Month: September 2011

Variety Notes

Off the top of my head this morning, I have to make some notes about some keepers from the garden, and some that I will never grow again.

Tomatoes: Black Cherry and Lemon Drops will be garden staples.  They are both prolific and tasty. I knew the BC were good, but the Lemon Drops surprised me.

I will not grow Purple Calabash or Romas again.  Blech.  The Purple Calabash are just plain awful.  I have some sitting on the counter that I don’t know what to do with.  They have a sour, almost fermented flavor that is really unpleasant.  The romas taste like styrofoam.

Purple Cherokee is on my waffle list.  Mine have had a sweetness that I don’t care for.  There are enough other good tomatoes, that this one probably won’t make the list.

Aunt Ruby’s German Green is a keeper!  This ranks right up there with the Malakite tomato.  The flavor is spectacular, and the plants have put out great effort.

Hot Peppers: Aji Crystal is awesome!  It has this amazing crisp texture, and it definitely added a fruitiness to the salsa I made with it.  The heat level is up there, but it’s not the hottest I’ve grown this year.  Definitely a keeper.

I don’t think I’ll grow the Bulgarian Carrot Pepper again.  They are stunning to look at, and the flavor profile is good, but they’re tough.  It is difficult to chop them up for cooking with.  The only thing I could really see doing with them is making a fermented hot sauce, where you need to grind them up and let them sit and do their thing.   I would consider growing them if I was doing market gardening, because they are gorgeous in color and unique.  But for home use, not so much.

Greens: Arugula has to be one of the worst tasting things ever.  Escarole is close to that, though I may give the escarole another chance in some cool spring weather next year.  I’m annoyed that I bought all these seed packets for unusual greens, because most of them are simply awful.

Mizuna, though is a gem of a green.  It’s got a slight peppery-ness to it, but none of the bitterness that the other greens have.  It made a fabulous addition to sandwiches and salads, and the plants never bolted.  It’s cousin, the Ruby Streaks was also tasty, though that variety bolted once it got hot out.

And no more Salad Mix.  I must hunt down more romain varieties, because tha’s our preference.  These floppy greens are not desireable for a tossed green salad.

That’s the beginning of my list for the year.   Every time I walk out to the garden, these things roll through my head.  I decided to get them down in the notes so that I can focus my attentions elsewhere and make other discoveries.   There is still plenty chugging in from the garden!

The Unscientific Tomato Experiment

Unscientific because there are way too many variables at stake with these two tomato plants.  However, the results of this experiment are definitely enough to make me pause and give some thought to next year’s garden.

Far and away, THE healthiest tomato plant in my garden is the one that’s not in the garden.  It’s my Valiant.  The one that was extremely anemic, so it didn’t even merit planting in the garden.  On a lark, I planted it, along with several others in the side garden bed, just to see what would happen.  They were summarily snapped or nibbled off by rabbits.  The Valiant was the lone survivor- but even he was snapped off at the soil line.  There was no plant- just a stub of stem.  I wrote it off, but then a few days later discovered that this little plant was struggling to sustain life- it had a new branch and teeny-tiny leaves.

And now?

It’s absolutely beautiful.  It is the healthiest plant in my yard, and it is loaded with large clusters of good-sized tomatoes.  The soil here has been worked two years in a row with composted manure, but it still has a long way to go.  And yet, this tomato plant is just thriving!  It is loaded with large, tennis-to-softball sized fruit.

My Valiant plant in the garden, however is anemic and struggling.   It’s put out very little fruit, and what is still on the plant is small- no bigger than a baseball, but probably closer to a golf ball.

Same yard, same composted manure, same fertilizer schedule going on here.  But there is one majorly big difference.  The awesome Valiant plant is planted directly in the ground.  The wimpy Valiant plant is in a raised bed.   I’ve long known that tomatoes prefer to be in the ground versus in pots, but in-ground versus raised beds isn’t that different.  Especially when the beds are like mine- directly on the soil.

I don’t have a die-hard conclusion here, just observation.  On the one hand, the awesome plant experienced major trauma- supposedly tomato plants thrive with a bit of trauma in their lives.  That alone could explain the vibrancy of the plant.

And yet I cannot dismiss the idea that maybe my struggling tomato plants simply don’t like the raised beds.

But on the other hand, last year my plants were in the ground and produced practically nothing.  Though the soil was dismal at best last year.

So we’ll see.  Maybe next year will be a hybrid of some tomatoes in raised beds, and some directly in the ground.  But that means this must be given serious thought now- as I have several bulbs of garlic to plant this fall, and I’m unsure where those will grow best.