Sweet Vitriol

Tonight I attended a delightful little food tasting event as part of the Farm to Table Conference. There were about a dozen exhibitors there tonight, and everything I tasted was simply lovely. There is so much to talk about from the conference earlier today as well, but I’d like to save that for a little later. A few vendors stood out in particular tonight for me. Local sprout farmer Chris Wahlberg of Mung Dynasty was there serving some of his wonderful soup. Tonight’s offering was a lovely sprouted sweet- and english-pea soup garnished with mustard sprouts. It was a lovely take on the traditional split-pea soup and the sprouted peas gave a nice toothsome texture.

There was some wonderful locally raised turkey and chicken, raw milk cheeses, hydroponic lettuces, local hormone-free cottage cheese, and some local cheese from Emerald Valley Artisan Cheeses. Not quite so local but still tasty was some smoked salmon and fish chowder from Alaska Wild Salmon Company. After all that cheese it was time for a little wine, and lucky for me Joseph Skocik of Plum Run Winery brought along a delightful array. I sampled a few of his varieties earlier today, and added one more to the list tonight. Among my favorites were his Elderberry, Mulberry, and Honey Mead for the sweets, and the Pinot Noir and for something drier.

What better to go with my wine than some locally made chocolates? I couldn’t think of anything- so chocolates it was. Taste of Chocolate is located in Saxonburg PA and makes all of their chocolates by hand in-house. While their Amaretto decadence is one of their best selling confections, I was partial to the chocolate covered dried cherries. While I was tempted to get Jeremy a packet of chocolate covered local bacon, I decided that one chocolate-bacon candy was enough for the year. I think we’re over the bacon fad anyhow.

I finished off the night with some simple yet savory mushroom toast. All night I’d noticed everyone carrying these delightful looking canape type toasts, but hadn’t seen them. Turns out it was hiding by the cash-bar by the second entrance. A lovely two-tiered dish of minced sauteed mushrooms with baguette toast and grated cheese. I only wish I knew who made the lovely mushroom dish, so simple yet so perfect.

Tomorrow morning they are having an organic local breakfast for those of us attending the early-morning demonstrations and speakers. The flyer boasts organic fruits, raw milk yoghurt and kefir smoothies, buckwheat pancakes (my favorite!), local raw honey, and a myriad of savory breakfast goodies. I’m excited as this makes getting there by 9:30am for the fermentation workshop much more bearable.

I’ve grown a lot of tomatoes in my day. Like many, I started off growing conventional tomatoes from seedlings purchased at a local garden center or nursery. I grew such varieties as:

• Early Girl: Bears heavy crops extremely early, continues longer than most varieties
• Big Beef: Extra large, 10-12 oz., red fruits are firm, juicy and highly flavored
• Big Boy: Rich, tangy flavor, extremely juicy, solid texture
• Better Boy: Huge, delicious, red fruits, many 1 lb. each. Good leaf coverage

All of these are good tomatoes and great choices for someone not as interested in maintaining heirloom lines. I grew these and other conventional tomatoes for many years, and they definitely have the advantage of being available at almost any garden center or commercial nursery.

Gradually I began swapping out my conventional seedlings for heirlooms. My local food co-op happens to carry a variety of heirloom and organic vegetable seedlings in the spring and early summer, which really helped me get started with these wonderful plants. I still grow heirlooms, but now I go a step further and start my own seeds, rather than purchasing seedlings.

2006 was the first year I grew exclusively heirloom tomatoes. I was still using chemical fertilizers such as Miracle-Gro, but that’s a discussion for another day. I chose four heirloom seedlings from my co-op based on nothing other than what sounded tasty and interesting. I’d never grown potato-leaf tomatoes before, so I made sure to choose a few of those. My choices that year were:

• Brandywine: red steak tomato, potato-leaf, late 1800’s amish
• Chianti Rose: pink brandywine and italian cross, potato-leaf, unknown date
• Garden Peach: small yellow with a soft “peach fuzz”, native origin is peru
• Ruby Gold: large variegated red and yellow steak tomato

The Ruby Gold and Brandywine both produced very large, heavy, meaty fruit in a modest quantity. The flavor was lovely- perfect for slicing and eating on sandwiches or in a salad. the Chianti Rose gave me average sized tomatoes, of an average yield, and an average flavor. They were very soft-fleshed and mostly ended up in my tomato-sauce pot. The Garden Peach gave me such a bounty of tomatoes that they would fall off the vine before I got a chance to pick them all! These tomatoes were lovely little ping-pong ball sized golden yellow beauties covered in a soft fuzz. I gave many of these away as gifts, sauced some, and ate even more just as they were. I have a special place in my heart for these little guys, as they bring back fond memories from my childhood. I can’t help but reminisce over watching Attack of the Killer Tomatoes (the cartoon version of course), and how similar these sweet tomatoes are to the adorable FT, short for Furry Tomato.

