Category Archives: the tomato lady spokane valley wa

Spring Is Here (Almost), Starting Seeds, Transplanting, and Other Garden Chores

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I feel like I am just awakening from hibernation. The bears have it right, taking a nap in the winter. Although I wouldn’t exactly call it a winter. Very little snow. That makes a lot of people happy but I live HERE for the four seasons. What this does for me, is make me antsy. I hear the birds chirping, I don’t need a coat for the most part and I am chomping at the bit to start our plants.

My table is filled with germination mix, seed trays, and seed packets, a sprayer, garden marking pens, tags, etc. All the paraphernalia you need to plant seeds. and I even have printed spreadsheets. I am trying to be organized.
These are my seeds. I store them in the dining room, which at this time of year is no longer called a “dining room” but a “seed propagation” room. You can see in the background the racks and LED lights we use to germinate them.
Tomato babies, they look really good this year.
Pepper babies, they take a lot longer to germinate than tomatoes do.

I spend a lot of time looking online at seed catalogs, choosing new and old varieties of tomatoes, peppers, veggies, and flowers. It is a veritable buffet out there. So far, I have 357 varieties of tomatoes, 64 kinds of lettuce, and 126 kinds of peppers and the number of flowers is almost incalculable.

Flowers and more flowers. Snapdragons, stock, alyssum, asarina (a beautiful vining plant), begonias, salvia, and alyssum.

Now that I’ve found out I can grow teeny, tiny seeds that look like dust, I am growing all of them I can. Of course, for things like coleus, begonia, and petunias, I am finding the benefits of using pellleted seeds. I am even trying calceolaria. Talk about dust. You want to plant maybe 30 or 40 plants, no, what you have in your hand is more like 5000 seeds, or so it seems.

Petunias, I am trying something different using plug trays for individual flowers. It doesn’t necessarily save space but it should save time in the long run.
Here I am transplanting the first sets that are going to live in gallon pots

So it begins, transplanting. We put a couple of heaters out in the greenhouse for me to work and not freeze, a fine music system (well actually my iPhone and a Bose speaker) and I am happy as a clam. There’s something about playing in the dirt.

Today I have transplanted 600 tomatoes. Only a billion more to go. I am glad I love doing plants although it can be overwhelming at times. They say that if you find something you love, you’ll never work a day in your life!

The Tomato Lady Is Back!

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Cherokee Carbon and Chocolate Cherry seedlings

 It’s been a while. I must apologize as I guess I am not as invincible as I thought. Just a little catch-up here – I finally got my permanent knee replacement after dealing with a temporary one for 10 months. Every step hurt. November 10th it was put in, just 2 days after Thanksgiving, my knee collapsed and I fell down, breaking my femur in two places! Who does that? I guess go big or go home, right? I have been walking with full weight for the last two weeks after two months of being confined to a recliner. That was tough. I made it and am doing that overachieving thing again. I can’t tell you how happy I am to be on my feet although it still hurts a bit, unused muscles and all.

Jalapeno “M”

I currently have over 350 varieties of tomatoes this year and over a hundred varieties of peppers. I have the elusive Cougar Reds this year, and then some. Last year I couldn’t find them in stock anywhere. 

Red and Pink Brandywine seedlings grown for the gallon pots.

I just finished planting seeds for the main crop this morning and already have 3000 plants almost ready to go into gallon pots in a couple of weeks. We switched to LED lights and are really impressed. The peppers look amazing, better than any that I sold last year!

February 20 Main crop of tomato seeds
Cougar Reds

I will be starting vegetables soon, including cauliflower and broccoli and have flowers going also. 

I have had to redo my website which means learning another software program. It’s taking a while. Keep on eye out for it plus my Facebook page. I will have more news there. Hoping to open mid-April. 

Tomato Identifying as a Pumpkin! From The Tomato Lady’s Garden to Yours

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This is one of the last Greek Rose that we picked from our garden for this year. They are lovely and very large and delicious. This one was so big, it seemed to be identifying as a pumpkin! This one is just for fun! Happy Fall!

Storm Protection: The Tomato Lady Way

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We planted our tomatoes into the ground a couple of days ago. They are big and beautiful. I have a video that I took of how we plant ours. You can find it on Youtube How to plant tomatoes The Tomato Lady Way! I hope you find it informative and interesting.

