Tomato Time in Tennessee

I know, I know...we (and our tomatoes) don't actually live in Tennessee*. I'm a fan of alliteration, and "Tomato Time in North Carolina" just doesn't have the same ring, now does it? Regardless. The tomatoes are coming in!

The picture above shows three German Johnsons, a potato-leafed, beefsteak, open-pollinated (OP) variety, often referred to as an Heirloom. Known for producing large "slicing"-type fruit, German Johnson was first created in this part of the country and does well in the humidity of the Piedmont. While it has no hybridized resistance to the diseases that plague tomatoes, I still take a chance on German Johnson every year because it is so readily available around here at planting time. Bonnie Plants says the following about them:

• Fruit size: 12 to 24 oz, averaging 1 pound
• Matures: 76 days
• Plant Size: 4 to 6 feet
• Plant Type: Indeterminate

"For quality that has stood the test of time, the heirloom called German Johnson stands tall—literally. These big, pink-red tomatoes are borne on robust plants that can fill a tomato cage and drape back down again. Give them at least 3 feet between plants and then pick the flavorful sandwich-sized slicers as they ripen. The number of tomatoes may be less than other varieties, but the ones you bring to the table will be worthy of their space in the garden. In our Alabama test garden, where conditions are ideal and the season is long, we harvested an average of 40 fruits per plant. We recommend both hybrid and heirloom tomatoes for your garden because hybrids are generally more productive and disease resistant. German Johnson calls North Carolina home, so it is suited to life in humidity and is fairly disease resistant for an heirloom. This one is a favorite at farmers' markets in the Carolinas in the summer when the local crops come in."

They are right on the money about the fruit sizes. The tomato on the scale in the picture above weighed in at 15 ounces, while the one on the right was a light-weight at 12 ounces. The one on the left was so large, I had to cut it and weigh it in three sections...totaling 22 ounces! Of course, one of the issues with these big ol' beefsteaks is how much meat you lose to the dimpling, ribbing, and irregular growth patterns, as you can see on shoulders of the tomato on the left...which yielded about 12 ounces of usable fruit. You can see below a shot of the center portion...the rich, ripe, juicy center portion. One slice per sandwich...and get your napkins ready, folks!

I am also harvesting a mountain of Sun Golds, a super-sweet, orange-colored, cherry-type tomato that is new to my garden this year. Can't eat them all...can't give them away fast enough! My other cherry or salad varieties (Lemon Boy and Juliet) have worlds of green tomatoes on the 3 plants of each type that I started from seed. Probably another week or two before they start to ripen. Better dust off my Pasta Salad recipe, eh?

Another new one for my garden is Big Daddy, a hybrid from Burpee. They are starting to ripen...and they are beautiful and delicious. Plus, they are holding up nicely against the blight that is taking out the German Johnsons. Here's what Burpee has to say about Big Daddy (which had me at the name, don't you know?!):

Big Daddy Tomato, Hybrid

Bred from the all-time great Big Boy with improved disease resistance.

Burpee Exclusive

Hear ye! Hear ye! Revolution in the tomato patch! An all-around game-changer, Big Daddy's a breakthrough for taste, size, disease-resistance and yield. Bred from the all-time great Big Boy, Big Daddy produces a mighty, delicious harvest of ruby red round meaty fruits, 15 whopping ounces apiece over a long harvest season. Fusarium and verticillium resistant. Indeterminate.

Fruit Weight: 15  ounces

Days to Maturity: 78  days

Height: 60  inches

Speaking of "resistance," I have been fairly diligent about trimming up the bottom stems and leaves on all varieties, since our visit last year to EPCOT's behind-the-scenes garden tour, where we learned how that practice can help keep diseases and pests at bay. I have also used neem oil (biological pesticide and fungicide control), insecticide soap (mites, etc.), and spinosad in the form of Captain Jack's Dead Bug Brew (to control  tomato worms and caterpillars). (Yes, I do try to grow organically...or at least as earth- and people-friendly as possible.) Next on the docket is Serenade, another organic pest controller, which (unlike neem oil) can be used in higher temperatures with no foliage damage and at any time of the day as it isn't supposed to be harmful to bees, therefore you aren't limited to early morning or late evening for treatment times. 

