Josh builds sturdy tomato frames

Last year when Josh, Jessica's and Alex's old friend, AKA "the son I never had", came to visit the farmhouse he was helpful as always; consulting with me on roasting the grass finished beef so it wouldn't turn into shoe leather, unclogging the bathroom sink, moving furniture and a multitude of other jobs. But, clearly a masochist at heart, he proposed another project; to build me sturdy tomato frames that would not only last the whole season but which could be used year after year.

I had been building teepees out of bamboo stakes. Initially they looked somewhat orderly but by the end of the season, burdened by the weight of the vines of the indeterminate heirloom tomatoes, they often collapsed under the weight of the plants.

The frames I had previously fashioned just after the seedlings have been planted

People often propose helpful projects but it always seems best to let them take the lead in following through. A couple weeks ago Josh came over to get a few heirloom tomato and lettuce seeds. While he was here he mentioned the tomato frames so it was time for me to get excited. This past weekend it happened.

Josh came up late afternoon on Friday laden with table saw, appropriate tools and wearing his trusty Carhartt overall. Within minutes of his arrival he had set up in the garage, starting to cut the one inch supports for the tomatoes. He figured after a while that 3/4" would actually be fine. He cut the base of each vertical support into a spike for ease pushing into the ground. By now it was time for dinner; steak, mushrooms and red peppers and asparagus all on the BBQ, roasted blue potatoes and rhubarb crisp and 10% yogurt for desert. Then back to the garage for some after-dark cutting.

The table saw gets a workout. Josh properly outfitted with thick leather work gloves, safety glasses and ear protection

The supports go from being one inch in diameter to 3/4 inch

The pile grows

Each 2 by 4 is cut, initially into 4 pieces, then later 5

Safety first; Josh gives each piece a final push with another piece of wood

Not quite burning the midnight oil but it's definitely dark

On Saturday morning he explained the general design. There would be a vertical support at each end and a crosspiece horizontally laid across the top. Along each side there would be the one inch pieces screwed at an angle into the horizontal piece.

Then it was time to make the prototype in situ. We decided on a length for each frame, the distance between the pieces that would each have a tomato planted at their base and the distance between each frame.

The prototype!

Scylla inspects and gives a nod of approval

I had originally envisioned having the bed in the field dedicated to the tomatoes I am growing for the butcher shop I supply. The other tomatoes would be planted in part of a bed close to the garage. But Josh realized we had enough lumber to make six frames each supporting twelve tomatoes plants. Absolutely perfect because I have started 72 seedlings. And all the tomatoes will be in one spot, with the area by the garage available for more potatoes. Josh had figured it would take about 8 hours and it did. Time for a lingering lunch by the pool and then Josh left to go back in time for a party in the city. The tomatoes are hardening off on the deck this week readying themselves to be planted next weekend.

Halfway there

Done! Six frames each supporting twelve tomato plants

On Sunday morning Charlie dropped by for, as they say, a "chin wag". I took him out to the field to have a look at Josh's handiwork. He was suitably impressed! Josh and I had talked about taking them down each year, both to extend their life and also to accommodate crop rotation. Charlie's idea was to leave them there and rotate the crops using them; tomatoes, then peas and pole beans, finally cucumbers. They are tall enough that even with a little rot at the bottom after overwintering in the ground they could be driven further down each spring a number of times. Of course, while a great idea, that also assumes the willingness of Josh to come up and repeat the effort for next year's tomatoes…..

Not sure Josh will be smiling when I pass on Charlie's thoughts….

I feel like Mildred Pierce

It's been the best year I've ever had for tomatoes - all the sun and more plants than I've had before. I've exceeded my ambition to can 50 jars of sauce,  have made pounds of oven roasted Juliet tomatoes and 8 bottles of ketchup so I decided, as my mother says "A change is a good as a rest" - time to make something else. (Of course my mother is completely wrong - there is no substitute for a rest. But it is a good mantra to help one soldier on). So here is my recipe for Tomato Pie. I make it on a few occasions every year but today I thought I would make a few and try freezing them. Unfortunately the pie plates are a little less than attractive.

1. Make your favourite pie dough. Because this is a savoury pie I sometimes substitute a little of the butter with 5 year cheddar cheese. Today I threw in a little smoked paprika to give that Ritz cracker colour.

2. Brush the inside of the crust with dijon mustard.

3. Cover the bottom of the pie with one layer of tomatoes. I made one with black heirlooms, one with Persimmon heirloom tomatoes, another with Tlacalulas and the others with Beefsteak.

