Does anyone know what the ultimate sweet, less acidic tomatoes are, I’m more interested in the fun of it than any need for a bunch of tomatoes.
This year I am growing Solar Flare, Cherokee Purple, Sungold cherry tomatoes, and what I hope is going to be a Ponderosa Pink.
The Sungold cherry tomatoes are OK but perhaps due to the desert heat here they are not nearly as good as people online said they would be.
I don’t need many tomatoes and grow from seed, any suggestions for truly interesting, unique, and sweet tomatoes?
Here where I am, we are hunkering down for our (very) hot weather season - the hot winds will start up soon as well - and we've been told to cut back even more on watering.
I'm planting more cactus and succulents than ever this year.
Here's what I'm doing to the median strip in front of the house, a rock and succulent garden:
Plumerias can also withstand our heat, this one has been taking off lately:
And, of course, my helpers trying to find a shady spot to get out of the heat.
My four, rated in performance for this season:
1. San Marzano (A real super star this year)
2. Bonnie Original
3. Celebrity
4. Better Boy
I’m having a hard time keeping ahead of the slugs...very wet this year so far.
One of my “treats” is pimiento cheese & I make my own (homemade mayo, grate the cheese). My dad’s mom made it & it had a distinctive taste that I’ve never been able to reproduce. When I knew her, more ‘modern’ store-bought foods were becoming available ... bread & mayonnaise come to mind. When my dad was growing up, pretty much everything except for sugar and maybe coffee/tea were grown on the farm: meat (hogs, sheep, beef, chickens, turkeys, ducks), veggies in their garden, smokehouse for sausage, preserving meat, cows for raw milk kept cold in the springhouse. Granny cooked with lard made from their pigs - BEST fried chicken ever!
I am fairly sure she bought her pimientos for the pimiento cheese. They are currently not cheap and I cannot find them in every store so the thought occurred ... why not grow my own? The next question is how to store them. I do not have a pressure canner - one of these days I might treat myself to one. Hot water bath canning is all I do, but that is not appropriate for most low acidic veggies except for tomatoes (& I add a tablespoon at least of lime/lemon juice to bump up acidity).
Anyway, all of this being said, I happened across this link on preserving pimiento peppers. If you scroll down, there are lots of other articles on other peppers as well.
How to Preserve Pimentos
https://oureverydaylife.com/preserve-pimentos-32071.html
On a ‘sentimental’ note, I always feel “closer” to both of my grannies when I can. My maternal Granny did only hot water bath, including for all her veggies. They frequently had jars of canned veggies exploding in the root cellar - I am surprised they all weren’t killed by ‘bad’ canned goods at some point or another. My other granny “canned” sausage that Granddad made (both granddads were “master” sausage makers). They had metal cans & some way to seal tops & then the cans were boiled all day out in a blg black kettle in the yard. One of my dad’s favorite dishes .... sausage from one of those cans over hominy, with gravy.
The volunteer small tomatoes have come back and are almost as prolific as last year. We built a little area up against the house where we dumped all the dirt left from the marijuana crop last year. It will contain some really powerful organic fertilizer. Also the cat used it as her litter box. We planted 6 Early Girls there and they are booming. Cages are a total loss. A pear tomato volunteered there and my peas were an experiment. I’ll harvest them as seed. We also have a purple cherry tomato and another cherry. Peppers seem like a loss and another tomato (unknown) went to the front of the house where the deer trimmed it but it is hanging on.
We got bigger pots for the marijuana(limit of 4 plants) and I planted one directly into the dirt to see what would happen. A relative gave us a bag of his crop from last year and we are pulling it apart to harvest the seeds to give away. There are 3 of us in the group and none of us use it so we don’t mind trying new things.
The big question is how to start a real garden. Where to put it, etc? The front yard a par 3 basically is Southern exposure. We have good dirt for beets in Va.
I don’t get a chance to post often, but do want to thank you and all the posters, especially the ones who post pictures. This yearI wished I new how, but will have to wait until the grandchildren visit to learn, as I had never seen anything like how my potato patch bloomed . It looked like I was growing flowers. In fact, the whole garden is looking pretty good, although we could use a nice soaking rain, about now.
