Heirloom Tomatoes!

I now officially have so many little tomatoes, I do not know how to eat them all! I should have grown some bigger ones, then I could have at least canned some of them. I grew a few heirloom varieties this year and I have some pretty interesting shapes and colours happening. I have a Yellow Pear Tomato, which dates back to the 1800”s and like it”s name suggests, is shaped just like a little pear – this little guy is surprisingly fleshy/meaty for it”s size. I have another little yellow cluster type tomato that is about the same size as the pear tomato but it is a tad more round and much sweeter and juicier, which is delicious. Also, my favourite so far – is a really pretty kind of tomato called a Garden Peach Tomato, which has a fine, fine fuzz, just like a peach! This tomato is yellow with a pink hue here and there – very pretty and extremely tasty! I have a few other red tomatoes in the group growing that are real gnarly looking but taste so earthy and are a real favourite – I think they are Brandywine. For some reason the slugs keep going for these and usually get them before me! Tomatoes. My favourite thing to grow and my favourite ingredient to cook with. Grow them, love them.. report back to me with your favourties! Kelly  Read More

A sad haul and a sad day

Let me set the scene. It”s a few days somewhere in the middle of last week, there I am, pulling weeds and old dead plants in my little garden, deciding what is food and what.. well.. just wasn”t! I ended up pulling the last few tomatoes and these greens (beet greens and rainbow chard) pictured above. This marks the end of my garden for this year (insert very large sigh here!). Why am I rambling about my garden? Well, I want you to know that vegetable gardening will make you happy. I post these pictures for you in defense of veggie gardening. It”s fun (in a dirty way.. heh heh) .. no, really now.. its satisfying – now don”t make that dirty! You will not know the joys of pulling the last things out of your garden until you do it, so just do it – next spring that is. For now, I leave you with an amazing link to a place to buy seeds, http://www.terraedibles.ca/ they deal alot in heirloom varieties – meaning that the seeds are not common and they are old breeds – they were popular before modern large-scale agriculture. More importantly – when you decide to grow an heirloom plant you are ensuring its existence for another year and as a bonus you get some really interesting and gnarly looking things growing that taste out of this world delicious! If you want to know more about heirloom plants and vegetable growing and seed exchanges, go here: http://www.seedsavers.org/  Read More