Category Archives: general

2019–A lousy year for tomatoes

This year was a lousy year for tomatoes for me. Other gardeners have said as much too. Except for one raised bed with 8 tomato plants that are my salvation, the other 17 tomato plants in a different section have not produced well.

Why I asked? A couple of things come to mind for me.

First, we got a late snow on May 20th. The first frost free date is suppose to be May 15th here, but not this year. Plus our spring was cold. That caused me to to put the transplant in the ground on May 25th in wall of waters. I could have transplanted them earlier in the wall of waters but I didn’t have the heart to put them out earlier. It’s hard to do when you’ve started them from seeds 6 weeks earlier and it’s cold or freezing outside. I didn’t want them to stress or even die in the cold nights.

The previous year was we had a very warm spring and I was able to get out the tomato transplants in the ground on May 6th-quite a difference 3 weeks can make in a short growing season.

The second thing that comes to mind was we had a hot June where the temperatures were above 92°F for much of the month. Any temperatures over 92°F will cause tomato blossom drop during the pollination process. The plants did flower and then dropped their blossoms. Pollination temperatures are critical for setting tomato fruit-we want the temps to be below 92°F. After they set their fruit, temperature is not a big factor and the fruit will grow.

The third thing is the monsoons were late. They normally come at the end of the first week in July but didn’t materialize until the end of July and then only for a short period of time. The monsoons stopped and it got too hot again for tomato pollination-hence more blossom drop in July.

Lastly, the soil in the beds were not as good where the 17 tomato plants are in. They are in a newer section where the soil is not as rich. This pointed out to me (again) the need to improve the soil with more compost.

Now the temps are beautiful but basically our season has slowed down and will end for tomatoes whenever we get that first freeze which is between now and October 15th. So before that night comes, when I hear a freeze is eminent, I will pick those few green tomatoes and bring them inside to ripen. For tips on ripening tomatoes inside, go to my post here.

It was a disappointing season for tomatoes here in my garden. How about the rest of you? How did your tomato plants do this year?

Mother nature is sometimes not so generous to gardeners!

 

Snake in the chicken coop!

Well, well, well, look what I found this week in the chicken coop! A bull snake trying to eat an egg but I got it before he did! Now I check a few times a day if I’m home to make sure it doesn’t get an egg. I like the snake around the coop as it keeps the mice population down but I guess this egg was an easier meal to catch!

Peaches galore!

This was the a great year for peach harvests. A friend called me and told me they picked over 200 lbs of peaches off of their two peach trees! The tree variety is called Contender, and she bought them from Tooley’s Trees up in Truchas. She invited me to come and get some and I took about 15 lbs of peaches.

I made two wonderful galettes with peaches and raspberries. I used Deborah Madison’s recipe for the galette crust from her Seasonal Fruit Desserts book. Really simple to do and the best crust ever-light and flaky!

I also made 24 jars of peach-raspberry jam with honey–Delicious!

The rest of the fresh peaches were eaten within the week! What a treat!

Garlic Chives

Garlic chives are different than regular chives.  In Chinese cuisine, they are considered a delicacy where they are used as garnish on soups, in salads and stirred fried dishes. You use them as you would regular chives chopping the leaves up for these dishes. They taste like mild garlic vs regular chives, which have an oniony taste. This year they are producing beautiful flowers as well.

I recently tried the flowers instead of the leaves in my Flowers Good Enough to Eat class I had out here at the farm. I tried them with other herbs in a sherry vinaigrette for tomatoes and the subtle nuance in flavor was wonderful. A big plus is how beautiful they are when flowering in my herb garden and they are fairly drought tolerant.

The recipe comes from the late Amy Hetager who was one of the founders of Home Grown New Mexico here in Santa Fe. Here is the recipe for the vingarette and salad: AMY’s TOMATO SALAD

Tomatoes just starting to come in!

I live for my tomatoes out of my garden each year!

Most of my tomatoes are just starting to ripen. There are many more on the vine in various stages of green! So every few days I get a few ripe tomatoes. Just enough for a Caprese salad every few nites. I’m in heaven!

I have many standard tomatoes but a couple of new ones that are suppose to take 70-80 days are already ripening at 60 days. I love them all so far. They may make my all-star tomato list at the end of the season which is really hard to do as I am really, really picky-they must be VERY flavorful. Here are some new varieties that have ripened so far..

New to me is Large Barred Boar (from Wild Boar Farms) which is much larger than their regular Barred Boar with the same great flavor. It is burgundy color with green stripes. It has a really rich complex flavor.

