First!

The first ripe tom of the year is a healthy-size Brandywine x Stupice. My friend Mickey grew the plant that created this, from seed of mine a couple years ago. She has an amazing, mysterious way with plants and boosting them to production. This is a very nice-size fruit for early in the season.

Any day now

The anticpation begins to burn …

And somebody is about to exit this world …

All in, all good

What finally happened in the veg garden is this: 43 tomatoes, 18 peppers and 1 eggplant.

Tomatoes:

1. Marizol Bratka
2. Perito
3. Brandywine Sudduth
4. Olena Ukrainian
5. Cherokee Chocolate
6. Lucky Cross
7. Brandywine, Off the Vine
8. Depp’s Pink Firefly
9. Brandywine x Stupice 06
10. Earl’s 08
11. German Head
12. Burpee Seedless Hybrid from Dad
13. Tennessee Surprise 06
14. Lucky Cross 07
15. Chianti Rose
16. Tennessee Surprise 07
17. Striped Roman
18. Jan’s BxS 15
19. Watermelon Beefsteak
20. Jan’s BxS 16
21. Nagy Katai
22. Earl’s 06 broken stem
23. Grandpa Luddolph
24. Mexico
25. Woodle Orange
26. Perito
27. Black Plum
28. Jan’s BxS 15
29. Stump of the World
30. Mickey’s BxS
31. Marizol Bratka
32. Jan’s BxS 16
33. Brandywine Sudduth regular leaf (wrong leaf)
34. My BxS 07
35. Prue 08
36. Black Zebra
37. Prue 08
38. My BxS 06
39. Purple Russian
40. Prue 06
41. Brandywine, Off the Vine
42. Grandpa Luddolph
43. Jan’s BxS 15

Peppers, most in pots, and 2 of them still kicking from last year’s crop:

1. Chuska in maroon 5-gallon bucket
2. Gold Marconi in big black pot
3. Paradicsom in dark green pot
4. Jalapeno in small clay-color pot
5. Paprika from last year in small clay-color pot
6. Bull Nose from last year in large clay-color pot
7. Szentesi in small clay-color pot
8. Early Hungarian Sweet in large clay-color pot
9. Doe Hill Golden Bell in grey pot
10. Jalapeno in violet pot
11. Jalapeno in violet pot (same pot as 10)
12. Bullnose in small black pot
13. Chuska in white pot
14. Paradicsom in green pot
15. Paprika in small clay-color pot
16. Aji Dulce in the ground
17. Jalapeno in the ground
18. Paprika in the ground

The eggplant is Rosa Bianca, and it’s in ground.

Tomato garden, take 1

It’s been raining for several hours now, but before that I got the first 7 tomatoes into the garden and, as the first drops fell, mulched them in with newspaper and straw. So the tomato season officially begins at my house

Brandywine x Stupice

With pepper buckets in the background. I potted up 12 last weekend.

From this angle, you see the rest of the garden that is waiting for its new tenants.

Stump of the World

Purple Russian

Now these guys just need to make it through the storms that are forecast for tonight. Hail no!

Pirate tomato

Every year one or two tomatoes display odd protrusions. But this year’s specimen trumps the simple horns of years past. Avast!

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The variety is Striped Roman. It seems some people think there’s a market for such misshapen fruits. I had good fun presenting mine to a friend along with a pile of other less silly tomatoes. Arrrrrrr.

Edited to add pics of the demon tom of yesteryear:

And how I conquered it:

Summertime Gnaws

Little Boots/Caligula/Cutlet continues to eat everything.

And I’ve been munching tomatoes at every turn.

Which I’ve been picking not-quite-ripe because of the squirrels’ insane—nay, irrational—appetite this year.

The huge ones they take chunks out of turn to slug bait post-haste. It’s grotesque, but good for the compost (I keep chanting to myself).

In variety news, the Brandywine x Stupices that I’ve been growing and the ones a friend raised are displaying notable differences. Mine are more Stupicey, though some are broad and Brandywine-shaped; and all of mine are pinkish red, whereas hers are more bright orangey-red and kind of ruffled around the top. Some of hers even appear before ripeness to have bicolor streaks. Both our sources are an F2 I got years ago from Carolyn Male, so somewhere in here we should be choosing to refine the strain. Except that I’m still debating which variations are preferable.

One plant is producing various shapes. I’m a neophyte at this crossing of types, so I’m just winging it here.

I’m looking forward to cracking open this Harvard Square, which was the favorite at our tomato tasting last year. The ripe fruit is the same color combo you see here. I don’t usually go for greenies, but this one’s got that bicolor intrigue.

Lay in the mayo

A summer without homegrown tomatoes would be like life without love. Surely this explains why I am repeatedly driven to plant more than sheer need and reason advise. Last year I crammed in 38, some of them in flower beds. This year, my reducing plans went astray and I ended up with 41 in the ground—all in the main garden area thanks to some rearranging of peppers into pots by the garage instead.

Here’s my 2008 list:

Brandywine x Stupice (3 from last year’s seed, 4 from a friend who got the plant from me years ago; I am trying to make sure I have a stabilized version of this cross I got from Carolyn Male)

Striped Roman

Porter

Purple Russian

Nepal

Harvard Square

Ananas Noir

Lucky Cross (2)

Nagy Katai

German Head (2)

Leatha’s

Earl’s Polish (2)

Brandywine Sudduth 2006 (2)

Grandpa Ludolph

Indian Stripe (2)

Stump of the World (2)

Marizol Bratka (2)

Prue (3)

OTV Brandywine (2)

Perito (2)

Tennessee Surprise (2)

Bear Claw

Truffaut Precoce

 

And the front row of the garden always goes to peppers and eggplants.  Eggplant: Ukrainian Beauty, Zahara. Peppers: Chuska, Spanish Bull Nose, Paradicsom (the tomato pepper, I am told), Paprika (which means “pepper” in Hungarian, I know; this variety is said to be good for drying to make the spice), Early Hungarian Sweet, Jalapeno, Marconi Gold, Ancho, Habanero, Bhut Jalokia. 

 

Summon the gale-force winds

I’ve got heat stroke probably, from it being in the 60s and sunny all weekend, and the proof is that I’ve popped the largest tomato and pepper plants out into the cold frame already. The nighttime temp is projected to stay in the upper 30s for the next 6 days, so I’ve given in to my urge to accelerate the growing season. (However, since I’ve sent the little ones out, I fully expect the arrival of hail and gale-force winds any moment now.) I’ve still got two trays full of smaller seedlings inside under fluorescent bulbs. But here are the new yard dwellers—toms in the first two (notice the purple underleaves due to the basement chill) and then the peppers.

And then there’s the camouflage cat sighted next to the clump of tulips emerging from the free bulb a friend rescued when the local university crew was ripping out a spring display bed.