Thursday, September 09, 2010

Rosy hopes for tomatoes

This could be our year ...



While I brag endlessly about our wonderful weather here in Ventura where it's rarely too hot or cold and the most we can complain about is fog, the one thing I've never been able to do is grow tomatoes. It only gets really hot here a few times a year, if that. We actually haven't had temperatures above 90 for years now, which is great for me, but not so muhc for tomatoes.

I've tried various varieties, even those advertised as being better in warmer climates, and I get a few tomatoes, but the plants tend to be prone to wilting and they die off easily. I've moved them all around the yard in the hopes that there would be a perfect spot for them, but no dice.

Eventually I put them by the back fence because it was one of the sunniest spots int he yard and as they matured, I noticed that they seemed to be being eaten from the bottom up. We moved them again and tried putting them in the middle of the year, but we discovered we had tomato worms, which are big green caterpillar looking bugs that eat the whole plant.

Last year we bought one of those upside-down planters. We didn't get the cheap Topsy-Turvy kinds. Oh no. we went and bought the expensive plastic dealie that said we could grow four plants. We planted them and then on the top part, we planted some other small peppers and basil plants, just like in the picture.

This is what we learned: Tomatoes don't LIKE to grow upside down. They get wet all the time, which promotes more wilting and fungus and they weren't very prolific.

This year we were feeling pretty defeated about the whole issue. We didn't even bother to buy plants until late June and then we only bought two. This time I tired something radical. One of the best tomato crops I ever grew was in Ohio the first year I ever grew them and I just dumped a bunch of topsoil down and grew them in that. I figures why not try the same concept and we piled a bunch of bags of garden soil, top soil and some compost in the middle of the sand pit we have leftover from our dismantled swimming pool.

We stuck them in, put the cages around them and waited. And they did absolutely nothing. they would blossom, but each and every blossom would fall off the plants. By th end of July, we'd resigned ourselves to another year of tomato failure. I noticed that a bunch of leaves were yellowing suddenly and stripped them all off because if I had to look at barren plants, they didn't have to look all yellow and ugly.

Then we noticed something. There appeared to be a tiny tomato coming out on one of the plants. Soon there was another little baby tomato on the other plant. Pretty soon they were busting out all over. Now we have more tomatoes -- more than 40 -- than we ever have before. I compulsively pick off any yellowing leaves, which is keeping the plants happy, and Rob has been putting eggshells around the plants. We cut back the loquat branches so now there doesn't seem to be anything around to eat the tomatoes.

We've got our hopes up, but we've been burned before. There are numerous critters out there more than willing to cash in on our crop. But maybe, just maybe this is the year of the tomato.

Thursday, September 02, 2010

More CSA

I've been terribly busy, so for now will list what we've picked up by week:

Week 2
avocado, potatoes, onion, garlic, collard greens, cucumber, flowers, tomatoes, basil, cherry tomatoes

Week 3
collard greens, eggplant, flowers, peppers, squash, tomatoes, basil, cherry tomatoes, an apple, shallot, cucumber, flowers, carrots, bell peppers, assorted peppers

Week 4
potatoes, collard greens, garlic, cucumber, flowers, carrots, bell peppers, assorted peppers, including hot peppers, cherry tomatoes, tomatoes, basil, apples


So far I've been making lots of gazpacho, pesto, tomato sauce. I used the first apple in a curried chicken salad with pecans. I've also been making watermelon salad with basil, feta, cucumber and tomato, which has been dinner for a few nights. I just love the tastes of summer. I have yet to tackle the peppers, which I'll roast and freeze, although a few are crying to be turned into chile rellenos.