the surrounding area.  It is all pretty much one big raised bed.  Everything I have done with this soil could be done on a smaller scale.  Tomatoes will grow in a five gallon bucket.
   Natural fertilizers don't leach out like chemical fertilizers and you can add different ingredients in alternating years and their total effect will accumulate.  Your soil will get better and better.  My soil was a fine clay, almost potter's quality when I began and that is why I raised the garden bed eighteen inches.  Over the years I have had grass clippings and leaves two feet deep over the entire garden.  It all composts down to almost nothing when Spring arrives.  One year I will add about six yards of manure spread over the garden in the fall and the next year I will add the expensive stuff.  Bone meal, cotton seed meal, kelp meal and Epsom salts, about ten pounds each dusted over the entire area.  If you use a lot of compost like I do you probably need to add agricultural gypsum or lime to adjust the PH of your soil.  I add about fifty pounds every other year.  It has taken me years to get nice soil but now the top two feet anyway is like potting soil.
    I start my own seeds from the very best tomatoes of the year before.  This is so easy to do and I get almost 100% germination.  I scoop out with a spoon the seeds and jelly of the tomato and press between two pieces of paper towel and place these sheets in my pantry.  When early Spring is approaching, about mid-March I cut off the seeds and a bit of paper towel and plant these in little pots in my greenhouse.  You can also begin seeds on top of your water heater.  They love the warmth.  After they are an inch or two tall place them in full sun near a Southern window.
    Tomatoes are vigorous growers and thrive on being transplanted.  Mine are transplanted three times in the greenhouse before going into the garden.  Each time this is done, always into a bigger pot, bury half the plant into the new soil, always deeper.  The fine hairs along the stem become roots and the tomato will become stronger and stronger.
   When the soil is warm enough in the garden for the final transplanting, again bury half the plant no matter how big it is.  I have had some very large plants that required a post hole digger to dig the holes.  I don't pick off the leaves, just bury half the plant!
    Tomatoes require consistent deep watering.  If allowed their root system is as large as the plant itself, seven feet up and seven feet down!  I water mine twice a week, always in the morning, about three hours each time.  Tomatoes hate going to bed wet.  Never water in the late afternoon!
    Tomatoes develop suckers easily, little shoots in the "Y" between the main stalk and a branch and these should be pinched out to allow all the energy into the main plant.  Nice green foliage is pretty but you want the tomatoes!
   More tomato plants are sold in nurseries to home gardeners than any other vegetable and it is no wonder. Nothing beats the smell and taste and texture of a sun ripened tomato.  In a store you might be lucky enough to find two varieties, neither any good.  At a local nursery you will find many more, hundreds are available.

Garden is In!

Once my garden is plotted and planed and tilled and prepped the planting can begin.  Tomatoes that have been in the green house for a couple months are sensitive to the full sun and must be shaded for a few days to allow them the strength to face the full sun.  I have seen beautiful green plants turn pale and fry in an early Spring sun.
   It is a lot of bending and digging and working with my hands and my whole body aches!  But my garden is in and by May 13th, a full two weeks earlier than last year and they are not predicting the torrential Spring Rains we had last year.  This appears, so far, to be a great Tomato Season, much like it was three years ago when I got tomatoes by the wheel barrel load.  Wouldn't that be nice?  Being a farmer is a bit like going to Reno, a gamble every time.  The hot weather crops will do well or the cold weather crops, you can't have it both ways.
I plant both and after doing all I can to ensure a great season, pretty much hope for the best.
   I have tried corn again this season although last year it was pretty pathetic and didn't produce much.  In a good year it is my second favorite vegetable from the garden, next to my tomatoes which will always be King with me.  Corn needs to be "knee high by the Forth of July" here in Oregon to produce any yield at all.  In a good year you would swear the corn was grown in sugar!  Even bought from a local farmer it is just not the same as picked fresh from the garden.  Nothing is actually.  We have all had fresh home grown tomatoes and know there is no comparison to what you can buy from the store but carrots are the same way, they are supposed to be bursting with flavor!  Head lettuce has developed a bad reputation simply because the variety you get from the store has no flavor, but it shouldn't be that way.  A bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich, that wonderful lunch of kings should always be made from fresh head lettuce right out of the garden.
   I could go on and on about my tomatoes!  I  baby them from the beginning, saving the seeds from year to year and planting the dark, almost black heirloom varieties which can grow over seven feet tall.  Oh, I plant the big red ones too, the brandy wines and beef stakes and huge two pound yellow ones, but the deep red, purplish black have the most flavor and I plant most of these.  Different colors are different flavors and are great in salads and any kind of cooking but my very favorite is dried tomatoes, dried to the point of potato chips.  These can be rehydrated with olive oil and a balsam vinegar or added to soups but my very favorite is a simple tomato chip with a bit of cheese on a cracker.  It is a burst of flavor like you wouldn't believe!  Store bought dried tomatoes are not the same because they use the same flavorless varieties sold in the stores.
   So, what is in my garden this year?   Here is the list:

