There are a lot of folks out there who feel that if it ain’t red, it ain’t a tomato. I’m here to tell you that they’ve missed the boat! if you’ve never tasted a golden yellow with a red blush or a dark pink tomato with light green stripes, you really need to.
Today, I am going to discuss some of my more uniquely colored tomatoes.
Brandy Boy is a gorgeous, dark pink, beefsteak. It can reach up to 5″ across and has the wonderful texture and flavor of a Brandywine tomato. Improved disease resistance, indeterminate
Brandy Boy
Copia is another beautiful tomato with great taste. It is a golden yellow with red stripes. This is a stabilized cross between Green Zebra and Marvel Stripe. Sweet, juicy flesh, they can weigh up to a pound.
Copia
Roman Candle is a lovely, bright yellow paste tomato with light green stripes. When you pluck it from the vine, it shines like a star. Very easy to pick. It makes the most beautiful soup and looks great in salsas and salads.
Roman Candle
Janet’s Jewel from Wild Boar Farms is a stunning, large, bright orange striped beefsteak. It is very meaty and tasty, sweet with some fruity notes, and has great production. As you know, striped and tomatoes with a blush of some kind are my favorites.
Janet’s Jewel
Beauty King A striking with its base color of yellow and orange and stripes of red. Another Wild Boar introduction. This variety is likely the result of a cross between Big Rainbow and Green Zebra. Large, bi-color fruits; yellow with red stripes outside and red streaks inside. Very meaty fruits have an excellent, sweet tomato flavor
Beauty King
Solar Flare This 6-10 oz. beefsteak is red with gold stripes and has very meaty flesh with sweet tomato flavor. Developed by Brad Gates (Wild Boar Farms) and selected for flavor, production, increased earliness and scab resistance.
Solar Flare
These are just a few of the ones I carry. If you asked me what my favorite tomato was, it certainly wouldn’t be red!
These are perfect for anyone who wants to garden but suffers from a lack of space. Use the largest containers you can afford, quality potting soil, and put them where you can easily access them. Full sun is also important. As promised, here are a few more tomatoes.
Dwarf Awesome I am hoping this one lives up to its name. Round to oblate-shaped, deep yellow colored tomatoes with red blushing.Inside is juicy flesh displaying a combination of orange, yellows, pink, and red. Good for a container as yellow tomatoes tend to have a richer flavor when not over-watered.
Dwarf Awesome
Dwarf Betty’s Smile These grow to about four feet and are quite bushy. Their fruit is oblate shaped, pink in color, medium to large size, and mild, balanced in flavor. They are on the sweeter side.
Dwarf Betty’s Smile
Dwarf Russian Swirl Vigorous dwarf (tree-type) plants with regular leaf rugose foliage. Excellent yields of smooth oblate yellow tomatoes with red swirls and streaks, 6-12 oz. The flavor is well balanced and tasty, reminiscent of the best bicolor types Good for a large container. 3 – 4 feet tall Mid-season
Dwarf Russian Swirl
Dwarf Shackelford Giant Pink If you want to grow a giant tomato, this old heirloom variety is a great choice.They have vigorous, spreading vines that produce amazingly huge, raspberry-pink tomatoes of varying shapes that are very meaty and juicy and have a well-balanced, slightly sweet, pleasant flavor. Mid- season
Dwarf Shackelford Giant Pink
Dwarf New Big These plants stay relatively small and manageable. They thrive in containers or small garden beds, making them a great choice for those with little area to garden. Maturing early, you enjoy homegrown, full-sized tomatoes. Exceptional taste and compact nature, a great choice for those looking for great flavor and a smaller footprint.
Dwarf New Big
Dwarf Pink Passion Dwarf (tree-type) large regular leaf plant produces heavy yields of 4-8 oz., pink, medium-sized, heart-shaped fruits with delightful, balanced, sweet flavors. Good for a large container.