Since we planted, wouldn’t you know it, we have had some pretty nasty storms roll through. Nasty for our part of the country! My first thought was that my plants were going to be beat up, especially if we had hail. A couple of years ago we had some h ail damage and it wasn’t pretty. This is a picture of hail damage.

tomato damage hail sun

Luckily it was more aesthetic than harmful. This year we got a bit smarter and we covered every plant with a pot or a bucket. Of course, we take them off during the day (unless it hails or rains hard) so they don’t fry should the sun decide to make an appearance. It is also the way we would try to protect should we get some really cold temps.

storm protection 5192020 - 2

Just so you know, they aren’t levitating, there are small metal tomato cages that we put over them when they are small, then we put our heavy-duty wooden cages over all that.

This works for us!

Container Gardens And The Plants That Love Them

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me in garden with tomatoes811

Wishful thinking, one summer in years gone by. Warm weather, monster tomato plants on our homemade tomato cages.

tomaotes-gallons

Our gallon pots that we are selling now

First, let me apologize, I fully expected to be able to continue this thread and then life got crazy! We started selling our plants much earlier than we had planned to. The Garden Expo we were camping up for was canceled due to the virus situation, and that is a third of our sales. I wish this was my “hobby” but it’s around 50% of our income so we had to scramble to figure out how we were going to overcome this serious setback. Instead of 1500 gallons, we had 3000! Thankfully, we are considered an essential business and we knew that the “new normal” would make selling a lot more difficult so we started to sell early. Everyone had been very generous and understanding. I lowered the price of my gallons by $2, they are now $8.00 and have changed the way we are getting plants to the customer. Curbside delivery, home delivery with minimum orders, appointments, social distancing, monitoring how many in a greenhouse at a time (1) husband and wife are considered as one person, if they haven’t caught it from each other at home they won’t be catching it in the greenhouse! Fun times! Apologies aside here is the long-awaited post.

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Cute little guy with impatiens. For a shade garden, small soil cavity so better for a shade garden where it won’t dry out as fast.

So far we have discussed basic tips on raised bed gardening, in-ground gardening and edible landscaping which simply means including vegetable plants in your decorative gardens. I am a big believer in container gardening, for vegetables, for flowers, and for both mixed together. Edible container gardens don’t need to be boring or plain or merely functional. In container gardens, there is a design principle that most of us learn, thrillers, fillers, and spoilers.

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For a shade garden – wax begonias, impatiens and alyssum in a “flower bed”

Thrillers are your focus plant. It is the dracaena spike, coleus, begonia, ornamental grasses anything that is a big, eye-catching focal point. In an edible container garden, it would be your tomato plant, cucumber vine, lettuce etc. Can you imagine growing carrots, with their ferny, frothy foliage in the middle of a large container surrounded by flowers? Sweet.

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Krainy Sever, a dwarf tomato with petunias and lobelia

Fillers are mid-size, mounding or rounded plants that surround your focal plant. You can use it to complement or contrast the colors of the focal plant. If it is a dappled shade garden, wax begonias, gazania, ageratum, impatiens would be good choices. Petunias, mounding lobelia, alyssum, ivy geraniums, nasturtiums, and million bells, are all good choices for plants in containers in the sun.

pansies in pots58

Pansies and alyssum as a fluffy white skirt in a coffee pot

Spillers are plants that tumble over the sides of the container, softening the edges and providing more color. Bacopa, petunias, alyssum, trailing lobelia, sweet potato vine, ivy, are good choices.

salad bowl pictures - 2

Salad Bowls – various lettuces in colanders with alyssum and lobelia

Light, Temperature, Nutrition
Some plants can work in partial, dappled shade, million bells, lobelia, alyssum, bacopa, petunias, and geraniums. Very versatile. This leads me to my next point: keeping in mind the various light, temperature and nutritional needs of the plants.

I would never put coleus and petunias in the same pot. Coleus, for the most part, like shade (although there are new sun-tolerant varieties coming out today), Petunias do better with more sun. Vegetables also do better with more sun. Lettuce would be a good filler or focus plant for partial sun. Tomatoes need a lot of sunshine to be prolific. anything that produces fruit, such as tomatoes or cucumbers, need a lot of energy to form it.

Think of putting drought-tolerant plants together, shade-loving plants, or sun-loving plants in the same pots. Temperature is another factor although I think of it more in terms of succession planting. Pansies and Schizanthus like cooler temperatures and lots of sun. One of my favorite combinations to plant is a tomato or lettuce plant (which also likes cooler temperatures), petunias, lobelia and alyssum. When the cool weather plants succumb to the heat, or I eat the lettuce, the petunias alyssum and lobelia take over. I can also insert other plants in their place. Two-season beauty!