 

Another new tomato is Grosse Verte Rose (from Secret Seed Cartel seed company) which is a dusky pink color and sweet, sweet, sweet and about 12-14 oz big. A winner for sure.

 

 

Tonite I got the first two Cherokee Carbon tomatoes and they look beautiful. No cracks, smooth skin and a cross between a Purple Cherokee and the Carbon tomato. I normally grow heirlooms or open-pollinated varieties but I’m not against hybrids if they taste great. This one is a hybrid and I’ll let you know later how the taste is. They are about 14-16 oz and look beautiful.

Also new to me is a tomato named Santorini from the Greek Island of Santorini. (duh). They were one of the first to ripen and are a smaller bright red tomato with the flavor of an old-fashion tomato. I like them and the fact that they were so early is good too. Sorry I don’t have a pic-I ate them all.

So that’s the report so far on the NEW varieties of tomatoes that have started to ripen. There are many different varieties that are still green and for those of you waiting, don’t despair. With this heat I’m sure they will be ripening soon.

If you don’t recognize these varieties it’s because I try tomatoes from many different places and like to turn people on to new varieties that are awesome! If your local nurseries doesn’t carry them next year, you’ll have to start them from seed.

I’ll post later as I have more to report on. Let’s hope for a long warm fall where all of them will ripen!

 

 

Cylindra and Chiogga beet harvest

Chiogga beets on the left and Cylindra beets on the right

I just harvested my beets I planted in the spring and got 13 lbs! I grew two heirloom varieties- Cylindra and Chiogga.

The Cylindra beet is originally from Denmark although the seeds are available in the states as well. They are a rather long, sweet buttery beet which is great when sliced. It is a dark red and actually grows a little out of the soil so they are easy to see when they are ready for harvest. One of my favorite varieties of beets.

CHiogga beets are striped insideThe Chiogga (pronounced kee-OH-gee-uh) is an Italian heirloom that was establish in the 1840s. It is a round beet that has beautiful pink and white concentric stripes inside and the flavor is sweet as well-another favorite of mine.

I’m going to start more from seed for a fall harvest. Anybody got some great recipes for beets?

When can we take off the row covers!?

Wait a few more days before removing row covers

I don’t know about you but I’m anxious about taking off the row covers from our tomatoes. I’m tired of waiting! I’ve been waiting, waiting, waiting for this HOT HOT weather to leave and even though we’ve had some rain, it is not coming from Mexico and hence it is NOT the monsoons so we get some rain and then the heat comes on again. Today is still hot and then the temperatures are suppose to drop off dramatically over the next week. Could this be the beginning of a late monsoon season? I hope so. Meanwhile I had decided to take them off on this coming Monday and was sitting on the picnic table in the garden and saw the dreaded leafhopper jump on my computer (thank god it can’t give my computer a virus)! So now I am still waiting a few more days till the rain is consistent and the intense heat leaves us (which is what the leafhopper loves). So if you haven’t taken them off (and I hope not yet) then leave them on a few more days till these monsoons really come in. BLAH! I will post when I take off the covers-just not yet… WAAA!

Salmonberries

If you live in the Northwest, you probably heard of Salmonberries but I have not heard of them here in Santa Fe. My neighbor has a Salmonberry bush that produced heavily this year and I got some.

At first I thought it was a gold raspberry but it is not.  It’s a beautiful berry similar to a raspberry but more delicate in flavor and is gold-salmon-pinkish color.

The salmonberry, Rubus spectabilis is native to the US Northwest moist coastal regions and some parts of Europe. I wouldn’t think they would thrive in our drier conditions and yet here is one and it is not in a wet area. Traditionally, the berries were eaten by Native Americans with salmon or salmon roe, hence the name. It is sometimes called the Joffelberry as well. What a wonderful treat! They don’t freeze well so we just gobbled them all up!

leeks gone wild!

I grew leeks for the first time last fall and didn’t harvest them before the seed heads formed about a month ago. I read they are too woody at that stage and I can leave them to flower.  If I do this, I’ll have many volunteers next year. Well that sounded good so I let them go.

The flower is gorgeous and attracts many beneficial bugs. Glad I left them in…

Apricots galore!

It’s apricot season and I’ve been picking lots! It’s unusual to get apricots here in Santa Fe (about every 7 years for me) as usually a late freeze comes in spring and freezes all the blossoms, but not this year!

