Harvest Monday: First Tomatoes!

Gorgeous! As the sugar snap peas keep coming, I excitedly picked my first tomatoes of 2010! Three bright, orange Sungold tomatoes were ripe for picking on Sunday morning!

I also harvested a mix of all my lettuces, sugar snap peas, a forgotten garlic scape and three tiny strawberries.

Plot update (6/28/10)

Babies

(sungold tomato, butternut squash, northern pickling cucumber)

(roma tomato, hansel eggplant, italian pepperoncini pepper, sugar snap pea)

(sugarbaby watermelon)

Seeing baby vegetables form never gets old! I have not been keeping up with reporting on my garden progress, but I am VERY pleased with how my vegetables are growing this year. Being able to plant earlier and having a little more knowledge, compared with last year, has really made a difference! I expect to harvest my first tomato soon!!

Hot off the Press: Late Blight in 2010?

Welcome John, thanks for following!

Please don't let it be true! I came across a report in Organic Gardening e-newsletter that made my heart sink:Tomato Blight Strikes Again in 2010!

I would say that I was fortunate last year not to be devastated by this disease. I managed to get most of my harvest in before my plants' presumably affected branches were almost all stripped away.

However, in growing more tomatoes than last year and potatoes for the first time, I am hoping my garden does not get affected! To date, I have not seen any evidence of blight. Have you?

Original Article:

RODALE NEWS, EMMAUS, PA—Anything but the tomatoes! Unfortunately for home gardeners and farmers alike—including some of us here at Rodale.com and our Organic Gardening tomato blight, is starting to appear in parts of the country. And, as before, it's threatening gardeners' most prized possessions—their juicy, homegrown tomatoes. "Unfortunately, I think it's a matter of time before it's widespread," says Meg McGrath, PhD, associate professor of plant pathology at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. "Hopefully, people will be more knowledgeable of the disease this year, realizing it's a community disease. If you end up with it, you have to take care of the problem, you can't let it fester in your garden." colleagues—the funguslike pathogen known as late blight, commonly called

THE DETAILS: Maryland reported the first outbreak this growing season, with Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and Canada following suit. The disease is cropping up in all types of settings, from backyard gardens to fields and high tunnels on farms. McGrath says plant pathologists have not been able to pinpoint the source of each outbreak this spring, but notes that the disease needs a living host and can overwinter in potatoes left in the soil or in storage. (Late blight affects potatoes too, and caused the Irish potato famine in the mid-19th century.)

Photos courtesy of Meg McGrath/Cornell University

If a stem is OK, but you start to see nickel-size or bigger olive-green or brown patches on a plant's leaves, with some white fungal growth underneath, your plant has most likely been struck by the disease. The brown areas are likely to first appear in the early morning or after rain. Sometimes the spot is surrounded by yellow, or looks water-soaked, explains McGrath.

A nursery supplying tomato seedlings to big-box stores was blamed as the source of last year's tomato blight outbreak. However, once infected plants are in the environment, things can get ugly quickly, affecting plants far and wide. Tomato blight spores on infected plants are easily swept up in wind currents and carried high into the atmosphere, where they can potentially travel for long distances, even between states. The spores survive up there in ideal weather conditions (rainy, or even just humid and overcast days), and then fall into gardens and onto farm fields with the next rain.

WHAT IT MEANS: This is bad news for this year's tomato crop. What's worse, McGrath says if tomato blight sticks around for a few more years, it could very well become endemic in this area. That's bad news especially for organic growers, who nix the use of toxic fungicides. And while some copper products are approved for organic use, they aren't benign to soil or human health, either. "For organic, copper is the best choice," she says. "But people should make sure they understand that just because it's an organic product, it isn't as safe as water."

While truly blight-resistant tomatoes aren't currently available, some tomato varieties tend to fare better against tomato blight. These include, according to Cornell University's Vegetable MD Online, Golden Sweet, Juliet, and Legend. McGrath says Matt's Wild Cherry has also shown some resistant properties against late blight.

Here's how to deal with the tomato blight threat:
• Evict these garden volunteers. McGrath says volunteer tomato plants—ones that spring up from last year's seeds that took root from dropped fruit—are a major concern for spreading this often lethal and very contagious disease. They may be hidden within your dense pea plants, harboring tomato blight without your noticing they're there, so check carefully.

• Seek and destroy. Cornell instructs gardeners who find a hotspot, that is, a group of infected plants located around relatively healthy ones, to destroy the unhealthy ones immediately. Also take out the ones directly beside ones infected with late blight of tomatoes and potatoes. Proper destruction practice for plants infected with tomato blight: Pull them, double-bag them, and send them to the landfill. McGrath stresses that it's really important for gardeners and farmers to monitor their potato and tomato crops—ideally, several times a day—to quickly spot and remove an infected plant before disease spreads. It's possible this may save some of your plants, but there's no guarantee.

• Spread the word. Give your tomato- and potato-growing neighbors a heads-up on this disease, and forward this article to as many people as you can. McGrath says education is key, so gardeners know to act quickly and remove any plant infected with tomato blight before spores form and spread to other plants.

