A Bowl Full of Color

Ain't it amazing what three solid days of normal summertime heat can do to a backyard garden?

The heat that I have waited for to arrive all summer long finally showed up this past weekend in the form of bright sunshine -- highs in the mid 90's and some of the warmest nights we've seen this year. It's not quite warm enough for the wife that is Venus to take off her sweater (the wife prefers "Fresno Warm") -- but I'm not complaining.

Lord knows -- I've done enough already.

The heat was just enough to kick some loaded cherry plants into production. Although the heat isn't expected to last -- it was apparently enough to give us this bowl full of color tonight. And I'm hopeful these harvests will not only continue -- but gain in intensity as the summer marches on.

Bill Bird is never quite satsified. I guess that's what keeps me going.

I'll be honest. We went a *tad* overboard with our cherry tomato plantings this year. I never intended to set aside room in our limited raised bed space to three different cherry tomato varieties (the wife that is Venus had other plans) and I also wasn't counting on the INFINITE number of volunteers that would suddenly spring up in spaces so arid it could be mistaken for a moonscape.

How Black Cherry tomatoes can grow without any source of water continues to amaze me. But grow they do -- and do quite well.

The Bowl Full of Color represents many different varieties -- both intended and unintended plantings. That list includes Black Cherry (volunteers everywhere plus one is planted in a raised bed, a Large Orange Cherry volunteer, Pink Ping Pong, Lemon Drop, Jelly Bean and Santa Hybrid.

Heirloom Tomatoes from the Bird Backyard

I'm not exactly sure where the Large Orange Cherry comes from. It showed up last year outside of a raised bed that contained a smaller orange cherry variety called SunGold the previous year. That bed also held a number of beefsteak tomatoes -- including Mortgage Lifter and Pineapple. Could these be a cross of two plants? I suppose it's entirely possible -- but I'll never know.

For now? It's called Large Orange Cherry. I'll seed this particular variety (it is quite good) in hopes of producing a genetic duplicate next season -- but one never knows with volunteer plants. I suppose that's half the fun of planting a tomato garden.

Cherry tomatoes are just the start though. The main part of the tomato garden is -- at long last -- finally coming into production. I'm not seeing the numbers that I saw last year -- and I highly doubt that I'll encounter those massive harvests -- but it looks like Venus and I will be busy with some home canning projects later this August.

Bush Beans N' Basil Anyone?

Since the 49ers are once again going with Alex Smith at quarterback and the Raiders are -- well -- the Raiders -- I'll be able to dedicate some NFL Sundays to home canning efforts without missing much in the way of quality football.

I said quality football people. Q-U-A-L-I-T-Y. If you're not a fan -- let's just say it's been missing around these parts for -- oh -- the past decade. I either can summer produce or hook up an IV to the Kegerator outside. I'll choose summertime produce -- thank you.

The Volunteer!

Every tomato grower worth a salt has them (I love tomatoes and salt, yum!). Even if you don't want them -- if you grow heirloom tomatoes -- you're bound to get them. If they didn't pop up this year -- they most certainly will next year.

Or perhaps you just haven't spotted them in the yard yet. Chances are they are there -- hiding from you in plain sight.

"They" in this case are "volunteer tomato plants." And in this -- our third year of gardening in our vast North Natomas gardening laboratory -- Venus and I have them in spades. Volunteer tomato plants -- like the one to your right near the grapevines -- are popping up everywhere.

Did we have tomatoes planted in this spot last year? Actually -- uh -- no. So how did it get there then? Good question. I'm still trying to figure that one out myself. If you some how deduce the answer -- please let me know as Venus and I have plants popping up all over the yard this summer.

I wonder what would have happened had we actually had decent weather this spring? Even more volunteers? Perhaps...

Most of the volunteers that we find -- like the eight or nine plants that popped up underneath this peach tree -- get yanked out the moment I see them. I don't want tomatoes competing with peaches. In fact -- I don't want tomatoes anywhere near the peaches.

So -- how did they get there then? I DUNNO! Maybe some bird ripped off a cherry tomato -- flew into the tree -- and snacked on it there? The seeds were prevented from blowing out of the yard from the tree and dropped to the base instead?

Our sneaky cats put them there? I wouldn't put it past them. Hey! Look at it from this perspective: If our mangy cats can can deposit hairballs in every room of the house -- then they can certainly place tomato seeds in out-of-the-way places.

Venus and I have been busy this June -- ripping out volunteers where we find them. Volunteers in the potato bed? Yep! Volunteers coming out of the bark around the raised planter beds? Absolutely! Volunteers coming up with grapes? Um -- yeah -- that too.

