Catching up at last! Loads of seeds on the way, and first seeds about to be planted.

Sue with Marlin viewing Bridal Veil Falls in Dupont State Forest today (March 1)

Finally - finally! - I am getting caught up on all sorts of things. In my last blog I described the amazing seed conference in Corvallis, Oregon. I had just enough time to unpack and repack and head for Hartford, Connecticut to provide four workshops at the Flower show. It was such fun, with the conference room filled with enthusiastic gardeners. I appreciate all of those who attended, many of whom purchased my books. Thanks!

One of my audiences gathering for tomato talk at the Connecticut Flower and Garden Show in Hartford

With those two events out of the way, my efforts turned to fulfilling seed requests. I am happy to say that by the end of tomorrow, all requests will have been fulfilled, and that includes many new to our Dwarf Tomato Project. I think that around 150 padded envelopes of seeds left Hendersonville for destinations the world over!

I have just one small request. If anyone wishes to contribute to the postage and handling of my seed sending effort, you can go to the Dwarf Tomato Project page, scroll down a bit and find a donate button (which is Paypal). Give it a click if you wish to lend a financial hand to my seed sharing efforts. Any donation will be deeply appreciated.

A very fragrant display at the Flower Show in Hartford.

I am about two weeks behind where I would typically be with regard to seed starting, but this is Hendersonville, not Raleigh. The potential for frost will linger a few additional weeks here, so I think all will be well. My goal tomorrow is to get those first seeds planted, with a focus on a few eggplants, peppers and tomatoes (primarily our Dwarf varieties, but a few of our favorite indeterminate types as well). I am not yet sure if I will be selling plants here - at least not yet.

In fact, as I walked around the yard the other day checking out our various growing areas (there are nearly 20 patches already planted with various things that are beginning to emerge), it isn’t at all clear what I will plant, and where - dig a garden, create raised beds, grow bags or straw bales. With my next trip being early April (St. Charles, near St. Louis MO), and seed sending complete, I will finally have time to figure out my 2020 garden plans.

I will tell you that I ordered some seeds - including some corn, melons, sugar snap peas and even sweet peas. I am ready to branch out, and go beyond the driveway, and beyond the typical tomato/pepper/eggplant garden. It’s time…it’s about time!

One final thought. We’ve lived here for a month and a half. From the day we walked into the front door, it felt like home. We are where we belong, and are just loving being here!

Caitlin, Sue, Marlin and Koda walking at the Pink Beds trail in the Pisgah National Forest a week or so ago

(Most of the) boxes are unpacked, the onset of speaking events, and more on seeds.

We are clearly no longer in Raleigh!

The evaporation of time continues. It’s been nearly a month since my last blog - and just about a month since we moved into our Hendersonville house. We’ve had two lovely snow “storms” (aesthetic snow!) that quickly melted but was beautiful to watch fall or walk in. We’ve mostly unpacked, with just the downstairs room and garage remaining. Being here feels like home, a sensation that began from the second we walked into the door. Below are current pics of my office and Sue’s sewing room.

I just returned from a pretty incredible trip to Oregon, due to an invitation to the 2020 Organic Seed Growers Conference (and a chance to present on the Dwarf Tomato Project), along with a day spent with Denise and Mike Dunton at their farm/house/seed company (Victory) in Molalla. It would take weeks to consider the richness and value and enjoyment of the conference, rubbing shoulders with hundreds of bright, talented seed people (farmers, companies, gardeners, growers, historians, educators and more) from all over the world. My time with Mike and Denise were simply priceless. Mike and I have met exactly three times, but we truly are nearly the same people on different coasts (we do catch up on the phone with occasional marathon sessions!). Below are a pic of Mike and I, a shot of the seed swap at the conference, and a view from the plane flying home - lots of snow!

Tomorrow takes me to Hartford Connecticut to provide four workshops at the Connecticut Flower and Garden Show - two on Thursday, two on Friday. I am so pleased to be adding my garden history talk along side my information on growing and enjoying tomatoes. All of the information on the event can be found here. If you do manage to attend, please be sure to say hello!

Now onto veggie seeds. After finally getting seeds unpacked and my office ready for business, seed requests are in the process of being satisfied. Although I’ve made good progress, there is still a long way to go. If you asked for seeds, you will get them, though I don’t expect completing the requests until late February (sorry if I messed up your seed starting, but the seeds will be fine for many years).

Getting down to the seed request fulfillment business

With just a few exceptions to continue to send out Dwarf Tomato Project seed to long time members, I can accept no more requests until late in the year, after the gardening season is complete. I’ve yet to even consider what my own gardening adventures will look like, as speaking-related travel is sprinkled throughout the spring and summer (I’ve been adding events - the list can be found here). I also have completion of the book on the DTP as highest priority to complete this year.

Come back again soon - there will be information and pics from my trips, updates on my book and gardening adventures, and general sharing of impressions from our new life out here in Hendersonville, NC.

