Some good news, the 'Aji Mochero's' are indeed yellow and I didn't get a cross from the company. Happy about that. Collected more tomatoes tonight, and I'm quite pleased with how abundant all those plants are considering they did not get the best treatment this year. One semi-shaded garden had 2 dozen plants and I ashamedly admit those ones were basically dry farmed. I think I watered them 3 times in June and then just let them be. The plants got so big it seemed like they were sort of mulching themselves. I'm afraid they were seldom weeded as well, but they grew through it.
Grappoli d'Inverno ('winter grape') tomatoes did quite well, and the fruits are quite firm and unblemished. I stripped almost the whole plant, and also picked off a few that were barely red to see if they will change color in time. I kept 24 capacity egg cartons this winter to store them. It will be fun to see how long they will truly last in storage. The winter storage tomato Ruby Treasure is one of the few plants that truly did terrible with 'dry farming' methods and there are a dozen fruits on the plants, that's it. Most of them are green, but I have a few I can save seeds from to try again. Such a contrast to long keeper tomato 'Zhiraf' which is just loaded with fruits. A huge lineup of fruits to squeeze tomorrow, or if I'm tired, whiz through the food processer and I'll just ferment the whole lot.
Started to collect dried pea pods, and to do rounds in the evening looking for dry bean pods. It's a weird time for watering because on the one hand, not good to water plants that are drying pods, but at the same time 3/4 of the plant is full of green pods that need it. In the next week I'm sure all the pea pods will be dry. I finished shelling all the 'Misty' pea pods tonight and am delighted that such a low growing pea type produced so much seed. As a seed saver, it really does not get any easier than peas!
A few pics from today. The 'Wagner Blue Green' tomatoes are not...green! I got these from Prairie Garden Seeds and I guess they had some crosses. I'm going to email them a picture and see what they think it might be. Seed mix ups happen too. Looks a lot like 'Blue Gold' to me. It is a nice looking tomato regardless, creamy yellow and dark purple.
Today's 'Bosu' harvest.
I already collected about a dozen or so tomatoes from the plants, and there are a couple dozen green tomatoes left on the plants (which I don't plan to pick, the tom season is nearly over anyway) so I do think this has been a good haul from a tragically unsupported, single plant. Definitely a top tier producer this year. 'Saraev Spring Frost' was similar.
'Canada Northstar' - in my quest for good earlies this one has not cut the mustard so far. Canadian bred prairie tomatoes seem all around inferior to me, at least the ones I've tried. Russia seems to have really figured out the secret sauce for delicious early tomatoes. I find these too firm, but I'm letting them sit for awhile to see if they soften. The 'Alaskan Fancy' tomatoes sure did, and I initially judged them as too firm as well. Never know I guess.
What a disappointment! The 'Deutscher Fleisch' tomatoes were hollow. So, there are 3 possibilities with this I figure. Either I was sold a cross, this variety did NOT like being dry farmed or this is just the way the variety grows. I see not much purpose for a tomato like this outside of cooking. You can't even slice it!
The 'Habanada' pepper I overwintered because it didn't get enough time to produce ripe peppers is actually going to produce ripe fruit this year. There are several already ripening in the canopy. These are bigger than the green ones from last year. It might be a plant worth keeping indoors in winter.
'Sweet Datil', when they say the fruits taste just like a hab but with zero heat it's really true. Almost weirdly so.
'Zuckerstraube', big red cherries. It has pretty darn good crack resistance, not perfect, but better than many. Cherries are a bit bigger than I prefer, I like them small, and smaller even better. Taste is good though, production excellent.
My favourite cherry tomato this year, all of them are pretty good, but this one is in the next galaxy, 'Sweet Apperitif'. Stellar flavor.
With mozzarella, it is amazing. Best summer lunch. I'm tempted to grow it every year after this.
'Broody Hen' aka 'Klusha' early tomato. I've been wanting to grow this variety for many years, and I'm glad I got lucky to find some seed for it. I had no idea why it had such a funny name, but once I saw the plant at maturity I got it. The plant is very compact, almost like a 2-3 foot ball of foliage and the tomatoes are tucked tightly underneath the canopy. It does sort of seem like a tomato plant sitting on it's eggs. Over half the tomatoes are mature, but they seem a bit firm at this point. One of the qualities I'm learning to look out for with these early tomatoes is being too hard. A few have fallen under that category, but luckily not most.
growagoodlife.com
And on nearly every walk in the last 2 weeks we see at least one garter. One day, we saw 3 in less than 5 minutes - we were in the bush on an abandoned railway track and I guess they liked it on there. They were fat and big, it was disturbing, and equally so that they clearly had homes under those tracks because we scared one or two under there. It's commonly thought that garters are not venomous, but they are. Neurotoxin? No thanks!
Hope they have time to make at least a few pods.
