Vegetable Gardening

The warm-crop planting season is finally here and we can safely plant our crops and yes, our tomatoes.  I love this time of year because my wife and I get together with the kids and pick our favorite tomato varieties to grow, and of course some new ones we may not have tried before. One of my favorite things is slicing up a bunch of different tomatoes (different shapes, sizes, colors, etc.) and tasting with friends. The favorites are usually written down to remember to plant next year.  Over the years we’ve come up with a delicious list.  One question I often get is, “what’s a good tomato?”  I’ve got to answer their question with a question: “good for what?  Salads, sauces, salsa, sandwich slicer or maybe a good cherry or grape.  I have favorites for all occasions.

These are some of my favorites. Try some new ones this year – you may be pleasantly surprised.

Super sweet 100

What a great cherry! I like to call this one the ‘’babysitter’’ because it produces so many small red sweet cherries it will keep the kids busy for hours when you say, “go pick them”. This plant is very vigorous – don’t be confused by the size of the fruit, this is a huge plant and it will take up a lot of space. It’s not great in small pots, as it will outgrow them quickly, but that’s doesn’t make me love it any less.  I strongly recommend it, even if you don’t have kids to entertain.

Sun gold

This one is probably the sweetest cherry I’ve come across.  If you haven’t tried this one, it’s worth it. A little bit on the orange side so it adds a different color to salads. It’s on the low acidic end, too.  

Brandywine

Now this is what summer is about! This old Amish heirloom comes in pink, red and yellow – and they’re all great.  Who knows which is the original, but it doesn’t matter when you taste these. It’s not a heavy producer, so I make sure to grow more than enough. But man what a taste!!  Slice those babies up with some buffalo mozzarella and a little pepper, creamy Italian dressing, maybe some fresh basil (I don’t like balsamic…too much heart burn). Yumm!!! If you’ve grown this one and want to try something new try Burpee’s ‘Brandy Boy’.  It’s a cross between Brandywine and Big Boy. I got a nice yield with that great taste, plus it produces much earlier in the season.  

Big Beef

This hybrid produces nice large, round, blemish-free tomatoes.  But don’t confuse this with commercial varieties that are bred to look ripe before their time. This Big Boy is very disease-resistant. So if you have had problems with disease or cracking try this one, it won’t disappoint you.

San Marzano

This is the plum tomato that all others are judged by.  It’s larger than roma, and tastes better according to my Italian relatives and friends. This variety is open pollinated like roma so you can grow it with other tomatoes without cross pollination (which can result in different tomatoes than what you intended).

Juliet

A large grape or small plum, this is a nice sweet variety that I love in salads, although you may want to slice them in half for the kids because they are slightly larger than your typical grape tomato. Nonetheless they are a nice sweet tomato with a long shelf life.  

Prudence purple

This is another great heirloom I love to grow. These big purplish or dark red tomatoes are another great tasting tomato like Brandywine. A great one for any occasion.  I love mixing these in with a caprese dish. They are really big and meaty and they taste great together.

Ramapo

This one was a surprise. We tried Rampo for the first time last year and it was great.  It’s an old reintroduction of a Jersey favorite.  Medium to large fruit with a great yield, this tomato will please all your uses. In fact I remember tossing a bunch in when making a sauce and they were not to watery. They’ve become a staple in my August salads.

Whopper

This is one big, big, nice tomato. Wait ‘til you see it – size alone is reason enough to grow the ‘Whopper’. You’ll agree, it definitely deserves a spot in your veggie garden. 

Mortgage lifter

This is a big pink or maybe more red tomato that has a heavy yield of large low acid and low seed fruit. But the best part is the story of its origin. It was developed by radiator repairman, M.C.“Radiator Charlie” Byles. Without any experience in breeding, Byles made a successful cross of four of the largest tomatoes he could find - German Johnson, Beefsteak, an Italian variety, and an English variety. With the money he made selling the tomatoes he ended up paying off his mortgage, hence the name.

Lemon boy

If you want yellow, here it is. This medium-sized fruit is great tasting, as yellow as a lemon and has a heavy yield to boot. I love how they really brighten up a salad,

Jet star

This probably is a tomato you may have passed by or maybe you’ve grown it before, but a nice medium fruit sized fruit that is low in acid (you don’t have to be yellow to be low acid).  This plant is a perfect size for those upside down tomato planters, it won’t take down the house when you water it and it also makes a great vine ripe bunch like in the groceries store.

