Still Dreaming Big, My New Outdoor Kitchen

 When we bought our cottage and acre of land, we had big plans for what we were going to do with it. Of course Hurricane Hugo set us back almost 6 years in the implementation of our hopes and dreams, as well as 17 years of homeschooling that took priority. But we kept dreaming and honing our plans, keeping the dream alive and making steps towards our goals as time and money allowed.

  One thing we consistently hoped and planned for was a greenhouse. That saga will be told another day, but the short of it is after almost 30 years of hoping and planning, we now have a mostly finished greenhouse, that is fully employed! 

 The focus of today's post is our outdoor kitchen. In my mind's eye I visualized a fully equipped indoor style kitchen, outdoors. Well, time and experience are good teachers, while we were waiting for the culmination of this dream, we learned some things along the way that changed our plans. The perfect siting for our outdoor kitchen was always a question, but since other projects took shape before the kitchen, we were presented with the perfect location, one we would not have visualized it we had gotten the "Summer Kitchen" early on. The deck on the back of our house started out being the access point for an 24 foot above ground pool that would keep our kids and their friends at our house and occupied during the summers. When the kids grew up and left home, the pool was donated to another family and the decking was closed in with a railing. We were planning to open an AirBnB at that time, in what used to be the master bedroom. There was an outside access to the MBR, so we put a gazebo on that side of the deck, so guests could sit outside and enjoy the views of the gardens. There are stairs on the deck that go from the Gazebo to the Butterfly Garden that was planted when the pool was removed. Nestled between the deck corner and the Butterfly garden is a 10x12 foot deck where our hot tub was during the pool days. The hot tub deck turned out to be the perfect spot for the Summer Kitchen! 

   The deck needed new floor boards and some steps for safe footing getting from the deck to the laundry garden, but other than that, the structure needed very little alteration. We purchased a metal roofed Gazebo with curtains, lights and a ceiling fan from Lowe's. Da and I put it together ourselves and in just one weekend we had the structure up and ready for use! Over the next few weeks, Da would get a potable water source plumbed in and a repurposed sink in place. It has cold water only, but that is no biggie. If I want hot water, I just heat it on the stove. 

Sink with view of the Butterfly Garden

Cleaning Leeks after harvesting

While Da was working on the plumbing, I was researching what kind of stove I wanted in my Summer Kitchen. Some experiences we had in 2015, helped me to make a better decision about what kind of stove to plan for in this situation, than I otherwise would have made. Long story short, in 2015 we were forced to live outside for almost 3 months while we had mold remediation done and a complete kitchen renovation undertaken. See Life at Heart's Ease Cottage, Living Outside for more details on that story. After living outside for 3 months with my kitchen under a canopy on the back deck, it became apparant that there is more dirt in the air than one could imagine, and it settles on EVERYTHING! Keeping an outdoor kitchen clean is quite a task. So, employing the vintage 1930's Roper stove I bought for this kitchen years ago was a "no go". It would have looked so cool out there, but it just wasn't practical. Bummer... But! No worries, the Roper stove has a place inside and is used to great advantage as a place to store kitchen ware, linens and to house my dehydrator and Instant Pot, all while fitting into the asthetic of our 1940's Cottage! So, the practical side of my personality overode the creative side (momentarily anyway...) and decided for the Summer Kitchen, that a more practical choice would be a stove that is made for use outdoors! Duh... 

There were very specific requirements that had to be met for pressure canning, which was one of the main things I wanted to be able to do outside. The cooking surface needs to be strong enough to hold my heavy All American Canner, jars full of food and water for processing. The heat source had to be consistent and unperturbed by breezes blowing through the kitchen. Both of these requirement knock a regular Coleman style cook stove out of the running. It wasn't big enough to hold the canner and had no reliability when it came to heat regulation. Fortunately, I found just what I needed for pressure canning as well as water bath canning and just regular bulk cooking. The Camp Chef Explorer!

 This outdoor stove is very well made, with a heavy guage metal grate cooking surface and two 30,000 BTU burners. It has a very effective windscreen that even in windy conditions protects the flame from variation in temperature. A BBQ grill sized Propane tank is the fuel source which can easily be stored under the Stove when not in use and when use, can sit safely away from the flames. The stove breaks down and can be stored in a handy dandy travel case, but I intend for it to stay right where it is, so I got a weather cover for it that keeps the whole stove protected from the elements. The Summer Kitchen has a hard roof and ample overhang, but blowing rain still gets things wet in a good thunderstorm, so having the stove covered when not in use is a must.