Left to right: Persimmon tomatoes, Tlacalula  and assorted black heirlooms

4. Cover with the tomato layer with slices of mozzarella cheese.

5. Add another layer of tomatoes. Tuck in basil leaves (although I didn't have any today so for some of the pies I used marjoram and for others mint (which I think actually goes surprisingly well with tomatoes).)

marjoram on the left, mint on the right

6. Grind sea salt and pepper over the surface.

7. Drizzle with olive oil.

Parmesan ready to be grated and added to the grated mozzarella

8. Sprinkle grated mozzarella and parmesan over the surface.

waiting for the grated parmesan...

9. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes to an hour.

end of August harvest

It has been quite a while since I wrote anything. Our area, in central Ontario, has been particularly hard hit by the lack of rain. I was in the Farm Supply last week and a farmer was saying there had been a total of 1mm of rain in July and 2mm in August at his farm.  Last week when there was a lovely slow drizzle on Monday afternoon and then torrential downpours in the evening in Toronto there was barely  10 minutes of rain in our area. So everything is really suffering; crunchy grass, trees dropping their leaves or the leaves curling up. Most annual vegetables don't have a deep or extensive root system to pull them through such a sustained drought.

The haul last Thursday

But some things have done well. This is a photograph of the pickings last Thursday afternoon. Included are heirloom tomatoes both full size and small, snap beans, patty pan squash. The next day was devoted to digging banana fingerling and blue potatoes, picking shelling beans and zucchini and cucumbers. It has been a bumper crop of zucchini and patty pan summer squash. Cukes have been plentiful but as the summer progressed they started to get that "lute" shape which indicates sufficient rain followed by too little.

Heirloom shelling beans Jacob's Cattle on the left, Carmina on the right

Snap beans have done well and the shelling beans have just started to dry on the vine. I think it may be one of the years when they can finish on the plant. Most years it gets too wet at the end of the summer and the pods threaten to rot so the whole plant has to be pulled out and hung in a well ventilated place so the pods can still dry on the plant. There are so many beautiful heirloom shelling beans. It is almost enough to grow them simply to display in mason jars all winter. Every year I save some beans for the next year and can't resist buying new ones. I have grown Rattlesnake, King Tut and Cranberry Pole beans for many years. Bush beans include Vermont Cranberry, Carmina, Jacob's Cattle, Cannelini, Black Valentine and others I've lost the  name for unfortunately. This year the new ones are all bush beans which include Red Swan and Orca.

And tomatoes have done well. I'm going to write a separate post on tomatoes.

tomatoes

Every year I start plants of both hybrid and heirloom tomatoes. Because the heirlooms are open pollinated you can save the seed for next year's garden but hybrid seeds have to be purchased each year because they won't come true. Since every year is different the tomatoes that do the best each season vary. This particular year, with its sustained sun and minimal rain, seems to have made marked differences between the heirloom and hybrid tomatoes. The only full size hybrids I grew were Beefsteak which seem to pale in taste and texture to the heirlooms. But in the cherry, pear and currant tomatoes the comparison is less marked. The orange hybrid, Sun Sugar, cherry tomato is the sweetest. The heirloom Yellow Pear seems a little mealy and some of the heirloom small tomatoes seem to have been sweeter in previous years.

I should be more organized but I lose track of some of the varieties. Here's a sampling of what I can identify.

A variety of black tomatoes including Japanese Black Trifele  (the triangular ones at the bottom right)

The heirloom, Old German, in top basket, Sun Sugar in the middle basket

Hybrid Juliet tomatoes in the two right baskets

The rather bizarre white heirloom tomato, Ivory Queen, in the top basket , the Mexican Tlacalula below

Heirloom Persimmons in the top and heirloom Black Cherry below

First comes sowing seed, then planting, staking and pruning for best fruiting. And now, what to do with all those tomatoes..... So my kitchens have been very busy processing the past few days.

Juliet tomatoes ready to be oven toasted

The bountiful Juliet tomatoes, an AAS (All American Selection winner) hybrid with a plum shape and texture but smaller than standard roma tomatoes, is ideal for oven roasting. They are cut in half, laid out on a cookie sheet, drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with sea salt and then slowly roasted at 250F for a couple of hours.

After slow roasting some of the moisture has evaporated, concentrating the flavour. They are then packed by the half pound in freezer bags.

I have been using many of the small tomatoes to make ketchup. The recipe is from Jamie Oliver's At Home cookbook. It is sort of laborious and time consuming but the flavour is worth it. The ingredients include the tomatoes and olive oil, celery, red onion, garlic, cloves, coriander seed, basil, salt and pepper. After reducing by half, the mixture is put through a sieve and then brown sugar and vinegar are added. The mixture is reduced again until the proper consistency is reached.

These bottles were made with yellow and orange cherry and pear tomatoes. 

