LOL... I would love to say these are my lambs but they are not. They belong to my friend Lucine in France (I want them). Born over the Easter holiday.

I could do an entire post only about these lambs. They have a huge following on her Fb wall and I think they need their own fan page. Ha!

Check out how cute his little feet are! If they stayed this little I would get a whole flock but I know they grow into big sheep.

I wish I could fly over to France just to kiss them.

Thursday, I am finishing the teepee for the Scarlet Runner Beans. I think this will be the showpiece of my garden this year.

The bad news I have to report is that I couldn't get my Choc. Ghost Chilis or my Marmande Garneir Rouge tomatoes to germinate. :( Next year....... a new opportunity for them.

The tiller is tuned up and I hope this weekend to get the garden turned over for the first time this year. (That is an all day project)... Stay tuned.

1930's tomato farming

http://www.ina.fr/economie-et-societe/vie-economique/video/VDD09005621/la-culture-de-la-tomate.fr.html


This video is crazy... It's from 1930. Subtitles are in French but it shows the back-breaking work of tomato farming then.

P.S. Thank You Sebastien Prunet!

Marigolds

Marigolds
Did You Know Marigolds were first discovered by the Portuguese in Central America in the 16th century?? "Marigold" is derived from "Mary's Gold", and the plant is associated with the Virgin Mary in Christian stories. Because of the flower's heavenly association it was thought to be a bringer of good luck and to ward off evil and witchery.

My friend Gerard in France sent me lots of Marigold seeds for this year. I have never started them from seed but this year I'm going to give it a shot.

Planting Marigolds amongst your tomatoes is considered "companion planting". Annual Marigolds can be used anywhere to deter Mexican bean beetles, squash bugs, thrips, tomato hornworms, and whiteflies. They are also known to repel harmful root knot nematodes (soil dwelling microscopic white worms) that attack tomatoes, potatoes, roses, and strawberries. Marigolds omit an odor that many insects find offensive so when you plant marigolds you are actually helping keep insects away from the area you are planting the marigold flowers in. Insects do not like to be around marigold flowers.The root of the Marigold produces a chemical that kills nematodes as they enter the soil. If a whole area is infested, at the end of the season, turn the Marigolds under so the roots will decay in the soil. You can safely plant there again the following spring.

Marigolds are easy to grow and have a long flowering period. African marigolds have a upright growth and can reach a height of 30-40 inches, while French marigolds grow to only 8-16 inches. African marigolds come in shades of yellow and orange, while French marigolds are often multicolored in shades of orange, yellow, mahogany and crimson. Both are suitable for massed plantings or pots. They are attractive as cut flowers if the scent isn't a problem. Change the water in the vase frequently.

Marigolds are grown from seeds. They like full to partial sun. Marigold seeds can be directly sowed into your flower garden, or seeded indoors for transplanting later. I recommend planting Marigolds in pots and containers indoors, then transplanting them outdoors. This allows you to make the proper spacing without the need for thinning seedlings.

Sow Marigold seeds early in the season and cover lightly with soil. Water thoroughly once. They germinate easily and will grow quickly, producing their first of a continual display of blooms by mid-summer.

Transplant Marigold plants into your garden after the last frost date for your area. Spacing depends upon size with miniature varieties spaced four to six inches apart, and Giant varieties one to two feet apart. Around mid-summer, your plants will begin to produce flowers and will continue to do so up to the first frost. You do not need remove dead flower blooms, except for appearance.

So I will take lots of pics of them this year! Marigolds fall into that catagory I call "happy flowers"..like sunflowers. If they exuded an emotion it would be happiness.

Seed Bombs

How they Work
A seed bomb is a little capsule with everything you need to grow a plant all bundled up. The clay has lots of root-encouraging nutrients. The Worm Castings will give the seeds a nice fertilizer, good for land that hasn't been cultivated or worked on for a while. The indigenous seeds are custom made for your area. They will know how to grow given the conditions.Now all they need is a nice rain. The perfect time to throw these is right before a light rainy season. The rain will melt the clay to expose the seeds, and your seed bombs will grow.


