SeedFolks

Merry Month of May Mater Sale at the Library

noreply@blogger.com (Julie) — Wed, 26 Jun 2013 13:38:00 +0000

This year there were more than 35 open-pollinated varieties available in the course of about three weeks - the organically-raised seedlings sold for $1.50 each or 4 for $5.00 this year.

Many of the new varieties were heat and drought tolerant: Thessaloniki, Legend, Homestead, Royal Chico, Martino's Roma, Livingston's Beauty, Peacevine Cherry, Costoluto Genovese, Floradade, Hazelfield Farm, and Green Zebra were some of the varieties reputedly able to bear fruit in 90+ degree heat.

Of these, the only two varieties I've grown to maturity and can vouch for are Peacevine Cherry and Livingston's Beauty, or just plain Beauty. The latter I give five gold stars for all-round production, sturdiness, disease- and pest-resistance, cold tolerance and heat tolerance as well as very good canning and fresh eating qualities. It's no surprise that Alexander Livingston was selling 2.5 tons of Beauty seed in the early 1900s.

I did have a gentleman request seedlings of Cherokee Green Pear and Old Virginia, which he reported being well pleased with last year. Unfortunately, I didn't have starts of either one - and I'm very curious about both of them. I'll have to order some seed this year to remind myself to start them for 2014.

Andes and Polish Linguisa seedlings resting in one of the blue rockers overlooking the Front Farm.


Although trusty truck Esmerilla is no more, Burt the Scion is always happy to lend a hand on the Front Farm. Here he is packed with seven trays of maters ready for the Library sale. Burt can carry at least nine trays - almost as many as Esmerilla - and he has the advantage of keeping the mater babies safe from wind and sun damage in transit.

Full tables in the Library vestibule. In the last two weeks of May more than a table per day sold out. Lots of folks requesting Cherokee Purple and Black Cherry. We do sell Cherokee and Green Zebra, but we generally don't sell the same varieties our favorite local growers - like Al's Garden Center, Joe & Debbie Barnes, and other such greenhouse-owning friends.


Seedlings are transplanted into 4" pots for sale. It's more expensive to raise the plants in larger single containers, but the extra space is vital for the productivity of many varieties, especially oxhearts and the elongated paste tomatoes that are so easily subject to blossom-end rot. The extra room gives the roots a little boost that helps fight off BER and ups overall fruit production.

Creating The Front Farm at Myristica, or, How We Tore Up the Front Yard to Grow Beans

noreply@blogger.com (Julie) — Wed, 26 Jun 2013 12:50:00 +0000

Straw and sopping wet newspaper was used to create the borders and walkways in the Front Farm. Found this New York Times article about heirloom tomatoes in the process.

Getting there on Memorial Day Weekend. Although the Front Farm was tilled several times, the beds required double-digging and hand-removal of turf clods. Each of the ten beds took approximately two to three hours each to prepare for planting.


Seedlings overlooking the Front Farm progress. Most of these seedlings were bound for the Clark County Public Library Spring Tomato Sale that takes place in the library lobby for most of the month of May each year.

Why Mow Grass When You Can Grow Beans (and Tomatoes, and Chard, and Sweet Potatoes...)?

noreply@blogger.com (Julie) — Tue, 25 Jun 2013 22:30:00 +0000

The 80-year-old trees in the backyard have grown so large that garden space is at a premium - and tomatoes always take precedence over every other edible now that one of the goals of the AppalSeeds program is self-sustainability.

But we love beans, greens, peppers, potatoes, turnips, beets, and a whole host of other vegetables in addition to the glorious Lycopersicon esculentum. We had experimented with straw-bale raised beds last year in order to expand garden space. We built these as close to the water spigot as possible, since the 2012 drought made hand-carrying water a venomously hateful chore.

Still, these three beds didn't allow enough unshaded space for those succulent sprawlers like greasy beans, summer squash, sweet potatoes and cucumbers -

So this year we plowed up the front yard.

From the porch facing the driveway. The beds are about 22 feet out from the base of the porch.

I stayed home while the plowing was going on. You know, it really doesn't take a man with a small tractor and five linear feet of steel tine to till under a healthy, lush 80-year-old lawn.

I went on to work after the scalping of the turf and said to Mr., "Now, when you go home for lunch, bear in mind that there's a lot of bare soil out there."

Mr. came back from lunch with some very wide Oh-Grandma-What-Big-Eyes-You-Have and said, "Well, that's a lot of dirt. A lot of dirt. Gonna be a lot of work. Wow. All that dirt." And that is all he said, bless his heart.

It takes faith and love and a serious big batch of charity to let your spouse (who has a record of starting big messy projects one year and not getting back around to them for oh, say, six or twelve years) plow up your entire front yard in a single morning because she has a dozen varieties of weird bean seeds and a great longing to create a vast prairie of bizarre heirloom tomatoes.

The Front Farm follows the lines of the porch, creating a 22 x 60 foot garden space.