Marlin and Koda loving the snow

One box at a time....

the chaos that was my office just after the truck was unloaded

I was just helping Sue move furniture into/around her sewing room and asked her “how long to you think it will be until you are completely set up the way you want it to be”? Her response - “just working it one box at a time”.

That is a spot-on description of our last week, following the unloading, by the movers, of countless boxes, all of our possessions, to our new address in Hendersonville, North Carolina. The packing of all of those boxes is a blur, and unpacking will be at a very different pace. What Sue has in her sewing room is replicated in my office. We won’t even talk about the spare bedroom, downstairs room or garage. They will have to wait.

Sue treating the dogs…the living room is all set!

The last two months have been quite a unique stretch on our lives. House-hunting, ideal house identification, offer, acceptance, closure - Thanksgiving, Anniversary, Christmas, New Year’s Day, birthday, birthday - all between mid November and today. If we can get our Raleigh home sold quickly, that’s one big heap of unanticipated mission accomplished.

I’ve roasted my first batch of coffee here, sitting on our back deck yesterday, watching cardinals, woodpeckers, chickadees and titmice on the feeders. A quick scan of the various gardens in the yard indicate lots of flowering bulbs in the spring - hyacinths, daffodils and crocus are tentatively showing their greenery. Buds are swelling on rhododendron, dogwood and magnolia trees. We took our first hike in Dupont State Forest.

Sue’s birthday hike in Dupont State Forest

I managed to dig some greens out of the large pots before we left Raleigh - they are now in fresh potting medium, crowded into different large pots, covered by Reemay (they don’t seem too happy, but I was pretty rude to them, ripping them out of their comfy home). The tomato seedlings begun in Raleigh are in my office sunny window, not looking particularly happy, either - they’ve had quite a journey.

Koda and Marlin are thrilled with the big fenced back yard. Marlin is particularly enamored with the squirrel population. Music sounds great in this comfy little house. Waking up here in the morning brings a flood of possibilities, ideas, activities into our minds - we love it already.

My immediate plans are to answer some emails that are now a few weeks old. Once I get my boxes unpacked (particularly seeds!), attention turns to fulfilling seed requests and reminding myself where we are on the Dwarf Tomato Project. I’ve got events to prepare for - particularly my Corvallis and Connecticut February journeys. I also want to begin to dip in to the local gardening community. As for my 2020 garden, I haven’t really even started to think of that - it won’t be a full immersion, given time constraints, and my desire to learn about the soil and sun patterns and existing planting in the yard. That will be a topic for future blogs and newsletters. Oh, and the book….completion of the Dwarf Tomato Project book will fill in the spots between events and gardening and hikes, once the office is set up.

I don’t envision returning to Facebook or Twitter - leaving them has made me too happy! So Instagram - @nctomatoman - newsletter, blogs, and speaking events will comprise the ways I hope to share my experiences.

Just after closing. It’s ours! We are living in Hendersonville!

Happy New Year! Last thoughts on 2019 - first thoughts on 2020

Before the driveway! Our side yard dirt garden

I know that 2019 happened - my calendar is full of events and activities. I recall fostering puppies, taking a trip to Utah, having a really productive garden, melting in the heat of summer, a family vacation at the beach, lots of great speaking events, and deciding for our rapidly upcoming move to Hendersonville NC (along with many other things). Yet, it was truly a blur - 12 months, 52 weeks, 365 days went by at the speed of light. Slow down, time! Please!

One of my favorites from this house

2020 promises to be a really interesting year. We are on the cusp of our move (Sue and I are surrounded by boxes, closing date is less than a week away, and the transportation of our “stuff” one week later). My 2020 garden is a blank log with infinite possibilities, waiting to be filled in. Sue and I will celebrate our 40th anniversary in December. We will have a new town to explore, new customs and patterns to create, new people to meet. I’ve got some great speaking events awaiting, sprinkled throughout the year. We are so ready - beyond ready! - and can’t wait to wake up for the first time in our new home.

Caitlin with my dad, Wilfred, during a Christmas visit

We’ve lived in this house for 28 years - that’s a lot of memories. Our daughters spent the majority of their lives in this house. Parents, friends and relatives visited. Two books and countless quilts were created here. Sue and I are both leaving some dear friends. Just the act of packing and decluttering meant riffling through so many pictures and other memorabilia. It’s been quite a last few weeks, that’s for sure (I’ve sprinkled some of those pictures throughout this blog).

Sara and Caitlin on Easter chilling on the hammock

And the gardens! Our first garden here, a hand-dug 30 by 50 foot square, was planted in 1993. We planted 27 gardens here, and varieties like Cherokee Chocolate, Cherokee Green, Lucky Cross and Little Lucky arose in those gardens (not to mention the entirety of the span of the Dwarf Tomato Project, which began in 2005).

