Farewell, Tomato - the Tomato Report

Farewell, Tomato -the Tomato Report, was written by Annie in Austin for her Transplantable Rose Blog

My tomato report can't be as scientific as the yearly evaluations by MSS at Zanthan Gardens... she records facts and can give you quantitative data. I forget to write things down, collect impressions rather than data and make comedy & music videos for YouTube rather than face the realities of gardening here.

Philo & I have planted tomatoes each spring we've been in Austin (that's 5 tries at the other Austin house and 6 attempts at this one) and the entire harvest for those 11 late springs/early summers wouldn't add up to one good year in our old garden in the Western Burbs of Chicago.

There are supposedly two tomato seasons here - spring and fall - two really short seasons fitted around the midsummer heat that halts pollination. Squirrels and stinkbugs are a pain, the area we have for planting isn't large and constantly shifting shade with tree roots in clay soil isn't what tomatoes want. But we must have tomatoes!

An old adage says "Eat Dessert First" - so before the lists of varieties and laughable numbers please watch the music video -it's just over one minute and I hope it makes you smile!





PUTTING TOGETHER THE GARDEN
A few years ago Philo made a wooden framework that could be dismantled and stored. It was short enough for me to reach over without a ladder and when the plants are in place the whole thing covers an area about 6-ft by 8 1/2ft, a size that can be draped with a bird net. Every year we add organic matter- this spring some of it came from my lasagna/sheet compost experiment and some came in bags from the Natural Gardener. Before setting up the framework Philo borrowed the Mantis tiller belonging to the Divas of the Dirt to till it all in. Then we set up the frame and buried a soaker hose around it.

The ground was cooler than usual this spring and so was the air. We bought tomato plants in early March, repotted them into slightly larger containers, took the plants outside any day when the temps were above 60°F and brought them into the garage every night. With frost warnings issued through the third week of March, we delayed planting until March 28th... then kept covers ready for near-frost nights. We kept the peppers in transitional pots, bringing them in and out, finally planting them on May 6th.

THE VARIETIES WE GREW

We bought some tomato varieties that we'd grown before
Solar Fire (2 plants) we were quite pleased with it in 2008 but we couldn't find it 2009.
Early Girl usually dependable, producing tomatoes even in that horrible heat & drought of 2009
Juliet We've grown this grape tomato 6 or 7 times - the taste is not spectacular but it has a long season and it's a nice bite
Celebrity usually dependable, but didn't do well in 2009
Black Krim in 2008 we had a few delicious tomatoes from one plant and wanted more. But in 2009 one plant was hit by hail and the other faded fast.

We tried some new ones
Sun Gold a very small cherry type with good press from Austin gardenbloggers
Paul Robeson not only a highly praised black tomato but one named after a singer!
Green Zebra highly recommended by many people and it looks cool
JD's Special Texas another black-type, also recommended

We had one very large container at the back of the garden for two plum types
San Marzano a famous tomato - last year it was lost to the hail storm of 2009
Roma - a plum tomato we'd grown in IL but not in TX

Most of the tomatoes came from the Natural Gardener but we also hit Shoal Creek Nursery, Countryside Nursery and the Zilker Park Garden Festival. We really wanted two varieties called 'Carmelo' and 'Costoluto Genovese', which had done well in 2009, but we couldn't find them in 2010.

TRYING TO GET THEM OFF TO A GOOD START
The tomato plants were planted around the outside of the frame near the legs, so they could be tied as they grew. I also poked a couple of Tomatillo varieties, 'Demilpa' and 'Toma verde', into the hard-to-reach middle of the frame. One short side got a few pepper plants, including one hot 'Garden Salsa' and a couple of frying types.

A few weeks after the plants were in the ground we put more compost around them, covered the whole area with sheets of newspaper and covered the paper with Cotton Bur compost.

Every few weeks the plants were foliar-fed with Medina Hasta-grow and I put seaweed on them twice.

TWO PLANTS DOWN
Everything was growing like gangbusters when the 'Green Zebra' sort of collapsed. A few weeks later the 'Paul Robeson' did the same thing, but more slowly, so that the tiny tomatoes that had already developed were even more pathetic. We keep trying heirlooms but in previous years other heirlooms - 'Arkansas Traveler', 'Persimmon' & 'Brandywine' - didn't do well either.

