Zone 4 Magazine - Editors' Blog

THE HEIRLOOM TOMATO COOKBOOK

2010-09-14T15:11:00.001-06:00

The Heirloom Tomato Cookbook by Mimi Luebbermann is gorgeously presented and just might travel from your kitchen to your coffee table for dinner guests to peruse. Gourmet chefs for the Kendall-Jackson Wine Center’s Heirloom Tomato Festival in Santa Rosa, California, prepared these heirloom tomato recipes, and the seductive photos alone will entice you to experiment with these exquisitely creative tomato recipes.

In addition, the brief "history of the tomato" section and a short "primer" on growing tomatoes could be useful for the tomato grower living anywhere. Luebbermann also includes a list of the 180 heirloom tomato varieties grown in the Vegetable Trial Gardens at the Wine Center. While most of these are 75-plus day varieties, and require too long of a growing season for our region (unless you have a greenhouse), the author does mention one truly short season variety (52 days), one 65-70-day variety.

The recipes emphasize the tomato variety’s savory vegetable or sweet fruit (dessert anyone?) qualities. I was especially intrigued by a several-page spread suggesting types of wine to be paired with tomatoes, depending on tomato color and acid-to-sugar content. Zone 4 readers will have to be adventurous and substitute heirloom tomato varieties that do grow in our region in most of the recipes. While the dish may still taste exquisite with any tomato, be aware that you might not get the same “taste” effect.

On an early fall day, with my tomatoes just beginning to blanch, having read this cookbook, I’m hoping my crop ripens soon so I can experiment with one of these recipes, paired with a glass of wine from our region. (Published by Chronicle Books, $16.95)

—Rilla Esbjornson

SPOTTED KNAPWOOD SPOTTED

2010-08-22T13:55:00.002-06:00

Funny how sometimes you think you are seeing everything clearly, but you're really not. You're missing important details. Take noxious weeds for instance. Often they are growing right beside you, but you don't even notice them until they are going to seed, and by then it's too late to deal with them.

This happened to me recently on my morning walk down the dirt road behind our house. I'm pretty keyed in to the hoary alyssum, sulfur cinquefoil, common tansy, ox-eye daisy, and Canada thistle, and will stop and pull what I can if the patch is small. This year, the spotted knapweed snuck up on me, growing undetected amongst the tall grass bordering our field. Just a few days ago, the plants began to flower. Their pinkish-purple color is pretty, but my reaction was anything but appreciative! Horrified, disgusted, and angry are better words to describe how I felt. Angry because it's a lot of work to remove big patches of knapweed by hand.

Here's what the Montana State University extension bulletin says about spotted knapweed: "Spotted knapweed blooms from mid- to late July through early September. Individual flower heads bloom for two to six days before the bracts close. Bracts reopen after about 20 days, and seeds are dispersed by physical movement of the plant. The weed is a prolific producer with 1000 or more seeds per plant. Seeds remain viable in soil for more than eight years and are spread easily by water, animals, humans, and vehicles."

What to do?

The MSU extension advises:

• A single, low-intensity fire does not control knapweed.

• Cultivation to depths of 7 inches or more will control spotted knapweed, but the weeds can regenerate from seeds remaining in the sail.

• Grazing cattle, sheep, and goats will reduce levels of knapweed, but first-year plants are too low to the ground for easy grazing, and mature plants are fibrous and coarse and not an animal's first choice.

• Hand pulling can be effective and is most easily done after a rain. Flowering plants must be contained, removed, and disposed of in a way that doesn't allow the seeds to disperse.

• Mowing during late bud stage can reduce the number of seeds produced.

• If revegetation is your strategy, it "...usually involves a spring or early summer application of Tordon 22K, Transline or Curtail followed by a dormant seeding of grass in late fall."

What did I do? I pulled the plants I could, but the largest wouldn't come out, and I didn't have time to wait for rain. So I cut them close to the ground, transported in a cart to the burn pile, and covered them with a tarp until dry enough to burn.

The problem, as one weed service told me years ago, is that there are so many seeds in the so-called "seed bank" that it takes at least three years of careful management to eradicate nasty noxious weeds.

Today, as I wheeled my knapweed-laden cart down the road, the air filled with the white fluffy seeds of Canada thistle blowing hither and yon. It's enough to make you feel puny and ineffective, because noxious weed manage really is everyone's problem and everyone's responsibility.

—Dan Spurr

MAJOR HAIL DAMAGE

2010-07-03T10:32:00.006-06:00

June 30 was a red-letter day in and around the city of Bozeman. At least two different storms blasted the area with hail. The first hit the Gough neighborhood with golf ball-size hail, something I hadn’t seen in 36 years of living here.

I heard the first hailstone hit the roof and dashed to look out the back door calling to Bob, “Big hail, big hail!” He joined me and we watched as our irises were destroyed, the perennials beaten down, lupine tattered, grapes beaten off their supports, and our newly thinned vegetable garden shredded (see photos top left and bottom right). We had several window screens damaged, Bob’s windshield was cracked and hood dented, and every vent on our travel trailer roof was smashed.

I told Bob I completely expected a second wave of hail and dashed out to move his truck closer to the east side of our house (the storm came from the west) and to take photos of our sad-looking yard. (I’m sure I gave the neighbors a laugh in my shorts, tank top and knee-high rubber boots.) While we had another small pelting of pea-size hail, we went to bed thinking we had had the worst possible weather experience. It was only when we read the paper in the morning that we learned that downtown Bozeman and the Montana State University campus had received baseball-size hail during a second storm and there was much damage to homes and businesses.

As I drove through town and saw the broken windows I was immediately thankful. What happened to us was minor compared to what happened to these people. We are looking forward to watching our yard and garden recover.