In 1993, our first Raleigh garden, I grew 74 different tomato varieties and 38 pepper varieties. Some tomato highlights were a tomato sent by a seed saver as an off-type from Yellow Brandywine that ended up, in collaboration with Carolyn Male, as OTV Brandywine. I grew my first dwarf variety - Golden Dwarf Champion, a Burpee variety from the 1890s, sent to me by seed saver Ken Ettlinger the previous year. Cherokee Purple shone in it’s first year in a North Carolina garden. I fell in love with Brandywine here, and it was the best tasting tomato in that 1993 garden.

Another view of a pre-driveway, real in the ground dirt garden (when we had enough sun on that location!)

In a future blog, I want to report on the results of a garden log counting project - summarizing exactly how many different tomato, pepper and eggplants were grown in our Raleigh garden - be it in the dirt in that side garden, the deck or driveway in containers or straw bales. My gardens here were incredibly interesting, and a load of useful research and development transpired. I can only hope to approach such success in our new Hendersonville gardens. They will certainly be different - more broad in crop types - and will provide new discoveries and interesting results. I can’t wait to tell you about them in future blogs and newsletters.

May you all have wonderful 2020 gardens!

Reading a book with some drama to the girls one Christmas Eve

A very brief holiday, pre-move update. Important news for those expecting seed samples

Boxes of my books, SSE yearbooks, and seed catalogs awaiting moving day

Well, Sue and I are deep into packing. It’s hard to believe that this whole “adventure” began with our first house hunting trip to Hendersonville, NC in late October. Not even two months later, we find ourselves only a few weeks from closing on our new house. Wow - there is an ad that says “life comes at you fast”. Indeed!

Seed packing underway

The speed of this process means that the many requests for seeds - some dwarf project, some heirloom - collected throughout the year will not be fulfilled until we settle into our new digs and I can actually find what I need to fulfill them. Packing will be, by necessity, fast. Unpacking will be far more gradual, so patience will be appreciated. As far as Dwarf Project assignments for the upcoming year - I’ve not thought that far ahead. Stay tuned for news on that front.

My new dwarf project crosses - F1 test plants - continuing to thrive. Will they make it to Hendersonville alive? I need to ponder rerooting!

If it’s my office, it has seedlings, as you can see above. This is now turning into a real challenge - seeing if I can get these seedlings in reasonable planting shape at our new place in spring 2020. A snip and re-rooting is in store for them very soon. Yet, it is a good illustration of how healthy, not overly leggy seedlings can result from a south-facing window location. OK, back to packing! Our target date for getting all of this stuff (via a moving company) to Hendersonville is mid January.

As Marlin is learning from Sue - and it applies to the seeds I hope to send out in January - “good things come to those who wait!”

I hope that all of you have a wonderful holiday season. Christmas for Sue and I will be very “different” this year, as you can tell! Catch you on the the other side - in 2020!

Changes, big and small

Me and my wonderful boys Marlin and Koda chilling out, trying to find the energy to declutter the house

Sue and I have never shied away from big changes. We’ve always enjoyed the buzz and energy of change, whether a new job, restaurant, hobby, tomato in the garden, pet in our family, or originating in news from our daughters. Living in one place for 28 years brings with it a sense of falling into patterns and habits, and change becomes less common. Getting into a rut isn’t bad, especially when it is an enjoyable and comfortable one, and people do seem to be creatures of habit.

For some reason, as we’ve watched our birthdays add up and feel morning creaky joints more often, the urge to move has been growing for a few years. It’s interesting to note how despite being very different people, our 40 year relationship seems to bring synchronicity into our decisions. It seemed totally natural to start the process of going from place A to place B - partly driven by the need to get our lives onto one floor, partly by the feeling that a move would shake us up a bit, reset our daily routines, and add in some exploration and discovery.

We always thought that my speaking schedule would provide glimpses of target destinations for our move. Hendersonville emerged as a leading option a few years ago when we stayed at a bed and breakfast there while speaking at the Mother Earth News Fair in Asheville. We love craft beer, hiking in the woods, and a small town setting. We have been growing tired of the increasingly hot and humid summers here, as well as increasing traffic and population. I’ve longed to dig into the ground and plant a non-driveway garden once more, and it makes me dream of a long awaited return to crops like corn and squash and melons.

Howling Mob corn making its debut in the 1905 Burpee seed catalog

Sue and I made our second house hunting trip to Hendersonville on Sunday, after finding a nice candidate on Zillow. We saw a house that will work great for us, made an offer, the offer was accepted - our drive back home to Raleigh was in a state of shock as we discussed the implications of the one day trip. We close on the house in early January. Sometimes, life happens fast - and this change will be significant. We are thinking of it as a great adventure. We are moving!

