The Tomato Garden

Any recipe starts at the raw ingredients and what's better than vegetables fresh out of the garden.  This year my wife is doing the planting  but earlier this year we made some decisions on what we are planting.  We decided to try some heirloom seeds.  We started the tomatoes and their relatives indoors and are just transferring them to the garden this week.

Why heirloom seeds? For a couple of reasons, it's nice to try some different things and we are trying to find a suite of vegetables that grows nicely in our garden plot (which is getting bigger each year). To those ends we ordered the following:

Anna Aasa Tomato
A deep red cherry tomato, 4 to 6 ft vine, indeterminate, 69-80 days to maturity.  Never tried it before but we'll see how it produces in our garden.

Cossak Pineapple Ground Cherry
We tried this last year but had trouble getting the seeds to germinate.  We did get one plant so this year we started the plants inside.  Unfortunately we only got one plant.  However the kids love this close relative of the tomatillo as do Mrs. McBugbear and I.  12 inch high plants, 24 inchs in diameter, 60 to 80 days, good in pies or jams.

Mortgage Lifter Tomato
1lb to 4lb tomato with an interesting orgin story, 70 days, 6 to 8 feet high, 70 days indeterminate.

Riesentraube Tomato
1 oz pear shaped tomatoes, bears in clusters of 20-30, prolific, 4-6 ft, 4-6 spacing, indeterminate, 69-80 days.

White Queen Tomatoes
Medium sized white tomato, 6-8 ft high, 24-36in spacing, nominal 1lb beefsteak, creamy white in colour, indeterminate. 80 days to maturity.

Tomatillos
3 to 4 feet high, bright yellow blooms, 4-6 feet spacing, 2-3" husked green fruit.  Prolific producer.

Dragon's Tongue Beans
Dutch butter bean, creamy pods with purple strips, 5-8" pods good fresh or dried.

Tongue of Fire
Red Pods up to 8" long, seeds white with red flecks can be eaten as a snap bean before the pods ripen.

Mixed Mustard Greens
A mix of spicy mustard green through purple colours.

Dragon Carrots
Purple exterior with orange interior, 7-8" long at maturity.

Tonda di Parigi Carrot
Round orange carrot harvested at 1-2" in diameter, deep orange, sweet.

Black Spanish Radish
Black skin with white flesh, roods to 7" long, pungent flavour.

Cream of Saskatchewan
A small yellow watemelon, (up to 8lbs), quite tasty.  We didn't have much production last year but they got drowned out by the pumpkins.

Kakai Pumpkin
Black on orange pumpkin, about 5 lbs, hulless seeds which are quite tasty, we had great luck with this pumpkin last year to the detriment of our melons.

Rouge Vif d'Etampes
Red cooking pumkin, up to 15 pounds.  We didn't get great yields but this thick-walled pumpkin provided lots of flesh for pies.

Dill's Atlantic Giant Pumpkin
Up to 1800lbs, (world record is 1818.5lbs).  I'll be happy if they come in around 200 :-).

We'll also be planting some sweet red peppers, cayenne peppers, brocoli, yellow snap beans, purple snap beans and some rhubarb.  We also have a small raised be herb garden with a couple of types of basil, some oregano, dill, mint, and sage.

Believe it or not the garden isn't all that big, but it is variegated.