The first tomatoes of 2010 were the little 'Sun Golds' - tiny but tasty.

Some 'Early Girls' had set fruit as did the 'Solar Fire'.

'Juliet' sat there - no flowers- no developing fruit

'Celebrity' wasn't doing anything either but 'Black Krim' had a couple of tomatoes in progress.

The' JD Special' also had a couple of tomatoes looking as if they'd make it to maturity.

Small 'San Marzanos' & 'Romas' were forming, but the two plants were so entwined on their tomato cage that I wasn't sure which was which.

Toward the middle of May even though we had the bird net on, something (a bird? a squirrel? an unmentionable rodent?) got under and wiped out a precious 'Black Krim' and a couple of 'Solar Fires' that were low on the plants. Then stink bugs invaded.... not the large leaf-footed stink bugs of former years, but some smaller ones that came in clusters. I hunted and smooshed. Then the big leaf-footed type stinkbugs read the veggie news and returned for a share but it was harder for them to get through the birdnet. It was easier to see and squish the bugs as they flew onto the net at the front edge of the patch but the container with the plum tomatoes had no net and they were attacked by everything.


HARVEST RESULTS and FOOD PHOTOS
With birds and squirrels circling I grabbed tomatoes the second a pink blush appeared and let them finish inside in safety. Even with the A/C running our house stays about 78 degrees F - warm enough for them to ripen.
The 'Early Girl' and 'Solar Fire' made quite a few tomatoes by our reduced Austin standards and the 'Celebrity' woke up and made some, too.

We cherished each and every tomato as they gradually ripened inside.


When you have a short tomato season and a small patch there is no need to can, or freeze, or make sauce... there were only one or two ready per day.

In the lower left corner of that tray you'll see the only 'Black Krim' that we got to eat. In the upper two corners are the only JD's specials - others on the plant were destroyed by critters.

Yes, we purchased and grew three black tomato plants and had a grand total of three black tomatoes from them. Were they worth it? You betcha.


We took photos of the tomatoes at the solstice, then ate them while I wore the shirt. We baked bread for them.


We celebrated the larger of the 'JD's Specials' (it was the biggest tomato of the year, and one of the best tasting)



We toasted the JD with beer, garden garlic in olive oil, fresh mozzarella and more bread. (the Little Kings Ale is mine - Philo likes RealAle from Blanco),

In Illinois once the tomatoes came in we could keep picking until frost killed the plants, and even then might have plenty of green tomatoes to fry, but here, even with real rain supplemented by hand watering, once it got hot the plants stopped setting fruit and looked terrible. We still had a few good tomatoes and an excuse to keep baking.


But many of the newer tomatoes were smaller, were marred or didn't ripen evenly - since they were not proper slicers we could use them to cook and bake!

The ripening tray was replaced by the ripening plate as the numbers declined
The 'Solar Fire' kept making fruit but the stinkbugs ruined it
Finally we were down to one last full-sized tomato

We're still getting 'Sun Golds' and last weekend I tried to squeeze a few more tomatoes from the 'Celebrity' and 'Solar Fire' by cleaning up the vines, cutting them back, lightly feeding them and making sure they don't dry out. Even if we get no tomatoes for the next couple of months, there's a chance that one or two plants can survive until fall and pop out a few more tomatoes.
The peppers are still blossoming, and a few peppers are forming. Just a few will be enough for pepper and eggs on the weekend and if there are a few hot ones for salsa that will be great.

The tomatillos grew into enormous 7-ft plants that tried to smother the peppers and lifted the bird netting off the ground. They've flowered like mad but made not one tomatillo. I chopped the stalks back to 4-ft but otherwise am treating them kindly.

A few days ago I noticed a couple of unblemished tomatoes the size of walnuts and remembered reading that a Texas Gardener on one of the GardenWeb forums used organza Bridal Shower goodie bags from the dollar store to protect her fruit from stinkbugs.

Think it will work?


Farewell, Tomato -the Tomato Report, was written by Annie in Austin for her Transplantable Rose Blog

Our Kitchen Garden

Here at Circus~Cercis we have a Kitchen Garden. It's exciting to see and read about people all over the country deciding to grow food for the first time by starting "Victory Gardens" - we wish all you Victory Gardeners the best of luck! Our relationship with Kitchen Gardens is longstanding, so for us that name sounds better. Growing vegetables wasn't something we decided to do - it's something we've always done.

