Category Archives: ‘THE TOMATO LADY’

End of 2025-veggie garden review

We tore out all but the chard and perennial fruit plants in the garden. I can hardly believe the Argentata chard is still doing good as of Dec 9th in the garden what with the nighttime temps getting down into the mid-high 20’s and only the rainwater now. It has green leaves with white ribs that are very tender. All the other chard are gone now.

But now on with the review!

I got a late start in sowing seeds this year due to us being in Europe in spring. When we planted seeds inside on March 28, it was a full 2-3 weeks later than I normally start seeds so this affected the harvest. This year in 2026, I’m going o drop some tomatoes and grow some others alongside my favorites. It’s fun to experiment and perhaps I’ll find some new winners in 2026.

 

PEPPERS
I thought I might not get peppers this year due to the fact I normally start pepper seeds inside in early March as it take 8-10 weeks to be big enough to plant outside by the time the frosts are gone. I wasn’t too far off as we had a less than spectacular pepper season with most producing only a few peppers before the season ended. But one outstanding variety, Sweet Calabrian Caviar pepper produced exceptionally well and saved the pepper season. Next year we are planning to be here during seed starting season. So, Poblano, Lava Red, Jimmy Nardello, and three other pepper varieties only got a few peppers. Over the years, I’ve come to like sweet peppers more than hot. I like to grill or saute them. Because they’ve done well in previous years, YES to all for next year.

TOMATOES
Surprisingly we did pretty well with most of the tomatoes this year despite the late start. The plants didn’t get as tall (4+’) but most produced well. We planted them outside on May 28 due to some late freezes and they were only 4-5 inches when they went in the ground. 8 yes and 5 no. Read on for details.

CHERRY TOMATOES
Super Sweet 100-red cherry tomato-very prolific and very sweet-good continuous harvest throughout the season. YES for next year.

Black Cherry-dark purple cherry tomato-very prolific and very sweet, smoky flavor-good continuous harvest throughout the season. YES for next year.

Sungold-yellow cherry tomato-very small, disappointing, average harvest. Fruit were too small for me although the flavor is always very sweet. Looking for a larger yellow cherry tomato for 2026. NO for next year

EARLY SEASON TOMATOES
Large Barred Boar-I’ve always like the flavor of this mahogany colored with green metallic stripes tomato BUT it does not have a long shelf life once picked. You must eat them within a few days or they turn soft-too soft. For 2026, I’m  looking for a dark tomato with a longer shelf life and great flavor. Let me know if you know one. NO for next year.

Sunny Goliath-yellow medium size tomato-my second year growing them. Nice tomato but not very prolific both years. NO for next year.

Goliath Pio-red medium size tomato with little to no cracks-Great old fashioned flavor with balance of sweet-acid. Always a star, My biggest producer this year. It did not disappoint this year-good for canning or fresh eating.YES for next year.

MID SEASON TOMATOES
Black Sea Man-black/purplish-75 days to harvest
-med-small size tomato with good flavor and good  production.Going to try other black tomatoes this coming year. NO for next year.

Cherokee Carbon-Purple with green shoulders-75 days to harvest
-med size-tomato with good flavor and average production. Unusual this year but perhaps because they got in so late, they didn’t produce as well as previous years but it is a winner. YES for next year.

Cherokee Purple-purple color-75 days to harvest
-Perhaps because they got in so late, they didn’t produce as well as previous years but it is also always a winner. YES for next year.

Pantano Romanesco-Red-70-75 days to harvest.Red medium size tomato-old fashioned flavor but didn’t produce that well. I had others that did much better. NO for next year.

Jaune Flamme-orange-70 days to harvest
-Can’t say enough good things about this one. Outstanding flavor, very prolific. YES for next year.

LATE SEASON TOMATOES

Lucky Cross-yellow with pink blush inside-74 days to harvest-Every year either Lucky Cross or Virginia Sweet do well. I like both but Lucky Cross didn’t do as well this year so NO for next year.

Paul Robeson-black/brick color-75 days to harvest-exceptional flavor-wins all kinds of tomato tasting awards. YES for next year.

Big Zac-red-80 days to harvest
. Not very productive this year and fruit were a little smaller than the large fruit they truly are. Excellent old-fashioned flavor. NO for next year.

Virginia Sweet-yellow with red blush inside-80 days to harvest. Did fantastic this year, producing many very large-1.5 to 2 lb tomatoes. A real treat. YES for next year.
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CUCUMBERS-A bumper crop of 2 of the 3 cucumber varieties I grew this year. So much so, I got tired of making pickles and pickle relish. We couldn’t eat them or can them fast enough.