—Cheryl Moore-Gough

The storm that rolled through Gallatin Valley on July 1 knocked out hundreds of windows around the city, tore paint off walls, punched holes in vinyl siding, dented vehicles and blew out their windows. Many looked like new pitching phenom Stephen Strasburg had been throwing fastballs at them. Farmers in the Four Corners area, just a week away from their first cutting of hay, lost the crop. Home gardens took a hit, too, of course, but looking at the bigger picture, our losses pale.

Joseph Shaw, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Montana State University, told the Bozeman Daily Chronicle that severe hailstorms often have a green tint, and that when such color is observed, "the storm is probably less than 10 minutes away."

The photo at top right is of Marjorie Fowlkes holding some of the hail stones she collected in her yard and which her husband, Charless, plans to serve in cocktails.

—Dan Spurr

FIRST HARVEST

2010-06-30T10:18:00.001-06:00

For the first time, Andra and I bought a share in a CSA this summer. It was probably overdue, as we’ve been publishing stories about community supported agriculture in just about every issue of Zone 4. As chef Steve Kuntz of Montana Epicurean (see Zone 4 No. 4) explained to the Gallatin Women’s Club during a recent talk on local food, buying a share in a CSA is an investment in a farm. You become a partner, advancing the funds the farmer needs to purchase seeds, fertilizer, and equipment for a successful growing season.

One woman at that meeting, who’d previously joined a CSA, said driving to the farm to pick up her box of produce each week wasn’t particularly convenient. Another said bad weather had caused the farmer to lose crop and so she hadn’t received as much food as expected. In response, all Steve could say to the first woman was that seeing where your food is grown is part of the CSA experience, and that many farmers also offer pickups in town for those on tighter schedules. As for the second woman’s experience, shareholders are at the same risk as the farmer. Some years are better than others. As an investor, you help assure the farmer another year in business.

We invested in 3 Fiddles Farm, run by Karin and Matthew Broughton in Bridger Canyon, north of Bozeman (learn more about this young couple in the fall issue of Zone 4). This is only their second year, but we were impressed with what they grew last year, and with their infectious enthusiasm. Karin, just a wisp, spends all day in the fields, bundled up tight from the hot sun with canvas hat, sunglasses, long pants, and long sleeves. She loves giving tours, bouncing among the rows, peeking under covers, and pointing out every variety. This year they got a grant to reduce the cost of a hoop house, which will allow them to expand their offerings both in terms of species and duration.

This week was their first harvest. We drove out to the farm during the appointed hours (late in the afternoon, to give Karin time to harvest, rinse, and package everything. She waited in a shady area near a seasonal stream, keeping the vegetables as cool as possible. Here’s what was in our box:

½ pound Gourmet lettuce

½ pound Hot Shot spicy mustard greens

1-1/2 pounds Hakurei turnips

Bunch of French Breakfast and Cherry Belle radishes

Bunch of green garlic

Mojito mint

Karin recommends eating the turnips raw or slightly steamed, sautéed, or added to stir fries. “And the greens are fabulous, too,” she adds, “raw or cooked in combination with mustard greens or alone.”

We have a pretty diversified palette, but have never sautéed Hakurei turnips, so this will be something new for us. Not only does participating in a CSA give you fresh, local, food, it can introduce you to new and exciting tastes. Excuse me while I sharpen the big kitchen knife!

—Dan Spurr

PLAGUE & PESTILENCE

2010-06-25T16:03:00.003-06:00

While much of the country recorded high temperatures the past few weeks (like the 90s in Denver), we here in Montana have stayed pretty darn cool.

Experienced gardeners around Bozeman know to wait until Memorial Day to move transplants outside. I did. In fact, I waited until June 6 because it was chilly. Our starts were in the sunroom and ready to go: peppers, tomatoes, squash, beets, cauliflower and more. It took a couple of hours and everything looked great, until…

Driving home from the post office on Monday I saw an ugly black cloud moving toward the mountains and over the bench where our house sits. Rain, I figured. As I turned into driveway the hail came. Big, golf-ball-size chunks of ice. The wind gusts hurled the balls with ferocity. I was afraid to get out of the truck and decided to wait a minute. By then, it was too late.

When it let up long enough to check the garden I ran across the yard ready to unfurl the fabric on my hoop tunnels. What a sorry sight! Everything macerated—except the garlic, planted last fall and already more than a foot tall, and the spinach. Even the skinny onion sets were shredded.

Okay, this is zone 4 right? Hail happens.

Undaunted, I bought plants at a local nursery and planted all the same vegetables the next weekend. On Sunday. Sure that I’d seen the last of my woes, I dusted my hands feeling happy, until…

Monday morning I woke to walk the dogs up the nearby canyon, walking past our garden, which is well fenced to keep the deer out. Dang if something hadn’t come in the night and eaten all the tender leaves off the Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, squash—everything newly planted except the tomatoes (well, thanks for that anyway).

Looking around I was dismayed to discover a gopher hole (actually a Richardson ground squirrel) inside the fence at the far end of the garden! For the next week I tried to thwart this little bugger—throwing pellets of poison down his hole (I’d never do this outside the fence where other animals could dig it up, i.e. our dogs and cat for starters); set a trap (he just pushed it out of his way, untripped; filled the hole several times with dirt (which he easily spewed out); and out of desperation, set a heavy paver over the hole (he moved the entrance outside the hole). So I got more pavers and practically cemented the whole area around his hole. It worked. (He’s still alive, but for now he’s a one-hole gopher, outside the fence.)

Elated, I replanted the garden for the third time. I felt like I probably should explain myself to the staff at the nursery, but figured they’re probably used to seeing people keep coming back to buy the same plants over and over again. Hey, these are the Rocky Mountains, right?! We’re used to futility.