Corset Strings

noreply@blogger.com (Julie) — Thu, 19 Jul 2012 20:25:00 +0000

It was today or never. The rain has been fabulous....but it's been hard to get a break in the weather so that I could lace the prom queens into their cages and take those dresses off! Got it done this morning before 11:00 a.m. - our monsoon/hailstorm commenced about 3:15 p.m. or so, so I'm glad I got everyone sewn in tight!

Greenbush Italian stuffed into her dress and LITERALLY bursting at the seams. If you look closely, you can see that one of her stems has pushed apart the duct tape seam of the isolation barre and is doing her best imitation of the Loch Ness monster coming up for air.

Peacevine Cherry decided to take her dress off in an entirely different way. Rather than forcing the seams apart, she decided to push the whole dress off over her head! The pink isolation barre fit snugly against the ground before the rain hit.

A closeup of Peacevine Cherry with her pink halo in the morning sun. The stems have pushed up more than 14 inches above the top of the cage.

Polish Linguisa showing off her sisal corset. Two of the three elongated French / Italian paste types have so far refused to set fruit because it's been just too hot and dry. The only one of the three (Polish Linguisa, Maruskin's Andes, and Lusignan's Special) to set fruit in the heat was Lusignan's Special.

Everyone breathing a sigh of relief at last....nekkid!

Hartford fruit with raindrops. It's been a hard season for this variety this year, although it seems to be impervious to blight.

Jaune Flammee exhibiting something I've never seen in this variety (this is the 11th year I've grown it): blossom drop from the heat. If you look carefully at the stems on the truss, you'll notice that it looks as though an insect has neatly nipped the blossoms from the stems. However, the blossoms have not been able to set fruit in the uneven weather, so the blooms simply shrivel and shear off at the joint in the stem that supports the flowers.

Marshpond Farm on Saturday, July 14

noreply@blogger.com (Julie) — Sun, 15 Jul 2012 19:40:00 +0000

This was the second trip to Marshpond Farm to take photos of the Captain's plants. In spite of drought, lack of cash, and lack of time, these plants have been treated like royalty - and it shows. Grandfather Ashlock is definitely the belle of the ball on the right side of the fence, but the left side tomato patch is a complete hedge of thriving healthy plants from our colleague, Jennifer Mattern, who is pretty much green from her pinky toes up to her foramen magnum.

Britain's Breakfast blossom cluster. Britain's is considered a multiflora variety, as you can see from this huge bouquet of unopened flowers.

Butler Skinner on the left, Fish peppers in the middle.

Love the stump garden full of Hinkelhatz hot peppers!

A pot full of Matchbox (from Fedco Co-Op in Maine) hot peppers sucks up the heat just in front of Andy's florida room.

The right-hand tomato bed at Marshpond Farm: Grandfather Ashlock is front and center, with Peacevine Cherry peeping out on the right hand side. Assorted oxhearts and elongated paste tomatoes are planted just at the left of Grandfather Ashlock.

Grandfather Ashlock showing the big ruffly blossoms so typical of potato-leaf varieties.

To the left of Grandfather Ashlock: Maruskin's Andes and Polish Linguisa. Hartford is too short this year to see, but you can still see Peacevine Cherry sticking its wild tentacles out from behind Grandfather. Great stick teepees for these tomatoes.

Fat Lady in Last Year's Opera Gown

noreply@blogger.com (Julie) — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 17:40:00 +0000

It's time for many of my charges - that were only 5 inches tall on May 23 - to slip into something more comfortable. Taking off the isolation barres means that I will have to tag the trusses that set fruit while they were protected by the barre. I'll have to make individual bags for trusses after this.

The goal is 1-2 ounces of seed for each of the varieties featured in next year's AppalSeeds programs, but 1/8 ounce of those that won't be a featured AppalSeeds star, but which will be listed in the Seed Saver's Exchange Yearbook.

Stock for next year will include the following, based on results so far this year:

Butler Skinner (mitten-leaf, drought-proof)
Nolt's Holy Land (drops blossoms in high heat)
Depp's Pink Firefly (potato-leaf, drought and frost tolerant)
Maruskin's Andes
The Kenny (potato-leaf, drought and frost tolerant)
Rose Beauty (blight and drought tolerant, very productive)
Livingston's Beauty (blight and drought tolerant, very erect sturdy plants, high productivity)
Grandfather Ashlock
Greenbush Italian (it's big fat jolly monster of a plant, with some blossom-drop resistance in high heat)
Peacevine Cherry / Brown Berry (they're cherries, and therefore indestructible)
Britain's Breakfast (multiflora, also indestructible)
Piedmont Pear (good seedling vigor, thrives on neglect, but fitful germination this year)

Transplants will be the tried and true: Livingston's Beauty, Stupice, and Jaune Flammee.

It's absolutely incredible when you think that Alexander Livingston recorded that it took 1 1/2 TONS of seed from Livingston's Beauty to supply the demand for that particular variety at the end of the 19th century. If an ounce of tomato seed is approximately 15,000 seeds, then Livingston was sending out more than 430 million seeds annually - of this ONE variety. And by then, Livingston was one of several seed companies that operated on a large scale. One of these seed groups was The Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearance - the Shakers - who grew their own seed stock. It boggles the mind to think of seed production on this massive scale using only hand tools.

