Beautiful Tomatoes

I just don't understand it when people call heirloom tomatoes ugly. I find the odd shapes, unique colors and varied sizes to be enticing. They taste sweet, and sometimes tart, especially when a little green. When they are still warm from the sun, its even better. Tomatoes from the garden smell earthy. They are heavy and bend and break the stalks that try to hold them up. Even with the support of cages, stakes and string, they pull and bend the plants down to the ground.

This year I have several types of cherry tomatoes which I love to eat directly from the vine and keep in a bowl in my kitchen window, adding more every single day. They are great in salads and to snack on throughout the day.

mixed Cherry Tomatoes

Green Zebra and Cherokee Purple

The Green Zebra are new this year and the plants are producing a lot. They transform from green and dark green tomatoes to a ripened yellow and green striped bulb. They are meaty and yellow on the inside.

Brandywine

 
The Brandywine tomatoes grow to be largest at a hefty weight of more than a pound. They slice up beautifully for sandwiches and salads. I'm looking forward to using more for soup in a next few days.

Katherine's Speckled Roma

My friend shared a Speckled Roma plant with me, which surprised me with these huge deep red colored Roma with yellow veins. I think these are great for pasta sauces, but I have yet to try it.

Brandywine and Green Zebra

I've been cutting my tomatoes off the vine and bringing them inside to ripen in the window because of bird attacks. Earlier this year, I would watch as the green tomatoes would begin to show some color. And just as they began to darken, I'd come back to find large holes pecked through the flesh. I did once see a pretty guilty looking robin fly away from a plant and I think it's safe to say that the birds love to eat my tomatoes. After the birds had gotten several big juicy ones, I decided it was safer to pick them green and let them ripen indoors, instead of letting the birds eat them all! I'm really not sure if the taste is different, but they do ripen to deep colors and keep their sweet, juicy insides. Just please don't call them ugly!

Snap Shots

Rose of Sharon blossom

peas and beans

peas and beans up close

fig tree leaf

cherry tomatoes

cucumber blossom

mystery plant from Lindsey's soap box

kohlrabi

blooming coleus

Brandywine tomato

cabbage and kohlrabi

Lights in the Basement

Tomatoes are here! I've had some tasty Sweetie cherry tomatoes and a few Silvery Fir Tree tomatoes, which I think are a bit early for the area. I started my tomatoes indoors a good eight weeks before the average last frost date, which is April 23rd in DC. In addition to tomatoes, my peppers and marigolds were started way back in January! I started kohlrabi, cucumbers, broccoli, basil, cabbage and a few flowers all by seed indoors. To do this, I set up florescent lights in the basement.  

There was an old shop light in our basement when we bought the house and last year I simply added new bulbs and set the light up to a timer which gave my seedlings about 18 hours of light per day. This year I got a little more sophisticated and added a warming mat for the seedlings and created a little shade around the light with tinfoil to add more reflective light for the plants and help contain heat. Once the seedlings were an inch or more tall, I transferred them from the small seed starting containers to larger biodegradable planters. I kept these in small plastic tubs, which made for easy watering. 

tomato seedlings under the old light

By early March everything was growing so well that I ran out of space and needed another light. I decided to buy inexpensive shop light and the brightest bulbs that I could find at my local garden store. I spent only $20 on the light and another $10 on bulbs that had the biggest lumen count available. It's quite lightweight and was easy to mount on existing shelves in the basement. I bought another timer, plus an extension cord, and we were set! Aside from the increase in electricity (which I never really attempted to measure), it was an pretty inexpensive endeavor.

tomato seedlings under the new light

The sweet bell peppers, which I started first in January grew really well and started to bloom already in April. I think they were started just a bit TOO early. They had grown tiny little peppers and were quite ready for more space outside well before it was warm enough. In the end, I lost a bit of time because the blooms and small peppers eventually fell off. After the transition outdoors and some fertilizer, they bloomed again and now I have nearly full-sized peppers. 

pretty purple pepper stalk with blossoms forming

tiny peppers growing out of blossoms

Before the plants were ready to go outdoors at the end of April, I had to slowly transition them to the temperature and light in the sunporch. It's a great step in spring when the days became warm and sunny but it is still cool and sometimes freezes at night.

Starting the veggies indoors worked out pretty well. For some, it took several weeks for the plants to become established once they were planted outdoors. The cucumbers didn't grow much at all until the weather became hot, but the kohlrabi, cabbage and the broccoli grew slow and steady, especially in the cool sunny spring days that we were lucky to have this year. Now, they have become healthy full-sized crops ready for harvest.

I'm certainly planning to start plants from seed indoors again next year. I'll have to hold off and not do so many so early, but I will be planting again in the early spring to get a head start on the growing season.