Bogus Gold

It's that time of year again. Time to stop thinking about wonderful garden fresh tomatoes this summer and to start doing something to bring them about. That's right, today is the official Bogus Gold kickoff for tomato season. The seeds were sewn today, a good 6-8 weeks before they'll be transplanted into the outdoor garden.

If you're someone who has never started your own tomatoes from seed before, I'd encourage you to give it a try. It's not terribly difficult, nor expensive. In fact, if you grow a lot of tomatoes you'll easily save money over buying your plants at a garden store. Here's a handy online guide.

Here's the garden so far:



Not much to look at, obviously. Just wanted to note that I use Jiffy Pellets to start my tomato seeds. They're clean, easy, and I've always had good luck with them. Four seeds to one pellet, so you're looking at a potential 100 plants there (though not all will successfully germinate). A couple of weeks after they sprout I'll transplant them into 3" containers. And, depending on the weather outlook, they'll go into the garden around Memorial Day.

As many of you know I was bitten by the heirloom tomato bug a few years back, so many of the varieties I grow are ones you're unlikely to find at a typical garden center. Here's the list of tomato varieties I'm growing this year (believe it or not, it's scaled back from the last year, which was scaled back from the year before).

Sun Gold
Neves Azorean Red
Black Cherry
Mr. Stripey (Tigerella)
Azoychka
Eva Purple Ball
Jaune Flammé
Green Zebra
Black Krim
Cherokee Purple
Aunt Ruby's German Green
Anna Russian
Brandywine OTV
Early Wonder
Marianna's Peace
Aunt Ginny's Purple
Gregori's Altai
Costoluto Genovese
Persimmon

The last four are new to me this year. The rest are all varieties I've grown and liked in the past.

Happy Spring!

Gall and Wormwood has a post about how to make proper Southern-style fried green tomatoes that has my mouth watering.

Being a Northerner, I've always just winged it, going with seasoned flour rather than corn meal, and vegetable oil rather than bacon grease. But I'm definitely giving this recipe a try.

But not for a few months. Fried green tomatoes are an end-of-the-season treat for me, when the weather turns too cool to ripen them properly and first-frost is on the way. Right now I'm still eagerly counting the days until my first ripe tomato.

An appropriate topic for a (Keegan's) Thursday came up in a conversation at work today. Drawing upon my vast store of largely useless trivia, I educated a previously ignorant co-worker on an important theory regarding the development of civilization and the crucial role played by beer.

The theory, which I am not making up, goes like this...

The time has come. The tomatoes I want for my own garden are in the ground. And yet large, healthy, hard to find tomato plants still exist on my deck. Time to divest myself of them.

Do you live in Minnesota? Do you have a garden? Do you like tomatoes? If you said yes to all three of these, you're in luck. I have lots of plants available - first come, first serve.

I've got Brandywine (of the famous Sudduth/Quisenberry strain), Brandywine OTV, Stump of the World, Neves Azorean Red, Azoychka, and Black Krim all looking for good homes. If you're interested, drop me a line. By the end of next weekend I'll toss them if no one wants them. So don't be afraid to speak up.

Taking a break from gardening. It's going well. The rain held off save for a few sprinkles. The backbreaking part of the work is done. Now just some of the planting remains. Haven't started planting the tomatoes yet. That's a sacred event best not rushed. But I have some other goodies in the ground already. Neither of my older kids will eat watermelon, but for some reason they both insist we need to grow some. So that's in. And some cantelope. Zuchinni. Blah, blah. (Thinking of the tomatoes... drooool).

Don't tell her I said so, but the wife has been a garden slacker so far. Not that this is against type. I'm just sayin'.

Stoked about dinner tonight. The morel mushrooms are in. Tonight that means morel mushroom risotto. Morels, granny smith apples, asparagus, Calvados, black pepper, italian parsely, and Pamesan Reggiano. Farmer Doug needs a big meal after spending a day tilling the back 40.