Butler Skinner, making a break for it (lower right).

Greenbush Italian isolation cage looks more like a tomato bratwurst.

They're BACK!!!!

noreply@blogger.com (Julie) — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 21:59:00 +0000

First Stupice ripening, July 08, 2012.

This week the Stupices (say "stoo-peech-ka" - it's a Czechoslovakian variety!) are ripening. It's been a horrid, horrid, record-breaking year, but we all know that tomatoes usually do really well in a drought if they can get any little bit of water consistently.

This particular Stupice was planted on May 24 - making the first ripe fruit 49 days from transplant. While this variety is an early tomato, however, these plants had been seeded in early February, and so they were a little larger than some of the other plants that went in on May 23 and 24.

Stupice is a truly amazing variety, not unlike Jaune Flammee; it has an uncanny ability to survive the crowded conditions of the seedling tray without suffering from nutrient deficiencies, wilting, bolting, or many other problems caused by overcrowding. Both varieties hold well without stunting, which is another reason I like to use them as transplant varieties for the AppalSeeds workshops.

Both Stupice and Jaune Flammee have high-quality flesh and taste; the only so-called flaw I can find in either tomato is that the fruit itself is not large. This aspect of these varieties can be disappointing for workshop attendees, but this is one of those years we'll be happy to get anything out of the garden regardless of size, color, or shape.

Jaune Flammee in the front bed with real, live rainwater dripping from the leaves last week.

That's a hint: don't wait two weeks and dump three gallons of water on a stressed plant. Either give them a couple of cups of water daily, or use drip irrigation or a soaker hose. If you inundate a dry, stressed tomato plant that's flowering with a bucket of water, you'll end up with blossom end rot about 60% of the time....more than than for elongated paste tomatoes and some oxhearts.

The Jaune Flammee pictured above is unlikely to show any signs of blossom end rot, blossom drop, early blight, or many of the other issues that plague tomatoes in Kentucky. It's relatively early in mid-season (70 days), so there should be a ripe tomato in the back bed by August 1. Maybe sooner the way things are going.

And the front bed may actually beat the back bed this year. The back bed is showing an unsettling pattern; the last three rows of tomatoes are in a newer part of that bed. They are planted in soil that was lawn rather than chicken run; there is also less windbreak and shading in that part of the garden. And so I'm afraid that Lusignan's Special, Verna Orange, Polish Linguisa, Hartford, and Jaune Flammee have suffered from less nutrition, less water, and more searing dry heat than the other nine varieties represented in the big tomato bed.

More real, live rain, dripping from the gutters and the bird feeders onto the Big Fig Newton at the kitchen door.

The"Big Fig Newton" (a 3-year-old Chicago Hardy aka Bensonhurst Purple) has taken over the little flower bed next to the kitchen door. This particular plant was pruned this winter to 3 feet tall, and has already reached the monstrous dimension of 12 feet tall, 6 feet deep and 8 feet wide. I hope the new Celeste figs do as well, but I don't see how they can top the Newton. Figs, people, are drought-proof. If we have another year like this one, I'll be planting Arbequina olive trees in the front yard to go with our figs.

It's Wednesday Again: June 27

noreply@blogger.com (Julie) — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 15:21:00 +0000

Babies in the garden - May 25, 2012

'Maters three and a half weeks later, Wednesday, June 20, 2012.

Here's everyone with their skirts up above their heads for the pictures.... five weeks after planting, on Wednesday, June 27, 2012.

Depp's Pink Firefly, the brawny young cuss.

The Depp finally has blossoms setting. If the temps go up to 100 F or more, we'll see who can take it and who shrivels in the heat. I'm betting on the Depp, the Kenny, Lusignan's Special and the Beauty girls - Livingston's and Rose.

Butler Skinner - honey, suck it up and make some fruit. We know you're pretty. Butler will be late to his own funeral - but he's a big, good-lookin' country boy no matter what, so we forgive him.

Lord ha'mercy. Greenbush Italian is splitting her skirts - and she's already got a fruit the size of a ping-pong ball that was just barely there last week.

Hartford is a little puny this year, but has a whopper of a fruit already. She needs a good feeding and a little more humidity.

Hartford's first fruit.

Holy Land is another one that's just busy making pretty green foliage and not a bit interested apparently in making tomatoes. She's loaded up with blossoms, but I think the heat is keeping her dropping the blossoms after they open. Aphids absolutely love this one - and she needs a good airing - so I didn't fold her skirt back down last week.

Holy Land blossoms. Still have no idea what this fruit is going to be like or even if I'll ever get any fruit at this rate!

The Lone Jaune Flammee. Still hanging in there.

Jaune Flammee in the front kitchen garden bed. (Look at this; somebody get out there and kill those nasty morning glories. It is a pure abomination that anyone would be able to sell Rose of Sharon, morning glories, and lantana. Just throw in some kudzu while you're at it.)

I admit it. I can't stand to compost them. Yes, I still have the remaining Jaune Flamees in the compost bucket. Stop me before we're up to our keisters in tomatoes. Oh, wait, that's the point, isn't it?