  At the present, I have a small, portable camp table in the kitchen as a work surface and I am ferrying my utensil, pots and jars out to the kitchen from inside. This is temporary. I fully intend to have a cabinet/countertop and storage area for equipment permanently in the Summer Kitchen. I am just using it for awhile as is, to get some clarity about what works best in an outdoor area. I know that a regular cabinet with shelves and drawers won't work. There is too much moisture and dirt for that. I think The surface will be butcher block counter top. We have inheirited a 1.5 inch thick, 6 ft. long butcher block top from Da's family home that will be the countertop, but the cabinet itself will be made to stand up to the elements, with open shelves for storing tools, etc in snap top totes to keep things inside clean and dry. I am still working on a design. but hope to have one nailed down by the fall. 

Until we get the final design figured out the Summer Kitchen is still completely functional and in use. I feel so happy to be out there canning or cooking away, while watching the butterflies and birds flitting around in the Butterfly Garden and listening to the trickle of water from the Bunny Fountain situated just feet away from where I am cooking. Dreaming is the first step to bringing something into real life. One thing I have learned from all the adventures at Heart's Ease Cottage, is that dreams don't ever have to die, but sometimes they take a long time to come to pass and they are never what you thought they would be! I am glad we had to plan, work and wait, so that at the right moment in our lives, things would coalesce and be just what we need!

I am so happy you came to visit and hope you will drop by again soon! Due to several years of illness, There were no new posts for a long time, but there is a huge amount of content in past posts that is as relevant today as it was when it was posted. Please look back through the archives for lots more content and now that my health is looking up, I am hoping for much more content to be produced in the future!

Howdy's and comments are always welcome! It helps me feel like I am not just talking to myself ;)

Embracing The Mundane

 

When our first child was born my husband and I decided that I should leave my job and stay at home with our son. I have never regretted that decision, but it wasn't a cakewalk. There was a transition period. A time where I felt like I was losing myself. Buried in stacks of diapers to wash by hand, (rolling brown outs in the Philippines made hand washing necessary at times), the endless cycles of wash, feed, burp, change, repeat, made me feel like my brains were turning to Pablum. But over time, probably as a coping mechanism, I learned to find ways to enjoy the necessary routines. 

I learned to "experience" the tasks at hand and tried to enjoy them (at least some of them). I began to be actively aware of each step in a task. I listened to the sound of running water, smelled the scent of the soap,  squished around in the pan of soapy water like I did as a child, before adding the less pleasant dirty diapers. Once cleaned and rinsed the methodical rhythm of of hanging clean cotton Nappies in the Philipino sunshine allowed my mind to wander. I would think creative thoughts or just enjoy the scent of frangipani flowers on the breeze.

Over the years I have honed the art of "Embracing the Mundane". Homeschooling two boys who were 7 years apart meant lots of planning, preparation, and patience. Designing cirriculum that would address the educational needs of a kindergardener and a pre-teen challenged me creatively and intellectually, but there was a whole lot of brain burning repetition it the application of my plans. So, sometimes when we were going to be doing unpopular or "boring" stuff ( quoting the kids), I would pack a simple picnic lunch, break out the fishing poles, dig some worms from the compost bin and head to a nearby lake. Here on the lake bank we would memorize multiplication tables,  conjugate verbs in Latin, and practice reading while drowning worms. With the bobber gently rolling over the wake and the breeze rustling through the lake shore reeds, verb conjugation and multiplication tables seemed far less onerous. But of course, if something hit the line, all  scholarly endeavors were momentarily abandoned. The catch was reeled in, observed, released and celebrated before returning to the task at hand. 

The kids and I were all seeing how to cope with the mundane. Learning to make simple changes to facilitate getting something done rather than putting it off, adding a little fun to an undesirable task, or looking forward to a little treat after finishing something challenging were tools that could be employed for a lifetime. It helped us to have successes instead of butting heads, shedding tears or secretly going and screaming into a pillow (...me...).

I have learned that breaking a task I am tempted to put off into bite sized pieces,  means that I am moving forward however incrementally. Every step taken leads towards a finished task. Learning to find a way to enjoy each of the steps makes the whole business more pleasant. Rather than saying to myself, "I don't have time to do this", I ask myself "what part if this can I do in 5-15 minutes"? For example weeding; with as many gardens as we have here at Heart's Ease Cottage, weeding can be quite daunting if looked at as a whole. But if I ask myself "what can I accomplish while I am waiting for a newly mopped floor to dry?", I can go chip away at my weeding task for 15  minutes and enjoy the view of a freshly weeded bed. Acknowledging and enjoying the little successes in a day empowers me to have more of both successes and enjoyment of them!

