Visiting the Mater Man

As the growing season comes to a close, I paid a visit to Phil (a.k.a. the "Mater Man"), who supplied me with the heirloom tomato plants this summer. I got to see his greenhouse, where my little plants were born, and got to visit with all of my tomatoes' relatives in Phil's garden. Phil and his wife showed me their composter, and I was duly impressed!

By the way - - the picture to the left is a picture of SOME of Phil's harvest . . . just a bit more bountiful than mine, I'd say. Must be something to that composting!!

I also got to see some of Phil's pottery collection - - turns out he's a collector & trader of antique Edgefield Stoneware, pots made by Dave the Slave, and rare Catawba Valley pottery. Quite a fun & enlightening visit!

Hope everyone had a great Labor Day!

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Bountiful Harvest

Labor Day weekend, and the garden has ceased its labors. I took advantage of the recent rains and damp ground to pull up tomato vines, pepper plants, and other garden fauna that has stopped producing.

I did enjoy what little tomato crop I had this year (I think a total of 10 full sized tomatoes.) While I was disappointed in the amount of fruit produced by my 8, count 'em 8, heirloom tomato plants, I fully enjoyed the tomatoes that I did harvest!

The Kellogg's Breakfast (orange in color) were by far my favorite. Sweet, low acidity, and absolutely delicious! I think I had one Paul Robeson - - a purplish, black tomato with a rich flavor. The Giant Delicious were a Giant Disappointment with zero tomatoes produced. The plant looked gorgeous, however! Omar's Lebanese was also a no-show.

I did have about a gazillion little yellow cherry tomatoes from a plant I never identified (its name was illegible). They were lots of fun, and I even had enough to share a few. Next year, I've been told to add phosphorous to the soil. I'll give it a whirl, but I think I'm going to throw in a few "Better Boys" for good measure. Maybe they won't be as tempermental!

Happy Harvest!

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There's always August

I was walking down the drive after retrieving the mail yesterday, and caught a glimpse of RED amongst the leaves of my tomato plants. Excitedly, I picked up the pace to see if I had missed some miracle of nature and somehow had ripe fruit on the vines. As I got closer, I realized that I was seeing the red wheelbarrow that my husband parked in my garden. Oh well. At least I had a moment of hope.

Meanwhile, I have a (as in ONE) fist sized tomato on the "Kellogg's Breakfast" plant. Ultimately it should turn yellow/orange. My daughter has been eyeing it for a dish of fried green tomatoes, but with the lack of production of this crop, that ain't happening.

My mystery tomato plant has a bunch of marble-sized tomatoes now. I guess the "vibrating" and "suckering" is paying off, at last. I really don't know what this variety is, however. I couldn't decipher the label. I think "Mater Man Phil" might need to pay a house call! Maybe I can get him to bring some tomatoes as well . . .

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Bunch of "Suckers"

In my ongoing investigation of the fruitlessness of my heirloom tomatoes, I was recently asked the question, "Have you suckered your plants?" Say what? Turns out that the nutrients of the tomato plant can be misdirected to LEAVES instead of FRUIT, and the gardener needs to trim off perfectly healthy branches so that fruit will grow!

Here I was PROUD that my plants looked so beautiful and full - - and now I find out that I need to whack the branches off. Last week I was shaking my plants, this week I'm mutilating the branches! My tomato plants are beginning to regard me with quite a bit of apprehension!

Stay tuned.


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Malfunctioning Pollinator?

Some of my tomato plants are up to 5 feet tall, and it would be nice if I were looking eye to eye with ripening tomatoes. While I have lots and lots of blooms, however, the emergence of fruit is not forthcoming! I'm getting a little concerned, quite frankly.

Since I've had blooms on the plants for a couple of weeks, I am a bit concerned about pollination. My father told me that tomatoes are self-pollinating, which means they don't need bees. He also told me that commercial growers use little vibrators on the tomato plants to speed up the pollination process. I am not making this up. It sounded very wierd to me, so I went to Google, and sure enough, tomato vibrators.

So, for the past couple of days, I've gone out to the garden and given each of my tomato plants a gentle little shake. I try to do it early in the morning, in a very nonchalant manner. Don't want the neighbors talking.

