2025 harvest

So, the costs from the previous post were a little over $300, but I'm pretty sure I got a few other little things—little flags to point to ripe stuff, fish fertilizer, replacement basil plants. Let's say a total of $400. And I bought a second raised bed for next year (a little under $100). 

I ended up with a LOT more plants than planned. I already had grape tomatoes, Lady Bell peppers, swiss chard (from seed), zuke and yellow squash (from seed). A friend gave me a BUNCH of tomato plants (3 Sun Gold, 2 Sun Sugar, 1 Juliet, 1 Mountain Pride, 1 Black Cherry) and several peppers (2 Ace, some lunchbox peppers, and a mildly hot pepper, not sure of the variety). 

The tomatoes over-produced, in a summer that was hot and dry, just what they like. I lost track of how many cherry and grape tomatoes we picked. The San Marzanos were also prolific and early; the Mountain Pride were not actually Mountain Pride, but some variety of paste tomatoes, less prolific and late, but really beautiful fruits. The Juliets were also late, but that could be because they were shaded by the more prolific plants. Really good flavor. The Black Cherries took a long time to ripen, but are prolific and really pretty. Not sure they're worth the space though, because the flavor is mediocre compared to either the grape or the Sun Gold (or Sun Sugar). 

The peppers weren't prolific, and several died off (or, really, I gave up on them when the plants showed signs of severe malnutrition). The two ACE plants did okay, and I really liked the Lunchbox orange pepper, but only got one fruit. I don't blame the plants for their poor productivity—they were overshadowed by the tomatoes and the weather was too hot for them at key blossom-setting times.

For nightshades in 2026, I'm thinking 3 grapes, 3 San Marzanos, 1 Juliet, 2 or 3 Sun Gold; and then 4 Ace, and 3-4 Lunchbox. I'm hoping to overwinter the 2 Ace and 1 Lunchbox I already have. Plus I need to get some Northern Lights swiss chard—it's just so much more fun to have all the colors instead of the standard green variety. One bed will be all tomatoes, and the other bed will be everything else. 

Nasturtiums were disappointing, and I'm not sure why. They grew a bunch of leaves but no flowers, and they were right next to a chard plant that did fine. The bulk of the swiss chard is still waiting to shine; they were overshadowed by the tomatoes too. The zucchini was, as always, scary productive. I made three batches (two leaves each) of zucchini bread, and I have shreds for 3 or 4 more batches in the freezer. Yellow squash was reasonable, perhaps a little light because of the drought. There were three plants, I think, and that seems about right. Maybe I'll do some sugar snaps next year, hoping to harvest them before the peppers need more space. Perhaps a few early radishes and small carrots too.

I managed to kill off the new rhubarb plants. Sigh. Unexpectedly dry/hot summer. Might try them in a whiskey barrel next time.

Basil thrived in the extra-hot weather. Garlic was mediocre due to insufficient rain. 

Alpine strawberries thrived, somewhat surprisingly given the heat/drought. I'm planning to expand their bed next year, since they were popular and there were never enough. I'm planning to buy a set of heavy-duty shelving to essentially set up a long, low coffee-table-like support for the grow bags on the deck. I've found what I want, just not in a huge hurry to spend the money. It can wait until spring. 

Late, but not really

Memorial Day weekend is the traditional planting time for warm-weather crops like tomatoes and peppers, so the nursery was almost out of plants when I went today. Except it's not really late; it's just that Memorial Day was early. It's probably better to say that these plants can safely go into the ground the last weekend of May, which is the next two days. So I'm right on schedule.

Or I would be if I'd done any bed prep before now. The weeds have pretty much taken over.

I'm not planning a big garden this year. Just half a dozen each of grape tomatoes and banana peppers, some lettuce and swiss chard and herbs (in containers), plus some yellow squash if the critters don't get to them, and maybe some butternuts (ditto on being subject to critters). I've also got, for the first year since planting 3 years ago, lush rhubarb plants. (Forgot to get a pic; will try to remember and edit tomorrow.) I'm also experimenting with some potatoes that sprouted in the kitchen. I remember reading that they're treated to prevent growing, so I'm about to find out if it's true. They're planted in a bucket, so I can keep topping it off as (if) they grow, and, in theory, have a whole bucket full of potatoes in the fall.

So, yesterday I got some dill seeds, since it's been a while since they self-seeded, and planted them in a bucket with some pre-existing thyme. Today I bought six-packs of grape tomatoes, banana peppers, and yellow squash, for a total of a little less than ten bucks.

I'm expecting rain over the next 24 hours (ridiculously humid weather since yesterday), so no watering yet. I'm hoping to plant the banana peppers (the only seedlings left) tomorrow in between showers.

It should be a cheap growing year, since I already had two bags of compost. I bought some potting soil for the outdoor containers, so that's another five bucks or so. I've already got copper fungicide for the tomatoes. Oh, but I bought a new lopper and a new rake, so that's another fifty bucks or so, but they need to be amortized for the next ten years or so. I may also decide to get some mulch, but I'm not sure I'll need it. There's a pile of grass clippings I can grab, and that may be enough for the small beds I've planted this year.

Skewed expectations

When I was getting our plants at the local nursery, I convinced someone to get Ace peppers instead of a more standard bell pepper. She mentioned that she'd never had any luck with peppers in the past, but was planning to give it one more try.