Philo remembers long drives to the small town where his grandfather lived, the small frame house and the garden with rows of beets and onions .
I remember my grandmother's small Chicago garden with Swiss Chard and Rhubarb and parsley and remember 'helping' my aunt with her suburban garden.

Where Philo and I grew up, even if there were no rows of vegetables, most yards had some kind of food plants - apple or pear trees, a grape vine for jelly, a clump of rhubarb or a raspberry thicket.

Almost everyone had a tomato patch. I well remember the gross-out chore of picking hornworms off tomato leaves and there's a permanent photographic record of Philo's early success with tomatoes.




As newlyweds in the late 1960's we planted flowers and a few vegetables near the door of our aluminum graduate school hut and squeezed in a few tomatoes and flowers around a rented townhouse in the early 1970's. Once we bought a house on a quarter-acre of land, we could begin the first of 5 real kitchen gardens. In all five gardens we've dealt with clay soil, semi-shade, tree roots and ravenous animals. The first three houses were in the Western Suburbs of Chicago.


Garden #1 (1973-1977) had several large wild cherry trees on the lot but there was a sunny place behind the garage to grow beans and tomatoes and squash and peppers.

Garden #2 (1977-1987) was on a lot with old pear and crabapple trees and wild grape vines. Philo fitted the main bed into the semi-sunny corner of the back fence, eventually adding raspberry trellises and garden grapes.


Another patch in sun on the opposite fence let the kids in the sandbox watch the zucchinis grow and a trellis on the side of the garage let us enjoy the new Sugar Snap peas.

At Garden #3 (1987-1999) we had a reasonably large space at the back of a long narrow lot. Even though the lot was overhung with wild cherries, mulberries and Box elders, this garden really pumped out peppers and tomatoes! Philo had all the salsa he could wish for but I never had enough zucchini. The fence helped keep out rabbits and groundhogs but couldn't save the squash from the squirrels.


Then we moved to Texas, and instead of owning arable land we lived in the deer-filled Austin hills. At Garden # 4 we did our best to grow a few peppers in pots on the deck and tomatoes inside this 4 and 1/2 foot tall, deer-resistant wire enclosure. The soaker hose failed in this situation and the deer nipped every leaf that dared to stray outside the wire. Philo started our current Kitchen Garden #5 in fall 2004, a few months after we moved to this house and had Swiss Chard & tomatoes by June 2005. As usual, the plot isn't in full sun, the soil is heavy clay and tree roots creep in from the other side of the fence, but after 5 years of stooping over to fit into the wire house, this feels like a real garden!Instead of either Kitchen Garden or Victory Garden, Yolanda Elizabet uses the term Potager, encompassing not only her decorative vegetable plantings, but grapevines, fruit trees, cold frames, a greenhouse & conservatory. That very cool word may be a little too grand for a 9 X 10 sort-of-raised bed of tomatoes, peppers and a few salad vegetables. We have no greenhouse or conservatory but we've grown wonderful lemons, we hope each year for loquats, pomegranates and figs, were astonished by a crop of edible pecans one memorable autumn and all year long use the herbs planted in troughs and tucked into flower beds. Marjoram and thyme grow in the hypertufa trough above, along with a plant of Italian parsley shared by Rock Rose Jenny. No matter how long you garden, there are new things to learn. We no longer incorporate pecan leaves from our two large trees into the soil, but once the juglone-free Arizona Ash leaves fell this winter we had enough to redo part of the garden using a modified version of Renee's lasagna method. We used timbers to hold up the 'lasagna' in two areas of the garden, one 3' X 4' square and another 2' X 3', making layers of existing soil, decomposed granite, various composts and the dry leaves, then watered regularly and waited. The front edge got a sprinkling of radish and spinach seeds, some shallots and a line of red onions. About 10 days ago I dug the rest of the bed over and made cedar mulch paths. I hunted around to find the soaker hose and decided to give it another try. Last week Philo revised and reinforced the Tomato Scaffolding from last summer and we set it into place. On Sunday we planted a few tomato and pepper plants, adding more soil, compost and granite as we planted. 'Juliet' already has a few flowers but I'm still trying to decide whether it's a good idea in this climate to cover the soaker hose with mulch - what do you think? Even if the drought breaks, the intense summers mean we can't get yields in Austin like the ones in Illinois, but we'll enjoy whatever we can get!In the back of the garden I'm experimenting with an old wooden box discarded by my youngest son and his friends. For years the guys kept it behind the shed, hauling it out once in awhile to use as a backstop. After long exposure to Austin weather one end started to rot off and the box was moved to the trash area, waiting for Bulky Trash Day. But then I had the idea to talk Philo into fixing the bad end and drilling drainage holes in the bottom. I lined it with roll window screen, put it near the fence where nothing ever grows, filled it with potting soil and even though it was a little late in the season, planted seeds. To keep the squirrels and birds out of it I covered the soil with some old racks from the garage. On a recent visit my son took a look at the vegetable garden, and I showed him the seeds sprouting in the repurposed ammo box, saying that it might need a decorative sign. My son knows me too well...he raised an eyebrow and asked, "Peas on Earth?"