Dwarf Pink Passion
Dwarf Maralinga It produces heavy yields of rich-brown tomatoes with deep crimson flesh and medium to large slicing tomatoes. They are full flavored. Plants grow to about 3 1/2’ feet tall. They produce 6-8 oz fruits that are balanced, earthy and satisfying.
Dwarf Maralinga
The ones I have shared with you are not the only dwarfs that I have. Come by and see what we have. Live a little and try something that may be a little different than what you are used to. You won’t regret it!
I think most folks are wary of Dwarf tomatoes, thinking they are miniature plants with miniature fruit. I am here to show you they aren’t any of those things. They are dwarf only in stature, most growing between 3 and 4 feet. They also do really well in large pots if you don’t have the real estate for a garden. You can still enjoy a homegrown tomato instead of those nasty, red things that they call tomatoes at the store.
I started out with a couple of varieties. I was intrigued by the story of how they came to be. For years, if someone wanted smaller plants, they chose determinate varieties that didn’t get very big, the plant or the tomatoes. There’s not a whole lot of variety there. Smaller fruits, almost all of them were red, a lot of the early tomatoes fall into the diminutive category and their flavor, while head and shoulders above store tomatoes, were still not as flavorful as one would hope. (Mostly because they don’t have time to develop the flavors in longer season tomatoes.)
Dwarf (Tree Type) tomatoes from The Dwarf Tomato Project. I grew 6 of them in 2016 and was very impressed with most of them. They are perfect for a small space gardener who wants a slicer instead of the smaller tomatoes that are usually produced by most determinate tomatoes.
This class of tomatoes exhibits characteristics of both determinate and indeterminate types. Historically called “tree-type,” they are now commonly referred to as” dwarfs”. Tree-type tomato plants have very thick main stems with minimal branching. Their foliage can be either regular or potato leaf but in either case, are rugose (e.g. dark green in color and crinkly in texture). Due to their slow growth rate, they appear from a distance to be determinate achieving three to four feet in height. However, like indeterminate, they continue to set fruit throughout the growing season. Compact and everbearing, what a great combination! They come in many colors, shapes and sizes.
To learn more go the link below, it’s really quite fascinating. The Dwarf Tomato Project grew out of a comment made in a Tomato Forum at Gardenweb when Craig LeHoullier lamented the fact that the dwarf category in tomatoes was very restricted. He suggested it would be good to cross dwarfs with heirlooms to remedy this situation and mentioned New Big Dwarf being listed in a 1915 Isbell Seed Catalogue which noted how the variety was developed by crossing Dwarf Champion (known since the late 1800s) with the largest known tomato at that time, Ponderosa. Patrina, a friend thought this sounded like a fun thing to do and decided to have a go at crossing some dwarfs with heirlooms in her next summer season in Australia.
Patrina and Craig decided to use this material to start a project where anyone (who wanted to help grow the many generations that would be needed to stabilise new varieties) could volunteer to grow some plants. The goal was to create a selection of tastes, colours and sizes that would equal heirloom varieties with plants having an advantage of being more compact and therefore more manageable. Volunteers were given the opportunity to name any new novel dwarf tomato type they discovered in appreciation for helping in the project.
I bought the majority of my seeds for these Dwarfs from Tatianas Tomatobase, Victory Seeds, and Tomatofest. As more people become aware of them, they are becoming readily available in limited varieties from other online seed companies.
These plants are wonderful for containers (the larger, the better) as long as they have enough sunlight. Remember that ripening times start when the plants are transplanted into the garden. This year, I have 29 dwarf varieties available.
Of the varieties I have grown, I have some favorites: Dwarf Fred’s Tye-Dye, Dwarf Purple Heart, Dwarf Golden Gypsy, Dwarf Tasmanian Chocolate, Dwarf Brandy Fred and Dwarf Sweet Sue.
