For the gardener with an unsophisticated sense of humor. Myself included. Tomato’s tend to dominate this theme. ‘Cannibal’ Tomato ‘Bloody Butcher’ Tomato ‘Beaver Lodge Slicer’ Tomato ‘Black Seaman’ Tomato – No matter how I say it “seaman” always gets a snicker from the audience when I mention it in presentations and workshops. ‘Blow Fleisch’ Tomato …
Another Seedy Saturday Toronto has come and gone and like last year I managed, with great effort, to make it around to a few booths and pick up some seeds. The event was more packed than ever this year making it nearly impossible to leave my brother/assistant alone at the table for any length of …
This is the first package of seeds I have purchased for the 2008 growing season. Of course I have acquired other seeds via trades but this was the first I bought. It has a decidedly Canadian sounding name, no? It makes sense given that the plant heralds from Beverlodge Research Center in Alberta. I bought …
Lately, I have been receiving emails asking me to talk more about the community garden. I will admit that I am so horribly behind in writing about progress there that it’s been difficult to know where to begin. So this morning I browsed through a few folders of photos and decided to begin with the …
Because I woke up this morning and said to myself, “Self, you do not have enough tomatoes. Must. Get. More. Between the bowls in the fridge, the bowls on the counter, the bowl that was just roasted, the bowl that was oven-dried, and the tomatoes still in the garden what you really need right now …
And earlier this evening we enjoyed Homemade Oven-roasted Heirloom Tomato Soup. How To: It’s so simple you’ll be asking yourself why you didn’t make it before. Cook longer in the oven or heat it up afterwards in a pot and you’ve got sauce good enough for pastas and pizza. The only difference is the thickness …
Whomever says tomatoes can not and should not be grown in pots has not witnessed some of the surprising discoveries I have made over the years. While out biking yesterday afternoon, I happened upon this fully mature, volunteer cherry tomato growing up from the dusty earth beneath a pile of discarded parking lot blocks. I …
The bottoms of all of the ‘Purple Calabash’ tomatoes are so bumpy and misshapen that they are morphing into cartoonish grumpy old man faces as they ripen and mature. Today a friend remarked that we are so programmed to accept perfectly smooth-shaped produce that people often refer to lumpy heirloom tomato varieties as “ugly.” We …
Aside from several handfuls of ‘Whippersnapper’ tomatoes that started ripening over a month ago there have been tomatoes here and there but not in the numbers we’re starting to see on the roof and over at the community garden plot. Despite a tray-full like this I am still eying clusters of green tomatoes dripping off …
A little red and sort-of white for Canada Day courtesy of my rooftop garden. We were hoping the ‘Whippersnapper’ would be ripe and ready for eating by today’s national holiday — some celebrate with a two-four of beer, over-sized sparklers, and things that explode, we get excited about ripening tomatoes — but it looks like …
Readers of the You Grow Girl book might recall that I love a little milk mixed with water as a tomato disease preventative. Okay, I probably didn’t go so far as to indicate a “love” for the concoction but I will say it here: the tomato plants on my rooftop garden benefit from regular applications …