This is just a short list of our ‘Uncle Mike’ varieties that we grow in our growing range in Woburn. We have selected a range of hybrids, grapes, cherries, heirlooms, dwarf, and lots of others varieties.  We also buy a lot from other local quality growers so we have even more of a selection for you, and as we find new ones, well we’ve got to check them out as well right.  All our tomatoes are locally grown so there is less of a chance to get late blight which is a disease that has been a problem in the last few years.

Uncle Mike Mahoney

The Guy  Mike’s 41 and married with 3 kids - a boy 12 , a girl 7 and a boy 5.  The Gardener  Mike loves all gardening but says he’s known for the veggies.

Rosalind Creasy is the undisputed high priestess of growing food - beautifully.  Her publisher calls her 1982 Edible Landscaping a “groundbreaking classic” and that’s no exaggeration. 

But it’s high time for an update, and let’s start with Ros herself.  She’s taken it upon herself to create and document photographically as many beautiful ways to grow food as she could cram into her front yard after ripping up the lawn.  It’s her only sunny spot and she was determinerd to put that soil to its  “highest and noblest use” - growing food.  To that end, she redesigned that spot 50 times since ‘84, with trial gardens and later, theme gardens, one of which you see on the book cover.  (No doubt all of her designs have flown in the face of the contempt toward growing edibles summed up by one of her design professors: “It’s tacky.”)

As a designer she’s changed over the years, and now includes more structure, bolder colors, more heirlooms (she’s passionate about saving them) and more spaces for kids. 

But designing great gardens isn’t all Ros did to prepare for the long-awaited update to Edible Landscaping.  She consulted with or photographed gardens of scores of experts across North America.  And she’s pulled together the latest, most vetted advice about the basics of gardening itself - how to garden and with what (not peat moss).  So I was surprised to discover in this edition the likes of: organic lawn care, the need to reduce light pollution, and the real deal about recycled plastics (they eventually end up in the landfill, anyway), fertilizers even vegans will love, and wildlife, in addition to permaculture, Slow Food, great design, and an exhaustive encyclopedia of edible plants.

The result is more than the modest “update” conveys.  It’s a stunning and inspiring book that’s also how-to writing at its best.  I can’t recommend it highly enough - and with no reservations at all.  No nits to pick or suggestions from me this time.  It’s that good.

  
Some Details of Interest

• The photos don’t just show fancy-pants designs like the one above, but also plenty of more do-able gardens for regular people, like the two below.
• There’s plenty of help for beginners, including a difficulty score for each plant.
• Eighteen years ago she had to make the case for growing organically, but no longer - her readers already know that.  Progress.
• When Ros wrote her original proposal to Sierra Books she included a jar of homemade organic applesauce with a label reading “This does NOT contain…” followed by dozens of chemicals.  Aspiring authors, take note.
• One of her pet peeves is the “county fair, blue ribbon syndrome - the relentless search for huge, flawless flowers, vegetables, and fruits…No one ever tastes these prizewinners.”

 
Above, great use of an unused driveway.

  
Above, in the no-man’s-land between Ros’s driveway and her neighbor’s, she grows assorted fruits, nuts and berries.

  
Above, a mixed front-yard garden that fits in anywhere.

Materials from Edible Landscaping by Rosalind Creasy, published in 2010 by Sierra Club Books.  Photographs copyright © Rosalind Creasy, except for my photograph of her, taken over dinner at Fordhook Farm.

Uncle Mike’s brand herbs and vegetables actually looks like fun to me, from just perusing their new photo album on our Facebook page.  My favorite is the album of Uncle Mike’s Staff and Greenhouse, but check out the edibles here and some lovely flower photos, too.  All photos by Rebecca Rondeau, who’s all thumb’s up in the collage below.

More staffers in this collagee are Eva Zelenka on the upper left and BK Noonan in the second row.

Below you see Tracey Martin and Ryan Wholey in the top row.  Then the foursome below are (L-R) Ryan Wholey, Jim McGinn, Jeff Storry and Hy Sam.  The behatted fellow below is Uncle Mike himself - Mike Mahoney - looking a lot like his logo self, doncha think?  What art work!

Wine Tastings are all the rage these days but with the tomaoes producing volumes this year, why not consider hosting a ‘tomato tasting’ party? You will need to have a variety of tomatoes but, should you decide to have a party you could ask your guests to bring those from their garden or some from the Farmer’s Market to add to the collective fun. While wine tastings are limited to adults and wine lovers, tomatoes, the universal vegetable/fruit crop, can include the whole family. Those who don’t like tomatoes can satisfy their palate with the fresh mozzarella which serves as the ‘palate cleanser’.