                                                         25 Tomato Plants
                                                         short row of potatoes (same family as tomatoes!)
                                                         Peppers, about 20 plants
                                                         Green Beans
                                                         Cabbage
                                                         Broccoli
                                                         Brussel Sprouts
                                                         Carrots
                                                         Lettuce (several varieties)
                                                         Leeks, Onions and Green Onions
                                                         Cucumbers, three varieties
                                                         Zucchini, Yellow Crook Neck
                                                         Two varieties of Winter Squash
                                                         and here and there, like a painter gone mad, Sun Flowers!

There are actually flowers all over, everywhere in my garden, some in the ground along the paths and others in pots at the Garden Entry and at the very back of my garden.  I probably have 30 five gallon sized flower pots scattered here and there in and around my garden, some on the ground and others sitting proudly seven feet in the air.  My garden is my best canvas and like any good artist I will intend your vision, your experience while there.
    Soil preparation was the earlier blog if you missed it.


                                             

Something about Dirt

Finally Spring has arrived bringing daytime temperatures of close to eighty degrees f and night time above 45 degrees, so close to being over 50 degrees that magical number that tomatoes like so much.  It is the weather at night that is most important to tomatoes.
   My main organic garden area is surrounded with an eighteen inch curb of concrete like one big 50 foot by sixty foot raised bed and I have been preparing it for planting.  This is a process that I alternate from year to year, one year adding about eight yards of cow manure and other compost layered over the top and dug into the soil and the next year adding the expensive nutrients and minerals in the form of cotton seed meal, epsom salts, blood meal, bone meal and kept meal in addition to a healthy dose of dolomite lime.
   I always begin with the lawn mower, running it over the entire area, chopping down the weeds and winter broccoli and whatever might be growing where I want to begin with nothing.  Each year my garden begins with a clean slate, like my blank canvas.  The paths are never in the same place and I never plant the same plants in the same place.  I then rototil the entire area several times, back and forth and diagonally, maybe in circles even.  No method so far but I am thinking.  In my mind's eye I am the sun crossing the horizon or I am shade at the fence line or I am the plant and wondering who my companion might be.  Or I might be a garden guest and I begin to entertain interesting pathways to investigate this garden.
   After the garden is tilled by not designated in any way I take a break and just pretty much look around.  I have worked this soil for over 40 years.  I have hauled in dump truck loads of grass clippings and the ground up debris from fallen trees brought free to me from the City workers.  Over the years I have added tons of sand and hundred of yards of manure from the local farmers (actually their cows!).  I have added rock phosphate and vermiculite and mushroom compost and mint and bark mulch.  Finally, after 40 years I have pretty good soil.  It is dark and rich, has a good smell, the worms like it and it falls apart in your hands. After all of these years it is only about 18 inches deep and then you will find clay.  Not sort of clay but real clay, almost potter's quality, blue and like plastic.  At least my plants get a good start before their roots discover reality.
    So then I lay out the paths taking a flat shovel and scooping as I walk a meandering path, like a snake through my garden.  Once the beds are designated I sprinkle them with the essential earth nutrients, this year
kelp meal, cotton seed, bone meal, epsom salts and a dusting of lime.  Then I til all of this in again creating a smorgasboard of nutrients  for for the plantings to come.  Then, of course I have to redo the paths but this time I can find them.  Today I will get a truck load of fermented mint leaves and layer the paths about 3 inches thick.  This smells nice, keeps the weeds out, the mud off the shoes and adds to the garden next year when it will be all turned over again.
    Earlier this year, between rain storms it seems, I had already prepared and planted a small section of potatoes, carrots, broccoli, onions and lettuce.  Now I can plant the rest of my garden.  I have discovered places for 24 tomato plants!  All heirlooms and from seeds from the year before.  I also will try again for some corn which didn't do well last year.  And cucumbers, peppers, several squashes, eggplants and maybe another tomato!
   Last year we had a rainy Spring and I didn't get the garden in until the end of May.  This year I will gain a critical three weeks and predict a great tomato season!  I love my garden.  I just like playing in the dirt.

