Tomato Season Begins

This morning, when I awoke, a robin was sitting on the branches of the tree outside the window. He seemed to be imploring me to do something about the weather. A snow storm moved in during the night, and big fat flakes were still coming down. Unfortunately, there was nothing more I could do than assure him Spring really is on its way.

Today, I finally got my tomatoes started. Planting tomato seeds during a snow storm seems like an act of faith and hope. Such tiny seeds! It never fails to amaze me that in just a few short months, these little sparks of life will be bringing forth fruit.

This year, I am starting 7 varieties. I was very pleased with Sub Arctic Plenty last year (reviewed here) and will grow them again this season. I picked up a fresh pack of McKenzie seeds at my local Canadian Tire store.

One of the new varieties I’m trying is Indigo Rose. This is a new tomato that was developed at Oregon State University. The fruits are said to be a dark plum purple-black. I got the seeds by mail order from tradewindsfruitstore.com, in California.

For an orange tomato, I chose Indian Moon. The fruit are described as ripening from green through yellow to bright orange, into sweet, meaty, 5 to 7 oz globes. My seeds came from saltspringseeds.com, on Salt Spring Island in British Columbia. Fiddlegirl added them to her order for me, along with Michael Pollan.

Michael Pollan! Ha! Who wouldn’t want Michael Pollan in their garden? As soon as I saw the listing, I knew I had to try these. A novelty tomato, the fruits are described as striking green and yellow-gold 3 inch pear-shaped tomatoes.

Fiddlegirl also shared with me some seeds for Silvery Fir Tree tomatoes, which she got from wildsomegardens.ca in Warsaw, Ontario. These plants are noted for their unusual, decorative leaves. The tomatoes are an early, bright red variety.

Rounding out my planting for this year are two varieties that I tried last year and felt deserved a second chance (see the review, linked above). I picked up my Black Pineapple seeds from Greta’s Organic Gardens (www.seeds-organic.com) in Ottawa last year. My Emerald Evergreen seeds are from Terra Edibles (www.terraedibles.ca) in Foxboro, Ontario.

Can’t wait for those beautiful, fresh tomatoes! I’ve taken the first step.

PS: I don’t know the origin of my funny intro photo. It just showed up on my Facebook feed, source unknown.

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Winter Reading: Jewel Box Garden

The Jewel Box Garden by Thomas Hobbs. Raincoast Books 2004.

Winter is the perfect time for mulling over ways to improve on your own garden and to discover new ideas for next season. To this end, reading about the gardens other dedicated gardeners have created can be very fruitful and satisfying. One of the books I enjoyed this winter was Thomas Hobbs’ The Jewel Box Garden.

Jewel Box is a treat for winter-weary eyes, being filled from cover to cover with the beautiful photographs of David McDonald. Hobbs own garden is situated around his stunning 1930s Mission Revival home, nestled on a cliffside high above Spanish Banks beach. The site itself is so beautiful, overlooking as it does ocean, mountains and city, that I imagine one could gaze all day without ever tiring of the view. With limited gardening opportunities, Hobbs suggests every inch of available space should be taken advantage of to create a sparkling jewel-box of a garden, filled with colourful, eye-pleasing combinations. Although the west coast region around Vancouver, British Columbia is mild compared to much of Canada, I still spotted plants I would like to try, and interesting garden ideas that would be applicable anywhere.

The Jewel Box Garden offers more than just eye-candy. Hobbs’ writing is witty and opinionated and fun to read. My favorite paragraph was this take on suburban yards:

One of the mysteries of my life is repeated every day. I drive to and from work and cannot help but notice block after block of very average-income homes that appear hopelessly un-gardeny. It is almost a case of one-upmanship to be the most unplanted, least cared for but absolutely occupied. To me, it is a drive through the Valley of Death. Expensive cars, new basketball hoops, satellite television receivers and white plastic patio furniture are everywhere. I ask myself, “What do these people care about, anyway?” Occasionally I’ll spot a stranded tree peony, blooming its heart out, stoned on ugly. Or a maypole-type clothes-line bedecked with absolutely fried plastic hanging baskets. The botanical equivalent of a car crash.

LOL! I have to admit to having had much the same thoughts. Who are these people, who have time to surround themselves with nothing but ugly? Life is too short! As for basket trees, my judgement isn’t quite as harsh. I think of them as a sort of garden kitsch, the velvet Elvis paintings of gardening.

In The Roots of My Obsession, Hobbs writes of an early infatuation with plants, in spite of the fact that no one in his family had the slightest interest in gardening.

Plants adopted me, I think. My parents did their best, but with six kids and their own drinking problems, I was up for grabs. Plants led me into a series of successful plant-related businesses. They steered me away from university, and wisely so. Plants decided to use me, I think. Or was it the other way round? I hope not.

