A few months ago, I posted to Facebook a list of the different vegetables thriving in an 8-by-4-foot raised vegetable bed. I ran out of breath even though I was only typing.
Colorado had an unnervingly kind summer, once the hail quit — weather that tempted gardeners to plan, expand, feed ambitions that may or may not be sustainable over the long term. It was impossible to resist the burgeoning promise.
So … I didn’t. In my yard, dwarf pines planted technically too late thrived (well, half did). I bought friends three plum trees that await planting. Gardeners all over have tomatoes to spare and to share, a crop that in a more typical year might have been jealously hoarded.
Now that it’s planning — rather than planting — season for most things, I’ll jettison caution and pretend that next year will be as gentle. If a glorious garden year is so rare, we should squeeze every drop of juice from it and savor.
Here are my wild tomato ambitions for 2015, shaped by this year’s standouts and a visit to the Midwest, where my farm-reared uncle cautioned, “The weatherman will have the ultimate say on whether you are a genius or a dummy.”
As always.
Catching tomato fever
I’ve seen only one tomato year to rival this one in the eight years I’ve gardened here. In 2013, I found out the hard way that tomatoes above the cherry size are less than fond of pots, at least in my yard; that grafted varieties don’t beat out strong, healthy specimens in the right spot; and that in 90-plus heat, there’s no way to keep any potted tomato adequately watered. This year, Ifound out the hard way to not be faked out by the first frost.
I learned great things, as well, from the Colorado winners of the NatureSweet Homegrown Tomato contest: Marisa Maes, who grew Sun Gold; George Pawlowski, with Sweet Seedless; and Mary Burroughs, with Cherokee Purple. Each won $2,000.
From my uncle, who at 84 still grows 75 tomato plants in central Illinois, I learned about tomatoes being one of the few vegetables that doesn’t mind having wet feet. He plants his in-ground tomatoes within plastic rings made from bottomless two-gallon buckets, sunk halfway into the ground. That serves two purposes: thwarting cutworms and directing water to the roots.
He even has a trick for the tomatoes he grows in pots: He puts a 3-inch-tall saucer, about 6 inches wider than the pot, under them. When he waters the plants, he tanks up the saucer, too.
I ate the best BLT of my life in my aunt and uncle’s kitchen. The tomato was a Cherokee Purple.
“If the juice doesn’t run down your arm when you eat it, it’s not a good tomato,” my uncle says.
What will you grow next year?
There are a few varieties from my uncle’s tomato patch that I’ve vowed to test next year after having seen the plants as well as the fruit — the best way to evaluate a variety, in my opinion.
Indigo Kumquat, a tart, crack-free yellow-and-blue grape tomato, growing on a happy, prolific plant.
Indigo Blue Beauty, which while not prolific, rivals Cherokee Purple for taste.
Lemon Boy, for flavor and for its beautiful color;
Mexico Midget, a small, prolific, extra-early cherry tomato (my uncle showed off a handful of Midgets at a market in mid-June).
And from my own garden, these two big producers:
Principe Borghese, a prolific, golf-ball-size, classic Italian heirloom that’s great on pizza or in a Caprese salad.
Iowa Memory – known in the tomato-seed trade as BHN 589 – a sturdy, unfussy plant that produced abundant, baseball-size fruit.
What do tomato winners do?
Next year, I’ll invest in a bag of the organic fertilizer Tomato Tone, an Espoma product that NatureSweet-winner Pawlowski says he uses. At the contest — which was over far too quickly for me to enjoy enough of the tomato samples and mine the winners’ knowledge — I found out Pawlowski was 90. He’d been a winner before, with the hybrid variety Super Fantastic.
And that, too, was one of this year’s lessons: Learn from your elders. When you find someone who’s still growing tomatoes into their ninth or 10th decade, chat them up. Take notes.
Susan Clotfelter: 303-954-1078, sclotfelter@ or
Pickled Green Tomato Relish
If you wind up with lots of green tomatoes, you can still make this zesty, brilliant yellow relish. As long as you keep the amount by weight of ripe and green pepper the same, you can substitute chiles for some of the green peppers. Adapted from “So Easy to Preserve,” University of Georgia Extension. Makes 14 pints.
Ingredients
10 pounds small, hard green tomatoes
1½ pounds red bell peppers
1½ pounds green bell peppers
2 pounds onions
½ cup canning salt
1 quart water
4 cups sugar
1 quart apple cider vinegar (or any 5-percent acidity vinegar)
1/2 cup prepared mustard
2 tablespoons cornstarch
Directions
Sterilize canning jars (I used my dishwasher’s sanitize cycle and left the door closed to keep the jars hot) and wash screw-on jar rings and lids in hot, soapy water. Prepare jar lids as directed on the package (jar lids manufactured in 2014 are not only BPA-free, they do not need to be heated). Wash and coarsely grate or finely chop tomatoes, peppers and onions. Dissolve salt in water and pour over vegetables in large saucepan. Heat to boiling and simmer 5 minutes. Drain vegetables well and return to saucepot. Add sugar, vinegar, mustard and cornstarch. Stir to mix. Heat to boiling and simmer 5 minutes.
Fill hot pint jars with hot relish, leaving ½ inch of headspace. Remove air bubbles and wipe the jar rims clean. Place lids and screw rings on hand-tight. Process for 11 minutes in a boiling water bath (add one more minute for every 1,000 feet of altitude over 6,000 feet).