Worst problems this year in the tomato crop? So far, it's been squirrel damage (see below). The rascals take one bite out of an almost-ready-to-pick ripe tomato...and usually leave it hanging on the plant for me to find, like you see. Grrrrrrrrrrrr. Way beyond irritating. It means I have to be diligent in harvesting just before they are ripe...and most attractive to the critters. It also means I can rarely just take a notion to eat a vine-ripened tomato from the garden...I have to wait until they finish up on my kitchen counter. Sigh.

After that...it has to be blight, both early and late, occurring almost simultaneously in this record-setting wet year. At this point, it's a waiting game. Waiting to see if any of the control measures will stave off the diseases 'til after harvest. 

OK...back to the tomato round up. Still waiting in the wings, putting on green fruit but none ready to eat yet, are the three grafted heirlooms (Brandywine Pink, Brandywine Red, and Mortgage Lifter), as well as the other two varieties I seeded (Jet Star and Roma). The grafted heirlooms, which are considered long season beefsteaks, are showing signs of blight damage on the leaves, but the other two have quite healthy-looking plants. I have found blossom-end rot on only two varieties this year: Brandywine Red and Roma. Not on the all the fruit on either, mind you...just on random stems. Odd, isn't it?

While I ponder the cause and solution (for next year's crop), I do believe I've made myself hungry. I sliced up an Early Girl, which was right here in a container on the deck (ripe and ready...no squirrel damage!) and picked some of the last of my Red Sails lettuce (at least until the Fall garden). Fresh bread...you know the kind that sticks to the roof of your mouth. Add mayo, salt, and freshly ground pepper. Did I forget anything?

Oh yeah! Got bacon?!

============================

*Tennessee tomatoes — Actually, it is Tomato Time in Tennessee...Ripley, Tennessee, that is. "Ripley tomatoes" are known throughout the state for their flavor, etc. No, that's not a variety of tomato...that's where they are from: grown in the rich Mississippi River soil in and around Ripley, Tennessee. They have just celebrated the 30th Tomato Festival in Lauderdale County. 

The Good, The Bad, and The Wicked-Ugly

It's about that time. Baseball has its All Star Game, usually played on or near my birthday...the halfway point between Opening Day and The World Series. 

Here in Zone 7/Piedmont NC, it's the halfway point in our 2013 warm season veggie gardens, 3 months from the Average Last Frost Date (typically quoted as April 15) and 3 months until the Average First Frost Date (typically quoted as October 15). So how're things going, you ask? Let's take stock, shall we?

Starting with The Good, as you can tell in that photo above, the new tuteur in the Center Square of the Box Garden is a green success! The Kentucky Wonder pole beans are beginning to produce, now that the vines have reached great heights. And while the Scarlet Runner Beans (an old-world variety I'm trialing this year) haven't made any beans yet, they are showing off their striking red flowers (seen close-up). The dwarf sunflowers add contrasting color to draw the eye...and carry out the theme introduced in the stenciling I did on the topper.

What may not be evident from that picture is how over-the-moon happy I am with the raised beds in the Box Garden. Although I have long enjoyed using landscape timbers and recycled crates to create (mainly flower) beds for aesthetic reasons, I have resisted joining the raised bed army now for years, mainly because I simply didn't understand how veggies could do as well in intensive growing conditions as they could in regular garden rows.

I have maintained a healthy skepticism, say we say, about the almost religious fervor some folks use when singing the praises of the intensely-marketed Square Foot Gardening, mainly because (1) Mr. Mel takes credit for "inventing" something (intensive garden practices) that have been in use for a couple centuries in France and other countries...what he should be credited with is inventing a catchy name and a clever way to market the concept in order to garner fame and fortune; (2) in the Way Back Kitchen Garden, we have plenty of room for "raised rows," 40' long x 4' wide, with 3' aisles; and, (3) truth be told, many intensively-planted raised beds tend to look...well, 'unkempt' is the kindest word I can use.

