TOMATO LIST

This is the list of our 2010 tomato line up with a brief description.  If you would like to know more about one of these twentyfive varieties or to preorder - please send us an email. 

CHERRY/CURRANTS—THE CANDY STORE
BROWN BERRY – Excellent sweet, juicy flavor. Brown.
CHERRY ROMA – Addictive, sweet spicy flavor, great fresh or dried. Red.
GREEN GRAPE – Addictive, spicy, full-flavored, sweet fruit. Green.
HARTMAN’S GOOSEBERRY – Nice sweet flavor. Yellow.
SWEETIE – Deliciously sweet and addicting.  Red.
SWEET PEA CURRANT – Very sweet and known as “teaspoon” tomatoes due to their small size.  Red.

SLICING
BEEFSTAKE – An excellent slicing tomato.
BLACK KRIM – Excellent full flavor. Our favorite from 2009.
BLACK SEA MAN - Deep brown fruits with rich flavor.
BRANDYWINE (SUDDUTH’S STRAIN) – Incredibly rich with delightfully intense flavor.
CHALK’S EARLY JEWEL – Juicy with great acidity. Spicy without being sour.
GIANT SYRIAN – Very meaty, few seeds, and excellent flavor.
GOLD MEDAL – The sweetest tomato you will ever taste.
GREEN SAUSAGE – Rich, sweet flavor, great for making sauces.
GREEN ZEBRA – Sweet, zingy flavor. We cannot wait to eat this one!!!
OREGON SPRING – Excellent for making ketchup and sauces.
RED ZEBRA – Great, sweet flavor.
STUPICE – Direct from Czechoslovakia. Great, sweet flavor.
WISCONSIN 55 – Excellent all purpose tomato – great for canning.

ROMAS/SAN MARZANO’S/PLUM
AMISH PASTE – Good for sauces and eating.
PLUM LEMON – Resembles a lemon in appearance with meaty, sweet refreshing flavor.
MARTINO’S ROMA – Perfectly suited for making sauce, salsa, and paste.
OPALKA – Excellent fresh flavor, very few seeds great for processing.
SAN MARZANO – Excellent for salsas, fresh and canned.
SPECKLED ROMAN – Meaty, great tomato taste, ideal for processing.

MORE TOMATO

More tomato and more tomato...won't be long and we will be posting lots more tomatoes!!!  Remember to get in line and let us know what you want. 

Today we trellised, weeded, and pruned and I have the blisters to prove it. 

Rows two and three at 5:30 this morning.

Row one and two at 5:00 this afternoon.

For all of you who DIDN'T make it out to help today this is the dinner salad you missed out on tonight.  Direct from the garden, couldn't get it any faster or fresher -- diced swiss chard stems, snow peas and carrots sliced to slivers, speckled lettuce, spinach, basil, cilantro, and grilled Detroit Golden beets.  Topped with fresh goat cheese and garlic herb vinegar/oil dressing.

5:30 AM

A gorgeous morning.  Well worth getting up for. 

TOMATO UPDATE

Because our tomatoes are the stars, tomorrow is going to be a long day. 

We have to finish trellising (14 rows), weeding, pruning, and feeding.  The pre-bloom tomatoes will get side dressed with liquid sea kelp, and the tomatoes in bloom will get side dressed with manure tea.  Excessive foliage near the ground will be pruned to help keep air flowing to prevent disease and there are several rows with weed take over. Does that sound like a long day?  The alarm goes of at 5:00 am if anyone is so inclined to come by.  We will have the coffee pot on!  

Pest and disease are a challenge right now due to the excessive rainfall so vigilance is important and key to maintaining a healthy crop of tomatoes.  Do you know what Colorado Potato Beetles like?  Yep, potatoes AND tomatoes.  The little orange guys will have a hey day if we don't stay ahead of them.   That means squashing one bug at a time.  Tedious. 

At days end though it's another day closer to beautiful, ripe, sweet, juicy tomatoes. 

THE MORNING AFTER

An inch and a half of rain.  Weeds look great!  Tomatoes survived the beating and the river is running chocolate but not up, yet.  Going to be steamy and miserable.  Good luck to my husband today as he continues to set posts for trellising.

PUMMELLED

If somehow I could put the sound of rain pounding the windows, thunder rumbling, flashes of lighting streaking across the sky, and clouds circling ominously about on this page I would.  Then you could enjoy nature making your heart race just like we have been for the last hour.  More rain.  A torrential rain this time.  The morning walk through the gardens will be interesting.

MORNING LIGHT AND DEW

AFTER THE RAIN

Peas and kale.

STREETTCCCHHHHHH

Do you see what Amber sees?  Me neither!  She was occupied for a lengthy amount of time and she had me doing it too trying to figure out what was so intriguing about a fence post!  I was expecting something, but noooooooo. 

Then today she came across a bird's nest, yes just a bird's nest, an empty bird's nest.

WEEDING

Weeding is addictive and satisfying.  It is so addictive that sweat in your eyes and sweat bee stings and burning sun fails to keep you from pulling just ONE more weed!  That was today---hot, sweaty, bee stings, and sunburn.  Satisfaction is complete when you look at the work you have done and see all the lush colors.

TRELLISING

First two rows done.  Amber, the inspector, kept tabs on us. 

There is a LOT of fruit!  This is just a sample. 

TENSE MOMENT

Last night was the very, very first night in about three months that Michael and I decided to take the night off from the farm and go for a bike ride.  Actually our first bike ride in about that same amount of time.  It was beautiful last night, just like it is this morning.  On my way home, I drive past our pasture, I noticed one of the horses stretched out flat on their side and the other four standing together swatting flys.  I made a mental note to double check when we rode the bikes by to see if she was still laying down.  It's not unusual for one of them to be sunning themselves, in fact I have seen all five of them stretched flat out, looking ominous.