Except my peppers, which obviously don’t like where I put them this year. :). Lesson learned.
I did pick my first ripe tomato today. The rest are still green as grass, although I have a good number so far.
Right now, I’m canning beans, 50 pts. so far and lots more to go. :)
I save reading this list as a “treat” at the end of the day.
A paper wasp got me twice on the back of my right hand yesterday, about .7” apart, then once on left arm. I treated all with Lanacane. The left arm hit diminished after treatment pretty quickly. The right hand double hit diminished too, tho’ not as much. No real swelling. Now 12 hours later I’ve awoken early and the back of my hand has developed moderate swelling (not awful, very slight discoloration of ~ 3 sq. inches), there’s some moderate general soreness in the area, fingers seem fine above the first joint (MCP). I have not experienced this in the past - granted I’ve never been stung twice or thrice (and 2 stings in close proximity, too.) I HAVE had my ring finger swell quite a bit after a sting right on the joint just above my wedding ring.
This though is almost like one time when I sprained some ligaments in my hand. I expect it to be much shorter lived, of course.
But, curiosity: Effect of the venom only? It seems like a lot for a double paper wasp sting. Possible localized allergic reaction of some sort?
Inside about 8:45 after almost an hour outside watering the garden AND picking tomatoes!! The very first Celebrity of the season was picked & about 65 Sungolds (I counted). I had to tie up one Celebrity branch that had started touching the ground since yesterday - will likely tie up 2 or 3 more tonight.
Back to the Sungolds - last year I had 2 plants & was taking gallon bags of them about twice a week to the fire station about a mile away. I only have one plant this year - we have new neighbors across the street & I believe they told mom they like tomatoes, so there is an “outlet” for some of the overabundance we are going to be having. The neighbors next to them have two small kids - I think they like tomatoes as well. Another week, and I’ll have plenty to give away.
It is like a sauna here - as soon as you step out the door, it hits you in the face & you’re sweating. Low to mid-90’s all week and through the weekend, high humidity, & the heat index will get to high 90’s every day & forecast for at least 100 on Thursday. Whew!
Coffee is saved until I get the garden done early, then I enjoy my first cup and this morning, it is also in front of a fan!
I finagled the use of a dump trailer for the weekend and spent most of Saturday hauling horse poo from the neighbor lady's stable. Brought home ~56cu/yard. Not spending the $150 to rent a trailer made it a bit easier to swallow the $100 fuel bill for the day. Was hoping for another three or four loads on Sunday but Mother Nature said no to that. Booger was quite impressed by the new heap. After all of that work we went for a swim then enjoyed the first purple cherokee BLTs of the summer. Yum Yum. I noticed the romas are starting to ripen so it won't be long until it's time to start making salsa/spaghetti sauce/tomato juice.
After the rain stopped on Sunday I pulled the straw mulch off the potato row and dug the spuds. 30' row made an even bushel. I planted six pounds, so I think the yield was decent. The two halves of the row were planted two weeks apart, with the later planting providing ~2/3 of the harvest. Booger likes to help in the garden. Any time I'm out there digging she's right there doing her own digging.
Mrs. Augie had a mid-day appointment yesterday so we both took the day off from our gainful employment and got some canning done. It had been a couple years since I made beet pickles and we've been out for quite awhile. 30' row made eleven quarts.
The last big job was harvesting the cabbage and turning it into sauerkraut. Cabbage is hit or miss around here and this time it hit fairly well. Seven heads gave up 15lbs after it was cleaned and shredded. It's salted and packed in a 5 gallon bucket tucked away in the laundry room. I checked it this morning and found it to be properly submerged in salty cabbage juice so there won't be a need to add any liquid. When it's ready in a month-ish (the waiting is the hardest part) I'll repack it into quart jars and store it in the refrigerator
OK.
I just saw something in my garden today that I would not have believed otherwise.
A beautiful little hummingbird feeding off my tomato flowers. I guess food is food but I never would have thought there’d be enough nectar for hummingbirds. Heck, they’re not even red.
I need to get more hummingbird friendly flowers, I guess.
Those are good reasons for eating tomatoes.