Seed Bombs Ingredients
1) powdered clay
2) worm castings
3) wildflower seeds indigenous to the area
4) water
5) mixing container
6) stick

How to Make a Seed Bomb
1) mix 5pt powder clay, 5pt worm castings, 1pt seeds in a mixing container.
2) add just enough water to make a nice muddy clay consistency
3) roll up the mixture into little balls like gum balls
4) let dry in a cool dry place for like 3 days
5) throw them in empty fields.

This is what we call Guerillla Gardening!! Throw them in your unsuspecting neighbors ugly back yard. Around a fence....you get the idea.

Some of this content was taken from

Funtimehappygardenexplosion.

Come on Spring

Chance is getting huge and the cats hate him. Ha! He ate one of my tomato seedlings today and if he didn't have such a cute face I would have been mad.

Got all of my peppers sown. Mainly doing Basque peppers this year but some Ghost Chilis too.

I've started collecting my coffee grounds from Starbucks.. Woot. I think I've doubled my worm population and we all know how good worm poop is for the plants. :-p

Still waiting for the garlic to pop up. Not yet.

Hope everyone has gotten their seeds started and are getting excited for the season.

Passing on a cool global website

http://guerrillagardening.org/community/index.php They have a page on how to make seed bombs. When I have more time I will try to put the instructions up.

Puppies and seed starting

Here's my new little man Chancellor or "Chance" as I call him. A Border Collie maniac puppy. I haven't had a pup in 14 years. I forgot how much work they are.

Started peppers: Ghost Chili, Doux des Landes, Ancient Sweets, Piment d' Ampuis and a few more next week.

Getting psyched for the garden. Woot!!!

Most excited to grow list

Finally......... Time for my
MOST EXCITED TO GROW LIST
Every year I am very excited about certain new tomatoes I am growing. I've lowered the number of varieties I grow so the list is not huge this year.

So here it is *fist pumps again*.

Green Doctor's Frosted-
This is a mutation from Green Doctor's proper. A green when ripe cherry. Normally the epidermis is yellow, this is a mutation to clear. The clear epidermis makes the little tomatoes look like they are frosted.


Le Mer Mix--(The Have You Got It Yet Mix )
Includes a segregating genepool and also some OP lines from Alan Bishop including:
Mer De Noms -red
La Mer (noir) - black
La Luna - Black with green stripes
Le Soliel - Orange plus various yellows and other shapes including cherries, but for the most part salladette type tomatoes.
Alan's tomatoes are always impressive. His Absinthe and Jack White are out-standing so growing this mix out is going to be sooooooooo exciting for me.

Marmande Garnier Rouge
This is a selection of Marmande that was sent to me by my friend Gerard..
Red fruit from 1-1.5 lbs. slightly corded. A variety of Marmande which was found at the market in Savigny sur Orge in Essonne in the year 1960 by Mrs Garnier who gave it her name. Cultivated year after year by Mrs Garnier and Patrick Saint Aubin, collector at Montlhéry.

Spudatula Black
A cross of Black from Tula with an unknown potato leaf variety, from Bill Malin of Hillsboro, NM. Last year I grew Bill's Spudakee Purple, a PL version of Cherokee Purple (also on the list this year) and it was sooooo good even in a horrible growing year. I've heard raves about Spudatula Black so I can't wait!

I have no photos for any of these yet but will try to post as I find them or grow them.

2010 Growlist

**EDIT ON GROWLIST**
Here is my 2010 growlist for the moment. There might be some minor changes but these are solid. I will up-date with any new varieties. In the meantime, I have started 10 Chocolate Ghost Chili's *fist pumps*. I can't wait to see these guys. I'm guessing this is a cross between the Ghost Chili and a chocolate pepper. Maybe a mutation??

Looking for something called a Bergamot Orange. A cross between an orange and a lime. I'm going to get in touch with my produce guy at one of the stores and see if they can find some. One of my French peeps made me go on a mad search for these. Thanks for driving me crazy Sebastian!

Trying to decide if I should get this Border Collie. It's soooooo tough. I want him so bad but I know what a job it will be. Yeah... that's him shoving the other puppies out of the food bowl. *sigh*

Happy seed starting everyone!

