Garden Cart

I've had this garden cart for several years, and it only just occurred to me that instead of lugging plants in and out of the house morning and evening, I could just put them in the cart and wheel it into and out of the garage while I'm hardening them off for planting. I'm going to take a chance and put them out later this week, although our nighttime temperatures are still dipping into the low 40s. If I have to, I'll put protective covers on them if there's a threat of frost. What you see here includes two Sungold tomatoes (a friend calls this variety "tomato candy," and I have to agree), one zucchini (no one needs more than one), an eggplant (experiment!), and four peppers (two sweet and two jalapeno). Given how well my other plants are doing, this year may well be the best garden I've had in the 35 years I've lived here!

Slim Pickin's

Day 342: There's slim pickin's in the tomato department this year, and those which are just now coming off the vines are tough-skinned and less tasty than in years past, courtesy of too much sun and too little water. The Romas aren't much larger than the Sungolds, and the Sungolds are about half the size they should be. Here you see approximately two-thirds of the yield so far. No, it was not a good year for tomatoes, not in my garden. While I've noted a dearth of some crops (notably apples and basil, as friends have confirmed), there were some surprising abundances. The gooseberries did extremely well, and the raspberries seem set to follow their example. Blueberries? My bushes yielded precisely four dry, flavourless berries. That said, if I have to accept a tradeoff, I'll take gooseberries over tomatoes any day, although I do miss the "tomato candy" of the Sungolds.

Growth

Day 196: For years, I have started seedlings in pellets or dirt-filled pots set in cheap plastic trays which, true to form, have deteriorated with time and exposure to sunlight, so this year, I decided to up my game and bought a better quality products to do the job. The tray is heavier plastic, the lid is vented, but most importantly, a styrofoam form holds specially-made sponge-like inserts with pre-dibbles holes for receiving the seeds. Watering is done from the bottom only, and the sponges are designed to draw up the precise amount of water required for sprouting and seedling health. They say that hindsight is ever so much clearer than foresight; I wish I'd done this years ago. So far, I've achieved a germination rate of 99%, and the plants are noticeably stronger. That said, there were a few things I still wanted to have in pots like cilantro and basil. These will be kept in the kitchen and used on demand until I can plant another crop outdoors. I've already made one batch of pesto using the thinnings from the basil pot, and I'll pick cilantro later this week. Fingers crossed that we don't get a hot spell in June!

Fruits Of My Labours

Day 297: Much needed rain has fallen overnight, the first since the last day of June. The pluviometer registered 0.01" one dewy morning in July, perhaps weighted by a spider which had set up housekeeping in the idle drain. The garden is grateful for the moisture, as am I. A native to the Pacific Northwest, my nerves wear raw when they are compelled to endure hot temperatures and bright sunlight for any length of time. As I entered the Berry Pen through the kiwi-vine covered archway, a shower of cold beads fell on my head and shoulders, streaked my glasses, shattered on my exposed arms foretelling of autumn and its promised harvest of Sungold tomatoes and miniature cucumbers, benevolent drops whose touch was as welcome on my skin as on the foliage of my vegetables. Rain! Real rain! If I didn't have neighbours, I'd dance naked in it.

Drop Of Golden Sun

Day 338: They say hindsight is clearer than foresight. In other words, "Why didn't I think of this last year?" As I was eating dinner a few nights ago (Hamburger Helper Beef Pasta), it seemed rather more bland than usual and I thought, "Needs some tomato sauce or something to tangy it up. Wish I had some sun-dried tomatoes." Still not up to speed and too lazy to get up for the Worcestershire sauce, I gulped down the food with my usual "I don't care what I eat as long as I get it over with quick" attitude and then went back to my projects. Then, while working at the Park's booth at the Washington State Fair, a visitor engaged me in a lengthy conversation which somehow circulated around to preserving Nature's bounty for winter consumption. She mentioned dehydrating, and a cartoon lightbulb, fully illuminated, appeared over my head. "Oh, brilliant!" I shouted, startling her. "Now I know what to do with my surfeit of tomatoes!" Since I'd just given Kevin a bagful, I had to wait a couple of days before more Sungolds were ready to pick. I sliced them at roughly 1/4" thick, put them in the dehydrator overnight at 115 degrees (the temp suggested by the visitor). They weren't quite dry by morning, but another two hours did the trick. Now if I can just stop eating them like potato chips, I might have a few to perk up those bland winter meals.