Hobbs entry is one of thirty short essays in The Roots of My Obsession, in which gardeners write about how they became interested in gardening, or what it is about gardening that keeps them digging. Included are many well-known garden writers such as Penelope Hobhouse, Rick Darke, Ken Druse, Fergus Garrett, and a host of others. It’s a light, entertaining read and its fun and enlightening to learn of how others came to this shared passion.

The Roots of My Obsession ed. Thom. cooper. Timber Press 2012

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Winter Gardening

What a rollercoaster ride this winter has been! We’ve had plenty of snow and strings of extremely cold days punctuated by record-breaking thaws. On Wednesday, January 30th, the previous Ottawa record of 5.6 degrees C was shattered when the temperature climbed to 11.6 C. Today, just over a week later, a major snowstorm has been sweeping through. The thaw had reduced our snow cover to a few inches. The photo above was taken in the morning as the storm was settling in for the day. By evening, we had a fresh mantle of snow nearly a foot deep.

It’s a taste of the winter weather extremes we can expect as climate change continues to take hold. There’s a good article on the role of climate change on winter weather linked here.

Fortunately, RailGuy and I didn’t have to travel anywhere today, and, except for periodic episodes of snowshovelling, spent a pleasant day indoors by the fire. It was an ideal day for a little winter gardening, browsing through all those delicious seed catalogues that arrived over the last month or so and imagining the return of the green world. It’s time to get seed orders placed.

One of the plants that has caught my eye when we have visited other gardens over the past few years is a flowering tobacco variety, Nicotiana sylvestris. It’s the white-flowered plant in the foreground of the border pictured below. This planting was featured at Parc Marie-Victorin in Kingsey Falls, Quebec, which I wrote about here.

Nicotianas (pronounced nih-koe-shee-AY-nah according to Fine Gardening magazine) are fragrant annuals suitable for full sun to partly shaded areas of the garden. Smaller varieties are usually available at most places that carry bedding plants in the spring, but I have never come across this larger member of the family, Nicotiana sylvestris. Consequently, I decided to try growing my own from seed this year, and have ordered a packet from Thompson & Morgan. After extensive perusal of the catalogue, I settled on Amaranthus caudatus ‘Fat Spike’ and a few other choice varieties to round out my order. I’ve dispatched my order and now I can sit back and dream of a perfect garden…without having to lift a finger. At least for now.

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Sunday Snapshot: Charlie Surprised By Snow

Charlie Surprised by Snow

For some reason, Charlie Bird didn’t migrate to the garden shed this fall, and was surprised to find himself neck-deep in a snowdrift. To see the rest of Charlie, follow this link.

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Sunday Snapshot: The Stone Angel

The Stone Angel

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Last of the Summer Tomatoes

It’s been a great season for tomatoes, but the crop is pretty much finished for the year. Yesterday, I picked the last of the ripe fruit and made them into tomato soup for our supper. I love this recipe. It is simple to make, and perfect for using up a bountiful harvest or blemished tomatoes. And it tastes delicious, full of sun-ripened goodness!

Easy Fresh Tomato Soup

4 cups of diced fresh tomatoes
1 small onion, chopped
garlic to taste
2 cups chicken broth

2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons sugar, or to taste

In a stockpot, combine the tomatoes, onion, garlic and chicken broth. Bring to a boil and simmer for 20 minutes. Remove from heat and blend. (I use a hand-held blender. Quick and easy.)

Melt the butter over medium heat and stir in the flour to make a roux, or paste. Gradually whisk in a bit of the tomato mixture so that no lumps form. Then stir the roux into the soup. Season with sugar and salt to taste. Enjoy!

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Tomato Season 2012

When I offered a slice of a yellow tomato to my 84-year-old aunt, she lifted it suspiciously to her mouth and gingerly took a little nibble. Her eyes flew open in surprise and she exclaimed “It tastes like a tomato!”

Well, yes. Even a rainbow of tomatoes still taste like tomatoes, though some are more tart, others sweeter, some are juicy and some are more pulpy. Which tastes best is strictly a matter of personal preference. I’m not really sure why I get a kick out of growing a variety of heirloom varieties, except that it is fun to collect them all together for a colourful plate of tomato-y goodness at the end of each summer. Don’t they look great?

This year, I would have to give the award for Pick of the Crop to Sub-Arctic Plenty. My two plants produced dozens of attractive, small-to-medium sized, brilliant red tomatoes. The fruits were juicy and tasty and the first tomatoes were ready to pick several weeks earlier than other varieties.

