Thoughts on Tomatoes

This is the German Pink, an heirloom. I like it a lot and had a wonderful crop this year. They are big, definitely pink, oddly-shaped, meaty and flavorful.

Below is something called simply Italian Heirlooom. It is also meaty, fairly large, and flavorful. No reason to not like it; it just doesn't stand out. Perhaps I'll try another old one in combination with the Pink next season. I am buying an heirloom roma to try, and I'll plant more rows of those for canning. My final batch of salsa was much improved by letting liquids drain out of it for some hours -- which seems a horrible waste, but makes better salsa.


Shall I tell you what went wrong last year? Record-keeping, remember... I plant snow peas in my tomato rows in the very early spring. They grow up on the outsides of the rows, bear, and die back in time for the tomatoes in the middle of the row to rise up and begin their season. Except that last year the peas were 4-5 feet tall and deprived the tomato plants of light for their whole season. When I pulled them all down, the tomatoes were quite puny. They lived, but bore very little fruit.

In order to demonstrate my ability to learn from the past, this season I bought a low-growing pea and used that only. It reached two feet and the tomatoes prospered.

NOW the question is, since I have a lot more room, should I forget this doubling-up completely, give the peas their own space, and not endanger the tomatoes at all. Hmmm. I really liked it. It felt like I was really get the most out of my space. I was PROUD of how it worked (except, of course, when it didn't).

Okay, I see it. No good reason to continue the practice. In fact, I won't have to worry about the height of the pea plants. And I could stick some Sweet Peas in amongst them -- how's that for a perk? Did the peas provide nitrogen for the tomatoes? Maybe. I'll see if next year's crop is as good as this.

And so we begin.

In lieu of a memory, and any decent record-keeping, this has GOT to be the most practical, useful, and (dare I hope) powerful way to keep track of what happens out in my garden from year to year. Surely I (we) can do better here than my beat-up pieces of graph paper with fuzzy notations in faded pencil.

So, what's in the garden today? No. 3 Son picked two ice cream buckets of snap beans, both green and yellow, from the bush beans plants I planted in midsummer.

D.T. picked 4 gal. of roma tomatoes and I picked 5 gal. of misc. heirlooms.














The Lazy Housewife pole beans (see above in June), with which I have a special affinity, are still producing, but most of them are going to the chickens because we find them too late. Next year, different location. Their current look is in the picture at the top (which I can't get to move!), showing that morning glories were allowed to overshadow these beans. Actually, the picture doesn't show you just how lovely the flowers got, because I've been pulling them down and feeding them to the chickens.


A cup or so of raspberries came out of the garden today, as well as more watermelons. No. 4 Son has harvested many many watermelons and canteloupes this season. We're still eating them.

Last weekend I pulled the last of the beets and made 4 qts. of beet/cabbage/horseradish relish. The beets I planted in midsummer never came up.

Today I canned 9 qts. of tomato sauce from the 10 gal. of fruit that came in last weekend. Tonight the pot is started cooking down the 9 gal. from today. P.S. Those 9 gal. cooked down to 12 quarts of sauce because of the high number of romas. More romas next year.