Recent content by farmerlor

I've ordered from Pinetree seeds for several years now and I just adore their seeds. If you only try one thing get the bag of lettuce mix. My kids didn't know what salad was until they tasted one made with Pinetree lettuce mix. I get all of my tomato seeds and some of the peppers and melons...

LOL! So true.

I have a handy dandy little "grow room" that Greg built for me downstairs in the furnace room. It's got a space heater in it so I run the temp in the room up to almost 80. My secret for perfect germination of pepper seeds? Put the seed in the starter soil, water, leave in nice warm grow room...

Actually, the home canned things I make are superior in every way to any commercially canned thing I used to buy. This fall I took fresh tomatoes out of the garden. In one day they went from being on a vine in the sun to spaghetti sauce. I'm telling you, you can taste that sun-warmed tomato...

Our farm is named for my horse. We rescued a PMU mare who was destined to be slaughtered so we call the farm Fiona's Rest.

LOL! Sounds like you did a wonderful job this year. And I do believe I'll have myself a Black Krim right along side you. Aren't they the best? I keep thinking I need to narrow down the number of breeds of tomatoes that I plant but when I think about giving up my wonderful Caspian Pink...

That's why I call him "most wondrous man". I tell him I can't grow tomatoes here in this evil, cold, wind tunnel state and he builds me a micro-climate so I can have my beloved tomatoes. Gotta love this guy.

Here is my wondrous hoophouse:

No, I'm down on the Palmer divide. The Wyoming border would be a real wind-up from here. I confess that I could not do ANY of the tomato growing that I do were it not for the super-O cool-O hoop house that most wondrous man made for me. It allows me to start my tomatoes earlier and not worry...

We're on the eastern plains at 6800 feet. We had a cool, wetter than normal summer. My Thessalonikis came from my tomato lovers email group seed savers. Most of my seeds come from there or from Gary Ibsen at Tomato fest.

I'm sorry, I do not have Amish Gold seeds at this time. We did not grow them this year and my seeds from last year seem to have gone missing. If you're talking about Gary's seeds at Tomatofest though, that's where I get most of my seeds. I guarantee you that it will be worth the 15 dollar...

Let's see.....the Black Krim is a wonderful tasting tomato but it will go from firm to soft in about a minute if you leave too long on the vine. Mr Stripey is a very nice tasting, FIRM tomato. There are better tasting tomatoes but this one has a nice tomato-ey taste. Cherokee Purple is a good...

The USDA DOES recommend that you add acid to tomatoes being canned even if they are Pressure Canned. The problem with that is that they don't say why. We pressure can green beans with like NO acid and they are okay but not tomatoes? So, with that caveat I will tell you that I have pressure...

You sure can! My canning group has LOTS of BBQ recipes that they can. I may use some of my tomato sauce to do some after I get done making and canning ketchup.

We had (note the past tense there) some orange Kellogg's Breakfast tomatoes that were about 3 pounds apiece. BIG ol' tomatoes and SUCH great flavor. They are one of my favorite slicers. I was very impressed with the Brandywines this year too. We've added a lot of amendments to the soil and I...