I planted a fourth time, and stapled row covers over the new plants. This helped for a few days and I was momentarily hopeful. Alas, the leaves started getting picked off here and there until there was nothing left but the main stems. Interestingly, there was no damage to plants in the raised beds. Why? Because the invaders couldn’t climb up a 2x10? This theory suggests a mole, vole, or shrew, of which our fields have probably hundreds. And they could easily pass through the 2x4 mesh of the wire fence.

But why this year and not last? Why me?

On Father’s Day our son Steve brought me four lovely pepper plants, a big tomato plant, and a Jerusalem artichoke. Think I planted them outside? No way!

I bought an Earthbox (more on this clever container system in a future issue) for the peppers and tomato, and planted the artichoke in a big container—IN THE SUNROOM. I figured as long as I can keep the white flies out, I’ll be fine.

The next morning at 5:45 I trotted downstairs to walk the dogs, who often sleep in the sunroom when it’s too warm in the house proper. Boulder, our big male border collie, ran up to me expectantly. Strangely, there was dirt all over his muzzle. I looked past him to my Father’s Day plants. He’d dug up the artichoke. I guess its roots smelled good. Darn him.

Scientists are predicting an unusually bad year for grasshoppers. I’m ready for them. Yup, what a surprise when they come flying out of the dry fields into my garden ready to chow down, and find—nothing.

Some years you can’t win for losing.

—Dan Spurr

WINTER DAMAGE

2010-06-03T09:52:00.006-06:00

This is a tough spring for landscape damage. I’ve received a number of queries from readers wondering why the tops of their trees and shrubs haven’t leafed out yet.

An old rule of thumb is that it will take a tree or shrub about as many years to overcome transplant shock as it was old when planted. For example, if you planted a 3-year-old tree it will take that tree about 3 years to catch up with itself and overcome transplant shock. In other words, that tree will not be "established" for three years and the damage you see can actually have been done in the nursery, or from transportation from nursery to the garden, or from transplanting. Such damage typically shows up as dieback of the tops of the branches.

If recent transplanting is not the case, then the problem could be from some damage incurred last season. Since this season has not yet begun, the damage would have to have been caused either last summer, last fall, or during the winter. Most of the damage we see in southwest Montana is desiccation damage, which usually shows up on the uppermost branches for a couple of reasons. A) The uppermost branches are most exposed to sun and wind and consequently get hit the hardest. B) Uppermost branches have large surface-to-volume ratios, meaning they have proportionately greater surface area for transpiration/water loss. C) The outside shoots, well exposed to the weather, are also the newest shoots, with less bark to protect them. D) The newest shoots are also the last to harden off in fall and a sudden drop in temperature will knock them out. This lack of hardening becomes even more problematic if the plants were watered or fertilized late in the season to keep them "green."

Roots are killed when soil temperatures hit about 15°F. Since we had a pretty good snowcover this year I doubt that outright kill is the cause of upper branches not leafing out. Last fall we had very warm weather and things grew late, then we got clobbered literally overnight with -20°F temperatures in mid-October. So the shoots may have gotten damaged at that time (most likely). Now, there was some storage of starch and nitrogen in the trunk and roots of the trees before that time. This is used for growth in the following spring. The nutrients stored are pushed up in spring to help the upper parts of the plant metabolize until the leaves can come out and do their job by sending photosynthates back down to the roots. If the leaves did not come out, obviously they cannot resupply the roots with nutrients. When the roots run out, the top of the plant dies. Also, the extreme cold may have damaged the phloem tissue in the trunk. If that is the case, even if the leaves do come out they cannot replace the root nutrients and the upper parts of the plant die.

All of this damage begins to become evident when the weather warms...right now, but it was induced last year sometime. I have seen many apple trees girdled by voles in winter that bloom well and even leaf out normally, only to wilt literally overnight when the weather gets warm...the damage the voles did to the phloem and cambium was irreparable. In that case the roots could supply the top with water and some stored nutrients through the xylem to get things in gear, but the top could not replace the photosynthates, and eventually when the tree was put under heat stress, it died.

If the branches are dead, prune them out any time of year. But be sure they are dead. Sometimes damage is not fatal and the branches will leaf out slowly and late. My rule of thumb is to wait until the 4th of July (see photo for branch that leafed out after being pruned). If they haven't leafed out by then they are likely dead, so the wait would not change things; if not dead, it is so late in the season that they won't have enough growing time and be weak going into another winter, and if the fall or winter is tough again, they will likely go out next year.

This is typical scenario for this area. A plant may hang on for several years and folks say, “What do you mean I can't grow that here? I've had it growing for X number of years!” But then the winters and summers find a way to clobber us and the plants that gardeners thought were hardy, weren't—and I feel vindicated!

Our ‘Adelaide Hoodless’ shrub rose which is supposed to be hardy here and which had done very well for us for a half dozen years, got killed back to the snowline this year. Our yucca (hardy to zone 4 according to the books) has severe dieback, and all four of our hardy plums may not make it. It is for this reason another old rule of thumb of mine is that hardiness zone designations are only accurate to +/- one hardiness zone. Gardeners put way too much stock in their zone accuracy—after all, we're dealing with weather!

Bottom line: I think much of the damage you see was done by the deep sudden cold last October that was exacerbated by the unusually warm weather leading up to it.

—Dr. Bob Gough

Spinach in March

2010-05-19T11:24:00.000-06:00

It's only mid May and Cheryl picked yet another batch of fresh spinach. We've been eating spinach from the garden since early April, even before many gardeners had sown their spinach seeds. We did it by frost-seeding in late September. Being hardy, the spinach seedlings spent the winter beneath a constant cover of snow mulch and as soon as the snow melted in late March, the inch-tall seedlings shot up. We've been eating spinach ever since. Frost seeding is an old practice not very often mentioned in garden books now. It works in our area for not only spinach but also peas. Seeds treated with a fungicide are less apt to rot in the cold soil but the treatment is more of a life insurance and not absolutely necessary. Try it this year.