Poona Kheera-Our favorite fresh eating cuke. A yellow cuke that did exceptional well-sweet melon flavor that we use for fresh eating only. Good producer. Non bitter. YES for next year.

Boothbys Blonde-Another great yellow cuke-I use this variety for making bread and butter pickles and pickle relish. Good producer this year. YES for next year.

Salt and Pepper-new variety for me this year. Not a good producer and small. NO for next year.

Parisian-I use this variety for making cornichon pickles but I still have many jars I canned from last year, so I didn’t grow any this season but I love this one, especially if you like Cornichons, which mean tiny tart pickles.

 

RADISHES-Two new varieties this year and one I always grow
Pusa Gulabi and Pusa Jamuni-I loved these two and I don’t love radishes so that says a lot. Both were great flavor and look beautiful. They are not round but long. Seeds from Baker Heirloom. YES for next year.

Watermelon radish-I love this variety too but it takes a little longer till harvest. YES for next year.

 

PEAS
Super Sweet Sugar Snap pea- I normally try to grow these in a pot in SPRING- I say ‘try’ as the plants and harvest are usually small but this year I grew them in the garden in the FALL in a raised bed. What a difference that made! Super big 5′ plants and great producer! YES for next year.

 

CAULIFLOWER
I grew both orange and white varieties and both did well in the spring/summer. In the previous year, we had a hot summer and I tried a purple cauliflower that didn’t do well in the heat, so I stuck with the other two this year not knowing if we would have a hot summer.
Freedom-white variety-love this. YES for next year.

Cheddar-orange variety-love this. YES for next year.

 

CHARD
Argentata-a big winner with the white stalks soft like butter when cooked. Very cold and heat tolerant.
YES for next year.

Orange and Ruby varieties-both grew great and looked good together when cooked. YES for next year.

 

CARROTS
-All carrots did well this year.
Dragon Purple
-Purple outside with orange inside. YES for next year.

Atomic Red-Red outside and orange inside. YES for next year.

Black Nebula-Black inside and out. Makes the most beautiful, tasty purple soup. YES for next year.

Scarlet Nantes-standard orange inside and outside but big! YES for next year.

 

SQUASH-I grew a yellow, bumpy summer squash called Friulana-looks kind of yellow green in this photo and Butternut winter squash-both did well. YES for next year.

 

BEETS
Cylindra
-deep red cylinder shaped- grows upright out of soil-easy to pull. Cuts into nice even disks-nice flavor. YES for next year.

Badger Flame-beautiful reddish ,orange-yellow outside with yellow inside. Exceptional flavor. YES for next year.

Chiogga-I can’t resist these red outside with concentric circles of red/white inside-like a bullseye.YES for next year.

 

LETTUCES– I grow many varieties under 30% row cover this year outside starting in
early spring. All did well under shade.
Santoro–butterhead
-My favorite lettuce-YES for next year.

Yugoslavian Red-butterhead-good cold tolerant-YES for next year.

Salanova-butterhead-red and green-good cold tolerant-YES for next year.

Oakleaf-good heat tolerant-YES for next year.

 

NOTE:Fruits and flowers will be in separate posts coming up.

 

 

Treat Early Blight when it shows up

Early Blight is a fungal disease that attacks tomato plants starting on the bottom leaves of the plant and works it’s way upwards.  The leaves start turning yellow and get blotchy with brown areas. If left unchecked, it can take over your plant killing it although it won’t die immediately and there are things you can do to reduce it.

Where does it come from? It comes from water splashing soil up onto the lower leaves. The culprit is a bad soil fungus (there are good soil fungus as well).

But before I write about how to treat this disease, I do this first. I always trim off the lower branches so they are not touching any soil and I put straw under each plant so the soil can’t splash up on the tomato leaves. In fact I put straw over the whole bed as the tomato plants get bigger. Water splashing up from hand watering your plants or even rain can splash soil up on the lower branches. But I never cut off branches that have flowers! Flowers=tomatoes! The picture above shows a plant with the lower branches trimmed off and straw over the soil. Underneath the straw is my drip system. The goal is to keep the soil from splashing up and the fungal spores will start to go upwards from the bottom of the plant.

There are several things you can immediately do to help with this disease when you see it

1. The first thing you do is trim off the affected branches where the leaves are yellow.  This week I trimmed all the lower branches off my tomato plants paying particuliar attention to the ones that had a few leaves just starting to yellow with EB (Early Blight). This year I had 3 out of 20 plants showing the beginning of EB. Me bad-I didn’t add the straw or trim them up after I removed the wall of waters earlier. I also tie a ribbon on the diseased plants so I can keep a close eye on them. I’d much rather deal with Early Blight than Curly top virus (which is always fatal and not much we can do about it). At least you can control Early Blight. Keep trimming up your plant as needed.