 At the end of May I need to prune, deadhead and feed my perennial borders so they will continue to bloom. I love my gardens but I didn't always love the actual gardening part of gardens.  That is, until I started establishing rituals that made these necessary but less than desirable tasks more pleasant. I dress in something cheerful, take a pretty basket out for snipping some blooms for arranging later, and use a pair of pruning shears that make a pleasant sound as they open and close (this periodically requires a trip to the garden center to stand there opening and closing shears until I find one that makes the "right" sound).  Once in the garden, I make an effort to remain aware of the pleasant surroundings, the bumbles busy pollinating the flowers around me, the methodical snipping sound of my shears and the feel of the soil against my bare feet. Being mindful of and enjoying the simple things going on around me turns a boring task into a pleasure.

With each passing year I find myself more and more appreciative and content with doing the day to day things of life. I don't need to be doing something special to enjoy myself. I have learned to find pleasure in most anything I have to do. Rouine, order and a plan,
spiced up with a little fun makes repetitve day to day tasks more achievable and the saisfaction it brings to see progress made, spurs me on to tackle the next task that needs doing! 

Some Like it Hot, A Love Affair with Hot Peppers

I have had a life long love affair with spicy food. Not just spicy, but but the kind of spicy that could peel paint. I have to have an impartial taste tester (read Still Waters my husband) to verify that what I prepared for a dinner party isn't going to set someone on fire... Since what I think is mild, would be agony to those who are uninitiated.

For many years, about the only "hot" pepper you could find in the grocery store were very sad, slightly shriveled jalapeno peppers. So I had to grow my own peppers to get the burn I wanted in my spicy dishes. Although it has been too long ago to remember, my passion for fiery peppers may be the reason that I began to garden in the first place... But in 2019 it is possible to find a variety of hot peppers in higher end grocery stores and there are a number of ethnic markets who cater to cultures where spicy food is a way of life, so don't despair if you can't grow your own peppers to meet your needs. If to look around you will probably find a local source of fresh hot peppers!

In my garden I have two 3 ft. by 25 ft. beds of peppers. One bed is filled with a variety of sweet bell peppers in an array of beautiful colors ranging from yellow to deep purple, along with some banana peppers, paprika peppers and pepperoncini. The other bed is filled with  "Hurts So Good Peppers" that I cautiously pick while wearing nitrile gloves. In this bed I have a spectrum of hot peppers, jalapenos, serrano, Thai bird chiles, cayenne, habanero, and ghost peppers. Next year I will add Carolina Reapers to the line up, since I waited too late to order and I couldn't get my hands on seed this past spring.

I think this Ghost Pepper just looks spicy...

So how do I use all these hot peppers? Well, there are many ways to prepare these bad boys for use in cooking. Fresh peppers don't have a long shelf life, so I chop and freeze them for a just picked taste to add to raw salsas and other dishes where fresh is best. I make a cooked Habanero Mango Salsa when mangoes are in season and the India market has a good price on them. This salsa is good for knocking the chill off when the weather goes cold. It is delicious with chips, but also adds delightful personality to a humble bowl of black beans and rice.

I have to make this salsa in bulk. It is a household favorite
and we burn through a lot of it

Some of the peppers lend themselves well to drying, but to keep my dehydrator from infusing pepper oils on my dried apples and other dehydrated foods, I never put hot peppers in my dehydrator: instead I use my Stack!t , if the Stack!t is full of drying herbs, I lay them out on screens in the shade to air dry when weather is fine. I often string cayenne peppers on threads with a needle on one end, that hangs in the kitchen where I can add them to the string as I bring them in from the garden day by day.

I keep a thread and tapestry needle hanging in the kitchen
to string on excess cayenne peppers to dry.

I waited too long to order my Carolina Reaper seeds this year,
but not to worry, my son generously shared some of his stash of his with me!

 I smoke many of the peppers and freeze them on trays then put them in doubled freezer bags. These can be taken out one at a time to use in cooking. I also combine these with other peppers that have spent 3 months fermenting, to make a "curl your hair" hot sauce. This sauce is sublime with high notes of orange peel and the deep rich flavors of hickory, mesquite  and cacao. I also ferment the Thai bird chiles whole to use in Thai food or to add some heat to my raw, fermented, mixed vegetable Chow Chow.

I smoke habanero peppers and freeze them on a tray
to keep them separate, then package in small freezer bags.