—Dr. Bob Gough

TOO EARLY FOR TRANSPLANTS, TRY SPROUTS

2010-05-10T08:22:00.003-06:00

It’s early May and around here we don’t plant outside until Memorial Day, and even then we know there’ll likely be a big wet snow the first week of June. But the days warm, the snow recedes, and you get anxious. You counsel patience, but want to do something productive. This year I tried sprouting seeds for the first time.

At last year’s Colorado Garden & Home Show we bought a pack called “5 Part Salad Mix Sprouting Seeds,” packaged by Handy Pantry Sprouting in Springville, Utah. Contents: organic alfalfa, radish, mung bean, lentil, and broccoli. Certified 100% organic, the label says, “This mixture creates denser, higher fiber salad.”

To grow them in, I ordered the Biosta Sprouting Kit from territorialseed.com. It consists of three light plastic trays, and a bottom receptacle; place your seeds in t h e three stacking trays, pour water into the top and it filters down through the others, eventually ending up in the bottom. Price is a hefty $40.95 for what it is, but it’s clever and works very well.

The “5 Part Salad Mix Sprouting Seeds” yields about 5 cups of sprouts. As with any sprouts, you gotta eat them within a few days or they get funky. I put them on salads, but also find other uses, like in a breakfast burrito with Eggbeaters, onions, maybe some potato cubes and cheddar cheese. From our long-ago sailing days, when everything on board sometimes got damp and soft, sprouts give you a nice crisp c-r-u-n-c-h.

You can buy online. The 4-ounce pack we bought at the show for $4.83, sells online for $3.42. Don’t ask me why, but I guess it was the vendor expanding her profit margin. Handy Pantry has lots of other products, including various sprouting seed mixes, and sprouting containers less expensive than the one we bought.

Living Whole Foods d.b.a. Handy Pantry Sprouting, 1041 North 450 West., Springville, UT 84663, tel. 800–735–0630, handypantry.com.

The First Wildflower

2010-04-20T07:36:00.001-06:00

The first really warm day of 2010 came upon us suddenly, last week. Temperatures soared into the 60s and low 70s. Tops were down on the convertible cars, families went for bike rides, and teens floated in rubber rafts on the lake outside town.

For most of April, we were teased with a sunny, clear day, that might hit 50°, only to be beaten back the next by a whiteout of frozen mix driven sideways by howling winds.

Despite the snowy violence, the daffodils on the front of our house popped, thanks to heat reflected off the walls. And when the snow in the backyard melted away from the garden beds, the crocuses appeared. Out in the fields, the first green blades of new grass began to thrust up through the mat of brown, dead stalks.

Walking the dogs through the field last Friday I saw the first wildflowers: spring beauty (Claytonia lanceolata). That day I counted just a few, but over the weekend hundreds more appeared. It’s a remarkably predictable flower. My records indicate the earliest appearance, in our 10 years here, was April 10. In 2004 it was April 12; in 2008 it was April 13; and in 2007 it was tax day—April 15.

Soon to come are the yellowbells, woodland shooting stars, several varieties of phlox, and streamside bluebells.

On my errand list today is new fabric for the vegetable garden hoop tunnels, because around here we know there’s more snow in the offing—right up to the first week of June.

—Dan Spurr

Ax In The Garden

2010-04-19T09:14:00.001-06:00

Yesterday Bob fired up the rototiller and tilled most of the vegetable plot. The riding mower was stubborn, though; the battery needs to be replaced, an annual event. I divided our perennial bachelor’s buttons and daylilies and set about putting down new landscape fabric and bark mulch. I used a spading fork to lift the clumps, but then, the clumps were so tough I thought an ax would be better than a shovel to divide them. Bob came over and laughed at me; he said I didn’t mess around—I had grabbed a splitting mall instead of an ax. But it sure did work well!

—Cheryl Moore-Gough

THE GARLIC AND RHUBARB ARE UP!

2010-04-10T14:21:00.000-06:00

Today while I gave an early spring gardening talk at Bozeman’s Winter Farmers Market, Bob sowed tomato and pepper seeds for this year’s transplants. We’re seeding our very favorite heirloom tomato, ‘Black Sea Man’ and also ‘Bloody Butcher’ because it works for us in our garden. I simply must have ‘Sun Gold’ cherry tomato—the sweetest treat in the world, but it cracks horribly if you don’t watch the watering later in the season. We’ve had great success growing ‘Big Bertha’ sweet peppers so we’re repeating them, along with ‘New Ace’ which is blockier and ‘Pepperoncini’ for something new to try.

We figure it takes six to eight weeks to grow a good transplant of peppers and tomatoes; we’re soaking okra seeds (aids germination) and will sow them tomorrow. Bozeman is definitely not the best location to grow okra, but we like to try new things each year. Our onion and leek seedlings are doing nicely, and I’m keeping them trimmed to 4 inches until we can set them to the garden.

The foxglove is huge, and the catnip…ah the catnip. I planted some free seeds from the bottom of a container of catnip I purchased at the pet store, along with some newly purchased, fresh seed. What a huge difference. I’ve harvested enough catnip to put my cat into la-la land for a year from the fresh, and the barely living plants from the old seed hit the trash.

Our fall-planted spinach is up and looks good…we had good snowc over so we didn’t mulch or anything. The September/October-planted garlic is up and we can see it from the kitchen window. Our salsify overwintered and we’re looking forward to saving seeds from it this year as it’s a biennial. I’m anxious to see the blue flower since the only salsify I’ve ever known is a yellow-flowered weed. Edible salsify is different. The fennel overwintered nicely and I’m really looking forward to saving seeds from those plants!