Oregon Spring And Sun Gold

Day 302: If you're wondering why my recent posts have been rather more domestic than usual, it's because western Washington has been having hot weather coupled with thick smoke drifting down from the fires in British Columbia. Over the last two weeks, the Mountain has been invisible or nearly so from my home, and at times, I haven't even been able to make out the horizon of Elbe Hills. Yesterday was the worst it has been. The smoke was visible between my house and my neighbour's, and the trees at the end of the pasture were all but lost in haze. Other than short runs out into the garden or to the mailbox, I have made very few forays into open atmosphere and away from the filtering capabilities of air-conditioning. This is not normal, not for Washington, and cabin fever is taking its toll on my disposition. As much as I want to be OUT, the air is too thick to breathe and I have no desire to become a statistic. Still, enforced domesticity does not sit well with me and I would be glad of a little rain. So would my garden.

I've been watering on an almost daily basis, perhaps a bit too heavily for the Oregon Spring "beefsteak" tomatoes. The vine is producing prodigiously despite being very compact this year, but my diligence with watering has caused most of the tomatoes to split. They're not inedible; I just have to cut away the hardened bits where the flesh has been exposed, and the remainder of the fruit is sweet and juicy, and especially delicious when harvested sun-warm and served with a dash of salt and pepper. On the other hand, the Sun Gold plant is spindly and leggy despite having been fertilized, and is bearing rather sparsely. That said, I've still been able to pick enough tomatoes for both myself and a neighbour, although I would not call this a "good tomato year."

Sungold Harvest

Day 269: Sungold's sweet fruits may be smaller than those of Sweet Million, but what they lack in size, they make up for in number. A single plant is now producing to match my capacity for grazing, providing a nice handful each morning with more ripe for an afternoon snack. Admittedly, I've picked a few which weren't quite at maximum sweetness, but how do you tell when an orange tomato is fully ripe? That's the only drawback to this prodigious provider that I can see.

Made A Sweet Million

Day 332: Rich are those whose gardens produce, and let me tell you, I have made a boodle this year! My Sweet Million cherry tomatoes are producing as many as I can reasonably consume. What made the difference after a long run of failures? I bought bigger plants instead of trying to economize. I brought them home with blossoms already forming, just the head-start they needed in my short-season garden.

With Oregon Spring, it's been a different story. It's a full-size tomato, and while it came on strongly at first, it's fallen back now, and has only a few green fruits which I doubt will mature before first frost. It did well for me last year, though. That said, my main use for tomatoes is as snack food, not as a condiment to go with burgers. I would far rather pick a handful of Sweet Millions to nibble on my way out to the mailbox than harvest an equal weight of a beefsteak variety to slice.

Oregon Spring

Day 292: My mouth is watering already! I have never had tomatoes ripen earlier than late August, not here in my mountain garden, but Oregon Spring was developed for this climate and it is proving to be the best producer even over Sweet Million, my other favourite. What at first I took to be a rot issue at the stem end has panned out to be nothing more than a little sun-scald or water damage. Several four-inch fruits are beginning to show color.

I purchased strong plants in four-inch pots this year, and I think that's part of the secret. Buying smaller plants means they have less time to develop. Even so, last year's crop filled my kitchen window where I put them to ripen, eating them one by one as they matured off the vine. These, though...these promise sun-warmed, juicy goodness within the next two weeks. No danger of frost between now and then! Hurrah for Oregon Spring!

The Taste Of Summer

Day 360: With drenching rain on the roster for the weekend, I picked every decent-sized tomato on the vine today and put them in the windowsill to ripen. It's taken almost a week for the first ones to redden up completely, but tonight I sliced into one of them and found it to be absolutely delicious. I have had a better yield, pound for pound, of full-sized Oregon Springs than I ever had from Sweet Million cherry tomatoes. If not quite a "beefsteak" variety, they are close enough for me.

Oregon Spring Still Life

Day 356: For the first time since I moved here over two decades ago, I have had some moderate success with full-sized tomatoes. The growing season is quite short here, a factor which previously led me to select "Sweet Million," a 60-65 day cherry tomato, nibbling them straight off the vine as they ripened. For the last several years, though, I have been lucky if I got half a dozen fruits from two vines, hardly worth the bother of keeping Bambi at bay. This year, I thought I'd try a different variety and selected "Oregon Spring." The name sounded good, anyway, as if the plants might have been developed specifically to withstand the Pacific Northwest climate. I brought them home, babied them indoors until the end of May and then stuck them in the big pot outside the back door. I saw blossoms emerge and tiny fruits begin to develop and swell. Then they continued to swell without the slightest blush appearing and I wondered why. Oh dear! I'd misread the tag! They weren't cherry tomatoes at all! Oregon Spring was a full-sized variety. I figured failure was inevitable.

Well, I picked these two before they were ripe just in case Jack Frost got moody. Nights have been in the low 40s, and that's a bit too close for comfort. Give them a few more days on the kitchen counter and they'll be ready for taste-testing. Oregon Spring may well become my garden's delight.