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Lettuce, alyssum, and a tomato in a pot, probably a Tumbler

When choosing your vegetables for your pots, choose varieties that are developed for containers. Determinate or dwarf tomato plants, compact pepper plants, carrots that are short in length, cucumbers that don’t vine too much, squash with a more compact shape, bush beans, (if you had a large pot, you could do a pole bean and trellis it), spinach, beets. and even melons. Look for words like “compact”, “determinate”, “short vines”, “small” and “dwarf”.

The picture above shows “Small Wonder” spaghetti squash, “Spacemaster” cucumber plant and fingerling potatoes in pots. Below are carrots that I grew as an experiment in pots. They were amazing!

carrots - 2

Carrots in a square pot

sweet rebas acorn

Sweet Reba acorn squash

“Sweet Reba” (above) is a good candidate for a large container since it is a compact plant.

Here are some good choices for vegetables:

pamsies99

Coffee anyone?

garden front big pots

Tomatoes and flowers in a large pot

Let’s not forget herbs. Most herbs like to live in pots. Purple Basils add a nice punch to a container. Thyme would be a good spiller.

Rosie basil
Cardinal basil
container herb garden

 

In the end, we are gardeners. We try everything, if it works great, if not we try again!

Here are a few pots that I have done over the years.

a mix of petunias, alyssum
shade planting coleus and ivy geranium
tomatoes spilling over a pot with flowers
tomato with petunias
nasturtiums and lettuce
feher ozon paprika pepper in pot
candyland in pot
lettuce
Rosie basil with other plants
patio tomato

a mix of petunias, alyssum
shade planting coleus and ivy geranium
tomatoes spilling over a pot with flowers
nasturtiums and lettuce
tomato with petunias
feher ozon paprika pepper in pot

Revisiting The Victory Garden

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Victory-garden

I have always enjoyed gardening. Flowers for the soul and vegetables for the belly. For me, there is nothing more soothing and joyous than picking fresh beans or squash for the supper table with a side of colorful flowers in a vase to brighten my day.

People have always gardened for food, since the beginning of time. Their goal was to feed their families. Today, we can buy any kind of produce any time of the year (thanks to worldwide markets and transportation)  in our local grocery stores. I wouldn’t say that everything tastes great but it is available. Back in the day, if. you didn’t grow, you didn’t eat.

It is important to know where your food is from and how it was grown. Poor hygiene in the fields is pretty common. Several times last year, you couldn’t eat Romaine lettuce because of some nefarious pathogens. There are many examples of this kind of thing.

If you grow your own veggies you can control what fertilizers or pesticides are used on them. You don’t need to wax them to keep them fresh. Nothing tastes as good as a sweet, juicy Sungold cherry tomato straight from the vine, warmed by the sun.  Or a crisp, crunchy cucumber you discovered hanging from a vine at the back of the row.

cherry tomatoes - 1 copy

During World War I, there was a food shortage. Initially called the War Garden Movement, people were encouraged to grow their own. Here is a quote from an article on the history of the Victory Garden,

“. . . advocating that civilians “Sow the seeds of victory” by planting their own vegetables, the war garden movement (as it was originally known) was spread by word of mouth through numerous women’s clubs, civic associations and chambers of commerce, which actively encouraged participation in the campaign. Amateur gardeners were provided with instruction pamphlets on how, when and where to sow, and were offered suggestions as to the best crops to plant, along with tips on preventing disease and insect infestations.” To read more click on the link:  https://www.history.com/news/americas-patriotic-victory-gardens

With our “shelter in place” orders and possible food shortages, you too can have your own garden. it is a relaxing way to spend the time. Feed your family and if you have an abundance, feed your neighbors!

You don’t need a half-acre or a large garden plot in your backyard to accomplish this. Containers are ideal for those with balconies, small patios, or small yards. The only real thing you need is at least 6 – 8 hours of sun and the ability to keep them watered. There are things you can grow even with partial sun and veggies/flowers that like cooler weather.

vase ftd left

This is the first in a series of posts that will help you to grow your own vegetables and flowers. I will talk about types of containers, growing in the ground, types of veggies best suited for various conditions, etc. Stay tuned.

You may find that after this crisis is over you will still want to grow for fun!