Look at him. Isn't he a purty boy? And he's got himself some flowers, too.

The Kenny: a monstrous polycarp flower right off the bat.

Livingston's Beauty, being beautiful.

Livingston's Beauty's first humongous fruit. A polycarp....you can see that this should have been three individual tomatoes.

Livingston's Beauty, being prolific.

Lusignan's Special hanging in there. Actually put on a lot of growth this week. For those of you who are fond of useless information, Lusignan is one of the places in western Europe heavily associated with Melusine, the snake-mermaid fairy. Sort of like the fox people in Japanese folk tales - cute, but spooky, and whatever you do, don't make them mad. The added folklore makes me want to hang on to this extremely endangered variety all the more...wild snake fairy tomatoes!

Lusignan's first flowers.

Maruskin's Andes put on quite a bit of growth, but is still fooling around with those blossoms.

Maruskin's Andes flowers.

Peacevine Cherry - a large, fragile-looking, multi-branched plant. The branches are actually as tough as wire and not fragile at all. A cherry with a very open and sprawling habit. I anticipate eight to ten foot vines even in a drought year with this one.

Peacevine fruits, second set.

Polish Linguisa has also put on quite a bit of growth.

Polish Linguisa with the typical wispy-leaf foliage in tight curls.

Polish Linguisa flower cluster; the fruits are usually borne in trusses of three to seven. The fruits are oddly spaced within the truss, and without the symmetry and order of cherry tomato trusses.

Rose Beauty, being her beautiful self. I love this plant. It's another rare gem.

Rose Beauty's incredible first polycarp fruit. This fruit will probably weigh close to two pounds at peak of ripeness.

Even Rose Beauty's single fruit are large and fat. I love these - the fruit is so pretty, just like a fat creamy satin pincushion. Looking forward to that pale golden tomato bisque in late summer....

Stupice is still out in front....

Stupice's first fruit truss. These will taste for all the world like a large red beefsteak.

Stupice's first and second truss of fruit.

Verna Orange, bless her little heart.

Verna's first baby! Even though her foliage growth seems to be a little slow this year, Verna is hanging in there and putting out blossoms and fruit.

I love these crazy shoes, but I keep having to floss the clover out of my toes.

The Package of Seeds / Edgar A. Guest, 1926

noreply@blogger.com (Julie) — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 22:47:00 +0000

Guest's Package of Seeds

A Spare $4 Million?

noreply@blogger.com (Julie) — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 13:56:00 +0000

When I walk to work, I like to walk through downtown - this morning I found a toy tire, a four-leaf clover, a five-leaf clover, and a daydream.

Sphar's Feed Store is located on Main Street in Winchester, and until a few years ago, you could still buy seed, ducklings, chicks, fertilizers, pesticides and such at Sphar's. (That's pronounced "Spaaaah", by the way, for those of you who aren't from around here. )

The north side of the former Sphar's building is a beautiful tangle of Virginia creeper, some kind of flowering ivy and, oddly enough, ferns growing up the length of the chimney.

Now the building is abandoned and in sad disrepair. It would probably take approximately (if our library building projects have been anything to go by) $3 to $4 million to completely revamp the building. But what a wonderful place to have as a seed and garden supply center complete with workshop and nursery space....and a huge part of Winchester's agricultural history.

A metal advertisement sign still hanging in there on the Main Street side of the building.

Check out the beautiful rounded brickwork on the arched entry to Sphar's on Main Street. I think this was a loading door for buggies, trucks, wagons and the like in the heyday of the business.

Once we get the seed stock in place, we could sell poultry, too: I was walking by the room that used to serve as a duckling and chick nursery and caught a faint whiff of eau de petit poulet emanating from the broken windows.

One of the saddest things I could see through the windows was a five-pound bag of an unknown variety of white seed beans, lying next to a 1980s vintage computer printer.

Tomato Acidity Vs. Sweetness

noreply@blogger.com (Julie) — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 10:22:00 +0000

...and this is the chart I reference when I teach workshops and we talk about the mythical low-acid tomato. Annie, get your refractometer!

Heirloom Tomato pH and Brix Chart: University of IL, 2004

Jaune Flammee: Catching Up

noreply@blogger.com (Julie) — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 22:51:00 +0000

These were the two strongest surviving Jaune Flammee seedlings two weeks ago. The one shown in the photograph below eventually proved to be the strongest of the the original trio, and so the one at left was removed this week to leave room for the other plant.

I hate to rogue out seedlings, but this year I promised myself I would try Steve Solomon's New Zealand drought-proofing method. Solomon is truly a self-sufficient gardener who recommends spacing plants out widely to combat drought and supplemental water use, and the author of Gardening When It Counts.His methods are exactly the opposite of current po pular container gardening / French intensive / raised bed gardening methods, but his works are very convincing.

As a result of reading Gardening When It Counts, I decided to try spacing tomatoes and other heavy feeders at least four to six feet apart in combination with a) the Shaker "dust-mulch" method, which involves hoeing lightly every day, b) light straw mulch, or c) an infrequently-mown ground cover like Dutch white clover.

