2014 Tomato Growing

I'm growing Maskotka in the window box. Marmande, Country Taste and Angelo as possible biggest tomato candidates. A couple of patio pots of cherry ones - Tumbling Tom and Garten Perle and Ferline as it sounds good. And I'm making up 4 patio pots of Tumbling Toms for 4 of my neighbours. Some will come to Shineyland I think.
I never expected such a high germination rate Kristen Virtually every one of the five that I put in each pot germinated,
Jenny

 

Murder doesn't come easily to you then? !!

 

In desperation , I gave, nay forced , a few of Moneymaker seedlings on the Communal Gardener; he probably dumped them in a sack just round the corner,
Jenny

 

I would have done too - tasteless and no point growing Moneymaker, IMHO.

 

Jenny, do you preserve tomatoes. Somewhere I have pictures of canning pogies and plan to do something with any excess tomatoes. Here every place like Dollar Stores to Wal-Mart sells canning jars, I recently bought wide mouth Quart jars with lids and rings $9 a dozen. Pints are a small bit cheaper.

I have canned tomatoes many times but not lately because of the wilt we had - just enough produced for fresh eating. You just need to use a boiling water bath so easy - just have to make sure you get the acidity right, eating tomatoes are low acid. We use a lot of tomatoes and do not get good Italian canned like you can in England.

 

No Colne as I really don't have the space to store them. We just pig out like crazy for 3 months but I do reduce the final glut them down in the oven sprinkled with olive oil and salt. Then I freeze a few precious blocks for curries or bolognese sauce during winter. As you say, we do get pretty good tinned or wax carton passata here from Italy quite cheaply,
Jenny

 

It is always sobering to realize there is no real economic sense in self growing. I spend very little but then add it up and it comes to something. Gardening is really a hobby that taps into the life - death, and thus existence thing. I am always worried about the whyness of existence/life. Why are trillions of creatures set loose - like some practical philosopher said; 'like clockwork devices' to suffer want and injury, and finally when those two become more than can be borne, die.

It is an odd thing. I have lived in nature so much, and seen the starving of third world, read of the 1 million estimated to have died in the single coliseum of Rome as a spectacle, that I cannot ever hold the benevolent Pantheism views of the Edwardian poets. I guess the main dilemma is consciousness and thus free will. Nobility and charity can only exist in the presence of tyranny and suffering. Kind of a Manichaeism thing where evil is necessary for good - basically this brings me to Karma, a Christian leaning karma scorecard.

And so I garden to be with life - hands on as it were. It seems necessary for me. Gardening always evokes 'The Great Wheel' as in Juggernaut, the Indian god who rolls the inexorable wheel in front that crushes all life under as it makes its passes - and thus new life comes, as will Juggernaut again. This is what we experience in gardening, the death of winter - the entropy of briars and weeds and bugs, and the order of a new life we bring out.

That is the only real reason to can those tomatoes; for that tiny tie back to the great wheel and our place on it.

 

We are increasingly growing things because of lack of clarity on whether they are imported, or not, and to know what the provenance is. Mostly we are happy to eat things grown in UK as requirements are stringent, but too much food is imported (with less/little/no stringent requirements) and then packaged as if it was UK grown.

Not happy that my Spuds are harvested after the Haulms have been treated with Gramoxone, for example

 

I am not sure it is about more life being the object shiney, although current politians seem to think that is a good thing. But it is about reflecting on life and one's thoughts and acts.

I still have that Goliath tomato to find a place for, and a yellow cherry tomato......

Kristin, food provenance is interesting though. I know warm weather crops, fresh foods especially, are loaded with insecticides and fungicides. The cosmetic drive in selection of foods demands it. And it is not just the retailers demanding it - in a bin of apples to fill our bag from the odd, or blemished one gets left behind by us shoppers. Buying green beans from Africa in winter is a risky thing. Hot climates like mine have one certainty - plant large rows of succulent crops and bugs will show up to eat them. And our wheat gluten additives from China - who knows what lead or PCBs or mercury lurk in that.

 

That subject is worthy of a separate thread (cos it's not just tomatoes).

 

I get the same effect by placing crystals around the garden.

sorry.......shiney - actually my tomatoes have leaf spots turning into holes - have you tried this spraying aspirin?


fast forward to 2.00 on the video to see the leaves - and what is up with that tomato flower? it is like a small dandelion flower. I hope it did not self genetically modify by taking on some mouse genes or something. Have to ask our exobotanist Zigs if it is something he has seen.