Posts Tagged ‘tomatoes’
Falling Nutrition Levels
messy - but nutritious
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Although this is not new information, Rodale’s Prevention reports that fruits and vegetables are losing their nutrition. In “Nutritional Value of Fruits, Veggies is Dwindling” by Sarah Burns we learn that “Today’s conventionally-grown produce isn’t as healthful as it was 30 years ago — and it’s only getting worse.”
What’s happening? Dr. Donald Davis, former researcher with the Biochemical Institute at the University of Texas, Austin believes “it’s due to the farming industry’s desire to grow bigger vegetables faster. The very things that speed growth — selective breeding and synthetic fertilizers — decrease produce’s ability to synthesize nutrients or absorb them from the soil.”
The author points out that the stress that organic gardening imposes on growing vegetables actually enhance their nutritional value. The article also shows “nine simple ways to put the nutrient punch back in your produce.”
Although I am enjoying the process of gardening, I find the results are healthful, interesting and tasty!
Cherry Roma tomatoes - almost ready...
Sweet Dumpling winter squash
First Blush
The first hint of color came on just one of my cherry roma tomatoes this morning. I’ve been waiting since March 11 for this. Also, I had no idea that these plants were so large – just about seven feet tall so far. It’s those healthy SSE seeds, I guess.
Close inspection of the photo will show an aphid enjoying the view too. Is that drool coming out of his mouth? His buddy is in the next photo.
cherry roma tomato with a little color
aphid on tomato plant
The Urban Garden
With today’s post I want to introduce some gardens other than my own.
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Two of my “city kids” have gardens. Andy is in Pilsen in Chicago and Jesse is in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn. They both have very limited space for growing vegetables but that doesn’t seem to stop them from rather ambitious plantings.
Andy says, “It’s really amazing just how much you can grow if you have enough room and decide to devote enough space for plants. I’ll be totally set with tomatoes for the summer with three plants. Oh wait, actually four plants.”
In addition to the tomatoes Andy is growing:
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• habañero and jalapeño plants from seeds Jesse gave him from last year’s plants
• herbs: thyme and basil
• a two-year old strawberry plant that hasn’t yet produced any fruit
• mustard greens
• a forget-me-not plant
It’s important to note that all of Andy’s plants are inside his second-floor apartment in front of his large north-facing windows.
Andy says, “I’ve been using Terracycle plant food, which is the worm crap fertilizer and it has worked pretty well. I also like how they recycle old plastic pop bottles for the packaging. I guess one thing about container gardening is that you have to keep up with watering because the dirt in containers dries out very quickly.”
Andy's Chicago garden
Jesse also has an amazing garden in a very small space. I asked him last evening if he could send me a photo. He answered this way,
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i saw your message and directly went and shot a photo of my tomato plants. there was supposed to be a storm tonight and this was just as the rain started coming down. those are in my bedroom window. they are growing strong, but they have not fruited yet. many brown leaves. perhaps i am not watering enough? i have a feeling this is it. nothing i have is in the ground and i think the water runs out quickly. it is also possibly very crowded. i have five large plants in my window. in my other bedroom/office/darkroom window i have my squashes and one other tomato plant. they are doing similar. the squashes have been fruiting slightly, but they have fallen off when they do
. i will keep at it.Jesse also notes that container plants need to be watered more often than ground plantings. I would also add that tomato plants are self-pollinating. That is, they don’t need insects to pollinate. They DO, however, need wind or something to make this happen. With indoor tomato and pepper plants you may need to tap the flowers gently to get them to pollinate. Some people use an electric toothbrush to make this happen! Since Jesse’s are on an outside window cage he should be fine. I do wonder a little about Andy’s north light for tomatoes! And… wait a minute… Did Jesse actually say that he has squash plants in his window?
Jesse's Brooklyn garden as the rain begins to fall
Tomato Blight is Here!
Is this tomato blight?
There is a disturbing article out of Rodale, the publishers of Organic Gardening, that tomato blight has been confirmed in several states. For tomato growers, both farmers and home gardeners, this is no small thing. This is the same disease that caused the mid-19th century Irish potato famine.
I suggest that you read Rodale’s article and do exactly what they say if you find symptoms of tomato blight in your own garden.