Dwarf Fred’s Tye-Dye A beautiful, purplish-colored fruit, it is sweet, large, and abundant. I think this is the one I fell in love with in the beginning. A medium-sized tomato, purple with jagged gold and green stripes and the deep crimson flesh of that black tomatoes are known for.
Dwarf Purple Heart This plant produces heart-shaped, medium- to medium-large fruit that ripens to a dusky rose purple hue. The flavor is well-balanced, sweet, intense, and prolific. As with all heart-shaped tomatoes, some are more of an oblate shape, but most are shaped like hearts.
Dwarf Golden Gypsy A potato leaf dwarf with heavy yields of medium to large smooth oblate yellow fruit. Pale yellow flesh with an intense and refreshing flavor.
Dwarf Tasmanian Chocolate Strong-yielding, short, sturdy vines bear heavy crops of beautiful, plump, mahogany red faintly striped tomatoes with a delicious, well-balanced flavor. Perfect for large containers on a deck or balcony. I was surprised at how well it did in a larger pot. Isn’t this one a beauty!
Dwarf Brandy Fred Oblate medium to medium large fruit that ripens to a dusky, rosy purple hue. The flavor is well-balanced and intense, and the variety is quite prolific. It reminds me of a Pink Brandywine, which I believe is in its parentage.
Dwarf Sweet Sue A medium-sized fruit that ripens to a bright yellow with a pink blossom end blush. The flavor is outstanding, well-balanced, and sweet. I like pretty tomatoes that taste good as well.
These tomatoes are the ones I can vouch for having grown and eaten them myself. .
Now for some new ones that I am looking forward to trying,
Stony Brook Heart Compact, reaching 3’ to 4’ and very productive. The distinctly heart-shaped tomatoes are a beautiful scarlet color with distinct jagged golden stripes. Average size run between six to ten oz, but they can reach one pound or more. The meaty flesh has a classic tomato flavor with an initial burst of sweetness
Dwarf Perfect Harmony Orange-yellow skin, a beefsteak type, flattened at the poles and with more or less plump shoulders. Grows 4’ – 5’ tall, and produces a good quantity of medium-large, up to twenty oz, bright-orange colored, with a distinctly tart, full flavor.
Dwarf Metallica All you rock fans unite. I wanted to try this one, partly because of the name. Not necessarily my favorite band, but hey, I know some of you like them. This tomato is a looker, with it’s dark pink color with metallic green striping. A beefsteak I can see a BLT in it’s future.Mild and well-balanced flavor, slightly sweet and tangy. Very productive. Can be grown in large pots.
Dwarf Idaho Gem Any Idaho fans out there? I personally love Idaho. This variety produces lots of medium to large fruits, ranging from 4 to 14 oz, a true yellow (not orange), that are juicy, sweet, and flavorfully mild; a well balanced, delightful flavor. This is a perfect meaty slicing tomato that helps prove that yellow tomatoes are not bland or too mild.
There are many more to choose from. Unfortunately, I can’t showcase them all in this one post. Otherwise, no one will want to finish reading this. I fear I have gone on far too long. However, my next post will be on a few more.
I have a treat for you now. This is one of the prettiest tomato plants I have ever seen. It is called Dwarf Zoe’s Sweet. It is named after the developers own daughter. This has the most interesting chartreuse-green foliage. When it germinated I about had a stroke thinking it had contracted a virus or had a serious nutrient deficiency. I rushed over to pull them until I realized all 9 plants were the same color. Whew! After doing some research, I find that it isn’t any of those things. These tomatoes are supposed to be very sweet. The chartreuse gene that causes that color, also encourages it to grow a little taller than other dwarfs. Most dwarfs only grow 3″ to 4″ feet (hence the name), this one can reach 4″ to 5″. I am excited to try it this year. Without further adieu, I introduce you to my shining star (literally):
Dwarf Zoe’s Sweet Don’t be put off by the chartreuse-colored leaves. The first time I saw them I rushed to pull them thinking they had a virus, except that all of them had it! The fruit are oblate shaped, 6 – 16 oz each, and pink. Flavor i son the sweet side, the texture is meaty The chartreuse gene causes plants to grow a bit taller, so be sure to stake it well.