Cherries-

Black Cherry

Sun Gold

Green Doctors Frosted

Marizol Gold Cherry

Greens-

Green Giant
Absinthe

Reds-

Marmande Garnier Rouge

Aker's West Virginia

Granny Cantrell's German Red PL

Old Bess

Old Virginia

Blackhawk

Pinks-

Goose Creek

Olive Hill

Hege's German Pink

Cowlick's Pink BW

North Carolina Pink

Mrs. Benson

Black/Purple-

Spudakee Purple

Spudatula Black

Liz Bert

Cherokee Purple Improved

1884 Purple

Chocolate Stripes

JD's Special C-Tex

Orange/Yellow-

Orlov Yellow

Swedish Golden Beef

Oleyar's German

Arancia (Thanks Randy for all the seeds)

Bi-Colored-

Pamplemousse du Grand Pere

Spunky

Le Mer Mix

Praying for Spring

Hee Hee...I love this pic. I pretend that the little boy and his dog are praying for spring and tomatoes. It's that time of year where in my head, I start counting how many more months until I can eat a garden tomato. :(
Almost done with the growlist which I promise to post immediately upon completion. Doing a few germination tests on seeds and ordering from the greenhouse and garden suppliers.

I am starting all pepper seeds Feb. 1st. Especially our little buddy the PPdew. He needs a very long growing season. Also growing a little round cherry from my friend Chris Fowler, and the Chocolate Ghost pepper seeds he also sent me. Yep! You heard me right. I said Chocolate Ghost. hahaha... http://www.chileseeds.co.uk/hot_chili_pepper_seed.htm ( you can read about it there but I wouldn't get too excited, they don't ship to the U.S.)...Growing out from a hybrid Ancient Sweets (This should be interesting) still sorting thru which other peppers are going to make it to the garden.

I know one thing that wont be out there this year.... potatoes. Tried last year and it was a big bust. I am not the spud Queen. I'm leaving the potato growing to Idaho.

But.....one of the things I'm most excited about is my "Scarlet Runner Teepee"... I am building a huge, walk in teepee (with help of course) and it is going to be covered in Scarlet Runner Beans. How cool is that? It is going to be my hideout LOL. I mentioned it to my friend Sergeant Major, and being a former member of the Army Corp of Engineers, he has taken over construction details. Ahhhh...it pays to have smart friends.

On a sad note, I lost my little garden buddy Boo this winter. It was an accident and it was my fault. I still think I hear her in the house. It's like you forget for a second, then you hear what you think is her, and then you remember...... :(

Sadie doesn't have any tomato boxes to sit in lately so she has taken to Christmas boxes. LOL

Happy New Year 2010 to all! Hope it's our best year ever!

May it be full of tomatoes and greasy beans.

Yes... I miss my garden already. I'm working on my 2010 growlist. This next season I think I am going to cut down on the number of varieties and increase the ones I do grow.

Here's the ones I am solid on:

Absinthe

Green Giant

Liz Bert

Spudakee purple

Chocolate Stripes

Marmande Garnier Rouge (very excited about this one. Thanks Gerard!)

JD's Special C-Tex

Goose Creek

Still have a long way to go before I finish the list. Plus, I have to leave room for some growouts I am doing for others. I keep thinking "pepper starts are only a month away" Woot Woot!

You've got to be kidding me

Really????.........Someone put a gun to my head. Now there's a new one. The Goldew pepper?
It took me 3 years to find the red one, now I have to hunt down the gold one???
!#$%**!
Here's a copy paste from the Gourmet Food Mall on it:
The new “GOLD” standard from South Africa! Just introduced into the US market in 2009, Peppadew™ GOLDEW is the result of 10 years of growing trials in South Africa. Like the original Peppadew™ pepper, Peppadew™ GOLDEW has that mouth-watering sweet and tangy flavor…minus the heat. Try them in green salads, chicken and tuna salads, stuffed with cheese, or on top of fish, chicken or pork. The possibilities are endless, and they will add pizzaz to almost any meal!
If anyone has anymore info on this can you please email it to me? I am just too tired to from the first chase. Secret Seed Cartel.....get to work!

Peppadews???????????????

So........Here's what I'm saying. I believe this is the real deal. Took me 3 years to find the seed. Yep folks......it's our little buddy the Peppadew. I expect many pats on the back for this one from all of you!! Shouldn't I win some kind of award for this? LOL.

Being cautious, I will say that I did save seed for them and If you're one of my buds, email me about the secret seed cartel and being a member.