Sunday evening was the day for the ‘tomato tasting party here and all tomatoes tasted were grown here at Ledge and Gardens. The only plant not grown from seed was the cherry variety ‘Sungold’ which I picked up at the local independent garden center. Somehow, I forgot to plant my favorite cherry tomato. That is okay, though, since the garden centers are well stocked with a wide variety of both heirloom and hybrid tomato plants early in the season.

All tomato plants were started here under lights in mid-April. This gardener takes no chances with the vagaries of Mother Nature. I have started the plants earlier only to have to pot them up to bigger and bigger pots in order to keep the root system healthy and vigorous. All plants were planted out the weekend of Memorial Day, which fell on May 31st this year. All plants were planted with organic fertilizer and subsequently fertilized with liquid fish solution. In spite of the different “days to maturity,” which varied from 55 days to 82 days, all tomatoes started producing within a week of each other.

The cast of characters included the following:

‘Brandy Boy’ - 75-78 day maturity, indeterminate vine, a hybrid of Brandywine. This tomato is large and most fruit are in excess of five inches across. The skin is thin and pink and this plant produces quite a few fruit. It is much more prolific in production than ‘Brandywine’ . The flavor was described as tangy, sweet, zippy and robust. It was the clear favorite.‘Early Wonder’ - 55 days to maturity, determinate. This tomato is smooth and round with dark pink color. It was rated sweeter than Brandy Boy and two of the eight guests loved it. and all others only had good things to say about this pretty tomato.‘Glory’ - 75 days, indeterminate vine. This tomato is a hybrid of two heirloom varities, although I could not find out which two. It is a plant which yields quite a few fruit which are beautifully round. The flavor was described as tomatoey, good, sour, acidic and tasty. It does have a fairly thick skin, which is quite noticable in comparison to the thinner skinned varieties. The fruit was nice and clean and very round and uniform.

‘Green Zebra’ - 78 days, indeterminate vines. This hybrid was developed as recently as 1985 and it is small and round with clear green stripes. It turns a yellow/gold when ripe. I think that I picked and served these a bit early as the flavor, usually quite zippy and acidic was described as neutral and one guest said it was like eating a leaf. Hmmmm… Catalog descriptions say it has a lemon/lime flavor and I would concur with that. It is very pretty on the vine and plated with other tomatoes, adding interest to the dish. It was a favorite of one of the guests.

‘Legend’ - 68 day, determinate vine. This hybrid is said to be resistant to late blight which was such a problem in many gardens, mine included, last year. The fruit sets without pollinization (parthenocarpic). The fruit of this vine is blemish free. The flavor was described as complex, mellow, pleasant. I would grow this again just because of its’ resistance to late blight.

‘Mortgage Lifter’ - 82 day, indeterminate vines. This hybrid has a great history. It was bred from four large heirloom varieties by M. C.‘Radiator Charlie’ Byles who actually had no plant breeding experience. His day job was fixing radiators, hence his moniker. As the story goes, once Radiator Charlie developed his hybrid, he sold the seedlings to tomato afficionados from all around the area for $1.00 each. A supreme sum in the 1940’s. With the proceeds, he payed off his mortgage. The fruit of this hybrid are over a pound and a half and can weigh in at four pounds. I have to say that this is my favorite and the flavor was described as delicious. While I do like it for the size and flavor, only one slice for a good BLT, the plants produce many fruit. I find that an all too important and often overlooked characteristic. Give me fruit count in a description.

‘Sungold’ - 65 days, indeterminate vines. Very fruit forward…sounds like a wine tasting doesn’t it? This was the only cherry tomato tasted and everyone loved it. It had much more flavor than any of the larger tomatoes but who can make a sandwich from a cherry tomato?

GuestsOf the eight guests, four liked ‘Brandy Boy’ the best, two liked ‘Early Wonder’, one liked ‘Green Zebra’ and one liked ‘Mortgage Lifter’. The general consensus was that all the tomatoes from the garden were distinct and delicious and there was no comparison to those bought at the supermarket. I should have had a supermarket tomato as part of the tasting but, next year.

In conclusion, I would like to add that I am firmly convinced, but have no scientific experiment to back up the hypothesis, that tomatoes, like grapes, respond to terroir. Terroir (click on this) is the term for the specifics of the soil. The soil in which the tomatoes are grown gives them a unique flavor depending on its particle composition and nutrient analysis. Maybe this will be proven sometime in the future.

You can be sure that I have made a note of Mike’s favorites. I will be planting some ‘Mini Charm’ cherry tomatoes next year. Please share with all of us the name of your preferred tomato. Just make a note in the comment section. We would all love to know.