Every year I grow the same varieties that I have grown in previous years. Either they have become a customer’s favorite, or I just plain like them. I know it is overwhelming when you come to our house and are faced with 387 varieties (this year), and that is just the tomatoes!. It does not include the peppers, herbs, flowers or veggies. My goal is to introduce you to different varieties . . . of well, everything! Life is too short to eat store tomatoes. The old adage,”If it ain’t red, it ain’t a tomatah” keeps a lot of my customers from experiencing the broad range of colors and tastes. A lot of my plants have stories of their own.
I can almost guarantee that I have more tomato varieties for sale than anyone in the world. Granted, some of them are in limited quantities, seeds being somewhat scarce. Every year in the fall, I am so done with gardening. I think about having the garden paved over into a parking lot. Then, I start getting, THE CATALOGS. Yup. All my resolutions go out the door. Thoughts of Super Sweet 100’s, Romas and Early Girls are suddenly forgotten, as I thumb through the colorful pages of exotic looking tomatoes. Blue, green, striped, even white. Its a rainbow of colors. I consider myself the United Nations of tomatoes with varieties coming from all over the world. Russia, Ukraine, Italy, France, Mexico, Poland, Australia even Switzerland to name a few.
For the next several weeks, I am going to show you what you have been missing. Let the adventure begin!
But first, I should explain some basic things to you. I place my tomatoes into categories based on common uses, shapes, and maturity dates: Paste, Main Season, Patio, Cherry, Early, Heirloom, Oxheart, Dwarf, and Unusual.
Paste tomatoes are a type of tomato that have dense, meaty flesh, less juice, few seeds, and are usually cylindrical or pear-shaped. They can be snub-nosed like a Roma or San Marzano or large, long shape with a pointy tip such as the Polish Linguisa. They are what everyone thinks of when they think about tomato or spaghetti sauce.
Polish Linguisa
Main-season tomatoes are classified (by me) as varieties that usually ripen 70 – 84 days. They also come in different colors, although most of the ones I know are red, medium-sized, and smooth-skinned. Big Boy, Better Boy, and Goliath come to mind.
Supersteak
Patio/Container friendly plants are good for large or medium-sized containers. Smaller in stature, they include the bush varieties i.e. Bush Goliath, Better Bush, Bush Beefsteak, Bush Early Girl, Bush Campion II, , Bush Blue Ribbon, and Patio. The bush tomatoes can range from cherry sized to beefsteak sized. Not to be confused with the dwarf tomatoes, which I will explain further down. Most are shorter season and do well on a patio or patio table.
Bush Blue Ribbon
Cherrytomatoes No one needs an introduction to a cherry tomato. It usually grows on long vines that need staking. Smaller-vined ones are available, such as Sweet Valentine, Tumbler, Tumbling Tom Red and Yellow, and Tiny Tim. These are some that come to mind. All the colors of its larger brethren, some sweeter than others. Sweet Aperitif is my husand’s new favorite, small, red, and sweet.. Sungold is the sweetest cherry tomato I’ve ever had and is a favorite of most everybody. You have not lived until you picked a sun-warmed Sungold off the vine in the garden. (You can plant any tomato in a large container but it will be constricted by the size of the container.)
Sungold
Earlytomatoes are just that: early, at 55-69 days. We also have some that are extra early, ripening 54 days or less. Early Girl, Subartic Plenty, Stupice, New Girl, and Moskvich are some early varieties. They are also mostly red and smaller sized. Taxi is the only heirloom that I know of that is early and produces beautiful, sweet, yellow fruit.