OK, sign me up as a soldier! I am a convert to raised beds, primarily because I can control the soil-mix, allowing me to grow decent carrots and beets for the first time here in our hard-pack, clay-soil heaven...and I figured out that I can keep them from getting too rangy-looking simply by daily maintenance. Plus, I can garden intensively without feeling the need to hammer-and-nail a square-foot grid on my boxes...which Mr. Mel insists makes them SFG-official. So there!

Also in The Good column here at the midpoint, I have to sing praises of the two varieties of bush beans (all seeds of which I got at the Seed Exchange at Old Salem last January) which have been extremely productive, and of a new variety of salad tomato I was encouraged to try by MG friend JA called Sun Gold. At this point, I'm almost ready to start looking for the 'pause button' on both of these, as I cannot just stroll out to the garden to observe anymore...I must take some kind of container to harvest (bush) green beans and Sun Gold tomatoes!

In the "coming along nicely" category are the three varieties of okra (a beautiful row as you can see above, just starting to flower) and the trellised Kentucky Wonder pole beans (just beginning to flower and produce), below. The peppers are starting to yield a green one here and there, with several jalapeños and one giant sweet red on the vines. The newly-planted pumpkins (replacing the two rows and one grow bag of garlic) have all germinated and are adding inches daily. And, slowly but surely the replacement cantaloupes (from seed) are starting to flower (but not fruit)...remember, lost the first seedlings to cutworms. 

The rest of the row of tomatoes are loaded with green and ripening fruit. The pink-fruited heirloom/OP German Johnsons (below) are ripening daily, and I picked my first ones today, including those two you see below. The Celebrities have one or two ready every couple of days, and the Big Daddys have one about every three days. And you should see the salad variety I started from seed, the Juliets...just loaded with green tomatoes!

Mmmm. Tomatoes. That leads me into The Bad category. I have fingers and toes crossed that I will be able to harvest all the fruit currently ripening on the tomato vines...since I have seen evidence of blight on the leaves. Late blight, not typically seen outside of the Mountains, has been confirmed in Guilford County, and I think all this wet weather we've had this season will only make fungal problems worse. I've used Neem oil, which has some fungicide properties, but it has been raining too much to apply Serenade...my next and only remaining organic line of defense. I do have seven replacement plants ready in containers if necessary to pull any (remember the suckers I started earlier this year?), but we are nearing the last date to plant tomatoes (July 15). I feel like it's a race at this point.

Also in The Bad category falls the cucurbit row, in general. While I have harvested enough Straight 8 cucumbers to make dill pickles; enough yellow squash to eat and freeze a few; and enough zucchini to have them grilled as well as grated for zucchini bread (making the latter today), I see signs of fungal damage here, too. Losing leaves at a rapid rate on all. Had to take out at least three squash plants due to wilt. And the squash bugs are still laying their eggs on the remaining leaves. Grrrrr.

But nothing...nothing...compares to the downright Wicked-Ugly category. I have lost my entire crop of ripening watermelons and corn...to raccoons. Remember, I thought I'd lost the corn to wind damage? Well, it righted itself and set ears...and now all I have to show are empty cobs and stripped shucks. Here's the heart-breaking evidence...first, today's destruction: the remaining 6 Sugar Baby watermelons; next, the remains of the Silver Queen crop.  

Makes me want to whack something with my National Wildlife membership card.

On Distraction and Destruction...in the Garden

In case this needs clearing up for some reason, gardening is my avocation...probably in both senses of the word.

From Word.A.Day: avocation

PRONUNCIATION: av-uh-KAY-shuhn)

MEANING: noun 1. One's regular job or occupation.
2. An activity taken up besides the regular work; a hobby.