Who is in Russia?

   I wonder sometimes who is clicking on these posts, who is visiting me?  The "stats page" tells me where and sometimes even how they found me but it never tells me who.
   Yesterday, RUSSIA!  How cool is that?  Over 30 "hits" from Russia!  But not one message, no comments, just "hits".  I wonder about their Internet, can they surf but have a fear of being found out, a fear of their opinions?  Hahahaha!  That is so funny, we do too!
  Oh, we don't have secret police.  I don't think anyway, at least not on the street corners yet, although everyone knows that all e-mails are in the ethernet forever and subject to review.
   Sometimes we don't comment because we do not want to go on record, fearful of offending someone, of being misquoted, fear of taking a position, maybe even a fear of being caught on company time!
   I wonder about Russia though and can imagine a whole Junior High School class investigating me, that might account for my 30 "hits".  It can't be the Russian Secret Police.  I don't know anything.  That is why I am always asking questions.  There is no need to torture me, I would just lie.  Tell you anything you want to know.  Make up stories.  Switch sides back and forth in order to confuse you, fall into a Southern Accent and tell you I am from Georgia.  No, not that Georgia, we have one too!
   In fact, we have a lot in common.  The same "Western Expansion" experience except yours was towards the East.  The same abundance in Natural Resources, the same towering fir trees, open spaces, wealth of land.  Huge countries, both of us.
   And we have probably both made mistakes, could have done something different than we did.  We have been allies and enemies, times when we didn't even talk.  Competitors.  Sports or politics, always something.
   McDonald's is there now, the biggest one in the world and I wonder what you must think of us?  How are images made?  How are opinions formed?
   My "Russian Connection" is pretty much limited to tomatoes.  Years ago I found a Siberian Variety, one used to colder nights and it does well in my garden.  No need to torture me, I'll tell you everything I know!
   30 "hits" in one day!  I wonder if it is "Hot Russian Babes"?  I have never seen one but I know about them.
Well, I don't really but I could imagine that I do.  I know there is more to Russia than Vodka and girls and Sputnik.  We use your rockets now!  That is sort of embarrassing.  The United States of America can't afford a single rocket to get us to the Space Station!  Well, that tells a lot about us.  We are going broke!
   Anyway, if you should stop in today, say "hi" and we can talk about tomatoes or art, share adventures and dreams, how to fix the back porch, or even what is for dinner?  Just talk and blog, it doesn't have to be serious.

My Other Blog is HERE

BLT

I had my first bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich yesterday and there is no finer meal.  The season is late this year, about a full month late, but I have had my eye on a particular tomato for this past week.

   Most produce from my garden is picked in the early morning hours, before the heat from the sun and while still crisp from the cool of the night.  Not the perfect tomato.  A midday picking after the fruit has been warmed through, kissed and loved by the sun is best.

   My plants are vibrant now, tall and green and proudly displaying their gifts to me.  The tomatoes are getting big, some turning a bit of color, offering a hint of a bountiful crop.  You can't buy these tomatoes.  There is no relationship between store bought and what can be grown in the home garden.  I have 27 plants, nine varieties, mostly heirloom, some black, some purple, stripped, yellow and red.  Each has its own distinct flavor, subtle or dramatic and you can smell them from 20 feet away.

   I have told you I like to dry them and if the season continues to be good ALL of you can expect a gift of dried tomatoes from me this year!  That's is the advantage of not having too many "followers"!

"Cherokee Purple"

   What I can't send you is a fresh tomato sandwich.  Just a simple one with a slice of cheese and a huge slice of tomato or the "complete meal", the BLT! or maybe a hamburger where the tomato slice is bigger than the hamburger itself?  I wish I could describe this better!  It is a burst of flavor like you wouldn't believe.