Some peppers have a great taste, but can over power the flavor of a dish with their heat. To have the greatest control over their contribution to a dish, I tincture these peppers in grain alcohol for a month or so. When they have infused their essence into the alcohol, I strain and bottle the tincture. I wear a mask, safety goggles and heavy chemical grade rubber gloves for this process, since even vapors can burn soft tissues and you definitely don't want to accidentally get any on your skin! I bottle this tincture in amber bottle (recycled beer bottle work great!) and cap it with a crimp style bottle capper. This tincture will last forever. For use in the kitchen, I have a 2 oz. amber dropper bottle that I keep with my spices so that I can add a drop or 2 to a pot of chili, Indian food or other dish that calls for some real heat and authentic ethnic flavor.

I tincture Habanero, Ghost and Carolina Reaper Peppers in
190 proof grain alcohol to  use drop by drop in cooking.

Extreme care should be used when decanting this tincture.
 It could injure eyes and soft tissue, and you would experience
 an uncomfortable burning sensation for hours if you get it on the skin.
 Use safety glasses, heavy gloves and a face mask when
pouring the tincture off into bottles. But don't let that put you off...
the results are worth the caution you need to take!

The use of hot peppers has benefits beyond taste and an endorphen induced sense of well being, they can be used medicinally as well. The capsaicin, a constituent of all hot peppers, has many medicinal purposes. Most commonly, the cayenne pepper is used for skin applications, since it is less likely to be irritating to the skin. Cayenne capsaicin is used topically to treat Psoriasis and to reduce the pain of are muscles, R. arthritis, O.arthritis and Fibromyalgia. Capsaicin can reduce the incidence of cluster headaches, and help ease the pain during an episode. Scientific studies show undeniable evidence that capsaicin is effective in the treatment of cancerous tumors and aids in the apoptosis of cancerous cells, which would prevent cancer from occurring in the first place. It also causes an increase in metabolism which is helpful in weight loss efforts.

My passion for spicy food and my desire to use the peppers for medicinal purposes has led me to find many ways to preserve and use hot peppers. I hope that this post will inspire you to give hot peppers a chance or to try some new ways to use them!

 I love comments and would be happy to hear from you, so please feel free to leave a comment!

*As a note of caution, spicy peppers are able to burn soft tissues, eyes and skin; they should be treated with respect. They can also  can cause uncomfortable digestive distress for the uninitiated. Please don't try to prove how much fire you can take by ingesting a pepper or produce made with them, you could live to regret it.

Now That's My Kind of Jelly! How to Make Low Sweet, No Muss, No Fuss, Set Every Time Jelly

Jelly making has been a traditional fall event at Heart's Ease Cottage for many, many years. When the children were small it was a late night venture, when I didn't have to worry about "littles" under foot. Once the kids were grown it was easier to make it a daytime project. No matter what the time of day it is, or time of year for that matter, setting the mood is an important part of the process. I fling the windows open, turn the ceiling fans on high, crank up the tunes and make a lovely mess out of my kitchen.

 I freeze fruits from our gardens over the summer to use in the fall. I also look forward to harvesting apples and pears from the mountain farms in the fall for jelly and other thing like fruit leathers and dried apple rings (but that is a post for another day). Many times I will cook down fruit and extract the juice for jelly, putting it in freezer bags to be made into jelly at a later date. This cuts the jelly making time down and decompresses the whole process a good bit. In recent years, I haven't often had a whole day to devote to a kitchen project, so breaking the process into smaller pieces makes it more likely that I will actually get all the way through to jars of jelly sitting on the shelf.

In the past, homemade jelly required more cups of sugar than cups of fruit juice in order to get the jelly to set. Our diet does not allow for much refined sweetener so a lot of the jelly was made for gift giving and not for our consumption. The exception would be Still Water's personal blackberry jelly stash, which he guards jealously and is reluctant to share even within the household...

But then one day I made a discovery that changed what we could keep in our larder for our own use. Traditional pectin gels by a sugar/pectin/acid trifecta that can be a bit unpredictable and requires a huge amount of sugar to get the jelly to set. But much to my delight I discovered a citrus pectin that gels due to a reaction between the pectin and a solution of calcium carbonate. No sugar is required to get a gel and it's set is very consistent and reliable. The fruit juice sets to jelly as the mixture cools; no spoon testing required to determine if it will set!

So rather than talk about how to make traditional apple pectin jelly, I am going to walk through the process of jelly making using citrus pectin and calcium carbonate. The product that I use is called Pomona Universal Pectin. It is a little pricey, but when you consider how much sugar can be eliminated from a recipe and the fact that you can get 22 cups of jelly out of a box, it is really quite a good deal!