Glacier
Heirloom tomatoes are what I started with in the beginning of my journey. Their descriptions made them sound really yummy and I was tired of the standard, staid tomatoes I bought fro the store. Whether you call them “Heritage” or “Heirloom,” these are still the varieties you will want to grow for taste. Heirlooms come from seed that has been handed down for generations in a particular region or area, and hand-selected by gardeners for their taste or specific growing characteristics. Heirloom tomatoes are open-pollinated, which means they’re non-hybrid and pollinated by insects or wind without human intervention. How experts define heirlooms can vary, but typically they are at least 50 years old, and often are pre-WWII varieties. All heirlooms are open-pollinated but not all open-pollinated are heirlooms. Most of them have stories. Mortgage Lifter paid off a man’s house in the depression years. Amana Orange takes its name from Amana, Iowa, Paul Robeson was named after an operatic singer in Russia.
Pink Jazz
Oxhearttomatoes are very meaty, have less juice and fewer seeds, not unlike a paste tomato. The plants usually have wispy foliage, not unlike paste tomatoes. There are exceptions to the rule. They can grow very large. Cuor di Bueis big, pink, and delicious. Colors range from deep, red, dark, pink to bicolors. My particular favorite is the Orange Russian. Steve loves German Red Strawberry and Kosovo.Those are huge! These work well for canning and preserving. As better, if NOT better, because they are usually larger than paste tomatoes and it takes fewer tomatoes to process in a jar.
Cuore di Bue
Dwarf tomatoes They are perfect for a small space gardener who wants a slicer instead of the smaller tomatoes that are usually produced by most determinate tomatoes.This class of tomatoes exhibits characteristics of both determinate and indeterminate types. Historically called “tree-type,” they are now commonly referred to as” dwarfs”. Tree-type tomato plants have very thick main stems with minimal branching. Their foliage can be either regular or potato leaf but in either case, are rugose (e.g. dark green in color and crinkly in texture). Due to their slow growth rate, they appear from a distance to be determinate achieving three to four feet in height. However, like indeterminate, they continue to set fruit throughout the growing season. Compact and everbearing, what a great combination! They come in many color, shapes and sizes.
Dwarf Sweet Scarlett
Unusualtomatoes are some of my favorites. They have been placed in this category because some of their characteristics defy any other definition. These tomatoes can be large or small, multi-colored, striped, oddly shaped, sweet or not so sweet. I had to put them somewhere! Green Zebra is a a more tart tomato, this one is for you. This year I am bringing back varieties from theIndigo family, Indigo Cherry Drop, Indigo Apple, and Indigo Blueberries. They have more anthocyanins in them. (Think blueberries).
Sweet Carneros
Another thing you should understand are the growth characteristics. There are two basic growth habits: Indeterminate – means that the vines will keep growing for the entire time it is alive. there are instances in the south where I’ve heard of a 20 foot vine. They keep producing the entire summer, just not as extravagantly as the determinate varieties. Determinate – These plants grow shorter vines and stop at a pre-determined height. That varies from 2 to 4 feet. Romas, San Marzanos are determinates. They produce a large flush of tomatoes that ripen over a period of about two weeks and then they are done for the year. There are exceptions to the rule however, some, like Taxi will produce, take a rest and then produce more. These are good when you are putting up your harvests. Glacier is another early, determinate that produces for longer periods of time. Semi-Determinate and Dwarfs (see the entry about Dwarfs up above) are a couple of other types. (I have to be honest, not sure what a semi-determinate defines as.)
Wow, that is a lot of information. The next post will start showcasing tomatoes. Below is another tidbit I want to share.