I have a wonderful apricot jam recipe that has St. Germain’s liquor in it. St Germain’s is a liquor made out of elderberries and is delicious by itself but when added to apricot jam while cooking, it gives a wonderful floral nuance to the jam that is delicious. So I am excited to make more this year as I’m down to my last jar of apricot jam. The recipe can be found here.

Wow, what a fruit season it’s been so far-first mega strawberries, then thousands of cherries, now apricots and my neighbor has salmonberries now and coming up right behind will be raspberries and blackberries in another month and then apples in the fall.

AND we haven’t even gotten to the veggies being produced right now but that’s for another post!

 

Location change for BEE Class tomorrow!

Hello all attendees- We’ve sent you a notice from Eventbrite about a location change for tomorrow’s class. This post hopefully will catch any of you that haven’t read your email! We look forward to a great presentation so please still come!
Due to a snafu with SF Home Builders Assoc, we’ve had to move (at the last minute) the venue to the following location. Same time. Different place.

LOCATION: Jet Stream Energy
19 Plaza La Prensa, Santa Fe, NM 87507

DIRECTIONS: (you can also get the directions from google map if you prefer)

South on Cerrillos to Beckner – turn right. Follow service drive and turn right at The New Mexican.  Turn left at first stop sign. First business on right has solar satellite dishes – turn right into parking lot.

Abundant year for Cherries too! Check out this cherry pitter

My friend, Bob Z has an abundance of Bing cherries on his tree this year. I went by yesterday and helped pick some. Anybody who knows Bob, call him if you want to go pick cherries-pick some for yourself.

I took home 6 lbs of cherries. I use to use a cherry pitter that you did one at a time but a few years ago I got a new NORPRO Deluxe Cherry Pitter that makes it much easier and faster to pit cherries. It took less than 10 minutes to do 3 lbs! Above is a video of it in action.

Native Bee class

Here is a class that I’m going to bee at this coming Sunday and I can’t wait! We have more native bees than honeybees and need to encourage them to visit our gardens. I own one of these native bees houses and they really do attract them. Hope some of you can make it. There are still some spaces left for attendees. It’s sponsored through homegrownnmexico.org

_______________________________________

Sunday, July 7th
12 noon to 2 pm

Get the Buzz on Native Bees!
Do you like melons, pumpkins, and squash? Well, you should thank the native bees! Honeybees might get the most attention, but native bees really are the major pollinators of food crops. Did you know that there are more than 500 species of native bees just in New Mexico alone? Do you know the differences between the native bee and the honeybee?

Come to the Native Bee class July 7 and learn all about these often overlooked pollinators. Bob Zimmerman, retired biology teacher, will show you how to provide a bee friendly yard for native bees and how to make a native bee house to encourage them to hang around your garden!

Instructors: Bob Zimmerman
Location: Santa Fe Area Home Builders Association building
2520-B Camino Entrada (next to Habitat ReStore on south side of building) • Santa Fe
Fee: $5 for members/$10 for non-member

Please sign up through Eventbrite below:

Eventbrite - Native Bee Houses

STRAWBERRIES-a bumper crop this year!

June bearing strawberries

My strawberries are going nuts this year. This is the biggest crop I’ve ever had in 25 years! I think we’ve harvested about 6 GALLONS of them so far and still more to go. I think it’s because of all the moisture we had this winter and spring AND the Azomite mineral supplement I gave them last year. I’ve taken them to parties, given them to friends who froze some, and I’m am going to make some galettes and strawberry-balsamic jam with some of them and trading Bob’s cherries for some as well (I hope-are you listening Bob?)

Major project/Weed control

Last year’s major project in my garden was framing with wood my raised beds which was great as the beds don’t wash away when it rains now. This year, with all the weeds on steroids, I decided to do something about it. I’m sick of constantly weeding my paths around my raised beds. It takes the fun out of gardening. It is part of gardening that I hate especially in a bad year. Inside the beds are good with no weeds but the paths were horrible. Janine the WWOOFer actually weeded all the paths around the raised beds. So after the paths were weeded and cleaned up, I got landscape cloth (a 20 year guarantee heavy type) and cut to fit and put it all on the paths in 2 of my 3 sections. Each section is 1000 square feet. The last section will be done as well starting today. Then I put 3-4 inches wood chips that I had Spotted Owl here in Santa Fe deliver on top of the fabric. I know some people say the cloth doesn’t work but I had it down in my giant pumpkin patch some years ago for many years and it worked great. Any weeds that come from seeds dropped in the wood chips never get thru the fabric from the top and are easily pulled and nothing grows underneath in the darkness. So I’m hoping this greatly reduces my weeding. A lot of work to save a lot of work in weeding.