The rhubarb is up, and we have our first crocus flowers this morning.

Don’t you just love it when the earth awakens in spring?

Cheryl Moore-Gough

Parsnips, And Two Lives, Come Full Circle

2010-04-02T17:56:00.002-06:00

The month of April has taken the frost out of the ground and I have taken the parsnips. They overwintered just fine in our zone 4 garden, protected from the deep cold by a good blanket of snow. Their tops had begun to green, Nature's signal that we had better use them while they have plenty of sugar left or Nature will use the sugar to form their seed stalks. So I took what we needed and left the rest to complete their biennial cycle and set their seeds.

We save seeds of our open-pollinated vegetables every year and look forward to a good harvest of 'Hollow Crown' parsnip seeds in August. Saving seeds saves us a little money and gives us a larger sense of self-sufficiency, and the pleasure of seeing our vegetables complete their lifecycles, itself a reflection and a foreshadowing of our own destiny.

It is an expression of that sense of Nature's completeness that led us to write our next book, due out in Spring 2011. Over nearly a century of combined gardening experience we have taught folks how to plant, care for, and harvest their crops. So it was only fitting that in our next book we tell readers how to save the seeds of nearly 2,000 species of vegetables, herbs, flowers, fruit, trees, and shrubs. It is a thorough book that itself completes our own journey in horticulture. We have come full circle, from seed to seed. The parsnips I left in the ground will do the same and that is good.

—Dr. Bob Gough

When To Prune

2010-03-21T19:01:00.010-06:00

Well, the onions and celery and leeks are started in the house now. They're up and doing just fine. So, on a warm day last week I walked out onto the crusty snow in the backyard to see what might be going on with the trees and shrubs. As I suspected, not much. Too early for winter damage to show up, but it is time to sharpen the pruning shears for the annual spring pruning.

Folks always ask us when the right time is to prune, and we always tell them "When the knife is sharp." Liberty Hyde Bailey, the Father of American Horticulture, gave folks the same answer a century ago, but I know he didn't get it from us. We are far more sophisticated today...we have to have a precise time and a precise method for every gardening chore.

But Nature doesn't dictate that with pruning. In fact, it makes little difference to the tree whether you prune it or not. After all, no one prunes them in the wild. We've devised times for pruning that suit OUR needs, not those of the plants. Prune spring flowering shrubs right after they bloom and prune just about all trees in early spring. That works just fine, so long as we sharpen the knives this time of year so that we... prune when the knife is sharp.

—Dr. Bob Gough

Vivipary

2010-03-04T12:40:00.001-07:00

My husband and I don’t care for green tomato pie, green tomato chutney, or green tomato salsa. We love homegrown tomatoes, so we store our last fall harvest in a box in the garage, where it’s cool enough that the green tomatoes slowly ripen. Each week, I pick out the yellow-to-orange colored fruit and place them in a dark blue hand-thrown ceramic bowl sitting on the kitchen counter, to finish ripening. While these tomatoes aren’t as flavorful as our sun-ripened ones, we think they taste better than the winter tomatoes we find in the stores around town.

A few weeks ago, the last of our tomatoes sat on the counter. Some were a bit wrinkled, all not much larger than cherry tomatoes. My friend, Becky, turning up her nose when she saw them in the bowl, asked why I hadn’t thrown them out. I was defensive. “Cooked in olive oil, these taste great in a casserole or eggs.” I’m not sure she believed me.

Several days later, preparing stuffed acorn squash for supper, I cut open an inch and a half long, firm, unwrinkled, red ‘Roma,’ and saw green. Thinking Becky may have been right—I looked closer, and saw tiny stems with green leaves sprouting from the seeds.

Years ago, cutting open a grapefruit I’d stored in my fridge—one seed had sprouted. I’d thought it odd then, but now, with a tomato full of sprouted seeds, I wanted answers. I sent Cheryl, our technical editor for horticulture, an email to see if she’d have an interesting explanation.

Cheryl responded, “Yep. I’ve seen this too, with seeds germinating inside the fruit. Did you know that corn, dried on the stalk, will germinate right on the plant? I think this would be a good one for Dr. Bob.” She forwarded my e-mail to her husband.

Dr. Bob replied, “The technical term for this sort of thing is ‘vivipary.’ The juice of some fruit, such as tomato, apple, and some citrus, contains germination inhibitors that prevent the seeds from germinating in the fruit. Over time, in storage, those inhibitors become ineffective, allowing germination to occur. Additionally, seeds of many fruit—mostly fruit of woody plants—require a period of cold before they can germinate. So, if you store fruit in the refrigerator for any length of time, the cold requirement is satisfied AND the germination inhibitors break down, allowing the seeds to germinate in the fruit. Fruit in this condition is not harmful, but because it is old, it may not taste very good.”

There you have it—vivipary...

I chopped up the rest of my tomatoes that evening—none of the others had sprouted and they tasted great with the stuffed acorn squash. Later, I planted the sprouts, leaving them on the tomato slice, in a small pot, barely covering them with soil. Two seeds have grown; one is an inch tall. We’ll see if they’ll bear fruit this summer.

