the first fall harvest

My husband’s Southern farmboy-ness is finally rubbing off on me. While I have attempted cooking my own mustard greens before, this time was wholly successful. The mustard greens are from our netted fall beds. While we nibbled out of it when I thinned the sproutlings, this is the first mature harvesting. My husband makes amazing […]

out of the garden…

…with the tastes of summer October! Pulling vine-ripened tomatoes on October 6th. The basil got blasted in the last cool spell, so I have to seek out good leaves, but about half of the tomato plants have lost their place on the calendar. This. This is the garden living we’ve been moving toward…

getting saucy

I made tomato sauce today. This was my first time ever blanching and peeling tomatoes. It might be an okay task… Per usual, I started with a recipe, but more for steps and times the measurements. Two cloves of garlic? No, one whole head. I also added more carrots than listed, mostly since we’re growing […]

brad’s atomic grape

The most intriguing tomato I have grown is Brad’s Atomic Grape tomato. Two years ago was the first try, and I lost all the tomatoes I had started from seed. Last year I had better results with my “from seed” efforts, and I got four sturdy healthy plants. Then we had long, dry periods of […]

terra cotta

Say ‘Hello’ to Terra Cotta, one of the new tomato varieties in our garden: A green cap fades into beautiful orange skin. The meat is a marbled mix of the two colors. The taste is high in acid but more berry-like in its sweetness.

you take the good, you take the bad…

…and there you have the facts of ‘maters. The Terra Cotta is promising: full healthy plants with large clusters of fruit, slow to ripen. The Black Beauty had a great start, but the most mature fruit just rotted on the vine. The plant looks perfectly healthy. The San Marzano are prolific, even if the lower […]

what’s the ‘mater?

Overall our tomatoes are doing well. We are losing a few plants, but they put out a good round of fruit before they started drying out. The other plants are doing fine. This is the third time I’ve grown Black Prince, and each time they only get so far into summer before the plant shrivels […]

what ‘maters most…

The tomato beds are just fine. Some voluteers are stunted, but every other plant is making up for it. August should be a good month for BLTs… or even GBLTs. 😂😂😂

maters: new variety – black beauty

This gorgeous, fuzzy, frilly thing is what I’m assuming is a Black Beauty heirloom tomato. (I got my starts mixed up after sowing the seeds.) The tiny fruits have the longest sepals I’ve ever seen, thin and graceful. This was the last variety I’m growing to develop buds, but went into overdrive this past week […]

brought to you by: heirloom tomatoes

These tomatoes pictured below? All volunteers. From three years ago… Two years ago, I started building raised beds in the side lot. Last year, I added more, transplanting volunteers, bought starts, and from seed tomatoes. And this one below? That is a brand-new planter with purchased topsoil. On a five foot retaining wall over fifteen […]