Back to work.

As some of you know, I'm an heirloom tomato fanatic. Most of the varieties I grow can't be found at local nurseries, and some can't be found at any nursery. Therefore, a few years back I learned to raise them from seed. This sounds intimidating to those who have never tried it, but it's really not difficult. (If you're interested there is a handy tutorial here.)

Anyway, I tend to get a lot of questions from friends and relatives about which tomato varieties they should plant. So I thought I'd offer a few standard suggestions.

1. I like to recommend that people try both some standard hybrids and some heirlooms. That should give you some indication about the qualities of both. Heirlooms have a lot more variation in color, size, flavor, production, etc. But there are some that are perfectly suited for beginning garderners. Here are a few suggestions about varieties of each:

Hybrid: Big Beef, Early Girl, Rutgers, Better Boy (for cherry tomatoes Sweet Million and Sungold)

Heirloom: Cherokee Purple, Boxcar Willie, Brandywine OTV, Eva Purple Ball, Marianna's Peace (for cherry tomatoes Black Cherry, Green Grape, Isis Candy)

2. Almost everything about tomato growing is relative to the seasonal weather. This means a tomato variety you love one year might disappoint the next, or vise-versa. If you try something you heard was great and think it's terrible based on a single year's experience, you might not want to cross it off your list forever.

3. There is no standard answer to the question "How many tomato plants should I grow?" If you eat a lot of tomatoes, and like to have some to give away to friends - and especially if you can at the end of the season - the sky is the limit for a backyard garden. Just keep in mind, those tiny plants in May are going to be giants in September, so try to have at least three feet between plants. Also remember, tomatoes need lots of nutrients. You can grow them in the same garden bed every year, but you need to amend the soil each season.

4. Tomatoes love sunlight. The less sunlight they get, the fewer tomatoes they'll produce. Make sure the spot you select for them gets at least 8 hours of direct sunlight each day. More is even better. Also, it's the leaves that need the sunlight. A common misconception is that you need sun on the tomatoes themselves for them to ripen faster. The fruit will ripen just fine in the shade. Too much sun on the fruit can lead to a condition called sunscald (but don't worry too much about that, because other than being unsightly it doesn't harm the tomato).

5. Tomatoes can be grown in containers. I do this along with those in the garden every year. But the container should be at minimum 5 gallons (mine are 20 gallon containers). Also, do not use normal soil. It doesn't drain well enough. Use some kind of potting soil. Plan to fertilize and water container tomatoes more frequently than those in the ground.

A lighter note before diving into a much heavier topic (hint to Kathy - it's the essay you requested. Sort of. You'll find out soon.).

Spring in Minnesota is an unusual thing. Here we are in early April, temps in the very comfortable lower 70's. The sun is shining. People are out doing outdoorsy things again. And everything is pretty much still grey and brown as it was in February, only without any snow.

Greenage takes a long time to pop up around here. It can vary with the weather of course, but I never get my hopes that it will arrive in any serious measure until May. And then it all comes in about a week and a half and BAM! It's summer.

I wonder what spring is like somewhere less wintery in the winter. Is spring a long, lazy happy season there? Is it the kind of weather we call "summer" up here?

In any case, I started my heirloom tomatoes yesterday. I held back this year. Only 50 Jiffy pellets, with 3 seeds apiece. And more shockingly, only 14 varieties! Three of which are (gasp) hybrids instead of heirlooms.

Didn't get around to starting the eggplant or herbs yet. And I really need to pick up a book and figure out when non-tomato plants ought to go outside, or I'm going to blow it again. I tend to treat every plant in my garden as if it's needs are the same as a tomato plant, and some don't respond well to that treatment.

But first I need to prepare the garden. And due to my laziness and general sullenness last fall, I left myself a royal mess. Blech. But I generally enjoy the work once I'm into it. It's lacking the gumption to get started that delays me.

But spring is here for sure. For what that's worth in Minnesota anyway.