This morning, I read in the paper that the recent heat wave may have inhibited pollination among tomato plants. Not sure how to remedy that one. If any of y'all have advice, please advise away!

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First BLT of the season!

I could wait no longer, and fixed a BLT for breakfast this morning. Put it on an English muffin, which made it breakfasty. That way the breakfast police would let it pass - - not like I was eating a plate of spaghetti or something.

Anyway, before you get all excited, I'll have to admit that I used a STORE-BOUGHT tomato. I know, the horrors. It was actually one of those "cluster" tomatoes, you know, the kind that have four or five small tomatoes, still connected on the vine. Gorgeous color of red. Now, I'm worldly enough to know that those tomatoes were probably as green as Herman Munster when the vine was snipped. But that way, once they do turn red, the tomatoes can be advertised as "vine ripened." Tricky marketing people.

You know, now that I think about it, what happens to the productivity of the plant once the vine has been brutally severed? Wait a minute! I think I'm developing a moral objection to cluster tomatoes! Holy oregano! I never thought about it before.

So, now that I'm not buying any more cluster tomatoes ("Save the Tomato Plants! Stop Senseless Sever-ation!"), I guess I'll have to wait until my tomatoes ripen. After I write my congressman.

I do have some cherry tomatoes coming along nicely. Then again, they might be "grape" tomatoes. I never heard of grape tomatoes until just a few years ago. Wonder how they came about. Maybe the Grape Growers Group (GGG) decided that cherries were getting all the attention - - what with Cherry Tomatoes, Cherry Coke, hot fudge sundaes ("Would you like a cherry with that?"), and Santa Claus with his dimples (how merry) and nose like a cherry. My guess is, the GGG had just had it and started promoting GRAPE tomatoes. Like we wouldn't see through it. HA.

Well, enough rambling for today. I will tell you that my Breakfast BLT was quite delicious, with the English muffin toasted just so, and the perfect amount of Duke's mayo (gotta be the Duke). The tomatoes were merely satisfactory, nowhere near exemplary. That will come, my friends. Good fruit is coming!


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Fruit of the Mater Man

I got an email from MaterMan Phil, and he sent along some pictures of his heirlooms. I feel so much better now! I thought he was over there munching on BLT's already, but as it turns out, his tomatoes are all still green! The pictures above are of his Costuloto Genovese tomato (an Italian varietal with scalloped edges!) and Julia Child's.

Thanks for sharing, Phil!

The Matter of the 'Maters

I received an email yesterday from the "'Mater Man", reporting on the fruitfulness of his heirloom tomatoes. Ranging from poor to excellent, the different heirlooms are faring mixed results in our South Carolina climate. I'm a little alarmed, because I can't comment AT ALL on the fruitfulness of my plants, as they, well, haven't yet produced fruit.

They're looking very healthy, nice and green, and I've got to be happy about THAT. After all, some years the only thing my garden has produced is laughter. (And not from me! Thank you very much.) A few years ago, after he stopped laughing, my friend Todd enlightened me a bit on soil prep. The following year I followed his instructions carefully, and had the Best Garden Ever. (At least by my standards.)

Last year the drought pretty much wiped everything out, so this year I'm encouraged to at least have green in my garden. The tomatoes do have some flower buds, so fruit is sure to follow, right? I really am looking forward to a tomato basil omelette. In fact, some "volunteer" basil plants have sprouted right in the shadows of the tomato plants. How convenient is that?

My garden is not totally without fruit thus far. I do have some peppers growing on my tiny little pepper plants. The little plants are not really sturdy enough to support the peppers at this point. Maybe there was no education about teenage pregnancy in pepper school. I am concerned about them, for sure.

Then there's the matter of the Sweet Orange peppers, that at this point look suspiciously like jalapenos. Maybe some jokester at Lee's Landscaping mixed them up?

The mint patch looks great. Of course, the mint patch ALWAYS looks great. How tough is it to grow mint? (Answer: Not. How tough is it to KILL mint? Answer: Entirely a different story.)

So, perhaps I should try a mint omelette?