 

Latah, Moscow, Sandpoint, and Shoshone: New Tomatoes from The Tomato Lady

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We have some new tomatoes that I was just tickled to find. They were developed locally at the University of Idaho. Latah, Moscow, Sandpoint, and Shoshone, I have great expectations for these four. Here is what I found on the Snake River Seed Cooperative site. I discovered this company only just last year. I was happy to find seeds that are bred to be acclimated to our region, (although there are many microclimates in this area). I also believe in buying local whenever I can. This is what the Snake River Seed Cooperative has to say about themselves and their seeds (the short version):

“Snake River Seed Cooperative is a collective of family farmers in the Intermountain West who work together to produce a wide diversity of locally-adapted seeds.”

 

latah

LATAH Early, productive, and yummy variety bred by University of Idaho–perfect for containers! Latah county growers Kelly and Russell Kingsland grow this little gem, and they offer this description: Compact determinate. Bred at UI (in Latah County), Latah is well suited to Idaho’s cooler nights and relatively short growing season. A prolific producer of 2-3 oz, delicious well balanced, red fruits with good texture.

moscow tag

MOSCOW The largest of the U of I bred tomatoes. Good slicer and canning tomato. Not the earliest of the U of I bred tomatoes, but certainly the largest. Big, indeterminate plants spit out dozens of large, 4-5″ red fruits good for slicing and canning. Almost lost to the ether but for a Utah gardener who kept it as his main canning tomato.

sandpoint

SANDPOINT The smallest and earliest of Idaho bred varieties…great for containers! Extremely early variety bred by the U of Idaho in the 1960s. Small fruits range from cherries to saladette size, on very compact plants–excellent for containers, and for short-season areas.

Want a bumper crop of tomatoes? Listen to this guy

SHOSHONE Early-ripening Idaho-bred tomato! Compact plants with lots of round red fruits! Of all the varieties bred by the U of ID in the 1960s, Shoshone tied for the earliest harvest and blew the standard early-ripening varieties out of the water for taste, compact plant size, and productivity. Excellent for containers and small spaces. Fruits vary in size from cherry to large saladette tomato.

Keep in mind that I haven’t grown these yet in my garden so these aren’t my pictures. They are ones that I found in doing an internet search. Next year they will be my own. I love taking lots of pictures of everything I grow. Most of them I am pretty proud of.

I hope that these varieties will help some of my more northern customers be more successful with their tomatoes.

Insights Into How I Run My Business – The Tomato Lady

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tomato seedlings

Every year I try to be more organized with my business. I ask myself questions like these:

  • What do I want to offer this year?
  • What tomatoes or peppers did I not like?
  • What do my customers want?
  • Are there any new and astounding introductions that I need to try?
  • How much soil and germinating mix do I need?
  • Do we have enough stock of the amendments we incorporate into our mix?
  • When do we want to open?
  • When do we need our other greenhouses up?

And then I have to think about updating the website, doing research for descriptions, pictures, making large tags, small tags, marketing, doing the bookkeeping/taxes . . . etc.

I think one of the biggest concerns is figuring out how far back to plant the seeds so they are ready at a certain time. It doesn’t matter whether they are tomatoes, peppers, flowers or veggies. When I first started my business, I planted everything on March 17th. That didn’t work out so well. I had ginormous plants in small pots. (We called them trenching tomatoes!)

One variable we can’t control (a big one) is the weather. Since we grow ours as close to nature as possible, we heat only to keep them from freezing. We don’t grow ours as the bigger operations do with climate controls for even temperatures. It gets hot, it gets cold. (I think that is why ours do really well here in our part of the world). When the sun comes out, even if it is cold outside, it heats up very quickly. Cooler temps encourage root development so they have a stable base to start reaching for the stars when it gets warmer. We have had some of our varieties grow a foot in one week! (I know that sounds great but that is not good at all).

babies-under-lights-#3-09

My dining room becomes the seed starting room for several months. Shelves, fluorescent light banks, germinating mix, water jugs, seed packets, plant lists, pixie stakes, anything needed for planting. It is quite the mess! This is the room we use for our game nights twice a month, needless to say, we are relegated to the living room playing Scattergorries or Charades for several months.

tomatoes31

This year we are going to try and have 2500 gallons for sale. That is 1000 more than last year. They are easier to keep happy, don’t require as much water (don’t dry out) and have a BIG headstart over the ones in the smaller pots. That is really important in my part of the world where there every other town/location seems to have a different growing zone! Our weather. isn’t really consistent. sometimes we have a long growing season, sometimes we don’t. Last year we had a frost/snow late September. One year it didn’t get ugly until November. All it takes is one frost and your plants are done, it doesn’t matter if we have two months after that of temperate weather. With some varieties, it is important to have the headstart.

brandywine pink1_

Take the Pink Brandywine. It has a long growing season and really needs the extra two months. I have found that it is not the size of the plant but the maturity of the plant that determines whether you harvest something or not. Pineapple is another one that benefits from this, as do a lot of the bigger heirloom varieties. We will still have our regular pot size.

me-in-greenhouse-up

I just finished my first cup of coffee and as I contemplate going out to transplant some more tomatoes, I am glad I could tell you some of what I do and how I do it.