The changes this move triggers are many, of course. I get plugged in to the Raleigh area gardening community more and more each year, and so many associations will become very different. Spring seedling sales, which we’ve done on large and, more recently, smaller scales will come to an end. People can always ask for seeds - particularly for those more hard to find varieties. I always thought way back when we first started plant sales that my job was to put myself out of business - Epic Tomatoes and lots of gardening talks had lots of info about home seed starting. I know that many of my customers have become very skilled at doing so. I am always available to provide help answer questions for those who have yet to take the plunge. Quite a few of you will be receiving emails from me to offer my gratitude for your support through the years.

Local tomato dinner, local tomato and other gardening topics workshops will now have to come to an end. I’ve loved them all - Durham or Wake libraries, Eno, History Museum, Logan, Atlantic, various smaller gardening groups, master gardening groups - such great memories, and such fun. I hope to find niches in the Hendersonville area to provide workshops, and that is something I will attend to pretty quickly. I admit to be really excited about exploring a new community with whom to share garden stories.

As to the timing of our move, we will likely have ownership of the new house in early January, so this is bound to happen really quickly. It may take some time to sell our Raleigh home, and if this span reaches into April, there could indeed be some seedlings available, though they will have been started in Hendersonville (traveling seedlings!). Watch my blog and newsletter for updates.

Pages from my dad’s garden diary, which I discovered when cleaning out my parents home after my dad’s death in 2007

Another significant change is my decision to completely depart from Facebook; this means my book page and Dwarf Tomato Project page as well. As I’ve already departed from Twitter, the main social networking tool I will regularly use is Instagram; I can be found there @nctomatoman . I hope to encourage all of those who were connected to me via Facebook to register for my newsletters (both regular newsletter and the one created for participants in the Dwarf Tomato Project). I also hope to be a much more regular blogger. You can always get my attention using email also. These changes make me feel more consistent with my personal philosophy on what’s happening these days, and also carve out more time for me to adjust to our new lives in a new place.

Aside from decluttering and getting the house ready to list for sale, and preparations for the big move in January. there is no shortage of things to do. I hope to get to seed sending very soon - certainly in the coming weeks. Then there is completion of the Dwarf Tomato Project book. Just those things will keep me busy well into next year.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

That’s Scout - who we fostered as a tiny puppy with her brother Bodhi (we named them Betts and Mookie) spending Thanksgiving with us, having a nap with her pal Marlin

Some reflections on three days of awesomeness, the end of my 2019 workshops, and other things

I love to peruse my old seed catalog collection at this time of year. I am posting pics on Instagram pretty much daily - check them out - #gardenhistory @nctomatoman

On Saturday November 2, I had the opportunity to present my Container and Straw Bale gardening talk to an enthusiastic, warm and welcoming audience of gardeners as part of the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association (CFSA) conference. It was my penultimate talk of 2019. On Thursday evening, November 7, I finished my 2019 speaking season with that same workshop at the East Regional Library in Knightdale, NC. It can be a challenge to entice folks to attend gardening talks as the nights grow long and cold weather approaches, and my audiences for all 7 of my fall Wake County Library talks showed that gardening is not the first thing on peoples’ minds in the fall. Yet I loved them all, and my sphere of local gardening friends continues to expand.

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Back to the CFSA meeting I briefly mentioned above. Over the last few months I became involved in a parallel meeting for the event, and was asked to help and participate in the Southeast Seed System meeting as part of more regional efforts of the Organic Seed Alliance. I really can’t say enough about how impressed I was at the talent, enthusiasm, focus and purpose of so many regional farmers, gardeners, seed and produce growers and seed company and agricultural area experts, all focused on guiding improvement in numerous aspects of regional seeds and farming. My role was primarily using my project management and team facilitation tools to ensure that the three days lead to clear ways to advance the loads of great ideas that emerged on those three days of workshops and discussions. What I didn’t expect is how many of my own gardening experiences - my decades as a seed saver, a tomato collector and historian, an amateur breeder - fit well with providing guidance to the group, and we’ve really only scratched the surface as this regional group forms and launches.

There were so many wonderful chances to interact with many like minded friends, old and new - Ira Wallace and others from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange (one of my very favorite seed companies, and the one responsible for first making Cherokee Purple available in a seed catalog, back in 1993!), Chris Smith and Carol Koury of Sow True Seed and Chris’s own new venture, the Utopian Seed Project, Jacob Rutz of The People’s Seed, Melissa DeSa (our most welcome and delightful house guest) of Working Food, and Jared Zystro of the Organic Seed Alliance, just to name a few.

One of the most exciting workshops was right up my alley (or more specifically, the alley of the Dwarf Tomato Breeding project), discussing regional open pollinated plant breeding, was provided by Dr. Michael Mazourek, Professor of Plant Breeding at Cornell, and Brett Grosghal of Even’ Star Organic Farm in Maryland. Their talk, Breeding Crops for Resilience in the Face of Climate Change, faced head-on the challenge of plant breeders, gardeners and farmers to identify or create varieties that can handle rapidly changing conditions.