Pretty close - what I'd been thinking was "Give Peas A Chance".

The Shadiest Time of the Year

This is our fifth autumn in this house and as each October ends we've noticed that the air-conditioner seldom kicks on no matter how warm the day. The sun is so low that it can't penetrate the still-full, green canopy of the two tall pecan trees to heat the rooms on that end of the house. The east end of the garden gets sun in the morning, but by the middle of the day the back garden is all shadows. As the sun swings around to the west around 3 PM, it illuminates the outside edge of the garden along the fence and then shines on the vegetable patch. After barely surviving the long hot summer, the pepper plants obey their biological imperative, using the sun at low power to reproduce and set a couple of dozen peppers. We'll let the peppers run their race to grow until the freeze warning comes - and will be glad to have even a small crop!

In late afternoon enough sun falls on the Secret Garden to trigger a few Confederate Rose blooms. Hibiscus mutabilis is a close relative of hardy Hibiscus like my 'Blue River II'. Confederate Rose can grow to tree size in Austin if sited well, but my small plant is new this year - a passalong from my friend Carole, it's still in a 10" container.


Enough sun fell through the pecan leaves to set buds on the Camellia sasanqua 'Shishi Gashira' a few months ago. The taller, older Camellia japonica did not enjoy this summer. It looks stressed and may have a handful of flowers this winter. In contrast this little sasanqua didn't seem to suffer one bit and is prepared to open dozens of blossoms.


When I wrote about berries in October I had to leave out the most spectacular berry in our yard - a tall Yaupon near the gate. The paperbark type of birch tree was always something I admired for decades but could never own. They didn't do well in Illinois and could not survive here. Now the sight of bright berries, beautiful trunks and white bark have vanquished any longing for birches... I love my yaupon!



The morning sun is enough to make these Brugmansia set buds but they develop more slowly than they did a month ago. If frost comes too soon these buds will never become yellow trumpets and the peppers and warm weather annuals will die and these passionvines will turn to threads, but the garden won't go to sleep.



Instead, as the pecans let loose their leaves, the winter sun will shine through the spaces between the bare branches. When the shadows turn again to sun it will be time to plant pansies and snapdragons, alyssum and dianthus. The loquat will keep opening fragrant flowers and when we take our coffee out to the patio, we'll be glad to have the patio umbrella over our heads.

The Old Dogs Learn Something New

This post, "The Old Dogs Learn Something New", was written for my blogspot blog called The Transplantable Rose by Annie in Austin.

Philo and I were invited to a pig roast on Saturday afternoon. As I gathered ingredients for corn bread and some Meyer's Lemon/Cranberry relish that morning, Tom Spencer's garden radio show played in the background. Tom's answer to one caller sent me running down the hall to the office - Philo had to hear about this! A woman wondered whether she should put the shells from her pecans into the compost or use them as mulch - and she was told it might not be such a good idea... while pecans are not as allelopathic [not alleopathic*] as Genie's infamous Black Walnut, they do contain juglone, a substance that can prevent the healthy growth of certain other plants.