2007 was a bad year for tomatoes for the home-gardener in my area. Across the board, tomatoes were maturing very late, and producing poorly. I had the deck stacked against me as I also had to container-garden my tomatoes rather than planting them in their usual spot along the garage, as I was moving mid-summer. I decided to grow only three varieties last year. I grew a a pink, a white, and Black Krim. Unfortunately, I cannot recall what the white and pink tomatoes were. These poor tomatoes, they did really try their best. I got a few large fruit off the Krim, a couple fleshy pinks, and a few small but adorable whites. Nowhere near the amount I needed for my yearly canning endeavors, so I resorted to farmers market tomatoes for that.

This year will be better. The tomatoes will be grown in one spot, with plenty of room this year. They will be planted in rich yummy soil and watered with the finest of fish-tank water. All I need is for mother nature to be kind and do her job well. I’ve chosen to grow a minimum of four varieties this year and, as I’ve mentioned previously, I’m likely to pick up a few seedlings locally. I’d like to try my hand at a white tomato again as they are quite lovely and sweet.

While I’m on the subject of tomatoes, there are a few interesting links I’d like to share. First, for those of you interested in growing heirloom tomatoes yourself there is Garden Desk’s handy post- The Pros and Cons of Heirloom Tomatoes. There is also a wonderful blog dedicated to that favorite fruit of mine, Tomato Casual. Lastly, a sad bit of tomato news for the state of Pennsylvania. Our top tomato farmer for direct-to-market tomatoes is quitting the tomato business, citing lack of labor.

Well, thanks to a readers comment I went ahead and got the gloves I was pondering earlier. I guess it wasn’t so hard to win me over after all, though I will say that the pretty designs on the fingers and the label saying that they were machine washable helped lure me in a good bit. What’s that? Target audience? Well perhaps…

It has come to my attention that I am sorely lacking in certain areas of the gardening gear department. The department in question is that of weed annihilation. I’ve always relied on my (well, ok, initially it was my mother’s) hori-hori knife. That unassuming tool really has served me well, and until now I never felt I was missing out on anything.

Yeah, until now. That’s the danger of reading garden blogs, you start discovering things you didn’t think you needed, but now you lust over. Right now it seems everyone else has an assortment of hoes except me. Of course you can’t talk about hoes without mentioning Carol of May Dreams Gardens with her collection. Recent days have found me poking about various blogs into their older posts, and lo and behold- more hoes! So I suppose I should get a hoe, or a few hoes, I’m just not sure what sort is ideal for me. I think the reason I’ve never needed one is I do such intensive style gardening that there isn’t much room for weeds to really grow. This year there will be some more space amongst my veggies, so I might actually need one of these tools. I’ll leave the suggestion lines open to all of you gentle readers- what hoes do you like? Have you ever met a hoe you didn’t like? Any general hoe thoughts?

The cabbage family was first to poke their heads up, with the De Cicco Broccoli and the Romanesco Broccoli in the lead. Our Red Mammoth Cabbage was next up, and then it’s been a race between the onion and the tomatoes. It was looking like the onions would take the prize but the tomatoes gave a good home-stretch sprint and won! Above are the Red Mammoth Cabbages, aren’t they cute? I’m particularly fond of the fact that they come up purple from the beginning.

The peppers are still struggling a bit to germinate, and still on the radiator under the greenhouse cover, along with a few of the tomatoes. Hopefully they’ll poke their little heads out soon too. Maybe they know that it’s still snowing outside, and are scared?! If you’re still scared about seed-starting, Colleen over at In the Garden Online has a nice little article on the top 5 seed starting mistakes.

For those of you who are starting your own seeds too, I hope they’re doing well! If you aren’t starting seeds this year hopefully these past few posts have been helpful for you to be able to do so next season.

Seed starting is one of those things that a lot of people think is harder than it really is. It does take a little planning but it’s so rewarding in the end, not to mention money saving in the long run!

First- your supplies. You’ll need:

• Seed starting medium. You’ll want a soil-less mix for this, either store-bought or home-made
• Something to plant your seeds in. I like to use peat pots, but I also use old egg cartons, yoghurt cups, and cut-down juice containers
• Warm water in a spray-bottle
• Something to label your seedlings with. I like to use an old juice carton, but you can use popsicle sticks or similar
• Waterproof trays to hold your seedlings
• Seeds!

You’ll either want to work outside, or protect your work area with newspaper as this can get a bit messy.

You’ll want to start off by getting your seed starting mix to the proper consistency. You’ll want to add water to your mix a little bit at a time and mix well. Since seed-starting mixes are soil-less and often peat based, they can take a bit of coaxing to absorb the water.

Don’t drench it- you just want it damp. The mix should clump together when squeezed, but not feel soaked. Once your mix is ready, you can go ahead and fill the cells or pots into which you’ll be planting your seeds. This is a good time to put those little pots and cells into their waterproof trays too, as once they are filled with damp mix they can sometimes get floppy.

Read the rest of this entry »