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As for “other things” - there really are an awful lot of them, a few major, most minor - but these are the things that will keep me busy for the foreseeable future.

Our impending move. We’ve lived in Raleigh for 28 years and it feels like time to go west - as in the Hendersonville NC region. We are de-cluttering, house hunting, getting our house ready for the market. That is a big project in itself, but it is underway. This will change things for sure - especially my future gardens, and spring seedling sales. It could be a few months or a year. Stay tuned…this is definitely a breaking story!

Seedlings growing in front of my sunny office window - these are my test plantings of my 5 new dwarf X indeterminate crosses - all are indeterminate, so all crosses took. I will blog about them soon.

The Dwarf Tomato Project. It lives on, and Victory Seed Company will be releasing over a dozen new ones very soon. Promising possibilities keep popping up, and I appear to have 5 new successful crosses to play with.

The book on the Dwarf Tomato Project. It exists in my brain and I need to carve out the time to shape it into a book. Yes, I know I’ve been talking about it for a few years, but it must happen, and happen pretty soon.

Fulfilling seed requests for both dwarf and heirloom tomatoes. I’ve received requests from lots of you and hope to get to stuffing seed packets and getting them into the mail over the next few weeks, into early next year.

My partial exodus from social media. Some of you may have noted that my personal Facebook page is no more, and I’ve vanished from Twitter. It is really a reaction to the times we live in, and the time I have available. It makes me very unhappy that tools used to bring people together are being used to divide us. I still have a Facebook book page (but can’t view or update it - my daughter Sara does that for me), as well as a private Dwarf Tomato Project page that I am also unable to access. I think those will soon vanish as well, but it is something I’m yet to be certain of. This leaves Instagram, and I am trying to post interesting pics each day - find me @nctomatoman . Aside from that, my primary means of communicating outward will be this blog and newsletters.

That’s quite a few “other things”. Hopefully this will give a sense of the things keeping me busy (very busy!), happy, and also a few things I continue to grapple with.

Marlin and Koda at rapt attention playing the morning “treat game” with Sue

Let's Talk About the Weather.

Using Some Data Toward More Productive Gardens

cherry tomato flowers - smaller blossoms suffer less blossom drop in extreme temps

Our family moved from West Chester, PA to Raleigh, NC in 1992. Our first garden in Raleigh was planted in 1993. This past season, 2019, is therefore our 27th garden here. We had 6 gardens in Pennsylvania, with those that focused on heirloom tomatoes from 1987-1991. Using historical temperature data, I wanted to do some analyses and comparisons, as well as identify some trends, in order to confirm my observations about how gardening has changed for us here since we moved in, and to see if I could correlate the superior tomato yields achieved in Pennsylvania with the most modest results obtained here in North Carolina (accepting that temperature was only one of many variables).

One major difference between gardening in PA and NC showed in tomato productivity. In PA, I easily averaged between 20-30 pounds of fruit per plant across the many varieties I grew, approaching 40 pounds in a few cases. The plants were grown in the ground, staked, and only minimally pruned in soil augmented with mushroom compost.

In NC, yields are far more variable, and though I didn’t collect specific harvest weight data, the typical yield per plant was more in the 10-15 pound range, with occasional 20-25 pounds per plant sprinkled across the many gardens planted here. About 10 years ago I moved from in-ground dirt growing to combinations of straw bales and containers in my driveway (to take advantage of increased sun exposure there). This past year was one of the best in recent memory, with the straw bale indeterminate plants achieving the 20-25 pounds per plant range. Disease is far more of a problem in NC than it was in PA, and my yields here are often impacted by sick plants. I’ll talk more about disease in a future post; right now I want to focus on relative temperatures experienced each summer.

The reason for my interest in temperature trends is toward continually improving my own garden results, as well as being able to share pertinent findings with my fellow gardeners so that they can succeed as well. It goes without saying that my main interest throughout my near 40 years of gardening has been tomatoes, particularly heirlooms, especially those with large fruit potential. As many tomato enthusiasts know, when it gets really hot and humid (90 degrees or above, high relative humidity), fruit set becomes a problem with many varieties, leading to blossom drop and disappointing yields. By understanding what sorts of temperatures we can anticipate around which particular dates, adjustments can be made to variety choice and seeding and planting time so that extreme weather can be best avoided. Of course, our increasingly hot summers in Raleigh (as shown by the data below) make it impossible to completely remove the problem. However, there are tactics that can be used to increase success.

larger blossoms, meaning larger tomatoes, which dislike heat and humidity with regard to pollinating and fruit set

I’ve collected and analyzed a lot of temperature data, using the Weather Underground website and the ability to view high and low temps by month and year. Here are some of the key findings.

Extreme temperatures (temps at 90 degrees and above)

• Between 1992 and 2005, there was an average of 36 days of 90 degrees or above.