But not every volunteer tomato gets the "rough and tough" treatment. Like these plants -- for example. They are volunteers that popped up on the edge of our in-ground test bed. Since they're in a bed that we already prepared for gardening AND they've got a steady source of water -- they've received a temporary stay of execution.

Now the big question is: what kind of tomato is this? Good question! We haven't figured that out yet. The nice thing is -- the volunteer plants are loaded with small tomatoes. They're big enough at this point where I can be reasonably assured that they are not cherry tomatoes -- but that's about all I can tell you at this point.

Venus thought she noticed some ribbing across the top -- which might indicate a Costoluto Genovese -- but it's just too early to tell yet. We had a mass of different kinds of heirloom plants located in this area last year -- so this could be one of those varieties. It's also entirely possible that this could be some sort of cross.

Whatever it is -- it certainly appears to be doing quite well where it's planted -- and with that many green tomatoes forming on it -- well -- it would be a crying shame to just up and tear it out.

Thus -- the reprieve.

This isn't the only volunteer thriving in the Bird Garden this year. Black Cherry tomato plant volunteers are also springing up near a raised bed where I put a Black Cherry plant two years ago. I had a massive number of volunteers a year later (last year) and the process appears to be starting all over again this year.

I'm of the opinion that you can never have enough Black Cherry tomatoes. It just might be one of those "unwritten" rules. Nobody needs to tell you. You just sort of -- well -- know.

As for whether our volunteers will be *good* or *bad* -- the jury is still out on that. Sometimes they turn out to be cherry tomatoes that are really nothing to write home about. But -- sometimes -- the volunteer happens to be the return of a tomato you forgot to seed the previous season -- but really wish you had.

That's how we rediscovered our black "Evil Seed" heirloom variety (which we grew out in the form of starter plants and handed out to friends and associates this year). Now -- everyone gets to experience the nastiest tomato on the face of this Earth.

What will Mother Nature gift us with this year? Well now -- that's half the fun. Patience Bill Bird. Patience. Time will tell...

An Ode to the Beefsteak Tomato

It isn't pink. It's not yellow. It certainly isn't orange.

It doesn't rival the taste of a Brandywine. It doesn't provide the tastebud heaven that is the Black Cherry.

It's not warped like an heirloom. It doesn't come in different shapes and sizes like the Cosmonaut Volkov, Marianna's Peace or Druzba. You won't find it growing at a crazy 90 degree angle like a Zapotec Pleated

It just is. It's round. It's red. It doesn't crack. It's a tomato's tomato. It is your standard, non-fancy, hard-working, Beefsteak tomato. What type of Beefsteak you ask?

Nothing. Just Beefsteak.

Venus and I have the Beefsteak growing in the far right-hand corner of an 8X8 foot raised bed that is on the opposite side of the yard containing our six main 4X8 planter beds. We thought long and hard about what should go in this location, before the answer hit us like a bolt from the blue: "Why not another planter bed?" Boom! Done!

I'll be honest, there's nothing fancy about this tomato. It has a wonderful flavor to it -- but what vine-ripened tomato isn't wonderful tasting? It grows perfectly smooth round, red tomatoes. So -- how is this any different from a hybrid like Better Boy?

It's somewhat different in that this is an open-pollinated Beefsteak tomato. Unlike hybrids, which will fruit one main crop and then just sort of sit there and look pretty for another month or two, the Beefsteak keeps on truckin.' And, unlike a hybrid, this Beefsteak can be seeded and saved for next year's crop.

As you can tell -- this plant is simply loaded with bear. New fruit -- meanwhile -- continues to form at the bottom -- middle and top of this continiously growing plant. It's a simple tomato really. No cracks. No funny lines. No whoppers. No small fries.

It's just your standard tomato.

What's special about the Beefsteak then? Why write such prose? To some tomato afficiandos -- the world starts and ends with the Beefsteak tomato. My father-in-law is one such person. Oh sure -- he enjoys the colors that the tomato garden produces. But he dreams about tomato sandwiches and burgers topped with round, red, vine-ripened slices of the standard Beefsteak tomato. It's what he had as a boy. It's what he grew on "the ranch" in San Jose for years.

This is for you Gale Stromberg.

What else is amazing about this tomato? The cost. Quite simply, it cost us next to nothing to grow -- other than our time -- water and efforts. The seeds for this wonderful variety were discovered two years ago in a Dollar Store not all that far away from our North Natomas home.