French Peeps.....

si vous avez besoin de ces graines, elles sont à la disposition de vous également

Queen

Nothing to do with tomatoes but worth sharing. I've always been a big Queen fan. I admit I miss Freddie and all of the great music they put out...As I'm getting older I'm appreciating classical acoustic guitar more and more. No one was happier than me when I was tipped off to this un-believable CD. A classical guitarist by the name of Carlos Bonell has done a CD of all Queen tunes. Even if you're not a big Queen fan you can appreciate this one. You can hear him do "Love of my Life" on youtube here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geeRT60TZbY

and "Who Wants to Live Forever" here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KO0ezPJjwls

I rarely go out and buy an entire CD but I did with this one. It is so awesome. Two of my favorite things combined, Queen and classical guitar. Reminds me of a Reese's cup....ha!

I'm sure some will disagree but in my mind Queen was one of the greatest talents of all time. One of the saddest days of my life was when I heard that Freddie Mercury had died. I knew something rare was gone forever. One of the benefits of living close to Cleveland is being near the rock hall of fame. I admit I take that for granted. I've only been there one time and that was when they inducted Queen. It was so cool to see but sad at the same time. As they trotted Freddie's mom on stage with Brian May and Roger Taylor anyone that didn't tear up didn't have a heart.

So....in closing, I just wanted to share something cool with you. Gotta share the good stuff!

You'll want to see Freddie doing one of the songs live:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3xwCkhmies

The greatest rock n roll frontman ever!!

Saving Seed with Oxiclean

Most old time growers still save their tomato seeds using the old-fashioned method of fermenting them. The negatives to this is the amount of time it takes (days) and the smell. If you have ever had the pleasure of smelling a rotten tomato than you know what I'm talking about.

I use the Oxiclean method. Totally safe for the seeds, does not effect germination rates and takes about 40 minutes. As simple as it gets.

1. Cut your tomatoes and squeeze seeds into a marked plastic container or cup.

2. Add about equal amound of water.

3. Add 2 Tble. of Oxiclean and stir.

4. Allow to sit for 30 minutes.

5. Before straining stir then pour into fine mesh sieve.

6. Rinse well. Put back into container and fill with water again. Let sit for 5 min.

7. Pour into sieve again and rinse.

8. Put seed on labled paper plate and allow to dry for 1 week or more. Until dry. Store in jar.

2009 Review: Winners and Losers

This was by far the worst tomato season I have ever had. Too cool, too much rain and disease problems. That made me un-able to rate some tomatoes due to poor conditions and crop failure. But...... I was able to form an opinion on some of them. You know the rules: to be an all-star it has to have a 10 in all areas. Taste, appearance and texture. Here's the all-stars and waste of space maters from this year:

All-Stars:

Liz Bert: A potato leaf purple developed by Keith Mueller. I loved this one. The taste for me was right up there with Carbon. Even with so much rain they resisted splitting and scarring.

Chocolate Stripes: Wow! What a winner. Not only are they beautiful to look at, but the plant was disease resistant, huge producer and perfect texture. Definitly has the sweetness of a black. Perfect balance of meatiness and juicyness.

Jewish: A really nice red. Not beefsteak shaped but more bomb shaped. Almost all of them were huge.

Very productive, very meaty just enough juice without being watery. Not very acidic tasting. More of a sweet, mild flavor.

Orange Minsk: A big size yellow/orange from Minsk. I got my seed from Andrey.
Good producer, flawless appearance. Very meaty. Mild but firm. I would say I liked it as well as KBX. It's more of a mid-season so if you like KBX you would like this one and it's earlier too.

JD's Special C-Tex: Well, I finally found one I love as much as Carbon. Very nice purple/black. Firm, sweet and flawless appearance. Resisted disease much better than some of the other blacks.

Absinthe: Another Alan Bishop tomato. A GRW that rivals Green Giant. I had given up hope of ever finding another green as good as GG but Alan has done it!! Two years in a row one of his tomatoes is on my all star list. This tomato is soooooo good. Perfect balance of juice and meat. The gel really is the color of Absinthe.

Waste of Space:

Zelyone: "sorry Andrey :( "....... A russian GWR. It produced well and had a nice appearance but I couldn't get past the taste. Very sour to me. I kept trying them as the season progressed but it never improved.