• Between 2006 and 2019, the number of 90 degree or more days averaged 50.

• The summers of 2010 and 2011 had 82 and 63 days of these super hot days, respectively. In the last four years, we range between 50-60 of such days.

• Taking it in smaller bites, the 90 plus degree days each summer averaged 36 days from 1992-2000 and 46 days in the spans 2001-2010, and 2011-2019.

I then looked at “heat waves” - spans of 4 days or more of temps at 90 degrees or above. The data was pretty surprising, but there is a clear trend. It turns out that 3 years were blisteringly hot; the summer of 2010 had 11 such heat waves, and 2002 and 2011 had 9 stretches of extreme heat. The other stretch that bucked the clear trend are the three years spanning 2012-2014, which averaged only 2 heat waves per summer.

Looking more broadly, however, it is getting hotter. Between 1992-2005, there were 45 heat waves, whereas there were 73 between 2006-2019.

Timing of heat waves

2019 was a really challenging year for heat waves (so it was not just my imagination as I was melting in my driveway during my daily 3-4 hours out there!). Each month had a long, broiling stretch - 1 each in May, June, August, September and October, with 2 in July.

2018 had 2 heat waves each in June, July and August. 2017 had 3 in July and 2 in August. Looking at the other end of my study range, 1992 had 1 heat wave, in mid-July; 1993 had 1 each in June, July, August and September. 1994 had 2 heat waves in June. In 1995 we experienced 2 in July and 2 in August. 1996 had one heat wave in June, 1997 had 1 in July and 1 in August.

Given the data, what is the best way forward for planting times and methods?

This is where it gets tricky. Increasing warmth over time would be expected to mean last frost dates moving more toward early and mid March, which would allow for a month or more earlier planting without fear of crop loss. Looking at the last frost data doesn’t show such a clear solution, though an overall trend is certainly there.

Between 1997 and 2007 (missing low temperature data prior to 1997 meant leaving out of this assessment), safe plant out dates tended to late March or early April. Between 2009 and 2019, many seasons provided opportunities for an earlier planting. Last frost dates fell into the first week of March for 2009, 2010, 2012, 2015, 2016, and 2019.

This data is particularly important for gardeners who, like me, have no greenhouse. Being able to put plants out as early as possible for hardening off or planting is critically important. Moving dozens of flats to the safety of the garage is no fun at all.

The solution? It’s time to try staggering plantings

Even though it seems like a long time span, looking at 28 years of temperature data is still pretty insignificant in the grand scheme of things. Trends can certainly be identified, but season to season variation indicates that it is not yet time to count on the increasing trend to more, hotter days and heat waves to lengthen our growing season and allow for earlier planting.

We can take advantage of the long growing season (let’s say that it runs from, on average, March 10 until November 10; that’s 9 months, or roughly 270 days!) by not putting all of our eggs in one basket - rather than planting everything as soon as we can, aiming for planting in spaced out groupings. For example, if I am going to end up growing 60 tomato plants, rather than plant all 60 as soon as the threat of frost has passed, plant 20 initially, then wait a month and plant 20 more, wait another month and plant 20 more. What this will hopefully accomplish is to avoid a series of long heat waves leading to blossom drop and significant yield reduction on all of the large fruited varieties that are planted. Staggered planting means staggered growing and staggered flowering; the odds are that favorable weather at various points of the season will lead to better overall yields.

The other consideration is in matching crop types with expected temperatures. Potatoes, peas, lettuce, beets, other types of greens (aside from Chard) are not happy when it gets hot. If we are seeing more and more 90 degree days in May, the season for such sensitive veggies becomes extremely short. Very early germination - in some cases, even planting in the fall and providing some cover protection over the winter - and planting out in late winter is the best bet in getting decent harvests from heat sensitive crops.

Let’s keep the discussion going

I’d love to hear what people think about the above, particularly in looking at real data and pondering the possibility that it had significant impacts on their gardens. I encourage people living in other areas to do a similar analysis - collect some temperature data for your area over a few decades and see what the trends are telling you. Think about how you may have to alter your timing in order to bring success back to your gardening, if changing temperatures have been negatively impacting your efforts.

Share your views via email, or as a comment to this blog. I’d love to know what you think!

Larger flowers that are indicative of the beefsteak heirloom types, though some can even look more like marigolds. Heat waves lead to increased blossom drop due to difficulty in self pollination of the blossoms

On a Utah trip, time for thinking, and looking ahead.

Zion…Bryce Canyon…Capitol Reef…Arches…Canyonlands. Five US National Parks running in southern Utah from west to east. 12 days, Sue and I, Airbnbs in Orderville, Tropic, Torrey and Moab.

Talk about good medicine for the mind and the soul….most days so quiet, the warm dry air perfect for hikes, breathtaking views of a geography completely new to us and far different from what we’ve seen, and where we live. It was an utterly perfect way to unwind after a pretty consistently busy year to date, and an opportunity for which I am so grateful.