Since we have a lot of trouble finding a tiller in the spring I decided to use a light straw mulch combined with periodical hoeing and cultivating. I like the idea of green mulches but it's very likely that they would get away from me entirely and I'd end up having to till in the end anyway, which I'd like to avoid for several reasons.

Jaune Flammee is an indestructible variety - I ended up with several survivors of the composting bucket, and so there is another one up front in the kitchen garden bed as well as this one. I use this plant almost every year as a transplant seedling in the workshops, and I have several converts to it in spite of its color and size (it's a glowing Orange Crush-orangey yellow, and it's a little smaller than a Rutgers). Most Kentuckians want a RED tomato, and they want a BIG tomato, so when I tell them that Flammee is an orange salad tomato they make a face and shake their heads.

Some Kentuckians do want a yellow tomato because it's a "low-acid" tomato, and I've stopped trying to tell people that there's no such thing as a low-acid tomato.

High sugar and bland, yes; truly low-acid, no. The fruit simply tends to be acidic and that's all there is to it, hovering right around a 4. The Brix, or sugar content, is another story. Brix may range from 3.5 to 8, according to test results on various individual and university websites. The sugars buffer the acids, while the solids may also play a part in the perception of fruit acidity. The link below offers a few results of testing:

http://www.waynesthisandthat.com/tomatoes.htm

Anyway, to get back to Jaune Flammee, people who want a "low-acid", or bland, tomato will not want this variety because it has a stunning balance of sugars to acids and a complex array of flavors that need nothing for taste enhancement.

Wednesday Glamour Shots

noreply@blogger.com (Julie) — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 16:06:00 +0000

I first took pictures of all the plants in the isolation bed on May 24 just after heeling in; the second set of photos were taken two weeks later on June 06. It's hard to believe that another two weeks have passed and it's time to post the update on the growth of these 14 varieties, but here they are.

Everyone ready for glamour shots first thing this morning.

Maruskin's Andes - see the "wispy" foliage? But compare this plant's foliage to Lusignan's Special. This year there are several in this bed with wispy foliage - Andes, Lusignan's Special, Polish Linguisa, Hartford, Verna, and Nolt's Holy Land.

Maruskin's Andes blossoms.

Butler Skinner. I cut the cattle panel sideways to make this cage, so the height of each opening is 8" rather than 6" on this cage. Butler is always one of the giants in the tomato bed.

Butler Skinner blossoms: Butler is slow about doing everything (except putting on huge growth). Slow to germinate, slow to flower, slow to ripen. But truly one of the most beautiful and tasty tomatoes I've ever grown.

Depp's Pink Firefly. The Depps were very slow to put on any kind of growth this year in the seedling beds. I did not fertilize them as they like to be - they are really big eaters that thrived the year I actually killed some varieties by making a mistake in the feeding schedule. Depp loves lime, calcium and phosphorus supplements.

Depp's Pink Firefly blossoms - looks like it's going to be a stellar crop. I make sure to shake these plants at least once a day, including directly stimulating the blossoms to ensure good fruit set since they won't have as much help from insects this year due to the tulle isolation barres.

A typical Depp leaf - this type of gigantic, tropical leaf is very typical of almost all the potato-leaf varieties. Huge growth, robust cell structure, and fewer crenellations in the leaf mean better disease resistance, as well as cold and heat tolerance. They're long-lived and generally healthy although not necessarily any more resistant to early and late blight as a group.

Greenbush Italian is the monster this year. It's already nearly up to the top of it's cage, and seems to be thrilled to be alive. Very healthy, strong seedlings, quick germination. If the fruit is anything to write home about I'll be using this one as a transplant tomato for spring programs. Had absolutely no trouble with this as a seedling. Tough as nails, big eater, and does a lot with the food it gets.

Greenbush had a baby and I didn't even know it. I would have bet any money on this being an elongated paste or even a slightly oxheart-shaped fruit, but I believe it's going to be a fat pendulous oval.

Nolt's Holy Land is still a mystery, but it's a tremendous plant, robust in growth which can be unusual for the wispy-leaf plants. Still have no idea what the fruit will be like. This is a multiply-branched plant, with several primary stalks originating near the soil line. Definitely one to cage rather than stake for a variety of reasons - wispy foliage, lots of branches, seems to be a fairly brittle-stemmed plant as well. She's also having an aphid attack right now, so I sprayed with a chamomile / tea-tree oil / baking soda solution to see if I could knock the infestation down a bit while providing some natural antibacterial support.

The winner of the triumvirate of tiny seedlings I planted in this plot. Jaune Flammee is one of John Maruskin's favorite tomatoes, and one of the only two he asked for by name this year....and when it was time to plant I realized with horror that I had sold all the large plants without saving one for us. I had also tossed the Flammees into the composting bucket just that week, so I had to root around for still-living seedlings covered in soil. I came up with about 8 and planted the three strongest-looking ones in the compost bucket.

The Kenny, from Mischelle Hodgkin. You can tell that this one has really put on some monster growth like the Depp in the last two weeks. I anticipate the potato-leaf plants catching up with their older siblings over the next two weeks.