ETYMOLOGY: From Latin avocare (to call away), from a- (off, away) + vocare (to call), from vox (voice). Earliest documented use: before 1617.

NOTES: Originally the word vocation was used in a religious sense, as a divine calling. If a vocation was a calling, literally speaking, an avocation was a calling away, a distraction, which could be a hobby or a diversion. Sometimes the business that calls away can be of greater importance.Over time the two opposite senses of the word avocation became muddled and now it can connote either sense depending on the context. [Emphasis mine]

A distraction that has become so important to my life that it has become my "calling." An occupation, as in "occupying" my time and attention. Yep, that's gardening! I ask you, what else can be so life-affirming, physically challenging, mentally stimulating (honest, I'm always researching new ideas, etc), rewarding...and put good food on the table, too?!

I also ask you what can be so life-affirming and so heart-breaking at the same time? I'm experiencing more than my share of the latter emotion at the moment.

Let's let the pictures do the talking, shall we?

Here's a shot of one of the 8 Sugar Baby watermelons I snapped last week. So proud I was!



Ah, who said "pride goeth before the fall"? Turns out the biblical verse is nearer the truth than I imagined:

Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall." Proverbs 16:18, King James Version (KJV)

Destruction, indeed. So what did THAT, you ask? Best guess, we have one or more raccoons visiting the garden. He/she/they got another of the ripening watermelons in the Row Garden and three ears of corn from the Block Garden.

I have blamed the squirrels for this damage to the almost ripe tomatoes, done a few days ago. Maybe I rushed to judgment? See what you think:



Learned my lesson...am now picking all tomatoes before they get too tasty-looking. Means I can't go out to the garden and get a warm, ripe juicy tomato for my BLT, but that's the price we pay, eh?

Now, back to the watermelons...and the raccoons. Raccoons are nocturnal, so they are active in the garden when the dogs...our first line of defense against the critters...are least likely to be on patrol. Sigh. What to do? My research shows the top recommendation for protecting your melon patch is to "surround it with an electric fence, turning it on every night."  The Way Back Garden is fenced around the perimeter, but the individual gardens are not...and I doubt we will be electrifying the area any time soon.

Another less-concentration-camp-like suggestion is to cover your crop with netting or row covers, although my experience with raccoons and bird seed (they terrorize some of our feeders) is that they are extremely smart...and can defeat most brilliant ideas to contain what they want to eat.

An outside of the box suggestion was to put a radio in the garden and leave it turned to an all-night talk station. I knew there was a good reason for those programs!

Broken-hearted...but not beaten. As McArthur famously said, "I shall return!"

A distraction indeed.

============================

[On a happier, more life-affirming note...check out our family blog post on our trip to the Lakeview Daylily Farm here: http://adsit2.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-2013-great-hemerocallis-hunt.html

Blueberries...Beautiful Blueberries!

First harvest of blueberries,
2013

Growing up, I thought the only place one could grow blueberries was Maine. You know, blueberry syrup and all. Am I ever thankful to have learned the truth! Blueberries can be grown in North Carolina (and other parts of the South)...easily, and with great results.

I totally understand how Fats Domino found his thrill on Blueberry Hill. Our blueberry bushes may not be on a hill...actually, they are in raised beds on flat ground...but it has been thrilling to be picking this year.

To recap...

We have 9 rabbiteye blueberry bushes planted in 3 raised beds in the Berry Patch (northeast)quadrant of the Way Back Garden. We purchased our bushes from the Guilford County 4-H in two "batches:" 2 Climax and 1 Premier varieties in the Spring of 2011; 3 Climax and 3 Premier in the Fall of '11.


According to our Soil Test, performed in March of 2011, the soil in this area of the Way Back had a pH of 5.1 (can you say ACID soil?). Fortunately, according to the North Carolina Cooperative Extension/NC State publication, Growing Blueberries in the Home Garden, blueberries are happiest growing in acid soil, with rabbiteyes preferring a pH of less than 5.3. No lime needed here! We were good to go...after adding the recommended 2 pounds of 10-10-10 fertilizer. (The actual recommendation on the Soil Test Report says 20 lbs per 1000 sq. ft.; as we have three 32 sq. ft. boxes = 96 sq. ft. total...I rounded that up to 100 sq. ft. to make the math easier...we needed 1/10 of the recommended application = 20/10 = 2 lbs.).