ALWAYS DISINFECT YOUR CLIPPERS IN BLEACH WATER BEFORE GOING ON TO PLANTS THAT DON’T HAVE IT-it is contagious!

2. Beside cutting off diseased branches, trim any branches to make sure they don’t touch the ground

3. Stake  or tie up any branches that might touch the ground.

4. Mulch with straw underneath the plant so the soil can’t splash up on plant when it rains or if you water overhead.

5. I have used a product called Serenade in the past, but it is no longer available. If you have some discard it as the ingredients only lasted several years.

So now I use Monterey Complete Disease Control which I have had good luck with in curtailing or slowing down the disease. Follow instructions. Spray in early evening both on top and UNDERNEATH the leaves.

I also use this for keeping Powdery Mildew at bay on all squash plants.

IT’S TIME! Take your row covers off of your tomatoes

IT’S TIME! Take your row covers off of your tomatoes! Monsoon season has arrived! I’ve been gone on a flyfishing trip but kept up with the weather news. Just got back last night. So today I will be taking off all the row covers off the tomatoes. Then I can see the plants again-yay!

Here is a link to a time lapse video I did taking off the covers several years ago-Enioy!

 

Tomatoes are in-FINALLY!

Tomatoes in wall of waters (wow) May 23, 2025

Today Elodie and Bob and myself planted 18 tomato starts today.THANK YOU! YOU BOTH ARE THE BEST!

I grew them from seeds inside the house under lights and heat mats since early spring. The tomatoes are so happy to be free-FREE at last! I don’t think I’ve ever put them in so late.

I was suppose to plant them on Monday but the weather was horrible and the nightime temp was down to 31 degrees at our house so I’m glad I waited. It was so cold and windy this past week-what a difference a few days can make. No need to stress them out.

We did plant them in wall of waters (WOWs) out in the veggie garden to help with our cold nights. I will take off the WOWs sometime in June when the plants either reach the top of the WOWs or the temperature gets into the 90’s. You don’t want to leave them on when it gets hot-you could fry them. But the weather has warmed up nicely and today the high is 80 today and a low of 48 degrees tonight. Perfect temps!

18 tomatoes is smallest number of tomato plants I’ve ever planted. Back when I was at the Santa Fe Farmers Market selling tomatoes, I use to grow 120 tomato plants and would sell out by 11 am. I’m so glad I retired from the Farmers’ Market after ten years there. Farmers work hard!

Now it’s a more reasonable pace. As I’ve gotten older, I realize I need to slow down a little and I’m glad I listen to my inner voice (sometimes). With age comes wisdom (well, maybe a little!)

May 19, 2025-Tomato plants still inside!

This has been an unusual year for spring-freezing cold then warm then cold again and warm again. Today it has turned cold again-windy and 55°F high/31° low tonight. I was suppose to plant my tomatoes outside in wall of waters today but it won’t even get warm enough for the wall of waters to warm up before night.

Supposed to be no more frosts from May 15th
on but not tonight.

I have been able to get my tomato plants in the ground the first week of May in previous years, but not this year.

So it looks like it will be warm this Friday, May 23rd-a full 8 days past that date when we are supposedly safe. No sense in rushing it at this point. Looks like I will get tomatoes later this year… sigh.

 

2024 Mid-September in my garden

Follow me as I walk-around my garden back in mid-September. This year I had some successes and disappointments. I talk about some o them.

 

2023 August veggie garden video tour

I thought you might enjoy this video I took of my veggie garden in early August 2023. When I see this video now, the garden looks pretty good. I just want to see some GREEN now instead all this white snow but I know we need as much snow as we can get due to our droughty area. Yes I said, ‘droughty’!  Walk with me while I do this year’s summer tour of the veggie garden.

Tomatoes done November 2023

We just finished eating the last tomatoes picked in October before a frost. The last ones pictured on the left, were Large Barred Boar.

I had 6 bags of green tomatoes that ripened inside. Pretty good having homegrown tomatoes through end of November. Bittersweet in that I am glad the season is over but sad there will be no more wonderful tomatoes till next July.

I start the season in March growing out the seeds inside under lights-8 months is a long time. I won’t eat a store bought or restaurant tomato so now it’s a long wait. I have made plain tomato sauce, roasted them, dried them, used them in tomato soup, and made pasta sauces using them. My friends have given me tomato tapenade and tomato chutney they made too. Nice!