It sounded like her past problems were twofold: the wrong variety and skewed expectations. She'd been growing something like Cal Wonder (there's a reason it's called California Wonder, not New England Wonder), and was expecting it to grow as thick-walled as the ones in the grocery store.

I did warn her that Ace isn't intended to be thick-walled, but that it's prolific, and, when eaten fresh, has an absolutely amazing crunch that the thicker-walled ones lack. I do hope she likes them. If she can learn to love the smaller, crisper, thinner-walled varieties that grow well here, she'll have better success.

NPR's Science Friday had a segment on flavorless commercial tomatoes, and how the scientists think that, after extensively taste-testing heirloom varieties, they may have a better handle on the genetic traits that contribute to flavor (instead of the usual traits winter tomatoes are bred for: perfectly round shape, heavy production and the ability to travel undamaged). He's hoping to be able to breed commercial varieties that have both flavor and the commercially valuable traits.

I'm not as optimistic as the scientist seemed. Among other things, he mentioned that if a home grower planted one of the commercial varieties in a good soil, and let it ripen fully on the vine, she'd end up with a "good tomato, but not a great tomato." A lot of the flavor, he admits, has to do with the quality of the soil and, particularly, letting it ripen on the vine. I'm not sure how developing a more flavorful variety is going to help all that much, if the plants are still being grown hydroponically (or in depleted soil), and picked green for traveling long distances.

One comment he made, that really stuck with me and does give me some hope, was something to the effect of "There's no financial incentive for major growers to produce a more flavorful winter tomato; the financial incentive is to produce more quantity, regardless of the flavor quality."

And we, as consumers, are essentially doing exactly that. We're buying the ghastly, flavorless winter tomatoes, despite complaining. (I suppose a lot of home gardeners aren't buying them, actually, but are doing what I do, which is to eat fresh tomatoes only in the summer.) Why are they being bought, when everyone knows they taste horrible?

If consumers stopped buying the flavorless tomatoes and stopped expecting visual perfection (instead of culinary perfection), that might create a financial incentive for the major growers to grow better winter tomatoes. Or maybe our expectations would become more realistic, and we would do most of our fresh tomato eating during the warmer six months of the year, and skip them during the colder six months of the year.

Brief bit of sunshine

We've had rain or heavy clouds almost non-stop since my last post. The broccoli has become leggy from lack of sun, even though it's in what should be the sunniest part of the garden. I cut back the main head on each of the plants, hoping to inspire some side shoots.

I'm a little worried that we're in for a repeat of the 2009 season -- rainy and wet, with tomato blight. I FINALLY picked up plants (another $18 spent) today, a couple weeks later than I would in a normal year. Decided to get kale (5 plants, one of which is a bit puny), since cool-weather crops may be the only ones that prosper this year!

Also got: 6 Corno di Toro sweet peppers (since the generic banana peppers were sold out), 24 Ace sweet peppers, 6 yellow pear tomatoes and 6 Jetstar tomatoes. And a thyme plant, because last year's plant is really thriving in a corner of a small whiskey barrel, and I like thyme a lot, so the plan is to fill that whiskey barrel completely with thyme.

I'd like perhaps 6 more tomatoes in a variety that's better for cooking, but I thought I'd experiment this year, perhaps with an oxheart, except I haven't found them. I've also got some Matt's Wild Cherry seedlings to add to the tomato collection.

Highest priority (except that I ran out of energy in the sudden heat) now is to prepare the bed for the sweet potatoes (dig up the weeds, lay down black plastic, heat up the soil) and get them planted by the end of the weekend.

Late blight

Apparently we've been hit with "late blight." (Don't worry -- the wilted swiss chard is just the standard mid-day reaction to hot weather, not some sort of disease.)

The cool, wet weather we had this spring was a factor in its catastrophic spread.

The only tomato that did not get the blight was a "Matt's Wild Cherry." I had grown this variety years ago, and it hadn't done all that well. As the catalog says, it doesn't yield many tomatoes for the amount of space it takes, and I'd grown fond of the grape tomato varieties that are available now, so I'd stopped growing the wild cherry in favor of the grapes.

This winter, I decided to get rid of seeds I never use, and I had a few of the wild cherry seeds, so, on a whim, I started them indoors. One sprouted, and it went into the garden. Apparently, it has innate resistance to late blight, because it's surrounded by dead plants, and there isn't a single spot on it.

Bit of a setback

So, I was feeling kinda' proud of our gazillion tomato plants and how healthy and fruit-laden they were in a year when the weather has been rotten and lots of people were bemoaning their pitiful plants.

And then the blight struck.

I've never seen plants die so suddenly or so substantially. We're getting some fruits anyway, but many are rotten and the greenery is brownery.

Note to self: Don't count your tomatoes until they ripen.

Four million tomato plants

We may not have trouble meeting the goal of 141 bushels, after all. Thanks to a seed-starting-run-amok friend of my co-gardener, we planted four million tomato plants this week.

Well, not quite that many, but far more than the 18 we'd planned (6 each of grapes, paste and Celebrity), which was already a lot.

My co-gardener says, "You can never have too many tomatoes." I'm not a nice person, sometimes, so I'm already planning to remind her of that in August.