Another plant I had no intention (like Holy Land) of growing this year. Beauty was such a, well, beauty when I grew it out to use as transplant tomato for the programs that I fell in love with it - and then after reading a little bit more about it in Livingston's book I decided that I had to grow it. Supposed to be trouble-free, glorious-tasting 19th-century sweetheart.

Livingston's Beauty blossom cluster. Apparently prolific!

Lusignan's Special is one to fight for. Very frail looking but tougher than you'd imagine - this was introduced to Seed Savers Exchange supposedly by William Woys Weaver. Hails from Lusignan, a small French town, and produces luscious rose-red bomb-shaped fruit about 4 to 7 ounces each. It looks like a paste tomato, but it has a tender, juicy sweet flesh.

Lusignan's Special appears nowhere online, in a catalog, or anywhere else that I have found, and I was shocked to find that it was not listed anywhere in the Seed Savers Yearbook this spring, so I'm encouraging everyone I can find to grow out a couple of plants and keep it going.

Peacevine Cherry seemed to experience a drop from catalogs this year. Great-tasting full-flavored cherry does beautifully as a roasting tomato. Gorgeous in salads. Big feeder, needs a good boost of phosporus. Hard to kill. Seems to never have any blight issues. Super-high in gamma-aminobutyric acid.

Peacevine Cherry fruits.

One of my favorite pastes - a tie with Andes. Sturdy, a fatter wispy-leaf. Doesn't seem as robust as I remember it, but still a strong grower.

Rose Beauty produces creamy-yellow fruit with a pink blush on the bottom when dead ripe. Beautiful plant, beautiful fruit, great-tasting, full-flavored and not bland like many pinks and yellows. From the Rose Family in Estill County, Kentucky. Hard to find - and I can't figure it - the seedling is another super-robust one that requires no extra care. Shows drought tolerance and some disease tolerance / resistance in my garden.

Rose Beauty flowers. Lots of polycarps this spring.

Verna Orange - a stunning orange oxheart. No blight resistance, hence the huge stack of hay underneath her. Unfortunately I think Verna is one of those tomatoes that hates being mulched, so I'm not sure what to do with her this year. She's healthy enough, but I need to aerate her soil . She's at the end of the line to get superior air-circulation in an attempt to stave off blight, but she may be getting and staying a little nutrient-starved, so I'm going to up her feeding schedule a bit. She'll be getting a drink of Dutch Soil from Homestead Gardens Nursery in Casey County KY.

Verna Orange flowers. Vernas produce gigantic orange oxhearts that are a sold sheet of mango colored and textured flesh when cut. Fewer than 100 seeds per 16 to 20 ounce fruit. Gourmand's delight; seed-saver's and grower's nightmare. Worth every bit of extra care she requires. Getting to be hard to find ... and Verna is an oddly strong, fast-growing seedling. Excellent germination always, even in older seed that has been poorly kept. I think she wants to make every seed count since she doesn't produce very many!

Another hard-to-find oxheart. I believe I got seed first from Bill Minkey. Hartford is a beautiful deep rose-red oxheart with a glorious flavor. Pretty productive, but stops producing early on, at least the last time I grew it that's what happened. Well worth it for the fruit. Eastern box turtles will be a problem if you grow Hartford and you have a lot of this critter in the neighborhood. We had a big male who took out a Hartford every single day. I found him asleep one afternoon with his nose resting in the remains of what had been a one-pound fruit.

Straw Bale Beds, Part Two: Custom "Soil"

noreply@blogger.com (Julie) — Sun, 17 Jun 2012 13:59:00 +0000

Saturday John and I built the other two beds. The problem? John used all of his top-grade compost in building our first bed. So after some consultation with Mittleider and the National Gardening Association's 1986 Gardening: The Complete Guide to Growing America's Favorite Fruits and Vegetables, we used this formula to custom build growing medium for the beds:

1/2" layer of newspaper sheets
2" of shredded newspaper
1 3-cubic-foot bale of peat moss per linear bale of straw
10 pounds of humus/manure mix per bale
3/4 cup lime for per bale
1/2 cup bat guano per bale
1/4 cup kelp meal per bale
1/2 bushel vermiculite per bale (Mittleider likes perlite, too)

And to top it off, I sprinkled about 1/2 cup of Espoma's organic 10-10-10 per bale.

First, we laid down newspaper as a weed barrier:

Then we laid down shredded newspaper (to nom our worm buddies) and wet down the paper.

Then the peat, fluffed into the beds and mixed....

Last but not least the vermiculite (to hold moisture, sweeten the peat, and lighten the mixture for good root development), the lime (again, to sweeten the soil and boost calcium), and the fertilizers. The bat guano is a super boost for flowering and fruiting with its high phosphorus count; the kelp promotes heat and drought resistance as well as strong roots with its potassium load, and the Espoma is a great all-round food that I've been using for seedlings and transplants this year with tremendous success. It smells chocolate-y, too, since it has a fair amount of cocoa nibs in it in addition to many other plant yummies.

And here we are with two more beds ready to go!