For our family wholesome and nutritious is tantamount. What we put in our body needs to nourish and strengthen us. We like sweets as well as the next person, but not at the expense of our health and immune system. So I was thrilled when I found a pectin that doesn't require sugar to set the jelly! (Ball makes a no sugar needed pectin, but it has dextrose in it and I am not a fan so I won't use it, and the set was never spectacular in my experience). Now I can have lovely fruit spread for bagels and sandwiches without having to poison myself with sugar!

The name of the pectin is Pomona's Universal Pectin. It has been around awhile, but the price always put me off and after my experience with Ball's "no sugar needed" pectin, I was reluctant to give it a try. Then Healthy Home Market went out of business and was selling everything a 75% off so I bought a box. I used it  the next day and was so thrilled with the results that I went back and bought every box that was on the shelf!

What makes Pomona so great?  No sweetener is necessary, since the jelling action come from a combination of citrus pectin, calcium and citric acid. Of course, you can sweeten the jelly to your personal taste with the sweetener of your choice. The directions cover a number of different ways you can sweeten your jelly, everything from no sweetener to stevia, agave, honey and yes should you choose to do so, sugar.  It also can be used to make jello. But hold on! There is more good news! You can make as many batches at once as you like!  Ball pectin cannot be doubled, but must be jellied one batch at a time because of the fickle nature of apple pectin. But Pomona Universal Pectin is made from citrus pectin and uses calcium to create the jell so it will consistently jell no matter how many batches you put in the jelly pot. Also one box of pectin will make 22 8 oz. jars of jelly, where Ball pectin renders only 8- 8 oz. jars per box. And if that isn't enough, there is no need for a jelly thermometer, no boiling to the jelly point and testing for set, you just add the directed amount of calcium to the fruit juice, mix the pectin with the sweetener and when the juice and calcium come to a boil; add the sweetener/pectin blend stir until dissolved and return to a boil for one minute. No need to check for set, just ladle into sterilized jars, clean rims, adjust lids and process in a water bath canner for 10 minutes. The jelly will set when cool.

So now that I have expounded on the virtues of Pomona pectin, I will share my recipe for Blueberry Lime Jelly!

                                                     Blueberry Lime Jelly

One recipe makes 4 cups of jelly.

4 cups of rendered blueberry juice
1/4 cup freshly squeezed lime juice
the zest of one lime (I always use organic limes, conventionally grown citrus is sprayed with a fungicide that won't completely wash off)
1/2 cup honey
4 tsp. pectin
4 tsp. calcium

For each batch of jelly that renders 4 cups, use 3 cups of mashed fruit and extract the juice by boiling the fruit with 1 cup of bottled apple juice or other juice that won't compete with the flavor of your fruit.(I use organic fruit and organic apple juice but the choice is yours).

Crush the fresh berries and add apple juice. Cook over medium heat to extract the juice from the berries.

I only use organic citrus zest since commercially grown citrus is
 sprayed heavily with pesticides and fungicides that won't come completely
off the skins when washed.

I have a plane zester that I swear by. The zest comes off the fruit in fine strands
and leaves all the white pith on the lime. 

I use organic apple juice, but any juice flavor you want can be used, just
 be sure that the flavor of the juice compliments the fruit.

I usually make 3 or 4 batches at a time since the pectin works on multiple batches. Really, who only makes 4 jars of jelly at a time? I usually make enough jars to fill the canner.

Once the juice has been extracted, ladle the cooked fruit pulp and juice into a strainer lined with cheese cloth.

Strain cooked fruit pulp and juice through a double layer of
cheese cloth suspended over a pan by a mesh. strainer

 Allow the juice to drip into a bowl or pan until it stops actively dripping. Then pull up the corners of the cheesecloth, twist the drawn up corners until tight against the pulp and twist and squeeze the remaining juice through the strainer until all the juice is out of the pulp. The total amount of juice needed is 4 cups of juice per batch.

Allow the juice to drip until it slows perceptibly

When the juice stops dripping by itself, draw up the corners of the cheesecloth
and twist tight against to pulp. Twist, press and squeeze until all the
 possible juice is removed then compost the pulp.

Remove the pectin and the calcium from the box, (the smaller packet is the calcium). In a small jar put the contents of the packet and add 1/2 cup water, put on a lid and shake until powder is completely dissolved in water.  You will be using  4 tsp. of calcium per batch of jelly.

Mix the packet of calcium with 1/2 cup water and shake until dissolved.
Any leftover calcium liquid should be stored in the fridge.