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Herb it thru the grapevine

I hit the Herb Barn for the third - - no, fourth time this year - - on Saturday. Cathy was having a half price sale, and I couldn't resist. I bought a couple of sage plants, some more lamb's ear, and a little more thyme. You never want to run out of thyme.

This year, I planted some of my most used herbs in a large pot next to my deck, so they're very accessible for cooking. Dill, parsley (both Italian flat leaf & curly), and culantro are growing there. Culantro is a cousin of cilantro - - very similar flavor, but it doesn't go to seed. It lasts all season long and is very hardy. I can't wait to make salsa when my tomatoes ripen!

In the garden, I have basil, stevia and burnet. Burnet is a salad herb with a taste that resembles cucumber. I bought it last year at the Herb Barn, thinking it was an annual. As it turns out, the plant stayed green all winter long! We just tilled around it when turning the garden this spring. I guess it's a keeper!

Stevia is supposed to be a perennial, but I've never been successful in keeping it alive through the winter. Stevia is a natural sweetner, 300 times as sweet. One tablespoon is equivalent to one cup of sugar! No calories, no chemicals. I like to pluck a leaf and eat it right off the plant. Paired with mint, it's like a stick of gum. Paired with my pineapple sage, it has the delightful flavor of a pina colada! Paired with rosemary, it's just weird.

In my landscaping areas, I grow perennials such as rosemary (my plant is 7 years old and HUGE), mint, oregano, sage, thyme, and a few others. Pineapple sage has a wonderful flavor, plus has gorgeous red flowers in late summer that attract butterflies.

This year I added a couple of St. John's Wort plants in my flower bed. It blooms little yellow rose-like buds. I asked Cathy at the Herb Barn if I could eat the leaves and get happy, but she said "We don't promote medicinal uses, just culinary." Oh well. I figure the little yellow flowers will make me happy anyway.

The Herb Barn (York, SC) is closing for the summer this year. Cathy's going on vacation! She'll reopen in the fall, and will host her traditional craft fair on Thanksgiving weekend. If you hurry, you can still pick up some half price plants this year, but only through the end of May.

So herby up!

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Memorializing the Garden

Since tomorrow is Memorial Day, I figure it is appropriate to share some memories about my Granddaddy's garden, since after all, he was a WWII vet.

As long as I can remember, my Grandfather had a garden. I'm quite sure that in many years, the garden was a key source of food, not merely a hobby. He grew the basics: tomatoes, cukes, squash, beans, corn, okra, potatoes.

Somebody really has to not mind work to grow potatoes. Dig, plant, wait, dig. How do you know when they're the right size? No clue. I'd probably try digging them when they were the size of peanuts. I'm thinking $2.89 for a 5-lb bag of potatoes at Bi-lo ain't a bad deal.

My grandmother canned and pickled and froze stuff, of course. I've never figured out canning and pickling. I fear the pressure cooker. Mason jars intimidate the life out of me. I always figured I'd start canning when I was forty-something, but it hasn't happened yet, and I'm not thinking it will.

I remember visiting my grandparents in the summer time, and sitting out in the back yard with a bowl of beans to snap, or a box of corn to shuck. The beans weren't too bad, but the corn was risky. You never knew when you were going to pull off the husk and find a big ol' juicy worm. Ew!

Granddaddy always grew watermelons, too. Watermelons were one of my favorite things about summer (still are!). We'd always take one to "the river" (that's what we called Lake Wylie in those days), and of course to Myrtle Beach. If we went to the beach early in the summer, we'd have to hit a fruit stand to make the necessary purchase, as the melons wouldn't ripen in my Granddaddy's garden until late July or August.

Once, when my mother & uncle were just kids, the watermelons were just tiny little things when the family left for their annual trip to the beach. My uncle was eager to get home to see how "his" watermelons had grown. My grandfather was a bit of a prankster, and bought the largest watermelon he could find and attached it to the vine back home. When my uncle went out to inspect the garden, he thought there had been a miracle! It was only after the watermelon was "picked" that my uncle noticed the 39 cent price written on the bottom . . .

Happy Memorial Day, everyone. By the way, Bi-Lo has seedless watermelons for just $2.99 this weekend. You know I bought one!


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Week one & nothing's dead!