Neither one of us like our own picture in this shot, but we each like the other's picture... and we both love the way the bed turned out. Now we just have to wait til the signs are right (June 20 & 21 for our next crop of beans - the signs are in the "arms", or Gemini, and the 22 & 23, when the first quarter moon is in Cancer, one of the most fruitful signs.)

I plan to walk across the street later on and see if I can scrounge up a muck bucket of Davey-droppings. (We are very lucky to live across the street from a llama - and down the street from several horses who are happy to share their bedding with us when they're done with it.) Llama compost is definitely the gold standard for manure in my book - at least that's what the tomatoes tell me. Unfortunately for gardeners, llamas are truly artisans rather than mass-producers, which is one of the reasons they're used as pack animals on sensitive archaeological and environmental sites in the American West.

Adopt-A-Mater Bulletin: With Andy Gary at Marshpond Farmstead

noreply@blogger.com (Julie) — Sat, 16 Jun 2012 16:54:00 +0000

Andy Gary adopted several varieties, including Grandfather Ashlock, Britain's Breakfast, Polish Linguisa, Maruskin's Andes, and Butler Skinner. Colleague Jennifer Mattern also added to Andy's farm stock with several splendid large hand-raised tomatoes as well.

Grandfather Ashlock is pulling out ahead in the growth department. Andy is using field grass hay for mulch in his corner gardens.

Since this is the first year that Andy has broken ground on the Farm, he laid his tomatoes in at his front fence corners for extra support and to maximize his planting area.

Andy's other corner garden, again with field hay mulch. You can see from the size of the rock left in front of this bed that Andy had quite an excavation chore to get these corners ready to plant.

Andy's foster tomatoes are looking lovely; it's obvious that he's finding time to lavish them with all of his gardening skills even though he's fighting the fight against bush honeysuckle with an electric-powered chainsaw!

Adopt-A-Mater Bulletin: The Adler Family Garden

noreply@blogger.com (Julie) — Sat, 16 Jun 2012 16:46:00 +0000

Jen's tomatoes are flowering right now, so we tried on some tulle bags to see if they would work as tomato contraceptives. In the meantime Lily and Rose conducted a garden tour for me, danced, slithered in the grass, hung out of trees, and performed somersaults.

Jen and Mark are longtime backyard organic gardeners who are committed to growing, buying and eating local as much as possible, and that commitment includes passing on their considerable combined knowledge to their children.

Jen plants her lettuces so that they are protected by the shade of a box elder growing at the back of their garden. Look at those glorious shades of green and red.

This year the girls have their very own sandbox teepee that will soon be covered by the peas and beans planted in the raised beds surrounding the play area.

A few of Jen's tomatoes enjoying sunbathing in their fluffy bed of straw mulch.

One of Jen's volunteer Verbascums at the garden gate.

Straw Bale Beds: Part Ruth Stout, Part Mittleider

noreply@blogger.com (Julie) — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 14:59:00 +0000

This year John and I wanted to put raised beds closer to the water supply and to the house, but we couldn't quite decide where to construct permanent raised beds. So we ended up experimenting with straw bales to form garden plots that are half container garden and half raised bed, with the advantage of being easily moved from year to year and completely compostable.

This is one of the beds we put together on Sunday, June 10. It's just a box formed by butting eight straw bales together on the ground. The interior space is approximately 3' by 5 3/4' by 14" deep.

This is the first bed we completed, which contains two volunteer tomato plants, three peppers - Hungarian Wax and 2 Fish, five cos lettuces, four radicchio, and about 30 Dillman's Bush Greasy bean plants. John has gussied up the whole thing with pots of coleus, herbs, and other flowers. Beyond this bed is a longer bed that we put together on June 10 in addition to the new 3' by 5 3/4' bed shown in the picture above.

A closeup of the cos lettuce and radicchio side of the bed.

John did a beautiful job using part lasagna garden methods and part intuition and gardening know-how. And I got to plant it - it was so easy and pretty when we were finished. It's been super-productive already and has required almost no additional watering.

Recycled Pallet Garden Boxes

noreply@blogger.com (Julie) — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 16:44:00 +0000

These boxes are so beautiful they make me giddy with happiness. They're handcrafted by Alicia and Lee Howard, of Winchester, Kentucky, who create them from recycled untreated-wood pallets. Alicia and Lee are using these containers and others to garden organically - all above-ground!

And, with the Clark County Public Library's First Annual Tomato Jamboree and Harvest Party (including a tomato tasting event and a homemade tomato cage display & contest) happening on Saturday, August 18, the Library will be giving away one of these beauties in a drawing as one of our activities on that day!

This is the smaller of the two boxes (and that's my last flat of Grandfather Ashlock on the corner of it). The depth of the part of the box that will actually contain the soil and plants is 15". Alicia and Lee designed this one with the little decorative herb/flower box on the front.

This is the larger of the two boxes. I asked Alicia and Lee to design one for taters, and this beauty is what they built. Take a look at the fantastic workmanship inside the box as well as outside. (That's a flat of Butler Skinners, upper right.)

Both boxes side by side in front of our rain barrels.