We dressed and headed down the road on our bikes and I searched the pasture for Dani. She was standing up but holding her right hind leg in the air.  I could tell from her body language and the fact she kept neighing to the other horses something was very, very wrong.  So back to the house, changed clothes, and rushed out to the pasture.  By 10:30 last night the vet had been and gone and our lives the next several weeks will be a little bit different.  She has a laceration to her right hind pastern about 5cm long and 1.5 cm deep.  Deep but praise the lord not so deep there is damage to the tendon even though Dr. Lombardo could see the tendon sheath.  Now the healing process begins and bandage changes every other day. 

Thank you to Dr. Lombardo (http://www.equusdvm.com/).  He was awesome.  He was at our farm in less than 30 mintues and he kept Dani calm and her owner.  Life at the farm can be tense.


Here's Dani this morning, resting better and sporting her new pantyhose.

SWEET FINDS

A huge thanks to Bella and Amaya for helping get ready for Sol 'N Tynes first "THURSDAYS ON FIRST" in Rochester.  Michael and I truly appreciate the help they provided and also a big thanks to their mom, Tona, for letting them come and stay.  They ended up staying an extra day because their Grandpa Doug is battling cancer and had to go to the hospital.  So please send out prayers of healing for him.

On a brighter note, Bella and Amaya, left their two new friends Sophie and Hannah to stay with us while they go to Cass Lake on vacation.  Please meet the new guests at Sol 'N Tyne.

Bella and Sophie

Amaya and Hannah

Have fun at Cass Lake Alberto, Tona, Bella, Amaya, and Noelia!!!!

COMPELLING, HONEST, THOUGHT PROVOKING, HUMOROUS, FRIGHTENING......

...but filled with hope.  If you care the least little bit about food, I mean the least little bit about what you eat, Joel Salatin provides a first hand account of life from a grower/producer perspective. Did I say if you cared the least little bit??? 

MORE OF THE SAME

Rain, rain, rain...did I mention rain?  Oh ya, more rain.  Over an inch according to our gauge this morning.  I will never complain about the soil being too dry again.  Locked inside for the entire day.  Snuck outside around 3:30 to cut some flowers for the dinner table and again at 5:00 to gather greens for our salads and show Karen around the gardens.  Both times a soft, gentle mist rolled all over us. 

Michael brought his mom over and we celebrated her birthday with a wonderful meal of grilled chicken rubbed with tandoori and sweet potatoes grilled with olive oil, lemon thyme, garlic, and bunching onions.  Our salad was filled with spinach, Swiss chard, beet tops, red and white table onions, fresh dill, basil, and cilantro, and then topped with a sliced avocado and goat cheese.  Rabbit's Bakery in Lake City supplied the french bread warmed and served with organic butter all the way from Ireland!  Michael was at his culinary best last night.  Karen supplied a wonderful bottle of red wine, surrounded by one of her new creations.  H2O in copper --- I know you're thinking "I thought it was a bottle of wine".  Well it was when we started but when you're done it becomes a bottle for water.  Check out Karen's website for more of her awesome art work - http://sebestapottery.com/.

The house was resurrected from the neglect of the last month, at least part of it, and today we will be planting in the mud.  The positive side - the weeds pull easy!  Done with two rows of sweet peppers already this morning and now headed outside for the remainder of the day to play in the mud and get pummeled by the wind.  For after the rain comes the wind.  Have a grand day and remember - make someone smile today.

SPIDERWORT

RAINY SUNDAY AFTERNOON

We were doing good planting peppers on Sunday until about 4:30, then the rain arrived. 

So Michael decided to close his eyes for a moment and take advantage of the sound of the rain to lull him off to slumber land (this pic is for Matt and Christine who were busy branding cattle this past weekend).

Peppers and basil waiting to go in the ground.  Hopefully this week we can get everything finished.

DONE!

See this?

Equals this.  Twenty 100' rows, fifty plants to a row.  One thousand tomatoes give or take a few.  Final thirty went in the dirt this morning!!! 

AFTER THE THREE DAYS

The last row of the day yesterday, #13, which leaves seven rows to go.  Fifty Gold Medals, an heirloom from Seeds Savers.  One of the favorites from last year.  Gold with red streaks when you slice them open.  Some of them weighed up to three pounds. 

THE HELP

We had a lot of help over the long weekend.  We want to thank EVERYONE for taking time out of their three days to help us lay the remainder of the mulch, plant tomatoes, plant companions, put in pea trellis, water, make row markers, bring us food (we love that part - especially the rhubarb dessert Michael's mom, Betty, made for us), run for supplies, entertainment, and assist in all the numerous small tasks.  Your hard work will pay off when all those plants start producing!!!

The Tasks

Prepping and laying mulch in the rows.

Building and setting trellis for peas.

Marking the 24" holes for tomatoes and planting.

                                  Planting companion marigolds.

Weeding

"Pam, this is how you do it."

                                                                               "Oh, you mean like this?"

Amber's take on the entire operation!

6:30 AM SUNDAY

The start of the big push.  Saturday the heat was soooo intense we were driven to the creek (more of that story later) to escape it.  So Sunday was a big day to catch up, providing the weather would cooperate.  Michael was up and outside at 5:30 and Noelia and I joined him about 6:30.

GOING HOME

Tomato plants headed to new homes.  Thank you everyone for your ongoing support!!!