Why rabbiteyes, you may ask? Or, even...what are the different species of blueberries? There are 3 main species that are cultivated for the home garden: high bush, rabbiteye, and southern high bush.

"The rabbiteye (Vaccinium ashei) is more drought and heat resistant and will tolerate a wider range of soil types than the highbush. For these reasons, rabbiteye is easier to establish and grow successfully in the Piedmont..." according to NC State.

The BackyardGardener.com site says the following:

"Vaccinium ashei is a Southeastern U.S. species, well adapted to hot, humid summers with mild winters. They tolerate conditions that other blueberries will not. They generally grow 6 to 8 feet tall, and the blueberries ripen in late spring or early summer."

Both sites recommend planting more than one rabbiteye variety to provide the cross-pollination needed for maximum yields. NC State lists recommended varieties for the Piedmont, including Climax and Premier, which were developed by NC State. And that is just what the (NC) county 4-H was selling. Funny how that worked out, eh?

Mr. T built the raised beds, 8" deep, 8x4 in size. We simply tilled up the native soil, amended only with compost and leaf mold (mainly to help improve the tilth of our native CLAY soil) at planting time.  He also added metal fence posts, one at the end of each box, with a wire strung between them, to provide support for the netting used to protect the harvest from our ever-present bird friends. Here's a shot of the Berry Patch, taken from the Rondel in early 2012:

View of Berry Patch from Rondel,
looking NE, at the blueberry boxes
Spring - 2012

Last Fall (2012), we mulched the beds with leaves (mostly oak), and this Spring prior to bloom, I fertilized them with 10-10-10. As the bushes began to flower, I added Milorganite, which is chiefly a nitrogen fertilizer (5-2-0), based on the Soil Test report's recommendations for Maintenance/When Plants are Mature (after Year 2) :

"After another four to six weeks...nitrogen alone may be applied at this time."

After harvest (and prior to July 20), I will apply another topdressing of Milorganite. Then, we will have the soil tested next Spring per recommendation.

So, that's what we did...now let's see some results! As I have said before, we missed last year's (2012)harvest, due to our extended stay in KY. We didn't know what to expect from this year...but I was basing my expectations on what I wanted to eat.

I wanted a blueberry pie!

Check that goal off the list.! The blueberries have performed in the OUTSTANDING category, if you ask me. I picked an initial 1-2 cups (see picture above) (oh, I can't tell you the exact amount, as I ate so many when I was picking [ducking my head with a sheepish grin]), which were washed, lightly sugared, and eaten on cereal and for dessert.



Second harvest of blueberries,
2013

Then, four days (and three rains) later, I picked over 6 cupsful (left)! That was enough for blueberry pancakes for Sunday Brunch...and my blueberry pie.  [If you want to see those pictures and get the recipe, please visit the family blog The Adsit Adventure posting Found My Thrill here.]

It's Day 3...and as many rains...since I last picked berries, so I am mouth-wateringly looking forward to tomorrow. I'm hoping for another large haul, as I now want to "can" blueberry pie filling.

I found that recipe in the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving, edited by Judi Kingry and Lauren Devine. I'm adding this book to my favorite gardening books, for sure...since, once you harvest, you have to do something with all that produce, right?

I'm also thinking at trying my hand at making Blueberry Syrup. Never done that before. I found this recipe on the Ball FreshPreserving.com site:  Blueberry Syrup recipe.

So, let's do the math.  I will need 7 cups of blueberries for the Pie Filling recipe. And, I will need 8 cups of blueberries for the Blueberry Syrup recipe. That's 15 cups of blueberries I need!

Grow, blueberries, grow!

Happy hoeing!