With that large canopy of pecan trees hanging over our garden and the ground covered with husks and shells discarded by the squirrels, how concerned should we be? Was this the reason our tomato plants grew well the first summer, but seemed progressively more spindly the last two seasons?

We'd heard for decades that some plants, including tomatoes, wouldn't grow under Black Walnut trees- friends in Illinois had that experience - but we hadn't realized Pecans also had some juglone. The two of us started searching and reading, finding references to Black Walnuts, Pecans, Allelopathy and juglone in many articles, advice columns, forums, sites from universities and extension sites. As always, clip-and-paste ran rampant, with many sites using exactly the same wording and the authors disagreeing completely on the toxicity.

The conflicting articles stated that the leaves had juglone but the shells did not; that the juglone was concentrated in shells and bark; that it could persist for a long time or that a few weeks of composting eliminated it; that there was enough juglone in pecans to stop the growth of tomatoes or that the amount was so minimal it didn't count. Whether the soil was sandy or clay seemed to make a difference, as did the amount of moisture. Some sources recommended that adding lots of compost and improving drainage could remedy an area with high amounts of juglone. We read that juglone from black walnuts is used in traditional medicine to heal ringworm in humans and also read that allelopathy* swings both ways - the Department of Horticulture at Oklahoma State in Stillwater found that bermuda grass may inhibit the growth of pecan trees.

When I browsed a Project Gutenberg book called Growing Nuts in the North by Carl Weschke, one chapter told of the author's experiments in the early 1920's. It was pretty funny to hear him call the pesky squirrels "bushy-tailed rats" - that was definitely a bonding moment with someone from the past.


Our tentative conclusion after a couple of hours research was that for most areas of the garden, any juglone found in the pecan tree did not seem to have done any harm. On the other hand, it had probably been a mistake to incorporate such large amounts of pecan leaves into the tomato & pepper garden over the last 3 years and the waterlogged conditions of early summer may have intensified the effect.

Although our conclusions are tentative, we've noticed that several other plants in the nightshade family declined when in the root zone of the pecans - the Brugmansia got smaller instead of larger and only grew when moved to the far side of the garden. So to be on the safe side, we'll keep the pecan leaves, twigs and hulls out of the vegetable garden and not use them anywhere unless they've composted for a year. We'll add different compost to the tomato bed in spring, perhaps treating it with liquid compost now. A few weeks ago I transplanted that Solanum in the photo above to the triangle bed. It's one of the ornamental potato flowers but it wasn't growing or flowering. Now I realize this member of the nightshade family was also under the drip line of the pecan. Was that a factor in its failure to thrive?

This is more than you wanted to know about juglone, isn't it! If a pecan appears here again, I promise it will be in a pie! Let's move on to flower photos.


There were a few openings since the blooms were posted on the 15th - here's the peach iris unfolded. It sure looks odd backed by blue Plumbago, lemons, a 9-foot Brugmansia and the pink cuphea in bloom!


The Sasanqua camellia 'Shishi Gashira' opened a few flowers yesterday, but a fast moving gust of rain and wind shattered the flowers. More buds await their turn.


The next flower is difficult to photograph - a polaroid filter held over the lens helped a little.
That white line is the odd flower of a plant called Hoja santa, or Piper auritum, with large aromatic leaves that are used in Central Mexican cuisine. We once tried them parboiled and cut into squares, then filled with a chicken, pepper and rice mixture before folding into packets and baking.


Austin garden photographer Valerie was the person who first introduced me to Hoja santa - she has more information on the plant.


A cold front with rain is expected tomorrow evening followed by a weekend of cold, wet weather with highs in the fifties and lows in the upper-thirties. [from 10 degrees down to 2 degrees for you who use Celsius].
But today I can still admire a gulf fritillary on the pink cuphea.

Today I can enjoy the red berries on the Yaupon holly as it arches across from the left side of the path to the gate, mingling with the sharp and pointed leaves of the holly tree growing next to the garage.

This post, "The Old Dogs Learn Something New", was written for a blogspot blog called The Transplantable Rose by Annie in Austin.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you from Philo and Annie in our garden in Austin, Texas.

*Edited Nov 26 - my son pointed out that the words are allelopathic not alleopathic, and allelopathy not alleopathy. Thanks, kiddo - still learning .... Arf, arf.