I am not sure that the photos taken in my garden this afternoon pictured here show evidence of tomato blight. I will research it further. In the mean time you might want to take a look at the Rodale article and then take a look at your tomato plants.
An Update Today…
I’ve come across a pretty good video for those wishing to identify late blight. This piece filmed last year for the University of Wisconsin – Madison is helpful in not only the description of late blight but also has information as to how to destroy the plants. Not all options given are organic but information for organic growers is offered. -Bill
Is this tomato blight?
Planting Time?
Planting time can sneak up on you. If you simply look out the window and wait until you see robins pulling up worms and see some daffodils to plant your garden you can miss a lot of the fun – and cost savings – of planting inside.
It’s not at all early to begin planting, depending on where you are and what you are planting. Indoor planting can begin right now for things like peppers which are slow to get started. Tomatoes could be planted at the same time but usually a little later. I like to plant some marigolds so they’re almost ready to bloom when I put them in the ground.
I’ve come upon a pretty handy and quite reliable source that serves as a good reminder of what to plant when. This is the 2010 Best Planting Dates for Seeds from the Old Farmer’s Almanac. All you need to do is to fill in your town or zip code and information based on average last frost date is there for most things you might wish to plant. There is even a separate date listed as “Moon-favorable Dates.” Having lived on the ocean I am aware of the power of the moon to change tides so I guess it could have some effect on plants. I haven’t paid much attention to this myself.
So what are you planting? Just shoot me a comment (below) and let me know. Should I experiment with comparing “Moon-favorable Dates” plantings with regular dates?
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Just a little update on this post…
“Pogo,” one of the knowledgeable people on the Organic Gardening forum reacted wisely to my mention of the Best Planting Dates for Seeds information. She said, “…All these predictors are based on probability. Generally it isn’t a date, but a range with a certain probability of freezing or not. I like this map (from NOAA) because it gives the probability of both frost (32) and freeze (28). How far you push the dates just depends on how much risk you want to take.”
Even in a very small area that date can be different depending on if you are on the north side of a mountain or the south side; if you are right on the shore or on a nearby rise overlooking that same spot. The date for a valley can be different than the date for the adjoining two rises.
Your own records for YOUR location are the best yet not perfect when it comes to determining the date of the last frost for you.
New Light for an Old Darkroom
It’s a little difficult to picture a garden in the same place where all I’ve seen is snow since December. But daylight is a little longer now and the brutal sub-zero temperatures seem to have gone. The picture changes slowly.
This is the time of year that I like to prepare for the growing season ahead. It’s almost time for indoor planting and that requires some preparation. This year I’m installing a 48″ florescent light in my old darkroom (oh, the irony) to get my tomatoes and peppers excited about life.
I’ve also made a “map” of what will go where in the garden. It wasn’t easy finding full sun for almost everything I plan to grow. If you throw in the rotation factor (trying not to plant things in the same place in successive years) and complementarity (planting vegetables that do well together) it’s a puzzle that would make Will Shortz proud.
I just noticed that my work desktop (non computer) seems to belie my commitment to photography right now. The photo below tells where my heart is. I photographed this exactly as I found it.
More planning, pulling out saved seeds from last year… and how am I going to install that light?
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desktop
First Snow
I couldn’t bring myself to post a photo of the snow that fell in the Chicago area last night. Instead I’ve opted for this “warmer” interpretation of the season’s colors that I photographed this past summer. I didn’t realize how quickly I’d default to the old gardening theme of the original blog. Maybe I’m trying to tell myself something…
jalapenõ pepper and tomatoes
Mid-Season Evaluation
unripe tomatoes
The All Star Game this week has put me in a mood to evaluate how things are going in the garden. Like the Cubs, there are both good and bad things to report.