—Rilla Esbjornson

Get Your Grow Lights Glowing

2010-02-24T16:51:00.003-07:00

Bob and I seeded onions, leeks, and celery February 7. It’s not a good idea to start transplants too early in our enthusiasm to be shed of winter’s dreariness, but for these plants, it’s ok as they require much longer to get to the size we need for setting to the garden. We use the same shelves for starting plants that we store our winter squash, and I had to move our last three Lakota squash to make room. It’s always exciting to clean last year’s soil off the shelves and fire up the grow lights. We have them set to turn on automatically for a 16-hour photoperiod right now. The onions and leeks are 2 to 4 inches tall, and the celery is finally showing up. We also planted catnip, and while we have a couple of plants that are obviously catnip, there are a number of other, strange-looking plants—one of which looks suspiciously like red-rooted pigweed. I guess that’s what we get for planting the catnip seeds in the bottom of the tub of catnip we bought! We’ll wait to sow more seeds for transplants until 6 to 8 weeks prior to the day we plan to set them to the garden. Some vegetables only need 4 weeks to make a good transplant!

—Cheryl Moore-Gough

Trade Associations Professionalize the Hort Industry

2010-02-17T15:47:00.001-07:00

A year ago we joined three state trade associations: the Colorado Nursery & Greenhouse Association, Idaho Nursery & Landscape Association, and Montana Nursery & Landscape Association. We knew connecting with the good folks who purvey plants and knowledge to our readers was a good idea, but it has been better than that: friendship and camaraderie in a shared industry.

Last January we exhibited at the MNLA in Missoula, on the university campus. It was nasty cold and windy outside, but inside the University Center meeting rooms, exhibit hall, and amphitheater, we listened to some great speakers, signed up some new retail outlets, sold a few subscriptions, and Nurseries new friends. Noted horticulturist Dan Heims, of Terra Nova gardens in Canby, Oregon, gave an intriguing slide presentation drawn from his world travels, titled “How Dry I Am,” in which he predicted nations warring over water within five to 10 years. Some of his tips: plants with similar needs should be planted together; pruning reduces transpiration; wax sprays help to keep moisture in.

Another keynote speaker was Robert Doliboi, executive vice president of the American Nursery & Landscape Association, who offered a packed audience a unique perspective on the “green industry” and what terrific opportunities it has to prosper despite, and perhaps because of, the current challenges of economic recession and global warming controversy. He talked a lot about sustainability, defining it as: “The ability to continue a defined behavior indefinitely.”

Many attendees were familiar with Zone 4, even subscribers, and those who hadn’t seen an issue were impressed.

We came away so excited that on returning home that we immediately bought a booth at the much larger CNGA’s annual ProGreen expo, held in the Denver Convention Center the second week of February. Unfortunately, we were pretty much tied to the booth and couldn’t sit it on any of the seminars and workshops covering a wide range of topics, from new plant varieties to green roofs, integrated pest management, and advice on how to run a business.

We did get to spend some time with faculty and staff from Colorado State University, and are pleased to have Dr. Steven Newman onboard as a contributor. Steve is in the Horticulture and Landscape Architecture Department, and a specialist in protective structures.

CSU also is home to the wonderful Plant Select program, which tests plants for their suitability to the Rocky Mountain region, promotes and educates the public. On page 55 of our Spring issue (just got the first copy in my hands and it looks awesome!) is a description of Plant Select’s recommended plants for 2010.

If there is one overriding impression we have of these trade associations it is this: by and large, growers and nurserymen and women are knowledgeable, professional, and a pretty friendly lot. Next year’s expos will brighten our winter.

—Dan Spurr

State Of Zone 4

2009-12-30T13:59:00.000-07:00

The magazine made it through year 1! We met most of our performance projections, which really were guesses made a year ago. We finished 2009 with nearly 1400 subscribers in 38 states (even though we only market to five), and are on about 350 newsstands where our sell-through rate is quite a bit higher than the national average. The nearly 50 nurseries and garden centers that sell Zone 4 on counter racks have done even better.

In appreciation of our charter subscribers and advertisers, we just mailed each one a free 2010 Zone 4 Calendar with some cool photos from around the Rocky Mountains. Included is a Reader Survey that we hope many of you will return; demographic data is important for two reasons: to help us learn more about what sorts of articles you like; and to better explain the magazine to advertisers. One of our advisors, an industry veteran, keeps reminding us that a magazine is like a three-legged stool: editorial, advertisements, and readers—without any one of them the stool falls over.

Andra and I are looking forward to year 2 with great anticipation. Here are some of the additions you’ll see in 2010.

A crossword puzzle in which the answers are words taken from articles in the same issue.
Our first travel story will appear in the Spring issue with a visit to Grand Junction, home of the Western Colorado Botanical Gardens and dozens of vineyards and orchards.
Articles for the advanced gardener, beginning with Dr. Bob Gough’s tips on how to increase flower bud induction in fruit trees, with a sidebar on how to abort unwanted fruit.
If you’re reading this, chances are you’ve already seen our revamped Web site, thanks to the hard work of Ben Johns. In 2010 we hope to begin adding short video interviews with great gardeners.
Also on the new Web site online store are a few new products for sale: embroidered Zone 4 aprons, back issues, the superbly simple Sliver Gripper tweezers, and the aforementioned Zone 4 2010 Calendar. Check back for a unique line of handmade garden tools.

Many thanks to all who have helped us in 2009! Especially Kira, April, Lois, Rilla, Cheryl, Dr. Bob, Ben, Steve, Linnie, Adria, Anna, Laura, and Jane. You’re great!

Crazy Mountain Weather

2009-10-25T15:09:00.000-06:00

Where we live, 5 miles north of Bozeman, it can snow just about any month of the year, though it’s rare in July and August. This year, we almost got through September without significant snowfall. But on the last day of the month it came, wet and heavy. Leaves were still on the trees, each one a glove-like catchment. Boughs bent, boughs broke. It melted, of course, and then temperatures dropped into the teens. The suddenly freed leaves froze. It was as if we jumped from summer to winter, skipping autumn altogether. Indeed, the aspens never had a chance to turn the mountainsides yellow. The aspen leaves in our yard are a dark purple, some almost black. The color of death.