During wintertime, I will review my notes about which tomatoes did well, which had problems, which had low production, and which new ones I liked or not and why. I don’t rule out anything that didn’t do well, especially this season with no water and intense heat but will give many tomatoes a second chance. I will research the internet looking for possible new varieties to try for next year. I have a stable of tomatoes I grow every year and always try a few new ones as well.

Cleaning up the garden

So by now you have either cleaned up your garden or hopefully finishing up. I’m in the latter camp. I took out all the tomatoes and their cages before the ground freezes which historically is sometime in December. If I had waited, they would freeze in the ground and I would have not gotten them out till spring. I know because I did this once and it was no picnic getting them out later rather than sooner. Lesson learned.

Plus I’ve taken out almost everything else that is not a perennial. I continue to water the perennials by hand about once every 2 weeks and as it continues to get colder, I will lessen the watering of these. This week the nights will be in the 20’s so here we are.

The drip system was shut down and timers stored inside so they didn’t freeze at night. I still have some straw left in the beds which I’ve started raking up and storing in garbage bags as it is organic straw mulch which is hard to find. Normally I would just compost the straw and digging the rest in the beds but i can reuse this. If I had leaves, I would have dug them in as they are gold in the garden. All the perennials are either sleeping or going to sleep.

Good night sweet garden-see you next year!

Took row covers off tomato plants today-August 3, 2023

I promised my followers that I would tell you when I took my row covers off the tomato plants. I did this today.

Here is a video I took on July 18, 2020 but basically looks the same as today.

I have heard from several sources that we might not get a monsoon pattern setting up here in August and that alarmed me. We have never NOT (I know, a double negative) had a monsoon season in the 27 years I’ve been here and now this. I decided to chance it and take off the row covers. I didn’t see any any leaf hoppers today but that doesn’t mean anything as they are so hard to see.

So I am hopeful that they are gone. Who knows, maybe they have a limited lifespan in summers.

I’m not telling you to take them off-that is your decision, but I will deal with whatever mother nature gives us…and it is soo good to see my beautiful tomato plants! Good luck!

Class followup

GARDEN CLASS FOLLOWUP

Here is the handout with the class notes from Tuesday:

2023 FALL VEGETABLE PLANTING

I also had someone ask me about the 2 Perennial Chard-Spinach and Perennial Arugula which is called Sylvetta that I talked about. You can google them to see which seed companies might still have some for this year. You just have to give them a space where they can come back each year. I am just now trying them so I don’t know how they will do but hope they will do well in my garden and yours.

July Garden- Tomato Update

Last year’s Black Cherry tomatoes. They are still green right now.

In case you wondered what happened to me, I have been super busy putting in the garden in May and June. The garden is now completely in. I just noticed I haven’t posted since March. Sorry-the garden called.

So instead of giving you what’s been going on in the garden all at once, I will break it down into several posts.

Let’s start with my favorite crop, TOMATOES!

I started my tomato seeds inside on a heat mat, under lights on April 14th. The tomatoes have been in the ground since May 10th. I put them in young. I don’t wait for them to get to gallon size. They seem to adjust better outside when I put them in younger.

I consider that date kinda late since I usually try to put them in the ground the first week of May. We had a cold snap the first week of May so I waited. I always put them in the ground with wall of waters around them for protection from cold nights, especially when I put them in early. My goal is to get them to set some fruit before it gets too hot. They are out of the wall of waters now (one must take them out when it gets hot and it is hot 90°F+ right now and they are protected from the beet leafhopper under MEDIUM WEIGHT row cover NOT heavy weight which will hold in too much heat at this point. Funny I hadn’t seen any leafhoppers until we got hotter. Now they are here. Keep your tomato plants completely covered until the monsoons come. Looks like it is coming in later than last year but hopefully within the next 2 weeks. I’m tired of looking at the plants with row cover over them, but whatch you gonna do? To take them out now could spell the end to many of your tomato plants, so keep them covered. Leafhoppers bite the plant and give them a deadly virus hence the cover. And since tomato plants are self-pollinating, they can be covered.

I did see some of the plants set their fruit (earlier before the heat set in) when I peaked inside the covered cages. And more will come so I don’t worry. Just wish the extreme heat would end.