The photos below tell mostly of the good things going on. The first peppers, both bell and jalapeño, emerged from their flowers today. Zucchini and broccoli are producing well. Noah is seeing the beginnings of what are supposed to become 25-pound pumpkins. Turnips continue to be available to pull as needed. Tomatoes are green, growing and prolific.
broccoli
black raspberries
Actually there are very few problems to report. A couple of my zucchini plants are wilting. I suspect either the Squash bug or the Squash vine borer is the culprit. I’ve seen both in the garden. Although there are Japanese beetles in massive numbers, they are not as fond of my garden without green beans this year. They are preferring the grape plants.
wilted zucchini plant
very small pumpkin
zucchini
first jalapeño pepper
small bell pepper
In evaluating this blog itself, it seems that a more regular posting would be good. This week I got rather involved with photographing insects and neglected my posts. (Well, I also had some work to do.) I will have some things to say – and show – concerning creepy crawlies in a future post.
turnip
very small pear on a nearly-dead pear tree
And finally, inspired by Jesse’s “bug’s eye view” of his pumpkin plant, I’ve included below a similar view of Noah’s pumpkin plant that long ago escaped it’s boundaries. The photo shows the point of escape.
bug's-eye view of Noah's pumpkin plants
Gardening Grace
My much-abused tomato plants have set their first flowers. They have been:
- imprisoned for too much of the winter
- drowned
- frozen
- drowned again
Despite this they flourish.
first flowers on tomato plant
Tomatoes…as Weeds!
Tomato plants have more resiliency than I knew! After posting about having drowned mine, I further subjected them to a mild frost – normally a true tomato killer! I have done all things wrong to them and still they survive. 
Finally, I have discovered that tomato plants share something with garlic mustard. As a prolific seed producer, last-year’s tomato plants have left THIS year’s turnip-radish-lettuce beds with little tomato plants…THOUSANDS of them! All of them need to be pulled.
I have a little more respect for the tomato plant this year…and I’ll be a little more careful about cleaning up the tomato patch this fall.
The Garden Space
Here’s where we’ll be sharing food with the rabbits. It’s three strips 24 feet long. The middle strip is four feet wide and the outer ones are 24 inches wide. The narrow strips are for tomatoes and peppers – bell and jalapenõs – and the wider one is for spinach, carrots, turnips, lettuce and broccoli. Another small plot will contain pumpkins and squash.
Mistakes made, but plodding on…
I have already made mention of a few blunders. It’s time to “fess up”. Either a math error or impatience caused me to plant some things a little early. My tomatoes, peppers, and broccoli plants are a little huge and I can’t put them in the ground for at least another four weeks! My “little shop of horrors” plants will spend the next month alternating between sitting in my driveway “hardening off” and keeping from freezing inside my studio. I hope they don’t frighten my clients.
I may have started a little early!
We Begin…
We’ll see how this gardening thing goes but it’s starting out a little shaky. This is being written on an early April day that began with several inches of snow on the ground. That’s rude, even for the Chicago area. My ancient, falling-down greenhouse has now been further assaulted by the weather.
The greenhouse was here along with several other out buildings when we bought our 19th –century farmhouse about twenty years ago. We bought it because, for a suburban lot, the yard was large enough for our five children to enjoy. It also had a building that we could convert to a photo studio.
our falling-down greenhouse
I am actually not completely new to gardening. When my wife and I were first married we coaxed a tremendous amount of vegetables from a 4×30 – foot plot. As children were born and the photography business grew we found neither the time nor the energy to garden. I dropped my subscription to Organic Gardening and Farming and eventually Burpee gave up on us and stopped sending seed catalogs.
With our children mostly grown and my photo business less demanding of my time I have returned to gardening. I dusted off the four 1970’s – era Organic Gardening & Farming issues that survived moves from Illinois to Maine and back again and am determined to pick up where we left off decades ago.
It’s worth noting that the economy has determined one aspect of how we are going to approach this year’s garden. I will not buy something if I can make it or make do with something I already have. It seems foolish to become a gardener that essentially pays $ 12 per pound for the privilege of growing fresh tomatoes. Organic gardening methods not only restore the soil but also save money. So, to the best of my ability and knowledge we will maintain an organic – and cheap – garden.
Along the way I plan to visit my neighbors and their gardens. I’ll report on any good stuff that I learn. I hope I can report on the results of some gardening experiments. I already have had some missteps that, if I am not too embarrassed, I will write about. I’ll use my camera to help tell the story of progress, setbacks, revelations, disasters and ideas.
Mostly I’d like to hear from anyone that may come across this. New gardening ideas, thoughts, comments, and stories are all welcome.