I changed actual days to a seasonal range for our area of Eastern Washington. If you aren’t familiar with your climate, contact your local extension agency. Our weather is so unpredictable here, the days to maturity are from transplanting into the garden. On a seed packet it may say “72 days.” That means you should start seeing ripe tomatoes around 72 days from when you put the plant into your container or bed. It is not from the time when your seed has germinated. There are a lot variables that affect your plants. Weather, condition/health of your soil or planting medium, variety, microclimates, amount of sun, even the area of the country you live in, etc. Very Early – 54 days or less. Early – 55-69 days Mid-season – 70-84 days (most of them are mid-season) Late Season – 85 or more days (late yes, but worth the real estate)
It has been an interesting “non-winter” this year. Mild weather all through January and into the first part of February. I so badly wanted snow for Christmas. I was concerned that all the shrubs, spring bulbs and trees would think it was looking like spring and starting to bud.
In February, the weather started to look more like winter; we had really cold temperatures, like in the single digits, for about a week and a half, and then we had 6 inches of snow over a few days, with a little warmer temperatures.
In the meantime, I am holding seedlings under lights and watching them grow taller and taller. When we had cold temperatures, we didn’t want to risk losing plants that needed to be transplanted. We have the experience of losing 1500 tomato plants a couple of years ago. It just got too cold. I am happy if we can keep the greenhouses at about 40 degrees.
Greenhouse #2, outfitted for transplanting.
We did get the peppers transplanted about 2 weeks ago. They went into the greenhouse that we were keeping heated to winter over some geraniums and jasmines and keeping dahlia tubers from freezing.
Peppers prior to transplanting.
As usual, some were looking spectacular, and others not so much. We are trying something new this year, we are putting the not-so-great plants back in the house for more light and warmth. After they were transplanted in the number two greenhouse, Steve placed one of those translucent plastic domes over the flat to cart them over to the pepper house. That protected them from the nasty cold air.
Steve doing the honors, mixing up soil and filling up pots.
Back to the tomatoes. I just finished transplanting all the tomatoes that we are putting into gallon containers at 1:00 pm today. I am so glad that it is over. I transplanted 3662 plants over 4 and a half days. My back hurts, my bruised foot hurts and so do my hands (Uncle Arthur).
What our yard looked like two days ago. Today is Monday the 24th.
I have slogged through snow, back and forth to the greenhouses, waded through massive mud puddles, and got wet from being rained on! The ground was so frozen and was unable to handle the prodigious amounts of rain that we got, so it just sat on top of the ground. Even my dog took offense at being asked to walk through the slush. She started making tracks through the garden which is a no-no in order to avoid the slush and mud.
Baby tomatoes in their new homes.
As I mentioned in the post before, we are going to have more tomatoes in gallon size, partly because I am getting older but mostly due to the fact that by the end of the season the 3 ½ ” pots look pretty ragged.
After a short rest, I need to get started on the cole crops, kale, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, and bok choi.
Even though I said I would cut back on the amount of plants we sell, well, that hasn’t exactly worked out for us. Somehow, even after culling varieties that I either didn’t like or couldn’t find a source for, I ended up with more of everything!
(I have included some pictures of various stages and techniques we are using. Nothing to do with what I am talking about but it’s fun to share.)
How it starts, This is seed starting mix that we put into individual gray cells. Each one of these has 20 or so, very carefully placed, seeds of one variety.
This is what they look after germinating.
Seed catalogs are like “adult material “for gardeners. You know what I mean. The pictures and descriptions are so enticing. This year, I have 386 varieties of tomatoes and 165 varieties of peppers. I have decided to put almost every one of my tomatoes in a gallon pot. Yes, it is more, but they are almost 2 months older than the 3 ½” size and are much more mature. In our climate with such a short growing season, that is important if you actually want to have some tomatoes on your sandwiches.
The biggest reason is that no matter what I do, I always have tomatoes left over at the end of the season, and they don’t look good. They are an embarrassment. I take pride in my plants, and they do well for about a month once they are transplanted into a smaller pot with fresh amended soil, but inevitably, they start looking like &^%&^$#! There is nothing I can do to make it better. I’ve tried. I could throw fertilizer at them all day long, and they won’t respond. The problem is the lack of real estate. In a gallon size, they have room to roam, but not so much with the smaller size. Plus, by this time, it is getting hot. and that means they start drying out very quickly. Plants as a rule don’t like to be rootbound and their little root hairs dry out. Not a pretty situation.