Additionally, here are two resources with great photos from the University of New Hampshire (my Alma mater):

http://extension.unh.edu/agric/Media/Late-Blight2010/Late-Blight2010.htm
http://extension.unh.edu/agric/Docs/Lateblightpreventionflyer.pdf

Best of luck to us all!

Found: Seeds in Triscuit Boxes

Triscuit wants everybody to experience 'home farming.' They included basil or dill seeds in 4 million boxes, providing seed cards inside marked boxes. My mom is the one that pointed this promotion out to me, and gave me two basil seed cards. I hope to plant them soon.

I think this is a creative way to spread the word about gardening, especially for kids who will be able to see how easy and [in my mind...miraculous] it is to grow a plant/vegetable from one seed speck.

For more information on Triscuit's collaboration with urbanfarming.org visit www.triscuit.com/homefarming

Disclaimer: I am not sure if this promotion is still running; just check your local Triscuit retailer to find out!

FRESH Movie & Local Event

Produced and Directed by Ana Sofia Joanes, "FRESH celebrates the farmers, thinkers and business people across America who are re-inventing our food system. Each has witnessed the rapid transformation of our agriculture into an industrial model, and confronted the consequences: food contamination, environmental pollution, depletion of natural resources, and morbid obesity. Forging healthier, sustainable alternatives, they offer a practical vision for a future of our food and our planet.

Among several main characters, FRESH features urban farmer and activist, Will Allen, the recipient of MacArthur’s 2008 Genius Award; sustainable farmer and entrepreneur, Joel Salatin, made famous by Michael Pollan’s book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma; and supermarket owner, David Ball, challenging our Wal-Mart dominated economy."

In addition to the film screenings nationwide, there is a local event at Boston University:

Farm to Fork: A Panel Discussion About How We Get The Food We Eat
Wednesday, June 16 2010
6:30 PM - 8:30 PM
Boston University's Sargent College
635 Commonwealth Ave., Room 101 Boston, MA 02215
Tickets $10 (includes voucher to see film)

Click here for more information and to find a screening of the film near you!

Introducing...the Garlic Scape

They are so cool! In all its curling wonder, I experienced garlic scapes for the first time as my German White Garlic gets close to maturity! Since this is a hardneck variety, it produces a scape, a long, thin shoot that is initially curly. Scapes will eventually straighten out, harden and produce a flower - taking some of the plant's energy away from the bulb. Harvesting them before they straighten serves two purposes - a culinary delicacy & encouraging bulb growth.

On Sunday, I picked 17 scapes (out of 21 cloves planted last fall). I know that at least two plants are on the smaller side, but I should doublecheck how many plants there are!

I had heard that many people use scapes in stir-fry, on pizza, or make pesto. I am hoping to try pesto later in the week, but tonight I used the scapes as a pizza topping! I first cooked the scapes for a few minutes in the oven with a little salt & evoo. Then I placed them on my pizza (homemade pizza dough, sauce, tomatoes, mozzarella cheese & homegrown basil).

yumm........it was delicious!

Note: as pretty as the curled scapes look on the pizza, it was very impractical when trying to cut and eat it! I ended up cutting up the scapes in smaller pieces and putting them back on each pizza slice!

Perfect Growing Weather?

After being away at a conference in Kansas City, MO for a week I visited the garden yesterday. I could not believe how much everything had grown! I think the great weather we have been having has kicked the plants into overdrive. Some of my veggie plants almost doubled in size (or so I want to believe). Unfortunately, it also meant that the weeds grew even faster! I spent a lot of time weeding my perimeter beds and in "the addition" - because, of course my SFG boxes were weedless!

My potato box is now complete and filled to the top with soil. I anticipate them starting to flower by the end of the month (when I will check for new potatoes). I appreciate the cautionary comments from Leslie of dreams and bones, " I have found that soil that is too fertile tends to yield lots of foliage but no spuds. So as you add dirt, make it dirt, not some extra enriched soil." This is a lesson that I may have to learn this year, sine I used a mixture of free compost and store-bought potting soil. The plants definitely grew fast (planted on 4/18; first sprouted on 5/7) - way faster than anticipated, which may not be a good sign! I still wonder if there are any spuds in there! Hopefully the mystery will soon be solved!

I love getting comments and tips! This is what blogging is all about-sharing and learning!

In other growing news, my two corn varieties are coming along nicely!

Brocade Sweet & Japanese Hulless Popcorn

Here is my first 2010 harvest comprised of lettuce (Salad Bowl & Mesclun Mix), Sugar Snap Peas, Basil...and something else that is so special it needs its own post (to follow shortly!)

In not so great news...my Everbearing Strawberry plants appear to be growing well and producing small berries, but critters have made any red berry inedible to humans. I placed some bird netting over the plants two weeks ago, but it is not stopping smaller pests. Also, two of my cucumber varieties, recently bought and transplanted, did not make it. With sadness, I pulled up my shriveled Diva & Burpless seedlings (varieties that served me well last year). However, I decided to try two new varieties: Sweet Success & Straight Eight!