Put the juice in your jelly pot, add 4 tsp. calcium, 1/4 cup of freshly squeezed lime juice the zest of 1 lime, per batch, and heat to a boil. While the juice is heating, mix together well, 1/2 cup honey per batch of jelly  ( you can add up to 1 cup of honey if 1/2 cup, isn't sweet enough) and 4 tsp. pectin.

Bring the juice to a full boil, add sweetener/pectin mixture and stir vigorously 1-2 minutes until dissolved. Once the liquid is at a full boil, take the pot off the heat an ladle into sterilized jars. using a spoon carefully remove any scum or bubbles from the surface of the jelly.

 Clean the rims with a clean cloth, adjust lids and process in a water bath canner in boiling water for 10 minutes. Remove jars with a jar lifter and place on the counter to cool. The jelly will set once the jars and liquid are completely cool. Could take overnight to set.

Wipe the rim of the jars with a clean damp cloth, then apply the flat part of a
two part lid that has been in boiling water. Add the band and adjust to just finger tight.

*Note: If you are used to regular ball pectin you will be surprised at how few jars of jelly you get per batch. The reason is that you aren't using 7 to nine cups of sugar per batch, so you are basically getting one cup of jelly per cup of juice. It is healthy and practically guilt free!

All the jelly I have made with this pectin has come out perfectly. There has been no loose or runny jelly, just firm spreadable jelly that is lightly sweet so that all the lovely fruit flavor comes through. If you try the pectin, or the recipe, please pop back to my blog and tell me what you think!

What 40 Years of Growing Tomatoes has Taught Me

Everyone has their own way of growing tomatoes. There those who trellis or stake, some that use store bought cages and others who make their own. Everyone has their own special way of feeding or caring for the plants once they are planted. I have no intention of telling people that they are not growing their tomatoes the "right way" way, but there are a few things I see people doing which limits their tomato production. So in this blog post I am going share a few of my tomato growing secrets and talk about some important things to know about growing tomatoes.

Since it is past seed starting time I will skip past that in this post and go straight to getting them in the ground and caring for them. Every year at tomato planting time I break out my fishing gear and head to my favorite spot to fish for fertilizer. I don't care what I catch, but I don't take large or desirable fish out of the lake. I will let someone who will eat them have those. What I want are the small guys and bottom feeders that no one will miss. Pumpkin Seed, small bluegill and catfish are what I hope to catch. Once I have a bucket full of fish I will head home and begin to plant my tomatoes. I dig a deep hole and place a piece of fish at the bottom of the hole. Then I trim off the bottom set of leaves or two depending on the size of the tomato seedling, and plant the tomato in the ground   on top of the piece of fish then I cover them with dirt above where I trimmed off the leaves. Tomato can be planted deep in the soil. They will grow roots all along their stems which will  help to anchor it and draw up more nutrients making for a stronger tomato plant. The fish is easy to access nutrition for the tomato while it is establishing in its permanent location.

Readily available natural fertilizer to give my tomato the best start in life possible.

Half a Pumpkin Seed fish at the bottom of the tomato hole will provide easy to access nutrients and help prevent transplant shock.

This seedling is ready for planting. It is large enough to stand up to some wind and driving rain and has plenty of leaf branches.

Here I have removed the bottom couple leaf branches so that I can plant it deeply in the soil.

The plant is deeply planted and will grow roots all along the stem under the soil to provide stability and better uptake of nutrients.

Here is what the plant looks like 6 weeks after planting. Healthy and laden with ripening fruit.



Once the tomato is given a nice deep hole and some easy to access nutrients, the next thing to consider is how to keep the plant healthy. Here in North Carolina, Early Blight is a real problem. Early Blight is a soil borne fungus that causes the leave to yellow and wither and will reduce the plants production substantially

Early Blight fungus takes a perfectly health plant and reduces it to yellowing leaves and bare vines.
(Photo from Google search no photo credits given)

Early Blight will also reduce production and cause misshapen  or small fruit
(Photo from Google search no photo credits given)

It is very simple to prevent Early Blight. Since it is a soil borne fungus, all that must be done to prevent it is to provide a deep mulch or ground cover  under the tomato plants that keeps soil from splashing up on the leaves.  I use a landscaping cloth that easily passes water, bu prevents splash. It has the added benefit of suppressing weeds. Most years I also put a layer of wood mulch on top of the cloth to further prevent splash and help to hold in moisture.

Tomatoes prefer to be watered at their roots. Although this isn't always possible, if it is it will help to prevent fusarium wilt and powdery mildew. If you have these problems, then it is important to water at the roots and never touch the leaves of the plant when they are wet. 

