The Perfect B for your BLT

It’s official, the Brandywines are ripe and it’s BLT season. We had our first one last week and it was divine! There’s a lot of talk about choosing the perfect tomato for a BLT. And of course if you aren’t already growing some, you pick out a nice head of organic lettuce, but you can’t just pick up a pack of cheap old Farmer Johns bacon. Oh no, you’ve got to find some really good bacon.

Well, last year we did a 12 month intensive search for the perfect bacon, by way of the Bacon of the Month Club, and we’ve found the perfect BLT bacon. We really liked using a pepper bacon, because it adds a nice spiciness. However, it can’t be too spicy because that distracts. And you don’t want a really smokey bacon, because, well, that’s just too smokey. But Hempler’s pepper bacon is perfect. It’s just the right mix of smoky, peppery, meaty, crispy goodness for your BLT. You can order it online here. And if you are feeling really indulgent, you too should try a full year of the Bacon of the Month Club. It’s great fun to have bacon delievered to your door each month.

oh, the problems we have

We ate our first tomato this weekend. A San Marzano. Not this one above, but a different one, one without blossom end rot. Blossom end rot is something we seem to struggle with every year. Especially and almost exclusively with the San Marzanos. It’s caused by the plant not getting enough calcium. We already knew that we didn’t have enough calcium in our soil due to our home diagnosed weed problems, but it seems like adding that liquid calcium didn’t do enough to prevent blossom end rot entirely. It’s not affecting every tomato, just some, but its there.

One reason is that plants aren’t able to absorb calcium is by infrequent and inconsistent watering. I don’t think that’s our problem. We do water on a regular basis, about once a week. And it’s a deep watering since we do our drainage pipe method.

Is anyone else dealing with blossom end rot? You Grow Girl did a great post about this last week.

This next problem is a mystery to us and maybe you can help us.

It’s this spotting that’s happening on our nectarines. It’s on the vast majority of nectarines, no matter if they are in the sun or shaded by the leaves. It’s edible, we eat right through it, but it makes them kind of funky looking. Does anyone know what it is?

Another Tomato & Squash update

It’s amazing what a few days will do. Our little San Marzano is getting so big and look, he has brothers!

The cucumbers (both lemon and japanese) and getting there and the beans are happy and growing. (oh and that’s Bo, our cat, in the background looking for bugs to catch).

 

Oh, and remember how I wrote that although these portofino zucchini’s were planted at different times, they had all caught up in size? Well, the one we grew earlier from seed is blossoming earlier, so there you are, it IS worth it to start earlier after all. Below is it’s neighbor who’s seed was planted about four weeks later:

 

Tomato & Squash Update

Just thought I’d give an update of Tomato Alley. The original post I did has been my most viewed post, hopefully people will try this growing method and have great success. I think the beauty in it is that by putting the drainage pipes into the ground, you are able to get more water and oxygen down to the roots which makes for a happier plant. Scott mulched this past weekend with straw. By using a thick layer of mulch and our pipes we only have to water them once a week. Which, when we are facing certain water restrictions this summer, is a welcome thought. All plants are looking happy and healthy and this latest little heat wave did them well. We even spotted our first San Marzano.

We love San Marzanos. Because of their meatyness they make for great sauce.

It seems I turned around the zucchini grew from seedling to adolescents. Isn’t that the way it is with zucchinis? So the interesting thing about these guys is that Scott started that one in back at the end of March on our potting table. Then a month later when it was ready to plant out, he did so then put in two more seeds into the ground next to it, which are the other two plants you see. They are the same size! Sometimes its just not worth it to start sewing seeds early, in our yard at least.

The Center Plot

It’s windy today, and sunny but with big huge clouds looming in the sky. I wish it were just plain sunny and warm because tonight is the farmers market in town and the new Ben and Jerrys on the square is giving away free ice cream tonight! Now of course I’ll take free ice cream in any weather, but wouldn’t it be so much nicer if it was warm? Anyway, I’m taking you on a tour of the middle of our veggie garden today, please don’t mind the weeds. It was recently covered in favas and vetch, but now that those have been pulled and tilled, its full of little seedlings. Oh and one more artichoke plant:

Behind the artichoke and the new raised bed (that’s waiting for cucumber seeds to sprout), we have the melon row. Here’s one of the few melons that survived the frosty mornings, a crenshaw.

Behind the melons is tomato alley:

In the tomato bed is a sea full of volunteer amaranth, wonder berry and purple haze carrots (those we actually planted).

As you’ll notice in all of our pictures we have those purple amaranth and little wonder berries. Both of those things we started a few years ago, just with one plant and now they come up *everywhere*! The wonder berries were advertised as being just like huckleberries, but I’m here to report that they are not at all like huckleberries and I wish those stinkin’ little sprouts would just go away already. The amaranth, however are a beautiful and welcome surprise to find around the yard. Both the leaves and seeds are edible. You can eat the leaves young in salads, older steamed like spinach and the seed is a grain that you can eat like rice or quinoa.

Behind the tomatoes is our new three part bed that Scott just made. This bed receives quite a bit of shade in the summer because it’s right by three huge cedar trees and our weeping santa rosa plum tree. So in go the cooler season crops like another lettuce bed (lettuce is so easy to grow, its a sin to have to pay for it at the store):

Spinach:

and French breakfast radishes:

Throughout this middle section is a scattering of borage (again another one we started with just one plant and now have little volunteers everywhere):

Well, the little ones are up, so I must go. Next up, the right side of the garden.

how we plant our tomatoes

Speaking of tomatoes, would you like to see how we set up our tomato patch? We’ve tried lots of different methods, from simply sticking the plants into the ground, to using that fancy red plastic mulch (which doesn’t work at all), but this is our absolute favorite method because it really gets water to the roots. It’s a method adapted to our needs from the book, How to Grow World Record Tomatoes (an excellent read). Grown this way we easily get 6 foot - 10 foot tomato plants each year, organically of course!

First we bought a few yards of drainage pipe (like PVC pipe with 1/2″ holes drilled into it) and cut it into 18″ lengths. Then after tilling the beds, we dig a hole with the post hole digger on either side of where the tomato plant will be planted.

Place a length of pipe into the hole.

Fill the hole back up with dirt (but not in the pipe!).

And place our custom made five foot tomato cages on either side (made with wire fencing). We even have a few cages that are twice as high for our larger 10 foot plants.

Try this method this summer. You won’t believe how getting the water down to the roots that deep affects the tomatoes. We used to use the small, store bought cages for our tomato plants and now after applying this method, we definately need our hefty custom cages.

a package of plants

We’ve never ordered plants before through the mail, so we thought we’d give it a try this year. We received a catalog from Territorial for the first time this winter and we thought, oh, what a nice little small, Oregon-based nursery. Only after ordering did we learn that it’s a Monsanto company. Hmm, maybe this will be our last year ordering from them. Anyway, our package arrived last Thursday. And this was what was inside:

The three peppers looked like they were in good shape, but the San Marzano tomatoes (which we like for sauces) were all long and scraggly and tired looking. Even after being repotted and carefully attended too, one looks like it may die and the others are still leaning down to the ground. We think this may be the first and last time for mail ordered tomatoes. We should have held out for Tomatomania that’s being held in town this weekend.