What did I ponder while out taking in mountains and canyons? Lots, but the most important reflections were around my second career arc, where I’ve been and what’s to come.

I pondered the impact of social networking - which often seems like the burden of social networking.

The impact of social media on our culture, country, politics - the world - has been hanging heavy on me the past few years. This year’s garden - the incessant heat, the number of plants - seemed more burdensome than usual, no doubt party due to the fact that the passage of time takes its toll on stamina, and desire to have such ambitious gardens each year.

This is the tip of the iceberg of my thoughts, and is a sufficient distillate to set up the next part of this post - what I plan to do about it all. Without going into great detail on each point, here is a summary of my plans going forward:

Social media - I plan to simply leave Twitter, begin to close down my personal page on Facebook, but continue with my Facebook Author Page to take me through upcoming planned events to help drive awareness. My primary means of communication via social media will be Instagram. And yet, even given this, I will be posting far less. My hope is that those who follow my gardening exploits will move on to…..

Blogging and Newsletters - Less social posting will mean more communication through my blog and quarterly newsletters - at least that is my aspiration. I will be taking advice from my daughter/coach, Sara, on all of these transitions.

Direct email - I’ve had a long time practice of encouraging questions sent to me via personal email, and I plan to continue that. However, response time to emails could increase a bit - typically I answer the day I receive them, but it may stretch to a week or so…we shall see.

Future gardens - Smaller, less plants, easier to maintain - out of necessity. Continued reduction/eventual closure of the Dwarf Tomato Breeding Project will be a consequence. With a desire to get away with Sue and travel more, and a continuing pretty busy speaking schedule, biting off more than I can chew simply doesn’t make sense. We are probably only a few years away from downsizing and relocating anyway.

Spring seedlings - more limited, less plants, but continuing as long as I can find time to get seedlings stared and well cared for, but tied in to the Future Gardens point as well.

Book 3 - the Dwarf Tomato Project book - this will become the main priority until it is completed and released. I hope to use time saved from reduction of efforts as outlined above to wrap this up at last. It is long over due, and will feel great - and bring on relief! - when it is finally finished.

I welcome anyone’s opinions on my plans. It seems the right thing to do at the moment. To tell the truth, this is the beginning of my departure from all social networking…one has to start somewhere!

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All that remains of the 2019 driveway garden

This is it - the last of a 5 part personal review of all Dwarf Tomato Project releases (whew!)...

Candidates for releases from the Teensy family

That was a fun little effort - it just seemed time to give my honest opinions on all of our dwarf releases. What will be clear, hopefully, is that my experiences with many of them are extremely limited - in some cases, yet to begin. It is really important to stress the individual nature of this type of review series - my taste buds, my growing method, all of the seasonal variations. Our dwarfs are truly in their infancy - so much more information is needed - certainly desired - to provide a more complete picture….which ones do best in which locations (and which ones struggle the most)….which seem to have remaining instability….which ones taste best, which ones seem a bit lacking. None of this is precise. It is a living project that is at it’s very beginning (and we are not at all finished releasing Dwarf varieties from our project!)

Dwarf Egypt Yellow * - This tomato really exceeded my expectations in both flavor and size. I am so glad I finally got to grow it this year; it was one of the highlights of my garden in 2019. It is nice to add a big, oblate, prolific bright yellow regular leaf dwarf to our portfolio.

Dwarf Franklin County - I’ve not yet grown the released selection and hope to do so in 2020 or 2021. I dabbled just a bit in the Wishful family early on.

Dwarf Velvet Night - I’ve been a bit unlucky with this one - either disease or deer hit the two times I grew it, though I worked quite a bit on the Dinky and Muddy lines (both of which produced pink or purple dwarf cherries) early on, and knew that they held great promise. At least I got a few to eat this year before the deer took the rest, and I found it a delightfully flavored purple larger sized, slightly oblate dwarf cherry tomato.

Dwarf Pink Opal - I’ve not yet grown the released selection and hope to do so in 2020 or 2021. I did work a bit on the family early on and found the pink cherries out of Dinky and Muddy families very good.

Dwarf Confetti * - I’ve not yet grown the released selection and hope to do so in 2020 and 2021. I discovered and named this variety and it was outstanding that year.

Dwarf Sarah's Red * - Yet another large fruited, totally delicious scarlet red colored variety takes its place in our project. My first growing was just this past summer, and I simply loved it. Productive, healthy, vigorous, large - and totally yummy. As I’ve said previously in these blogs, great flavored high quality red dwarfs are always welcome!

Dwarf Peppermint Stripes * - I’ve not yet grown the released selection and hope to do so in 2020 and 2021. I discovered and named this variety and it was outstanding that year.