My garden has made it through the first week, hallelujah! We've had a spit of rain, nothing substantial. Tony (my husband) finally got our irritation system working . . . and hopefully it will hit the garden in all the right spots.

Meanwhile, last night I watered everything by hand. We had a bunch of teenagers over, and I didn't want the yard wet because it would end up in my house. 'Course it did anyway - - teenagers have a way of doing that.

Anyway, I know my plants Felt The Love as I lugged watering can after watering can over to my garden, dousing each plant Just So.

Julia Child (one of the heirloom tomatoes) was looking rather puny at the first of the week, but she's perking up a bit now. I thought she was a goner.


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Heirloom Tomatoes

There's quite a buzz around local farmer's markets and nurseries about heirloom tomatoes. Exactly what is an heirloom tomato, and what makes it so? Wikipedia says, "An heirloom tomato is an open-pollinated (non-hybrid) tomato. Heirloom tomatoes have become increasingly popular and more readily available in recent years." There is a debate on how old these seeds must be. "Some say the seeds must be over 100 years old, others 50 years, and others prefer the date of 1945 which marks the end of World War II and roughly the beginning of widespread hybrid use by growers and seed companies."

Regardless, heirloom tomatoes have a reputation of the tastiest on the planet, and have colorful stories to go along with their colorful names. I have a couple of friends who have nurtured a crop of heirloom varieties bearing such names as "Kellogg's Breakfast", "Mortgage Lifter", "Omar's Lebanese" and "Soldacki". I was the lucky recipient of ten varieties, and have planted them in my garden. Harvest time will be quite an adventure, as the tomatoes are all different shapes, sizes, and colors.

Google is my friend, so I do a little research to figure out what to look for in ripeness. I could, for example, wait an eternity for the traditional red color, only to learn that my plant yields orange fruit.

The Kellogg's Breakfast, for instance, is a yellow-orange beefsteak tomato with a fantastic sweet, tangy flavor. The Soldacki is a Polish, potato leaf plant that yields dark pink fruit, described as intensly lucious. Omar's Lebanese produces giant, 3 pound tomatoes with a rich pink hue. Julia Childs are lightly fluted (whatever THAT means??) with robust flavor. Hmmmm . . .

Then theres the Paul Robeson: a Russian heirloom named after the operatic artist who won acclaim as an advocate of equal rights for Blacks. This "black" beefsteak tomato has deep, rich colors that stand it apart from others. Very flavorful with "earthy, exotic flavors". It originated in Siberia, however, which I believe has a climate vastly different than South Carolina. We'll see how this one fares!

Then I have a couple of plants that are total mysteries, because I couldn't read the labels. No worries. My garden typically has a few surprises, because I like to grow exotic things and have a tendancy to forget what I plant.

I am so excited about my garden this year! Pray for rain, and stay tuned!



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Gardening with a Notso Green Thumb

I've had my own garden now for twenty-some-odd years, and I have to admit that I'm not particulaly gifted in this area. However, hope springs eternal. There are not many things on this earth better than a tomato basil omelette made with just-picked home grown tomatoes and fresh grown basil. And a BLT, perfectly toasted, with a touch of Duke's mayo? Heaven on earth, my friends. I'm not alone in this opinion. I remember hearing a country song years ago, "The only two things that money cain't buy are true love and home grown tomatoes!"

So each year, I continue to try. I buy the plants, plant 'em, stake 'em, fertilize 'em, mulch 'em. One year I calculated that I spent about $83 on each tomato that I harvested.

I have had a decent crop or two. Thanks to a mother & a few friends who actually know what they're doing, I've received some sage advice and managed to do things right on occasion.

Speaking of sage, I have found that herbs are perhaps the most forgiving crops. I grow a few in my garden (basil, chives, parsley stevia), and use some in "landscaping areas" (rosemary, oregano, lavendar, thyme, sage, and the ever prolific mint). I use many of the herbs in cooking, and grow some for their visual appeal or novelty. That's a blog of its own.

Back to the main garden patch. This year, I'm excited to be growing several varieties of heirloom tomatoes, several varieties of peppers, some cukes and zuchinni, and a solitary watermelon plant for which I have high hopes.

Stay tuned.

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