Tomato Hornworms can wreak havoc on your plants as well. There are a few tried and true organic ways to eliminate them. You can spray your plants with Bt, (Bacillus Thuringiensis, trade name Dipel) at the first sign of damage. It is a naturally occurring bacterium, that paralyzes the digestive system of leaf eating caterpillars. It is safe for humans animals and beneficial insects with the exception of butterfly caterpillars, so be sure to avoid getting the Bt on the plants where butterfly caterpillar feed, like dill, parsley and milkweed. I don't use Bt on my tomatoes, but I do use it on anything in the cabbage family since looper worms are difficult to control any other way. The reason I choose not to use it on my tomatoes is because it is easy to see where the worm are at work and pick them off and destroy them,. This given me one less area I need to spray. The only time I leave the caterpillars alone is when they have little white cocoons on their backs. The natural predator of the Tomato Hornworn is a parasitic wasp that lays its young in the back of the Hornworm. The young feed on the caterpillar, killing it and creating more predators for the worms. 

Tomato Hornworm
(Photo from Google search no photo credits given)

Remove but do not destroy the caterpillar that has these cocoons on its back.

Now that the tomato is protected from disease and pests, the next concern is how to increase productivity and quality of the tomato fruits. Tomatoes are heavy feeders so I feed mine a side dressing of compost when they begin to bear fruit and feed them with a diluted solution of fish emulsion as a foliar feeding and at the roots every few weeks, plus bonemeal every two weeks,once the plants start putting out flowers. Feeding is important, but the plants will really excel when they are judicially pruned to channel the strength of the plant to fruit production instead of spending energy on foliage. It also helps light reaches the fruit and helps the bees to find the flowers to pollinate. 

I know that there is much talk in gardening circles about pinching "suckers" to increase production. But it is important to understand what the sucker really is. It is said that little leaflets that appear in the crotch of the stem and tomato branch are the "suckers" that tomato growers are encouraged to pinch, but if you pay attention to the habits of the tomato plant you will see that this in incorrect. In truth, the leaflet in the crotch will become a fruiting branch and the leafy branch that it is attached to to the stem of the tomato is actually the part that need to be removed.  If you look closely you will notice that as the leaflet in the crotch grows, the leafing branch below will bend downward. This leafing branch will never produce flowers and should be removed, not the leaflet.

 In the following series of photos I will plead my case and you can see if you agree with me. Below is a photo of the stem and leafing branch with the "sucker" growing in the crotch. 

It has been said that the "sucker" should be pinched, but in doing so you are actually removing the fruiting stem and leaving an non producting leafy branch.

The leafy branch, "non bearing leaf" that is pointing down will never produce fruit. It should be removed to allow for the fruiting branch to have the energy to produce more fruit.

When the leaflet in the crotch is a couple inches tall and the leafing branch is beginning to point downwards it is time to prune off the leafy branch leaving the center leaflet to become a fruiting branch.

The bottom circle shows that this is the leaflet growing in the crotch, the top circle shows the forming flower spurs. If you had pinched this as a "sucker" you would have reduced your production by 4 to 6 tomatoes for each one you pinched out.

The proof is in the pudding... What was originally thought of as a "sucker" that takes strength from the plant and reduces production, is actually a fruiting spur and the leafy branch that would be left if you pinched the spur is what should be removed to give strength to the spur.

Hopefully this is not confusing. I have tried to lay it out clearly, but if anyone doesn't understand, leave a comment and I will try to clarify.

Well, I have probably talked enough about tomatoes today so I will stop here and continue next time with how I increase productivity in Determinate tomato varieties. Hope to see you then!

As always I love comments. They help me to feel like I am not just talking to myself :) Please feel free to tell me what you think or just to say "howdy!"

Some Thoughts on Tomato Varieties

This post is overdue. My spring was full and blogging unfortunately took a backseat to an array of other things. So here we go, better late than never...

Tomatoes are serious business here at Heart's Ease Cottage. We only eat fresh tomatoes in season, since in the off seasons even the organically grown tomatoes at the store are a sad lot. So we really  look forward to the day we can eat our fresh, homegrown, warm off the vine 'maters.

We start our tomatoes from seed in our indoor seed starting system. I have my favorites that I plant every year and usually try a new variety or two in search of new favorites. There are 2 kinds of tomatoes, determinate and indeterminate. Determinate varieties ripen heavy flushes of fruit at once and then after a few flushes will die off. Indeterminate varieties will produce less fruit at once, but with proper pruning and feeding will produce consistently over a long season.