All the doom and gloom talk about the weather changed a week later, when temperatures rose to a more normal daytime range in the 50s. The sun returned, too. Some nights temps are just above freezing, other nights just below. But I miss the colors from our aspen, maples, and contoneasters.

I pulled my last tomato plants just before the big snowstorm and am letting them ripen in a cardboard box in the garage. I taste them every few days, and after a few weeks some have gone soft, others are coming along just fine. None tastes quite as good as those that ripened on the vine in late August and early September.

Did I mention the October wind that blew down off the mountains, pegging the dial at 50-60 mph for nearly a full day and night? In our yard it took one mature aspen and a lot of branches. At least it carried away a lot of those purple-black leaves that were starting to bum me out.

C’est la vie in the Rockies.

Rain

2009-08-14T17:14:00.000-06:00

As I write this, it’s raining. Hard. In fact, a few minutes ago marble-size hail thundered down on the metal office roof. As soon as it passed I ran out to the garden to see if any damage had been done. Not much, thankfully. Not like the hailstorm that passed through Gallatin Valley last summer, doing millions of dollars damage to auto dealers and farmers, and much to the pride of local gardeners.

This must be the wettest summer in a decade. Usually by now our unwatered lawn is brown, and so are the mountainsides. This year there’s still green on them thar hills. The obvious bonus is not having had to water as often as in previous summers. But we’ve also had cooler nights and some of my vegetables are behind schedule.

Last June, when a heavy, wet snow was forecast, I quickly made up several hoop tunnels with PVC and row cover fabric, and they did the job. I’ve left the hoops up all summer and come September I’ll lower the fabric when the temps drop. I’d hate to lose what appears to be a bumper crop of tomatoes.

We’re working hard on the Winter issue this month and next, as well as on stories and photographs for next Spring and Summer. Articles can be written right up to the deadline, but the photos must be taken in season (when we’re putting together the Summer issue, it’ll be spring and there’ll be snow on the ground!). Obviously, this requires some long-range planning. Either that or run generic photos bought from a stock agency, which a lot of magazines do. Anyone can run close-ups of pretty flowers. We want photos of the actual story subjects, whether it’s a garden or a person. This takes more work and more time, but we think it’s worth it. And hope you do, too.

As always, we love hearing from you. Tell us what you’re doing in your corner of paradise. And send pix!

New Payment Options

2009-05-24T18:26:00.000-06:00

Until last week, readers who wanted to subscribe online had two options: download and print a PDF subscription form, or deal with PayPal. Some of our readers didn’t care for the second option, even though it is possible to bypass membership and pay with a standard credit card. Apparently the navigation isn’t as clear as it could be.

We now have a shopping cart system through our Web host, and Authorize.net credit card processing, which assures secure transactions. You can pay online with Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, Diners Club, and with an eCheck, in which you “write” an electronic check on your checking account.

We apologize to those would-be subscribers who did not cotton to our earlier payment options; judging by the number of new subscribers using the shopping cart, customer confidence is much higher with the new system.

At present, there are only two “products” in the “store”: a 1-year subscription, and a 2-year subscription. At some point (when we come up for air), we’ll sell other items we think are special and worth bringing to the attention of readers—a few garden tools and clothing items for starters. Stay tuned. And thanks for reading Zone 4!

Memorial Day: Time to Plant!

2009-05-24T11:40:00.000-06:00

The wisdom around Southwest Montana is not to plant outdoors until Memorial Day. Well, our veterans’ holiday is early this year, and the likelihood of another snow or frost gives one pause, especially if you’ve been fooled before. And we have!

Our first summer in Montana, a big, wet, heavy snowfall hit on June 10, bringing down branches and powerlines across town. You’d think that would have taught us, but no, fooled by sun and warm temperatures in May, we’ve planted—and paid.

Today’s weather is about what Andra and I experienced during a getaway to Grand Junction, Colorado, in late April-early May: shortsleeves, the trees budding, and the early spring flowers in bloom. There’s no denying it: even within our five-state area of coverage, bloom dates vary by a month and more. But as Dr. Bob keeps reminding us, there are other factors affecting Rocky Mountain gardeners that are just as important as average minimum temperatures: cool nights, clay soil, high altitude, wind, hail…you know the deal.

Yesterday I visited Doug Badenoch, who owns the Wine Gallery here in Bozeman, and who writes our reviews of locally produced wines. We talked about when it’s safe to plant outdoors. Doug said, “My brother is an avid gardener, and he told me: ‘Never plant until after the snow melts on Mt. Baldy.” Looking up at the nearby Bridger Mountains, we could see snow on Baldy’s ridge. The message: be patient. Memorial Day may come and go, and it may hit 80°F, but I’m waiting until the mountain is all brown.

A Cold One In My Hands

2009-04-17T18:38:00.000-06:00

Issue No. 2 arrived a few days ago. The 80-foot truck was too big to come down our driveway so I had to meet it on the road with our pickup and transfer the pallet over. After a week of 60°F sunny days, it was snowing again. I drove back down the drive to our office door. Andra helped me move 3,250 copies of the Summer Issue inside. The rest of the print run was on trucks heading to our newsstand and bookstore distributors.

The magazine business is funny. Or maybe it’s the whole publishing world of books and newspapers, too. You bust your butt getting the issue out, reading, editing, proofing, and more proofing, until you know the thing as intimately as your own hand. You know every word and every photo. If you didn’t write the word or take the photo, you know the person who did. You asked them to write the article and take the photo. And then you worked it over. Sent it back with questions first, later for their approval. By the time you ship the issue to the printer you really can’t look at it another time.