These are pansy seeds. I decided to try them in a 50 strip pkug tray. there are a few more that have come up since I took this picture. I like the plug trays but find they take a lot more room. Less root disturbance when transplanting though.
We have had to put some in bigger pots in an effort to save them, and we have to charge less since they aren’t as mature as the ones we put into gallon pots earlier.
These are the domes I tried for the first time this year. They act like a mini greenhouse, keeping in warmth and moisture. I believe I can see a difference. Especially with the peppers, they take forever to germinate.
These are some of the changes we are making this year. We are looking at different types of flowers, (some which are testing my patience to germinate) more education in that I am going to try and have more information on best practices for gardening utilizing larger signs, info sheets. I also want to have more workshops on things like container gardening, the basics of gardening (I tend to forget there are a lot of newbies out there who really don’t know much about planting) and flower gardening. Of course I’d like to share what I know about tomatoes and peppers.
These are the tags, a small fraction of what I needed to organize. We literally had thousands to deal with and these were just the flower tags! Waste not, want not. Right?
I am looking forward to this season and can’t wait to see you out back. If you have any qustions, go to my facebook page and message me. http://www.facebook.com/thetomatolady
Tomatoes and peppers are the lifeblood of my business. With a few exceptions, the plants that are going into gallon pots are all safely ensconced in the greenhouse(s). The pictures above are of them before they entered into their relocation program. I have to say they are probably the most beautiful plants to date.
Someone asked me how long I have done this and it’s a good bet it’s been around 25 years. I started on the South Hill and participated in the fledgling (at that time) Garden Expo. The first year for me was held at the Spokane Community College. I think I had around 200 plants and I remember being inside the building next to the cafeteria. I was thinking I was all big and bad and had finally made it! One of these days I will share my story with you.
My point is, I’ve learned a few things in all those years. I think it shows in my plants, whether they are tomatoes, peppers flowers, or veggies. Inside the house, when they are in their infancy, they all need the same thing, water, food, warmth, and light. For most of those years, we started our plants in the dining room on Costco metal racks with two banks of fluorescent lights on each shelf. No longer a dining room for the next couple of months, it becomes the propagation room. Think messy and chaotic, germination mix on the floor, seed packets strewn everywhere. And it smells like dirt. Lovely, moist dirt. But I digress.
Last year we started using LED lights instead of fluorescent lights. I was noticing that the plants weren’t doing as well. You can’t tell by looking at the lights themselves but the light output decreases. You can see it in the plant growth. Plants don’t lie. If they are not happy, you can tell.
Our fluorescent light set up.
I was so pleased with the LEDs. My plants certainly seemed to respond. We hung one light bar in the middle of the shelf and two flats end to end on each rack. This year, we placed the LED light bars two on a shelf and placed four trays of seeds, side by side, on each shelf, instead of one light bar and only two trays. The lights hang above each side of the shelf. It gives us twice the space and as you can see from the pics above, they are loving it.
Notice the 2 LEDS on each shelf, sorry about the quality of the pic.
One other thing I wanted to share with you is that my body is getting back at me. Being a year older and doing a whole lot of sitting for the past 6 months has not been a good choice. My shoulders, back, hip, whew, you’d think that I decided to climb Mt. Everest. Without training. Or oxygen. I know that this too shall pass. Hopefully soon since I have so many other plants to transplant.
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!
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).
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.
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.
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.
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!
Here is a picture of our first picking this summer. Sungold, Sweet Treats, Sweet Baby Girl, Blue Creme Berries, Rose Quartz and one Brad’s Atomic (it’s the metallic looking one). We also picked our first cucumber from our Spacemaster in a container.
Notes From The Tomato Lady 