OSU blue or P20: Ok, only if you want to grow this as a curiosity. It is a total waste of garden space if you are limited. It's cool to show people the blue tomato but taste wise....forget it. Plus they are very small.

Roger's Best Black: This one was a huge producer of early blacks. Tastewise it was very sub-par compared to other blacks. It had serious scarring problems too. I don't think I ever picked even one that didn't have concentric scarring.

Yellow Cookie: Ok...this was a heart shaped yellow. Almost no seeds at all in them. Very meaty but mealy and mushy. Tons of scarring and cracking. I just couldn't get past the texture.

Now there were a lot of what I call good tomatoes that are worth growing again but not OMG good. It's possible under better growing conditions they might have made the all star list. Here's a review of some of them.

Claude Brown's Yellow Giant: This by far is the most huge yellow tomato I have ever seen. One slice almost covers an entire dinner plate. Nice, mild yellow flavor and not mealy. If you like the mild yellows, it's a good one.

Olive Hill: This one was a very good producer of large pink beefsteaks. Mild flavor and near perfect appearance.

Heatherington Pink: I really did like this one. More flavor than Olive Hill but not as productive.

Gary'O Sena: Another Keith Mueller purple tomato. Really good but not quite as good as Liz Bert to me.

Frank's Large Red: (The pic is a few greens ones) This is by far one of the biggest red tomatoes I have ever grown. When you first taste it, it hits you with sweet but then it has this old timey tomato flavor. Reminds me of how tomato juice tastes from the store.

I wanted to comment on Fritz Ackerman and Marlowe Charleston too: You know last year I grew both and they were regular leaf plants. I absolutely loved the ones I grew last season and they both made my all-star list. Then I find out they are supposed to be Potato leaf. So I chased down the PL seed for each one and grew them both this year. The PL version of each was was nothing like the RL versions from last year. They are entirely different tomatoes. Maybe the RL ones I grew last season were crosses but they were superior to the PL varieties I grew this year. So....if you want to grow either one of these varieties I would suggest the RL variety.

Now I'm going on hiatus..ha...See you all in a few weeks. That is if I ever come back. I don't think I would mind living in France for the rest of my life. I can grow tomatoes there too...right?

Laissez Les Bon Temps Roulez!

Cooking Greasy beans

I'm getting a lot of requests from people asking "how do I cook greasy beans". So......I am just going to do a little post about it.

You would cook them no different than you would any other "green bean". They do have a string so you would need to remove it first.

I personally like to cook my green beans with smoked ham hocks, ham bone, onion, garlic, salt, pepper and some ham base.

So, when you want to cook up your greasy beans, just cook them the way you normally would do it. I haven't gotten my crop yet, their still growing but from all I hear, they taste fantastic. Here's a couple of pics I took today. My NC pink tip greasys and a pic of their flower.

Crop Failure

This is the first time I've ever had to say it. Crop failure. As most of you know there is a blight epidemic this year. Looks like I am going to have to pull and burn all of my plants. I've been fighting it for a couple of weeks but it just keeps spreading. I'm so bummed I can't even write anymore about it. Guess I will just cut my losses and go see the French peeps after all. Here's a few links about it. Cornell University also has a weekly update on tracking it around the country.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/nyregion/18tomatoes.html
http://www.umassvegetable.org/LateBlightAlertforTomatoandPotato.html
http://plantclinic.cornell.edu/FactSheets/lateblight/late.htm
http://www.innovations-report.com/html/reports/agricultural_sciences/late_blight_irish_potato_famine_fungus_attacking_135263.html

Kumato displays

Black Garlic display

So while I was in Toronto, I visited a couple of grocery stores. One was just a normal store and one was a gourmet store just opened my chef Mark McEwan:

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/toronto/archive/2008/06/17/mark-mcewan-launching-gourmet-grocery-chain.aspx

I found displays of Kumato's there and took a few pics. One sign said it was the #1 tomato in Canada. It is now becoming available in the U.S. under the name Rosso Bruno.

The Mark McEwans store had it on display with Black Garlic, the newest, hottest chef item.

As far as the new McEwan store, I wasn't impressed. I guess I am spoiled by West Point Market which is one of the top 10 gourmet stores in the country. There was no comparison. The only thing that impressed me was that I found the Black Garlic there.