Dwarf Andy's Forty - Though not a total blockbuster like some of our releases, this is a very nice medium sized chocolate colored dwarf tomato with excellent flavor. The fruit are smooth, the variety is productive - and there is a hint of faint stripes on the fruit of the plant that I grew. Unless I was specifically looking for those stripes, I would have missed them.

Dwarf Mary's Cherry - I’ve not yet grown the released selection and hope to do so in 2020 or 2021.

Dwarf Hannah's Prize   * - And, guess what - yet another wonderful large fruited scarlet red dwarf tomato made its debut in my 2019 garden. What an embarrassment of riches - and what a fine tomato this is.

Dwarf Saucy Mary  - I’ve not yet grown the released selection and hope to do so in 2020 or 2021. I selected and named the variety and found it very enjoyable. It is quite unique in being a green fleshed, good sized, distinctively striped (dark and light green and amber) plum or paste fruited dwarf.

Dwarf Mandurang Moon - This proved to be the most compact growing dwarf variety of my experience, behaving more like a microdwarf, though with really large potato leaf foliage. The small plum shaped nearly snow white saladette type tomatoes are really tasty. It just seemed as though it was not at its best in my 2019 garden, and was one of those that came in with a flurry of other, larger fruited types - so was a bit underrated I suspect.

Dwarf Black Angus - I’ve not yet grown the released selection and hope to do so in 2020 or 2021. I selected and named the variety, really liked it, and expect it to be excellent based on my early work.

Dwarf Bendigo Rose - I’ve not yet grown the released selection and hope to do so in 2020 or 2021. I dabbled a bit with this variety while it was in development a few years ago.

Dwarf Bendigo Moon - I’ve not yet grown the released selection and hope to do so in 2020 or 2021. Same comment as with Dwarf Bendigo Rose.

Dwarf Awesome - I’ve not yet grown the released selection and hope to do so in 2020 or 2021. Since I am a big fan of the Ivalde family and this is the first release, I feel bad that I’ve yet to grow it.

Dwarf Moliagul Moon - I’ve not yet grown the released selection and hope to do so in 2020 or 2021….same comment as with Dwarf Bendigo Rose.

Dwarf Bendigo Drop - My first attempt at this during 2019 was not a great success - it was in a poor location, came in late, and hence was attacked repeatedly by deer. I will suspend further comments until I get a chance to give it a fair trial.

Dwarf Bendigo Dawn - I’ve not yet grown the released selection and hope to do so in 2020 or 2021. Same comment as with Dwarf Bendigo Rose.

Dwarf Barossa Moon - I’ve not yet grown the released selection and hope to do so in 2020 or 2021. Same comment as with Dwarf Bendigo Rose.

Dwarf Bendigo Blush - Same comment as with Dwarf Bendigo Drop, above - a poor attempt at a first trial in 2019, hence slated for a return to my garden very soon for a much more fair trial.

Dwarf Grandpa Gary's Green - I was quite happy with this nice medium sized, smooth, nearly round yellow skinned, green fleshed variety. Though not grouped with the absolute best, it is an excellent, productive variety that many will love. With all of the clear skinned greenies from the Sneezy line, it is nice to have a good sized yellow skinned green flesh to grow.

Dwarf Melanie's Ballet * - I really enjoyed eating - and the beauty of - this nicely shaped, good sized smooth plum shaped pink. Highly productive, this is a wonderful multi use tomato…salads, sauces, roasting, canning. It jumped into my favorites category with my first try at growing it, this past season.

Dwarf Sneaky Sauce - This is simply a reliable, high yielding, attractive round to slightly heart shaped scarlet red tomato that tastes really good. It would make a perfect slicing, salad, canning or sauce tomato. It is a fine addition to our portfolio of releases.

Dwarf Velvet Night, a yummy purple large cherry dwarf

As you read above, I’ve no experience yet with the released selections of 14 of the above. In total, 23 of our releases that I’ve not yet grown will be in my garden in one of the next two seasons.

And so the journey through the current releases from our project is complete. I hope you found it interesting, and welcome any questions that you have. I won’t say that the best is yet to come (because we have lots of greatness sprinkled throughout our releases), but some really fine tomatoes will soon be available. Some of those will certainly end up on my “best” list.

Thanks go to the hundreds and hundreds of our wonderful volunteers, reaching back to 2006; to Patrina of course, my project co-lead, Bill Minkey (who grew out the vast majority of our release seed stock that we gave to various companies to package up and sell), the companies that decided that these fit well into their offerings (particularly Mike and Denise Dunton of Victory Seeds, but also the other early adopters - Tatiana’s TOMATObase, Sample Seed Shop (Remy), Heritage (Steve), Southern Exposure Seed Exchange (Ken and Ira), Jeff Casey, Glenn and Linda Drowns, Fruition (Petra)…and the many customers who are purchasing, enjoying and reporting back on their experiences. Keep those opinions coming!

Candidate for upcoming release Dwarf Ann’s Dusky Rose Plum