Here are the plants at the end of the season, still loaded with fruit. Legend has it that Sub-Arctic Plenty was developed by the U.S. Military for use by troops stationed in Greenland! Hmmm. I don’t know where that tale got started, but a more likely version is that Sub-Arctic Plenty was developed at the Canadian Agriculture Research Station in Beaverlodge, Alberta. Sub-Arctic Plenty was selected from the backcross (Fireball x BEF 56-7) x Fireball, and was tested at 30 locations across Canada before being introduced to Canadian gardeners through Dominion Seed House in Georgetown, Ontario, and Lowden’s Plants and Seeds in Ancaster in 1972. (R.E.Harris, Can. J. Plant Sci. 52: 119-120 (Jan. 1972))

Another prolific producer was White Queen. You can see the plant behind Sub-Arctic Plenty. White Queen produced many large, beefsteak-type tomatoes of good quality. In 100 Heirloom Tomatoes for the American Garden, Carolyn J. Male writes that White Queen has an absolutely outstanding yield, and my experience confirmed that. She further observes that White Queen is fruity and sweet, and not bland like other white tomatoes. Here, I would have to disagree. They may be better tasting than other whites, but compared to other tomatoes in the garden, I did find them bland. Still, my two plants produced a bountiful crop that were great for soups and pasta dishes.

Chocolate Stripe produced quite a good crop in spite of a rather unfavorable location in the garden. The medium-sized fruits varied in colour and were pleasant if not outstanding in flavour. Chocolate Stripe might be worth trying again in a better location.

Emerald Evergreen produced a dismal crop of just a half-dozen tomatoes. I’m not sure why they didn’t do better, but again, it might have been a poor location. I would like to try this one again because the tomatoes that were produced were great. They have a very nice appearance on the plate and were the sweetest tomatoes in the garden this year, very pleasing.

Black Pineapple, above, and Black Krim, below, both produced modest crops of pleasant but not outstanding tomatoes. So that’s it for the tomatoes of 2012. Can’t wait to try again next year!

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Sunday Snapshot: Bumblebee on Bluebeard

Bumblebee on Bluebeard (Caryopteris ‘Longwood Blue’)

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Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day: September 2012

As we move into fall, the garden begins to take on an overripe, languid feel, an aging beauty going to seed, in this case, quite literally. However, it is still a beautiful place to stroll and take in the sights.

Lemon Queen sunflower (Helianthus ‘Lemon Queen’) dominates the central island. I didn’t get around to staking the Queen earlier in the season, and now she is so well-attended by bumblebees, I am content to let her tumble out over her lesser neighbours.

The ornamental grasses are taking on a starring role in the border as their seedheads mature.

My favorite is probably Redhead Fountaingrass (Pennisetum alopecuroides ‘Redhead’), which has already been magnificent for weeks.

Its little cousin Piglet (Pennisetum alopecuroides ‘Piglet’) has a softer look, with gently arching stems.

In addition to airy seedheads, the blades of switchgrass add colour interest. Here is Shenandoah (Panicum virgatum ‘Shenandoah’) touched with scarlet.

The various ligularia species have been brightening shady corners since midsummer. Here is Desdemona (Ligularia dentata ‘Desdemona’).

Of course, fall is the season for asters. Here is Pink Bouquet (Aster dumosus ‘Pink Bouquet’) backed by Silver Brocade artemisia (Artemisia stelleriana ‘Silver Brocade’).

By autumn, the annuals have matured and are adding touches of brillant colour. The caryopteris, or bluebeard, is adding a pretty blue and the deep wine-cerise of Angelica is outstanding with phlox and sedum. Here is a selection of other garden highlights.

To visit other September gardens, please drop by May Dream’s Garden Bloggers’ Day roundup, linked here.

Cleome

Caryopteris x clandonensis ‘Longwood Blue’

Angelica gigas

Rainbow Knockout Rosa ‘Radcor’

Calamintha nepeta ‘Blue Cloud’

Echinacea ‘Green Jewel’

Black Adder Agastache and Hosta Krossa Regal

Anemone hupehensis ‘Pink Saucer’

Joe Crow

Woodland Walk

Tamarack Walk

Shade Walk

Japanese Painted ferns and hostas underplanting Amur Maple with Tiger Eye Sumac in background.

Royal Standard Hostas

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Fall Dragons

White-faced Meadowhawk (Sympetrum obtrusum)

I leave garden cleanup until the spring. All the dead seedheads and leaf litter provide cover and food for a host of bugs and birds over the winter. They also give the garden some visual interest over the stark months of cold. The unattractive dead scapes of dayliles might seem less useful, but they provide perfect perches for fall meadowhawks.

When I have been out working in the garden over the past few days, I’ve been treated to the company of a host of meadowhawks. The appearance of meadowhawks in the garden is another sign of summer coming to an end. These small, colourful odonates are late summer fliers and are often among the last species of dragonflies on the wing before winter arrives. Dragonflies lay their eggs in water and meadowhawks prefer habitat around wetlands and slow streams, but are often seen far from water, in meadows or backyards. Meadowhawks belong to the Skimmer family of dragonflies, Libellulidae, which includes 105 species in North America. Their habit of perching on the tips of stems makes them ideal photography subjects.

Yellow-legged Meadowhawk (Sympetrum vicinum)

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