It was there that Venus and I stumbled upon a garden rack of seeds -- ten packets for one dollar. We bought all we could -- including the packet of seeds contained the Beefsteak Tomato. That one dime will equal into about fifty-to-sixty pounds of production by the time this growing season is over.

Call it one of our "better" investments.

ANNOUNCING: The 2009 Bird Tomato Garden!!!

I feel like I've been run over by a Mack Truck.

Twice.

Yet, strangely, I feel satisfied. This is how I normally feel after a weekend of intense gardening therapy in the Back 40 backyard of Bill & Venus Bird. And, yes, it is therapy. I enjoy it. No matter how much by back hurts nor how much the shoulders peel from sunburn on sunburn, there is a strange and perverse satisfaction to planting a tomato garden in the backyard.

This is one whopper of a garden. We outdid ourselves again. There are 37 tomato plants that found homes in our backyard this season. That's ten more than last year. That's thirty more than six years ago, when the wife and I both discovered a shared love for all things heirloom tomatoes.

Not only is the garden in -- it's PRODUCING. Yes -- you read it correctly. The 16 plants that Venus and I stuck in the ground four weeks ago, with the exception of just one, are PRODUCING tomatoes at a rapid rate.

This is a first for me. It's a first for Venus as well. I've never seen heirloom plants produce quite this early. In fact, as a rule, most of them generally don't start producing small fruits until June or even July. We enjoy late harvests in August and September, but at our current rate, we'll be harvesting buckets of heirloom tomatoes in June. Who knows -- we might even get something at the end of May.

The picture to your right is a pretty good indication of what I discovered last weekend when I was staking up 16 tomato plants that had been blown flat by a weekend storm of rain and wind. That, my friends, is the Azoychka tomato plant. And those are three to four Azoychka tomatoes -- good sized tomatoes at that.

I'm still not quite ready to install my PVC tomato cages just yet -- and they take time to put up. I needed a quick fix. So -- off to Home Depot I went this past weekend for some bamboo stakes and garden twine. Both items are a gardener's best friend. Upon pulling up the tomato plants that had fallen to the ground, I discovered a treasure trove of production that, quite frankly, surprised me.

Each plant had not only flowered, but many of those flowers had resulted in fruit. Most of the plants had no more than three or four tomatoes, but in some cases there were more. The Druzba -- for example -- has thrown out ten tomatoes. And the Black Cherry plant you see to your left? That's just one of several clusters of cherry tomatoes that have developed so far.

What did I do differently this year to get such early production? I'm not really sure. Could it be that I recharged each raised planter bed with three bags of steer manure compost and other pelleted fertilzers? Possibly. Could it be the Omega 666 and Maxicrop liquid organic fertilizers? I suppose? Is the new hive of bees going to work on the tomato flowers? I suppose anything is possible.

At any rate -- we're off to a great start this year. And we're just getting started. It's barely mid-May. We've got a good five or six months to go! And now, without fail, here's a list of what we're growing in the Bird backyard this season and where the plants came from.

Almost all were started from seed. Some of the plants were grown by Farmer Fred Hoffman. Some were grown by Bill and Venus Bird. Still others were grown by Nels Christenson.

1. Arkansas Traveler (Farmer Fred)
2. Azoychka (Farmer Fred)
3. Beefsteak (Bill & Venus)
4. Black Cherry (Farmer Fred)
5. Black Krim (Farmer Fred)
6. Bloody Butcher (Farmer Fred)
7. Brandywine (2) Farmer Fred & Bill & Venus)
8. Campbell’s 1327 (Farmer Fred)
9. Clint Eastwood’s Rowdy Red (Farmer Fred)
10. Cosmonaut Volkov (Farmer Fred)
11. Costoluto Genovese (Farmer Fred)
12. Dixie’s Golden Giant (Farmer Fred)
13. Dr. Wyche’s Yellow (Farmer Fred)
14. Druzba (Farmer Fred)
15. Giant Belgium (Farmer Fred)
16. Green Zebra (Bill & Venus)
17. Japanese Black Trefele (Nursery purchase)
18. Jelly Bean (Farmer Fred)
19. Jubilee (Bill & Venus)
20. Kelloggs Breakfast (Farmer Fred)
21. Lemon Boy (Farmer Fred)
22. Marianna’s Peace (Farmer Fred & Bill & Venus)
23. Peppermint Quitos Strain (Bill & Venus)
24. Pineapple Beefsteak (Nursery Purchase)
25. Pink Ping Pong (Bill & Venus)
26. Red Reif Heart (Bill & Venus)
27. Santa Sweet (Bill & Venus)
28. Sun Gold Cherry (Volunteer)
29. Winsall (Nels Christenson)
30. Zapotec Pleated (Bill &Venus)

Before I sign off -- I want to add one other note. The photos above represent tomatoes in raised beds that were planted exactly one month ago. Not all of the garden looks this nice. Not all of the plants are THAT tall, THAT lush, or look THAT good.

