Author Archives: elzbthc

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About elzbthc

I am a Graphic Artist and The Tomato Lady in the Spokane Valley, WA. I love creating beautiful things, horses, quilting, traveling, sightseeing, cooking, entertaining, and reading among other things.

Interesting Trivia About Tomatoes: Fruit or Vegetable?

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Is it a fruit or vegetable?

In 1887, the US Supreme Court ruled that tomatoes were vegetables even though they are specialized reproductive structures that contain seeds. They said:

“Botanically speaking tomatoes are the fruit of a vine, just as are cucumbers, squashes, beans and peas. But in the common knowledge of the people…all these are vegetables, which are grown in kitchen gardens, and…are usually served at dinner in, with or after the soup, fish or meats…and not like fruits generally as dessert.”

Some Interesting Trivia About Tomatoes: First Part

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black-prince

Black Prince

They were once called a love apple and were thought to be poisonous

Tomatoes are native to the coastal highlands of western South America. The early American colonists brought them to America but most people still viewed them with suspicion. Thomas Jefferson mentions planting them in 1809 but they weren’t widely cultivated until after 1830 when tomatoes started popping up in American cookbooks and gardening manuals. America has had a love affair with tomatoes ever since.

Seed Catalogs Starting To Come In

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Actually, they’ve been showing up in my mailbox for the last several weeks. I swear I swore off gardening forever when the first frost hit in October. Dragging hoses, pulling weeds, battling bugs and trying to find homes for my abundant garden produce, well just about tuckered me out.

Quite honestly, this was not my best year for gardening. The tomates were a fall crop, (although I did win a grand prize for my Willamette tomatoes at the fair), the peppers were the worst season I’ve had, (and I’ve had some fabulous plants the last couple of years), the zucchini squash plants took over the garden, (I’ve never seen them ramble as much as they did), and the onions didn’t bulb up much. Spider mites attacked my roses and dahlias, slugs ate my tomatoes and my pepper plants, (they had a penchant for the cayenne), and it was a banner year for yellow jackets.

On the upside, my volunteer sunflowers came up in spades, I found some lovely garlic that I had missed last fall, my carnations looked fabulous, and my nasturtiums were lush and aphid free.

Ok, so where was I…right, catalogs. It is almost the first of the new year and still the dead of winter, but perusing all the catalogs that are coming in and seeing all the pretty pictures has stirred something in me. The need to grow things, to “create life”. Not to be blasphemous, but sometimes I think I might know a little of how God must have felt when he created the earth. How pleased He must have been to plant beauty and watch it grow. Despite all of the problems I had last summer, I still am excited about the coming spring, an opportunity to start over again. When you think about it, isn’t that what gardening boils down to?

I was looking through the Irish Eyes Garden Seeds catalog tonight. They are located relatively close to my home in Spokane Valley, WA. Irish Eyes is based out of Ellensburg, WA on the eastern side of the Cascades. I believe in buying local when I can. One of their claims to fame is organic, early season varieties. Yugoslavian Red and Cardinale are two kinds of lettuce that I am going to try, one is a butterhead and the other is a head lettuce. I may even try potatoes again. some of the fingerlings they offer look yummy. Check it out at http://www.irisheyesgardenseeds.com

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Merry Christmas!

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Merry Christmas!

Wishing everyone a wonderful Christmas this year. May God bless each and everyone of you. And even if you don’t believe in God, remember that He still believes in you!

Does This Remind You Of Summer?

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Does This Remind You Of Summer?

Baby, it’s cold out there. In my neck of the woods it is 22 degrees and there is frost everywhere. I was perusing my pictures and found this one and it made remember the dog days of summer when it was so, so hot. Let me see if I can remember which ones these were, from top right, Nebraska Wedding, Cougar Red, Willamette, Fiorentino, Glacier, Oaxacan, Blush and Honeybunch. The red ones are harder to identify

How Was Your Garden This Year?

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I must admit, this was a tough year for my garden. I am the Tomato Lady and should have beautiful tomatoes and to be honest, I thought about questioning my calling. Slugs, flea beetles, aphids, early blight, late blight, splitting, cat facing, you name it, I had it. The weather was cold and rainy in June, then it got really hot for a long time, then it rained. All of my tomatoes split. You expect most of the cherries to split with their thin skins, (juliet is a fine tasting tomato with thicker skins that don’t usually split) but no the larger ones. The Black from Tula, which I adore, split exactly around the middle, the Sungolds and Honeybunch split stem to stern and the Oxacans, (which I won’t ever grow again, mealy texture, small) split without out the rain. Every last one of them. The only ones that didn’t split were the Nebraska Wedding, Old Fashioned Goliath, Joe’s Pink Oxheart and Mountain Gold.

At the end of the season, we picked all the green ones and left them on the porch to ripen. because of the slug bites and splitting, they rotted before they ripened so i just threw them all in the compost pile and shut the door behind on of the worst seasons ever. 

My peppers did not do well either. The heirloom shelling beans, all 7 varieties, had some sort of issue from the moment they came up. 

Hope springs eternal though, there is always next year. 

Note: the plants themselves were glorious and I’ve talked with many of my customers who said they had great success with their tomatoes and gardens. Below is an Aussie that one of my customers has grown. It was the first of the season. Isn’t it lovely? And big? I can tell you they are tasty.

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End of Season Tips: Row Covers Protect Vegetable Plants from Light Frosts

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Floating row covers, shade cloth, tarps, plastic , sheets and blankets are an easy way to protect crops from chilly nights and light frosts. Anchor  to the ground on each side and the ends; use garden staples, rocks, or boards to hold covers in place. Covering your plants will keep plants 2 to 5°F warmer than the air outside temperature—enough to protect plants from a light overnight frosts.

I am most concerned with keeping my tomatoes from freezing. If  light frost is predicted, I will cover with one of our many blue tarps and drag them off in the daytime so they don’t bake. The whole idea is to protect the tomatoes from frostbite. If that happens, instead of ripening, they will usually rot.

It ain’t pretty but it works!

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Red Tomatoes and Crazy Weather in my Garden

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I rec’d an interesting question from one of my customers. He asked me how my garden was growing and what was my favorite red variety. Every year I grow different tomato varieties, not all of them red. This year, I am loving the Marbella, Red Pear, Willamette and Giant Tree Tomato, all of which are red and very prolific. I won a grand prize at the fair for my Willamettes, an aspiring early heirloom from Oregon.

As for how my garden is doing, I’ve had the worst season ever. Every slug, every flea beetle, aphid and spider mite for miles afround has attacked my vegetable and flower garden. Powdery mildew, early blight, physiological damage (ie curly leaves) from the hot/cold/wet/dry weather we’ve had this summer, has blessed my plants too. Aaaagh!

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More Pictures of the Unique Blue Indigo Rose Tomato

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These are more pictures of the Indigo Rose in our garden

ImageImageThis is a picture from one of our customers. He grew it in a pot and it is enormous! They look like giant blueberries.

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A Unique “Blue” Tomato – Indigo Rose

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this is a picture of the Indigo Rose grown in our garden this year. It is stunning in color, not so much in flavor in my opinion. These are dark purple on the parts that get by the sun and green on the other side. We picked one and when it got really ripe, it was orange on purple. Really pretty but I thought it was tart.