I know this is a long post but I wanted to share some of the workings and thoughts behind being an “urban farmer”. It’s not all fun and games and takes quite a bit of planning and thinking and of course hard work! To the gentleman who said that farming is a no-brainer occupation, I’d like to invite him to put himself in my shoes and the shoes of every other farmer out there and let him see how hard it really is! It’s not as simple as digging a hole and dropping a seed in it. I use a lot of gray matter to grow my business!

 

Pepper Varieties: Glow and Volcano Candy, Sweet and Spicy

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glow

Glow

Glow is a sweet pepper that caught my eye as I was thumbing through the catalogs. It literally looked like it was glowing. Amazing.

Since I haven’t grown these yet, I have to rely on the descriptions I read.

Tapered, thick-walled, 2-3 lobed fruits are 4-5″ long and are deliciously sweet and fruity. Medium-size plants yield well. Early and easy to grow in diverse climates.

It’s cute that people tell me they want and orange (or red or yellow) pepper. They say the green peppers don’t agree with them. The reality is that most peppers start out green, when they mature, they turn color. That is why the green ones in the store are so much cheaper, they can be picked earlier, leading the way for more peppers to form.

 

volcano candy 2.jpg

Volcano Candy

One of my husband’s new favorites. We grew these for the first time last year. originally named, Devil’s Kiss, we took artistic license and renamed them. Volcano Candy. Dark red, round fruits, very prolific, somewhere between the heat of a jalapeno and a habanero. The husband says they actually have a peppery fruity flavor and that if you cut them and removed the seeds and membranes, the flesh wasn’t hot at all. They look like cherry bombs. We kept this growing in our greenhouse (along with our Yellow Bull’s horn) long after the first frost and it did well until mid-December when we decided to pull the plant. We just couldn’t keep the greenhouse warm enough to maintain their health.

steve and corno di toro yelow

October 11, 2019, My husband standing next to our Corno di Toro, still growing strong in the greenhouse with its friends.

corno yellow late dec
Notice how the leaves are starting to droop. 
They got worse as the month went on. At first, I thought it was a lack of water but their fruits were just as firm as ever. I realized it was temperature. Peppers come from warmer climates after all.

last of the corno di tornos 2019

Corno di Toro (Yellow Bulls Horn) Here is a picture of what we harvested on December 22 right before we pulled the plant. That pepper is 7 inches long. Believe it or not!!!!

Purple Cauliflower, Golden Cauliflower White Cucumbers, and A Paprika Pepper

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cualiflower cucumbers 8119 - 3We have been picking broccoli for quite a while now, today, I picked our cauliflower. One was a gorgeous purple and the other a beautiful cheddar yellow. First time I’ve ever grown cauliflower and got something besides a softball size, insect-eaten, inedible object, sprouting flowers. My first introduction to colored cauliflower came from Winco. One day, they were sitting in the produce aisle. As you know I love color. They taste exactly like the white ones but are prettier. Great for a veggie tray although I see cheese sauce in it’s future.

Shown is also one of my white cucumbers (yes, I was going to eat it and cut the ends off and then decided it needed it’s 5 minutes of fame). Love it! Sweet and juicy, not bitter in the least. There is also the spineless Beth Alpha, an Israeli cucumber and several pickling cukes. I think I have enough to make several jars.

 

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The red object is one of my paprika peppers. This is the most amazing pepper plant ever. Let’s face it, peppers are hard to grow here. We always grow our plants in the greenhouse which develops extremely hot temps, probably not unlike a blast furnace. I always tell people don’t beat yourself up if you don’t have success. Some years are better than others.

This one is growing outside, in a large black pot. It was the first one to put on peppers and there are so many that they are crowding the stem. I picked the one that was starting to color up. This one is called “Feher Ozon Paprika” the plant isn’t even two feet tall! This is the first year for this and I will certainly grow it again.

Just a little note: Making your own paprika is easy. Let them dry thoroughly (ok, truth be told, I put mine in a box and promptly forgot them for two years) until crispy, dry and light. They are easy to crumble. Use a coffee grinder to grind as fine as you like. It was a wonder using my own ground paprika, didn’t taste like red dust!