Here's a good example of one bed, to your left, that we planted this past weekend. What will this bed look like in another month? Good question. As you can tell by the photo to your left, these tomato plants were NOT planted into a raised bed. Nope -- these plants went directly into cruddy, crappy, North Natomas clay soil.

Keep in mind that I amended this soil with LOTS of compost (four bags) and LOTS of steer manure compost (ten bags). But, even with the good stuff, it's still crappy, cruddy, Natomas clay sludge soil. Who knows what these plants will look like in another month? Will they survive? Will they thrive? The answers will be provided in time.

In short -- this is a "test" bed. It's an experiment to utlize every section of our backyard for growing purposes. If this works, like I hope it will work, we will amend other sections of the yard in future years to expand our tiny, but always growing, garden.

Stay tuned. The 2009 fresh-off-the-vine tomato season is now underway.

The TOP TEN from TomatoFest!

Gary Ibsen of TomatoFest fame recently sent this news release to Farmer Fred Hoffman, and I wanted to make sure you were informed of the growing popularity of certain types of Heirloom Tomatoes:
Bill

Announcing "Top 10" Heirloom Tomatoes for 2009

"Black" Tomatoes Still Reign with the Best of the Reds and Pinks

Bi-Colored and Cherry Tomatoes Also Growing In Popularity

Carmel, Calif. – January 25, 2009 – TomatoFest® Garden Seeds today announced that "black" tomatoes again rank high in the "Top 10" list of favorite heirloom tomatoes going into 2009. The "Top 10" favorite heirloom tomatoes are:

Brandywine (pink)
Paul Robeson (purple/black)
Aussie (red)
Julia Child (pink)
Cherokee Purple (purple/black)
Black Cherry (purple/black)
Kellogg's Breakfast (orange)
Gold Medal (yellow/red striped)
Aunt Ginny's Purple (purple/black)
Carmello (red)

"Black" tomatoes were more popular in 2008 than in any prior year," said Gary Ibsen, grower of 600 varieties of certified organic, heirloom tomatoes in California, and founder of TomatoFest® Garden Seeds, the most prominent internet retailer of organic heirloom tomato seeds.

"The purple/black colored heirloom tomatoes continue to rise in popularity at produce markets, with restaurant chefs, and with home gardeners for the 6th year in a row," "Black" tomatoes are fast becoming as popular as many of the best tasting pink and red tomatoes."

"Black" tomatoes are not really black," remarked Ibsen. "They cover a range of dark colors, including deep purple, dusky deep brown, smoky mahogany with dark green shoulders, and bluish-brown. The depth of colors seems to be encouraged by a higher acid and mineral content in the soil."

"Black" tomatoes are native to Southern Ukraine during the early 19th century. They originally existed in only a small region of the Crimean Peninsula. Soon they were showing up as new varieties in many shapes and sizes and began to appear throughout the territories of the former Soviet Union. Then they began turning up in the former Yugoslavia, Germany and the United States.

"A survey of our tomato seed sales to home gardeners and commercial tomato farmers, along with a review of our sales of fresh heirloom tomatoes to retailers and restaurants, demonstrate soundly that consumers have discovered the superior and complex flavors of the "black" heirloom tomatoes, and are selecting these bold colors along with their mix of favorite red, pink, orange and bi-colored tomatoes," said Ibsen.

Also showing a rise in popularity in 2008 with a greater presence in produce markets, are sweeter tasting bi-colored tomatoes, and a wider selection of different colored cherry tomatoes.

Photos and descriptions of all the above listed tomato varieties can be found at TomatoFest.

Bill's Note: Venus and I have grown four of the varieties listed in Ibsen's TOP TEN, and loved each and every one of them. Some heirloom afficianados go so far as to claim that Kellogg's Breakfast is the best tasting heirloom tomato, bar none, and they have a pretty good argument.

I ordered several different varieties from TomatoFest this year, and I have high hopes for a unique variety called "Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red." Time will tell with this new heirloom tomato entry into our backyard North Natomas garden. Some growers have reported amazing success with it, others have not.

And that's the trial and tribulation, so to speak, of growing heirloom tomatoes.