Tomato Prom

noreply@blogger.com (Julie) — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 15:08:00 +0000

The tulle isolation barres may end up not being very durable, but they sure were fun to make. My sister suggested making some accessories to go with the outfits - purses, maybe a hat and some pearls ....

The Kenny Report

noreply@blogger.com (Julie) — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 15:02:00 +0000

Here's the latest on The Kenny, from Mischelle Hodgkin:

The Kenny on June 06, 2012 right after a big feed of bat guano (3 tablespoons). It's a little early because he has yet to form blossoms, but everybody else got some and I didn't want him to feel left out.

This was The Kenny on May 25, the morning after heeling in.

Holy Land aka Holyland Mystery Maters: More

noreply@blogger.com (Julie) — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 22:41:00 +0000

This is what Dr. Carolyn Male had to say in reference to a query about a yellow strain of Holy Land, aka Holyland, on GardenWeb in 2009:

"There is what's called a yellow strain of Holyland which is the gold/re bicolor mentioned above but the original Holyland variety has been listed in the SSE Yearbooks since about 1987.

"There are three possible backgrounds as listed by different folks in the SSE YEarbooks.

"One says a Rev Giles brought it back from Israel.

"A second says it was brought back from a restaurant wrapped in a napkin, from Palestine.

"And it's suggested by some that it originated in Palestine, Ohio.

"I went back to my 1986 SSE Yearbook only to find that it probably was first listed in 1984 by Gary Staley, FL, but before 1986 varieties were listed by state and within state alphabetically by SSE member and it's a bummer X 10 to do any searches, and besides, I don't have any of those old Yearbooks near me except for the 1980 and it's so small that I could easily check and Gary Staley wasn't offering anything in the 1980 Yearbook.

"So take your pick of backgrounds as to the original variety Holyland which is indet, RL and has 'large' red globe shaped fruits as described by those who grew it in the early 90's."

So now I'm really curious, since there was no mention of the wispy leaf gene - and I'm interested in those long elegant buds - like the eyelashes of a green giraffe. I'd lay my money on an elongated French or Italian type.

For what it's worth, you can see a photo of Holy Land, Yellow Strain, at Tatiana's Tomatobase here: http://t.tatianastomatobase.com:88/wiki/Holy_Land,_Yellow_Strain

Lena Mae Nolt's Holy Land June 06, 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Julie) — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 19:15:00 +0000

This is the Holy Land tomato I bought from Lena Mae Nolt, owner of Homestead Nursery in Casey County. In the Seed Savers Exchange listings I've seen no reference to the foliage of Holy Land, only that the tomato is bright red, and has a good to excellent flavor. There have only been two consistent listings for tomatoes bearing this name, although all the Holy Lands claim to have travelled with an American tourist who saved seed from a tomato served as part of a meal in Palestine.

I was really surprised to see that Nolt's Holy Land has the typical wispy leaves of an oxheart or elongated paste fruit. And the flower buds are very long and slender.

Nolt's Holy Land trying to escape!

This was John Maruskin's pick along with Jaune Flammee this year. I bought it on a whim from Homestead just because every year I have a workshop attendee ask about it. It's a mystery!

Look at the length of this blossom; it's longer than the first segment of my index finger, measuring 1 1/8 inch. It'll be interesting seeing these tomatoes, for sure!

Verna Orange June 06, 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Julie) — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 19:05:00 +0000

Verna Orange needs serious mulch protection against disease.

Verna Orange is one of my very favorite tomatoes. It's also one of the first heirlooms I ever grew, back in 1989, when I ordered a bunch of stuff from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange. I was horrified to find that its popularity seems to be waning because it's been dropped from the not-so-many seed catalogs that carried it. It's another super-fast and sturdy growing seedling, but in the garden it gets taken down by early blight before any other plant, it seems. She has the typical oxheart's "wispy" foliage, but it's somehow more vibrant and robust than other plants with the wispy gene...again, until blight comes on in a damp year.

Verna more than makes up for her delicate nature by producing 14- to 20- ounce oxheart fruit in a glowing mango-orange. Nearly seedless and absolutely delicious. This year I plan to keep that foliage completely dry with a thick baffle of mulch to avoid the whole blight issue.

Butler Skinner June 06, 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Julie) — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 18:57:00 +0000

Butler Skinner is always one of the largest and most robust plants in a tomato bed, which is peculiar given that it is very slow to germinate and can be very spindly and weak-looking in comparison to other seedlings in the germination bed.

First Feeding for Blossoms June 06, 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Julie) — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 18:54:00 +0000

Last night everyone got their first big feed of Indonesian bat guano (from Worms Way - wormsway.com) to support flowers and fruit.

This Rose Beauty's first blossom is a polycarp, meaning that two or more blossoms are conjoined. Old large-fruited varieties often produce huge, lumpy first fruit from these blossoms, which are actually two or more conjoined fruit.

June 06 was 14 days from transplant for this bed, so it'll be another 8 weeks until most of these plants even think about ripening fruit. That makes the dates for first ripe fruit August 08 (70 day fruit like Polish Linguisa) through August 28 (90 day fruit like Butler Skinner).