When the heat reaches 92°F and above, the tomatoes will drop off their blossoms. This is called blossom drop. They will set the blossoms into fruit when the temps are lower than 92°F. Tomatoes continuously put out blossoms. Once the fruit is set, the plants aren’t picky about high temperatures and the tomatoes are not likely to fall off. Then we get to worry about other things-more diseases, bugs etc. but not while they are covered…

I try to grow some early mid and late season varieties of tomatoes so I get some throughout the season. Here is a list of my tomato varieties this year 2023:

CHERRY TOMATOES
Ruthje-red pointy-as sweet as Sungold-65 days to harvest
Moby dwarf (trial)-yellow-63 days to harvest
Black Cherry-black-65-75 days to harvest
Fruity-cherry-red-65 days to harvest

EARLY SEASON
Large Barred Boar-bicolor-65 days to harvest
Goliath-red-65 days to harvest
Large Barred Boar-bicolor-65 days to harvest

MID-SEASON
Black Sea Man-black/purplish-75 days to harvest
Cherokee Carbon-Black/purple-75 days to harvest
Cherokee Purple-brick color-75 days to harvest
Marmanade-Red-67 days to harvest
Juane Flamme-orange-70 days to harvest
NEW! Abraham Brown-black/brown-75 days to harvest
Paul Robeson-black/brick color-75 days to harvest

LATE SEASON
Lucky Cross-yellow-74 days to harvest
Big Zac-red-80 days to harvest
Virginia Sweet-yellow bi-color-80 days to harvest
NEW! Giant de Bolzano-red-80 Days to harvest
Goldman’s Italian American-red paste-85 days to harvest

Happy New Year!

Ok, I for one am glad 2022 is over and looking forward to a new year and a new growing season. But I have much to be grateful for despite my dismal yield of tomatoes last season. So instead of looking at the negative which there is plenty of that in the news, I’m going to focus on the positive from last year’s garden. So here are some of the successes in 2022:

-Because we had such a good rainy season (monsoons), my annual flowers (in fact all my flowers, perennial and annual flowers were absolutely fantastic. All the annual seeds I threw out on the ground (I didn’t even start any inside last season) came up and in fact I had to thin out some of them to keep from overcrowding. I don’t think I have had a more beautiful flower garden inside the veggie garden.

-Actually most veggie crops did well for me except the tomatoes. All cool season crops continued to produce very well throughout the summer because of those rains and cooler temperatures-kohlrabi, kale, chard, lettuce, onions, potatoes did great.

-The raspberries and finally the blackberries  produced LOTS of berries, again because of the rains. Still, no salmonberries or honeyberries last season but am hoping for their berries to show up this year.

-My winter and summer squash did exceptionally well with very little disease-I grow butternut squash and Friulana summer squash because they usually don’t get many (if any) squash bugs. Only one butternut squash out of 8 squash got them but it is interesting to note that all the butternuts were crowded in one bed (as in overflowing) so they were all very close together and only one plant got them and none of the rest got them and no squash bugs or disease in the Friulani summer squash plants either.

-I grew Yukon Jack potatoes in 2021 and that harvest was dismal. But in that same bed I had 5 volunteer potato plants that came up and produced very well and most were good sized spuds. I guess I missed some of the teeny-tiny potatoes during the previous year but again with all the rain, it was a good harvest.

-My carrots were bodacious! I still have about 10 lbs stored from this last season. I really liked the ‘Dragon Purple carrots with their dark purple skins and bright reddish orange flesh inside.

-The Italian dry pole bean variety, Casalbuono di Panzareidd, a white bean with red splashes was super productive and super tasty.

So as we enter the new year with many new growing possibilities, I get excited with new hope for a great 2023 growing season. I wish you all a happy new year where you all prosper and flourish in your gardening and personal lives.

Last fall Harvest of 2022 on Oct 10

I just found this video on my last harvest of my veggie garden for 2022…Enjoy!

2022 fall vegetable garden tour

Today is cold and windy-a nice day to be inside!

Every year for the past few years, I film my veggie garden usually in the fall when harvesting slows down. The garden won’t be at it’s prime but it’s when I’m not so headless. Next year I will try to film it in it’s prime. I like to see it in the winter to inspire me as to what might be for next season, to see a little green, dream about next year’s garden and refresh my brain as to how it looked. Of course every year is different which is actually exciting.

In the garden everything did well except the tomatoes. The flowers were especially wonderful and for the first time in many years, I got lots of carrots. I attribute that to the rain we had this summer.

This year after looking at the film again, I noticed how much Early Blight infected my tomato plants. Usually I start spraying the plants with Copper fungicide (use to spray with Serenade which is no longer available)  early before I see it as a preventative but this year I got behind because I had Covid for 20 days and never really caught up. This is a good lesson for me especially if we have a rainy growing season like we did this year. Rain exacerbates Early Blight with it’s humidity and moisture. Early Blight can hit our tomato plants when water splashes up from the ground onto the lower leaves. Early Blight spores live in the ground and when they splash up on the lower leaves, they colonize and spread upwards. If you want to know more on Early blight on my website, go here:  giantveggiegardener.

 

Happy planning for next year-Hope you enjoy this video!