Then a week passes. The proof copy comes FedEx from the printer. Once more, yet again, you read the issue word for word, looking for mistakes that eluded you the 19 other times you read it. There always are a few. Corrections at this stage are expensive—something like $50 a page. It adds up quickly, so you fix the worst and let the others go, hoping the readers will never notice.

Despite this over-familiarity with the publication, for some reason you can’t wait to see the REAL THING. To pull out your pen knife, cut the tape on the nearest box, pull out the top copy, and hold it in your hands. As if you expect to be surprised. To find something fresh and different. Of course, it is exactly as you remember it. The cover photo. The blurbs you wrote trying to lure newsstand tire kickers into picking it up and carrying it to the cash register. Willing to part with $6.95. Every page, exactly as you remember it.

And yet, and yet…the real thing is somehow different. You love it. This is why you’re in the publishing business. You can’t believe you made this darn thing. Pat yourself on the back. “Nice job!” you tell yourself.

Once Andra and I had all the boxes moved safely inside, out of the falling snow, we cut open a box and each took a copy. Having spent the last two days inside an unheated truck, they were cold to the touch.

I took mine inside the house, grabbed a cold one of another variety out of the fridge, and sat down to admire both of the cold ones in my hands.

Andra came in and said, “Funny how you can’t wait to get them. And soon as you do, you can’t wait to get rid of them.”

Not that we don’t like them. We just want to put a cold one in your hands. Coming to you soon!

Tomato Tip

2009-03-06T16:56:00.000-07:00

Master gardener John Austin stopped by our table at the Bozeman Home & Garden Show to present us with a “magazine warming” gift—a 7-week-old ‘Early Annie’ tomato plant. He told us the plant had been cold stressed. Asked to explain he said he started the seedling with 16 hours of light daily, from a small 100-watt fluorescent bulb positioned 2-3 inches above. Then after 3 weeks—just when the first true leaves started to appear—he reduced light to just 12 hours a day. He maintained temperatures at about 55°F at night and 65° during the day. After another 3 weeks he returned to the 16-hour-per-day regimen. The result: edible fruit 2-3 weeks earlier than if he had not cold stressed the plant. And that, he says, is why he always has tomatoes by the Fourth of July…much to many people’s amazement. In Southwest Montana, he starts tomatoes around April 1, transplants around June 1, and begins eating the fruit of his labors on Independence Day.

The Denver Boot

2009-02-19T11:31:00.000-07:00

It was Friday the 13th, and a winter storm was coming down over the Rocky Mountain front range onto Denver, which soon proved to be an omen of events to come.

The day started out well. Andra and I had visited Publication Printers, just a mile south of downtown, where Zone 4 is printed. A poster in the lobby says, “Official Printer of the Denver Broncos.” Our sales rep gave us a ten-cent tour, beginning with the huge prepress department where customer files are downloaded from an FTP site, and four sets of thin aluminum plates are made up, usually eight pages to a plate. In the four-color process—cyan, yellow, magenta, and black—four plates must be made for each set of pages. Once checked for accuracy, the plates move to the web presses (a “web” is simply a large roll of paper on a spindle that is pulled through the Heidelberg presses, where the images on the plates are transferred to a rubber “blanket” and then to the paper—hence the name “offset”). It all happens at lightning speed. The tour moved to the bindery where saddle stitch “signatures” are stapled together, and perfect bound pages are glued. Our rep left us at the shipping department, where young men zip around the cavernous warehouse on machines that look like a cross between a fork lift and a Segway. As they pick up and drop pallets of boxes full of magazines, they look like they’re having a lot more fun than anyone else in the building. It must be like getting paid to race go carts.

We picked up 1,000 copies of Zone 4 No. 1 that we’d had the printer hold for us last week when the issue printed. The other 4,000 copies were shipped to newsstand distributors and subscribers. Then we drove to downtown Denver, checked into our hotel, grabbed a box out of the trunk, and headed over to the Convention Center to promote the magazine at the 50th Colorado Garden & Home Show.

We’d walked just three aisles before an undercover security agent nabbed us. He said only exhibitors could hand out materials. We said, “Didn’t know that. Sorry. We won’t pass any more.”

To which he said, “Leave the show immediately.”

I said, “Well, we did buy tickets.”

He got on his walkie talkie and said to his superior that he had a “problem couple here.”

Realizing he wasn’t about to have a conversation with us, and that a couple of gray-hairs distributing subversive propaganda that promotes growing your own vegetables and patronizing local food sources didn’t have much chance of winning an argument, rather than suffer the embarrassment of being handcuffed, collared, and thrown out on the street, we left.

On the way back to our hotel, Andra, who always seems to come up with the right comment, smiled at me and said, “We got the Denver boot!”

We might be subversives but we’re not parking ticket scofflaws; there was no Denver boot locking a front wheel of our car. To lick our wounds we treated ourselves to a performance of Richard III, and the next day left town quietly—with 996 copies of Zone 4.

First Copies Have Arrived!

2009-02-03T16:34:00.000-07:00

At 10:30 this morning a trucker delivered a pallet of Zone 4 issue No. 1. Half of our initial print order was shipped to distributors directly from the printer in Denver. We're sending out the rest, for now. Our mailing list includes subscribers, the media, advertisers, and small retailers. Printing labels, stuffing envelopes, and lugging mail trays to the post office is not exciting work, but we're anxious for your feedback. So please, write, email, telephone, yell, make smoke signals—let us know what you think!

And tell a friend about Zone 4.

Publication Printers did a great job. True color, no mistakes. As we knew they would, having closely checked other publications on their customer list. Thanks also to all the writers, photographers, proof readers, and others who helped.

Issue No. 2 is well underway. Besides informative and colorful features, Dr. Bob's Q&A, recipes, and much more, we'll announce the winner of our first Backyard Blunders contest. Get your hands on No. 1 for more information.

Stay tuned!