   I was so intent on making and eating this sandwich that I forgot the camera!  I forgot to take a picture of it.  But this is just the beginning!  There will be many more and other things to make.  I will keep you posted and if you should ever be near, please stop and visit and you can taste these for yourself.

My whole garden, my shop and what I do is HERE.http://www.ArtWanted.com/slate

Yes, We Have Some Tomatoes!

 My First Tomatoes!

Finally, almost exactly one month late, the first tomatoes are ripening!  I have nine varieties and a total of 27 plants.  Some get only 2' tall and others, over eight feet tall.  Some are Black.

Many are purple, some yellow, orange, and of course, some are red.

   At the moment most are green.  The weather is good now, better than most of the country, low '80's every day, but it took a long time getting here.  One of the coldest, wettest Springs on record.  I lost two plants to early blight and chopped branches off others to try to save them.

   Can you imagine the anxiety in being a farmer?  Too wet, too dry, too cold, too hot, seldom "just right".

   A lot of the tomatoes for the fresh market are grown in greenhouses these days.  They can be grown in Iceland now!

There is something about the warmth from the Sun, how that marries into a tomato to offer the perfect fruit. 

   Tomatoes are related to potatoes and are part of the "deadly nightshade family"!  Such sweetness from a plant thought to be poison!  A native of South America, the world didn't know much about tomatoes until the 19th Century.  I feel sorry for the Kings and Queens that never had a "BLT"!

or just a tomato and cheese sandwich.

   I like the color combination of my different varieties, makes salsa pretty and each color is a different flavor.

August tomatoes are the best.  It is the warmth at night that is important to the tomato.  I am hoping for a late Summer.  The cool Fall evenings can drain the flavor from a good tomato.

Tomatoes ready for the dryer!

   Until I discovered food dehydration and dried tomatoes I canned them all.

   Most commercial dried tomatoes are the same as store-bought tomatoes.  They are grown from a variety designed to ripen all at once and be picked by a machine.  Their genetics are for perfect roundness and firmness.  They are picked green and allowed to turn red in a room full of gas.  They never ripen, just turn red and have the bite of an apple.

   My tomatoes and my dried tomatoes have a full flavor that is difficult to believe.  You can do a million things with dried tomatoes but what I like best is just on a cracker with a piece of cheese and to give them away.

   It is one of those "art things", a gift that can't be bought.

More of my garden is HERE

The Art in a Tomato

 This is from last year but I am hoping that this year will be better!

As many of you know my first love is my garden.  I have a million flowers in my garden but what I am really after is "the perfect tomato"!  There is nothing better than a home grown, sun rippened tomato, just picked off the vine.
   I grow mostly heirloom varieties and start them all from seed.  It never fails to amaze me that from one tiny seed, well nourished and taken care of, so many tomatoes can be picked!

 Be nice and talk to them!

   There are tricks to getting that perfect tomato.  They love to be transplanted and while still young I will do this several times, always into bigger pots and each time deeper and deeper.  All the little hairs along the stems will become roots and that is a key to growing great tomatoes.  The final planting into the garden I will bury half the plant into the ground.  The deeper the better.
   Tomatoes will develop a lot of side shoots, little suckers than need to be clipped off giving more strength to the main vine.  Heirlooms will get tall, over seven feet tall if they are supported and I have ornamental iron all over my garden, very strong supports indeed!
    My garden is organic, pesticide and herbacide free and I don't use chemical fertilizers which is sort of like meth for plants.  I add lime every year to get a proper balance in the ph of the soil.  Organic soils are almost always a little on the acid side.  I also add bone meal, blood meal (tomatoes are carnivors!), kelp meal, coffee grounds and egg shells and most anything else I can find at a reasonable price.  Forty years in the same place creates wonderful soil.

 About to go into the dryer!

   Don't let the soil dry out.  Only two things will cause a tomato to split, not enough calcium in the soil and allowing the soil to dry out between waterings.  That is confusing to the plant.  Without water the tomato thinks the season is over and it will stop its effort at growing and turn to rippening instead.  Then, if you add water, it will begin to grow again and that will cause the splitting.  I keep the soil evenly damp until towards th end of the season when I stop watering altogether.

Two years ago it was the perfect season!  I dry more tomatoes than I preserve in jars and I sent them as gifts all over the world.
Keep your fingers crossed, maybe this year you will get some!
More of my garden is HERE