And then finally there is the tomato sauce. I remember a description from one of my favourite books by Wayne Winterrowd with photos by Joe
Eck. A Year at North Hill: Four Seasons in a Vermont Garden. He made it sound like such a nice late summer tradition. While he was lucky enough to have a pottery bowl used exclusively for the annual tradition of making tomato sauce, I use big enamelled cast iron pots. This rough and ready sauce is appealing to me - no boiling the tomatoes to remove the skins or spending time taking out the seeds. You just chop the whole tomato and throw it in the pot.

Heirloom tomatoes are coarsely chopped and to these you add chopped garlic, olive oil and sea salt. Then  roast slowly (about 250F) in the oven - at least two hours will produce a flavourful but somewhat watery sauce. This is good for when you know you'll be cooking the sauce more when it is ready to be used (like in a braise). For a thicker sauce to be heated and thrown over pasta, you simply leave the tomatoes in the oven longer. The top surface roasts turning a lovely brown. It is good to press the tomatoes against the side every once in a while to break them up and release the juices. And then it's time to start canning. I like to make batches of individual types so I have jars of black, yellow, orange and red. I don't think the flavour varies much but they look so nice in jewel tones on the pantry shelf. I also make a separate plum tomato sauce for chili.

We always aspire to make at least 50 jars. I'm not sure we've ever made it but I think chances are pretty good this year! 

observations of the vegetable garden in the final days of spring

Even though the summer solstice is still a couple of days away it feels much more like July than late spring. High heat, punishing humidity but there's lots of rain. So everything is still green and there's lots of moisture in the soil. It has been a little difficult to know when to plant things this year when the weather has been so crazy; summer in March, cold and rainy in May and now high summer in June. I always do successive plantings but this year I just keep planting over and over again figuring at least some of the sowings will work out.

Something interesting has happened with the potatoes. The first to be planted were the Dark Red Norlands and French Fingerlings. They were planted in the new bed that hadn't really been prepared after the original tilling. So Diane and I placed the seed potatoes in shallow trenches with cardboard between the rows to keep down the weeds and a mulch of leaves I had collected in the fall. The Yukon Gold, Blue and Banana Fingerlings were planted a week later in a portion of the new bed that had benefitted from an extra week under the black tarp. These potatoes were planted in deeper trenches and I'm hoeing the soil between the rows to hill up these potatoes. This past weekend as I was checking for potato bugs and their eggs I found about 9 out of 10 plants in the second plot had clusters of eggs on the under side of the leaves and I discoverd about 10 potato bugs amongst the 5 rows. I crushed the eggs with my fingers and deposited the adult bugs in glass jars. The potatoes with the cardboard and leaf mulch had absolutely no bugs or eggs! Really interesting. It's too bad there are so many variables; planting time, different types of potatoes and the mulching method. So it's hard to be absolutely sure what to attribute the huge difference to. But definitely worth keeping in mind for other years.

Potatoes mulched with cardboard and dead leaves

Potatoes planted in trenches and hilled up with soil

Another interesting contrast is the difference between the sunflowers I transplanted on the south end of both potato beds. The first ones were planted south of the cardboard mulched potatoes. They are in the shadow of the bigtooth aspen for the first half of each day. The sunflowers at the end of the other bed were planted a week later but get full sun all day and are probably twice as tall and much more vigorous.

Sunflowers with full sun are at the bottom and the ones with  a half day of shade are above

Fava beans in boom

The fava beans are in full flower and the peas in full bloom. Most of the pea blossoms are white but there are two particularly beautiful pea flowers; one is the mauve and yellow bloom of the Golden Snow Pea from Terra Edibles and the other is a ballet pink and fuchsia blossom form the purple snow pea called Desiree.

The heirloom Golden Snow pea in bloom

The aptly named snow pea Desiree

The first tomatoes are already blooming and have been tied in to their supports with strips of old sheets.

Indeterminate heirloom tomatoes tied in with strips of old bed sheets

Tomato in bloom

The first beets are looking healthy and the seeds planted two weeks ago have germinated.

The first beets on the left,  beet seedlings on the right with an edge of chard at the bottom

The pole beans have all emerged and every day you can see a gain in height. Very soon they should start to wind their way around the bamboo pole teepees.

The pole bean Violetta di Trionfo

Cranberry Pole Beans at the base of the support and, sown a week later,  a row of bush beans  on the right

The cucumbers are just trying to adjust to a more brutal life buffeted by the elements after their coddled infancy in pots sheltered by the gazebo.

Climbing cucumbers planted at the base of a twine support

Peppers in the hotbox

Eggplants in their hotbox

 And talk about a sheltered life; finally there are the eggplants and peppers basking in the heat of the hotboxes.