Well here we are, mid-January and the seed order from Totally Tomatoes has arrived. This year we will be trying something a bit different in the garden.  We will be growing a few varieties of tomatoes here, but most of the tomato growing is going to take place at a friends place in the country where the garden space is HUGE!  We will be planting our peppers, squash, and cukes out there as well.  In town here, because the garden is fairly shaded during the heat of summer we will be growing mostly vegetables for salad and stir-frying. Things like spicy Arugula again, and Bok Choy, Pak Choy, Chinese Greens, Chinese Long Beans, and herbs in a wide variety. And of course, the afore mentioned tomatoes. The  in-town varieties will be mostly smaller tomatoes, yellow pears, and cherry tomatoes for salads.  

I love Totally Tomatoes and if you have not done business with them, I can attest that they know their tomatoes and have more varieties than any other seed catalog I have seen. A couple of the new ones I will be trying this year are the “stuffers.”  These are cool tomatoes shaped like a bell pepper and mostly hollow for stuffing – with salad, or what ever you can imagine!  We purchased 30 varieties of tomatoes, and have them starting in small pots already getting ready to set them out in early April. 

The other thing that Totally Tomatoes does amazingly well is Pepper Seeds. We will be planting a dozen varieties of these as well; ranging from the traditional red and yellow bell peppers to Thai Hot.

I am so looking forward to this growing season!

Winter has brought about a fresh selection of produce in the garden.  We now have oranges, tangerines, lemons, bears limes, grapefruit, and surprisingly the woody herbs – mainly sages – are flourishing in pots on the back steps. The Pineapple Sage (Salvia elegans) in particular is beautiful with its scarlet flowers.  It appears that the lavender that seemed to die out in the heat last summer has actually survived and is beginning to send up some green shoots also!

Yesterday I picked the last of our “summer crops.” A bit earlier than I would have liked but the 0.5″ of rain we received about 10 days ago caused a severe mildew to take place and so, it is time to say goodbye to summer’s bounty and prepare the garden for a winter crop. As you can see from the photo there were still plenty of tomatoes, a few zucchini, a couple cucumbers, the last of the figs and the Italian plums. It is hard to say goodbye to the summer garden as I have a serious addiction to cucumber-tomato salad as well as sauteed zucchini.

End of Summer's Bounty

As someone who likes to both cook and garden, but who has some physical limitations when it comes to gardening, I have to say that one of the things that brings me great satisfaction is my kitchen herb garden. I call it a kitchen herb garden because the herbs are primarily culinary herbs, not because I grow it in my kitchen. Well, at least not all of it. I have chives and flat leaf parsley growing in pots on top of my microwave where they get early morning sun, but for the most part my herbs are grown in pots in various locations around my home. I have some on the front porch, some in pots on the back stairs outside of my kitchen door, and some in containers out in the garden area proper, as well as some in the soil in the garden, and in a bed by the back door. I LOVE having fresh herbs to cook with.

Growing herbs in containers is very easy if you choose your container and your growing mediums wisely.  The number one thing that I recommend is containers that are “sealed” or “glazed.”  I love terra cotta pots, but unless they are glazed, they suck the moisture right out of the soil.  Next, you need to make sure that you choose a container that is large enough for the herb you are growing. A good rule of thumb is that the container is large enough to hold below the soil a root structure that is as large as the plant above the soil. Small pots may be cute, and attractive to stick a plant in while you are giving it as a gift – but a ‘too small’ container is the number one reason that most potted plants die.

You don’t have to spend a fortune for your containers; many stores carry a variety of low cost, high quality planters that are suitable for growing herbs. I find a great many of the containers I use at Big Lots™, Grocery Outlet™, Wal-Mart™, OSH™, and Target™ stores.  I never pay more than $10 for a container that holds at least 2 gallons of growing medium.

Your growing medium. Most people just go out and buy “potting soil.” Please resist the urge to do this. While buying some potting soil is okay, in reality you need a good mix that is not highly acidic. If the medium you choose has redwood or other “evergreen” mulch in it – it is pretty acidic. You need a mix of good old fashioned soil, peat, mulch, and fertilizer. Most bagged growing mediums are “sterilized” this means that the contents are sterile – they are also pretty nutrient free.  If you live in an area with heavy clay soils like I do – DO NOT add sand to your soil thinking that you will improve drainage. Adding sand to clay soil creates CONCRETE, it does not improve drainage.

Once you get your bags of growing medium home you need to mix it. I have to admit, my favorite thing to mix my soil in is – my large ice chest!  I open each bag and pour it in, 1/4 bag at a time in layers – then I toss it together a bit with a hand trowel and fill my pots. My large ice chest holds enough growing media (4 – 20lb bags) to fill 10 of my large planters. I fill the planters with soil and then transplant the 4″ herb plants that I purchased. Once I am done, the ice chest goes outside and is hosed out, washed with a bit of hot soapy water and rinsed and it is good to go for the next outing. In the mean time – I was able to do all my planting in my kitchen with minimal mess.