For preserving I stick with the meaty Roma style tomato. San Marzano and Amish Paste tomatoes are my stand-bys. San Marzano is a determinate variety, as all Romas are, so they put on a lot of fruit that ripens in flushes, usually 2 large flushes and one smaller one and then the plants are done. You can eek out a few tomatoes from there on but it is really not worth the bother or the garden space to try and squeeze any more out from the vines. San Marzano is a heavy yielder of uniformly sized fruit, that is great for drying, canning as sauce and stewed tomatoes, and also works very well for salsa and relish. Amish Paste tomato is determinate, with thick, blocky tomatoes that have dense flesh and very few seeds. They make wonderful sauce and paste as well as dried tomatoes. Their one draw back is that they do not produce as many tomatoes per plant as the San Marzano. This is probably because the dense fruit takes longer to ripen. You will get one solid flush and a smaller second flush and then the plant is done. I would have to plant about twice as many Amish Paste Tomatoes to get the same amount of fruit as I get from San Marzano. So I use the Amish Paste tomatoes for specific purposes, paste and dried tomato powder, and grow San Marzano for the bulk of my preserving needs. I do have a way to extend the growing season of a determinate tomato variety, but I will have to write another blog post on that to keep this post from becoming a book. I promise I will share this technique in a future post!

San Marzano is a good Roma Type Tomato for sauce, paste and drying
(Photo from Google search had no Photo credit posted)

Amish Paste Tomato is a blocky, meaty tomato good for paste, sauce and drying
(Photo from Google search had no photo credit)

Indeterminate tomatoes do not make very good candidates for preserving. They have too much water and too many seeds. But they make great tomatoes for slicing and fresh eating. There are some indeterminate, open pollinated slicers, but I usually don't grow them. I grow heirloom and open pollinated varieties for many of the vegetables in our garden so that I can save seed, but since I grow a lot of varieties of tomatoes, I can't save the seed, so I grow a mixed bag of hybrid and open-pollinated tomatoes for fresh eating.

Many of the open pollinated and heirloom tomatoes are large, juicy fruits that can weigh a pound or more a piece and take forever to ripen.  I don't like wet tomatoes for sandwiches because I hate soggy bread, so I prefer to grow a smaller 4-6 ounce hybrid tomato that gets ripe fast, fits neatly on my sandwich without overhang and won't make my bread soggy. I do grow heirloom varieties for eating straight off the vine like and apple or for slicing as a side dish with a sprinkle of basil strips and some freshly cracked pepper.... my mouth is watering as I type... but most of my slicing tomatoes are hybrid. Hybrids are also less prone to Cat Facing, and splitting since they don't suck up so much water.

So what varieties of indeterminate tomatoes do I grow? I am very fond of Celebrity (hybrid) for sandwiches, it is a nice 4-6 oz. tomato with a thin tender skin. I also grow German Pink (Open Pollinated), Black Cherokee (Open Pollinated) and some variety of orange tomato. Of course there is the Sweet 100 (heirloom) cherry tomato that produces quantities of sweet, "pop in your mouth while weeding goodness" (only need one of these babies...), and Yellow Pear (heirloom), and the Rutger (Open Pollinated), an 8 oz determinate slicer  that is has good flavor and not too many seeds. Others that I adore but haven't planted this year are the Currant tomato, which is a slightly larger than a pea sized tomato that is a powerhouse of tomato flavor in a tiny package. Warning this volunteers prolifically and where ever you last planted it is going to have a mass of volunteers the following year, brace yourself and treat them as weeds except for the one or two you want to transplant for this years consumption). Indigo Rose for it's beautiful almost black color and anathocyanins that have proved to help prevent cancer, I also really enjoy the heirloom Pineapple tomato. It is delicious, but often split and beaks on the vine because they take up so much water, so I only grow it on occasion.

Celebrity is a hybrid, 4-6 oz. slicer with good taste and thin skin
(Photo found on Google search not photo credit given)

Rutger is a determinate  open pollinated slicer. It has a good flavor and size but is not a long season variety
(Photo found on Google search no photo credit given)

Indigo Rose_ lovely and delicious 

Tomato varieties I don't bother to grow: Mortgage Lifter, it is so huge I can't get it out of my tomato cage without great effort and it is sloppy wet, mealy and won't keep, I don't grow Beefsteak for the same reason. Big Boy isn't prolific enough to give it garden space. I don't grow Grape tomatoes because they are shaped like a torpedo and are a choking hazard, (personal issue...).

So what do I do with all these tomatoes??  I will tell you in an upcoming post that will include some of my favorite fast and easy recipes.  But for now I am trying to catch up on overdue blog posts so I will end this here and start my next post and what 40 years of growing tomatoes has taught me.