Early Results Part 1

Welcome back to another episode of Lost in the Farmer’s market. Today’s post is going to be a short one regarding some of the successes and failures of this year’s trials. The final results of course won’t be in until December but, for the summer seasonal section, I can already talk about how well things went.  For those not familiar with the test gardens the warm season plantings are comprised of a few primary crops the majority of which are concentrated in the night shade family. This means Tomatoes, Peppers, Eggplant, Potatoes, ground cherry, tomatillos and so on. So let’s take a look at the things grown in order and how they did. This week I’m covering the Tomato crop in detail.

Tomatoes:

            Amana Orange

            Beef Steak

            Brown Berry

            Currant, Gold Rush

            Currant, Red

            Currant, Sweet Pea    

            Currant, Yellow 

            Mexico Midget

Paul Robeson

            Purple Calabash

            Reisotomate

            Roma

            San Marzano

            Silvery Fir Tree

            Solar Fire

For note the criteria used to judge the success or failure of a tomato or any other plant relates to how well it produces, how it handles drought, pests and, its growth rate. So of course the best of for 2013 was Red Currant, Mexico Midget, Brown Berry, Paul Robeson, Reisotomate, San Marzano and, Underground railroad. These six tomato varieties out lasted the rest and are worth considering for next year.

Red Currant

RC is a yearly staple in the test gardens for the fact its tiny pea sized fruit are numerous enough that even the birds can’t impact the crop. The plant dislpays a heavily branching habit that allows it to takeover large sections of the reinforced mound bed in the best of conditions. This year it produced well but was crippled by the three or four weeks of rain we had in mid-summer and never quite recovered.

Still producing regardless of the weather, MM did well with a slight sputtering back in june. Super vigorous!

Mexico Midget

I admit this variety was selected entirely at random and I had no idea what I was getting. However this one was planted in a 14” pot and given the same treatment as URR, PR and reisotomate and it did not disappoint. Mexican Midget produced regular bright red fruits that were a bit smaller then cherry size. The scrambling vines were easy to handle and when being twined about the cage virtually no breakage occurred. Granted the plants never looked very pretty the glut of fruit they produced made their appearance trivial. Expect this to be back next year.

Brownberry has this brown flecking pattern to it's fruit that is quite beautiful, the tomatoes produced are worth it  for cooking too.

Brown Berry

BB was tested last year initially and brought into production this year. Known for its cherry sized fruit that are gorgeously streaked with brown this tomato really showed how tough it was this year. I plated this one in the same bed with the kiwanos and it was the surviving tomato after the Kiwanos choked out the other. Even despite the competition BB reliably produced even under brief drought and constant wetness.

The picture does the sheer size of this Paul Robeson tomato no justice It's big enough to fill my hand and may be nearing a pound in weight! The legend of NJ tomatoes being the best and largest has just been debunked!

Paul Robeson

With a name like that you already expect great things and boy did this selection not disappoint. PR too a bit to get going but once it began fruiting it well still hasn’t stopped. The vines scrambled over the case and are not in the cage of the Underground Railroad tomato and likewise URR is in the Paul Robeson cage. PR produced fruit ranging from 4 ounces up but the largest average is 6.5 ounces though larger Fruit is still on the vine. PR is a keeper and will be back next year.

Reisotomate is late to yeild but persistent once it gets going the fruit are incredibly irregular but great tasting.

Reisotomate

Reisotomate was purchased as novelty item, as an oddity to beat all oddities in the category of tomato. What I did not know is that it doesn’t try to fruit until august but once it starts it keeps pumping out fruit. Indeed the deformed fruit have been so random that at certain angles the vines look like they’ve got little green pumpkins on them. The flavor is good and this one will likely return for next year’s test garden.

San Marzano

SM was introduced by sustainable neighbors, and honestly even in adverse conditions the vines did quite well. As far as pate tomatoes go it has a good history and the germination rate was very high. The plants suffered the same fate as the Red currant tomatoes when the brief ‘monsoon’ season happened and never quite recovered. The fruit it did produce were quite good and a number were frozen for winter use. I will be bringing this back next year.

Ant Lou's Underground Rail Road produced with no regularity but the fruits it did produce were quite nice.

Underground Railroad

As far as the three African American heritage varieties go URR did fantastic. As noted in the Paul Robeson section URR’s vigorous vines grew into the Paul Robeson tomato cage and the two are no inseparable. I literally have to follow the vine to its roots to figure which plant is which. Fruit has come at regular intervals and the plant has not had a single disease or pest problem. I would bring this back for sure next year.

With the varieties covered, I have to say that I confirmed one critical factor this year; tomatoes do their best in pots in the North Carolina environment. Two out of three of the listed plants were planted in beds and didn’t reach their full potential due to competition or the weather. I also suspect that being in a pot allowed the soil to fully drain as opposed to being in the ground where constant rain meant that the roots may have sat in a pool of water. There’s a bit more data to collect on this experiment however you can expect to see it up here in detail later on in the year. Next week I’ll talk about the peppers and what was tried and what succeded.

Garden topics aside, as some of you might already know I operate a booth down at the Fayetteville Farmers/City market. The market is open on Saturdays from 9:00 am through 1:00 pm and is located on 325 Franklin Street which is also the location of the Fayetteville Transportation Museum. There is no shortage of parking nearby and it’s a good chance to chat with the folks that actually grow the food. This week’s plant list contains the following.

House Plants:

4x Life Saver Cactus

4x Silver Aloe

1x Sunset Aloe

Salad & Fixings:

4x Romaine Lettuce

4x Black-Seeded Simpson Lettuce (bibb type)

1x Radicchio (more coming soon)

Cole Crops:

5x Georgia Collards

5x Morris Heading Cabbage-Collards

3x Savoy Cabbage

3x Mustard-Spinach ‘Senposai’

6x Dinosaur Kale

4x Napa Cabbage

Next week

4x Spear Sanseveria (Houseplant)

4x Sangria Pepper (Ornamental)

3x Litchi Tomato

Available Soon:

2x Blushing Philodendron

12x Spineless Prickly pear

??x Japanese Red Giant Mustard

Well this brings to a close the first post of October; the clock is ticking folks on getting those cold season plants in the ground. We’ve got perhaps six or so weeks before the first of frosts is liable to strike so if you’ve not considered fall planting you may want to. If you’ve got questions about where and what to plant feel free to contact me through this blog or in person at the market. As always folks keep ‘em growing!

Ah Fall, thou hath prepared the land for wintery slumber.

Welcome back to another episode of Lost in the Farmer’s market where we look at the technology, trends and ideas of the Organic and sustainability movement and test them so you don’t have to. This week’s episode was left open which is the tradition for the final episodes of the month in the fall and winter to allow for open topic discussion based on whatever comes up in the news and otherwise. So first off the good news which can be found here:

Monsanto's Defeat!

This is some of the best news all year in the battle to defeat Monsanto’s attempt to bypass the court system and gain an unfair legal protection. Those of you who have watched this blog know that I’ve talked about Monsanto quite a bit prior. My prior comments allude to their blatant dishonesty, trespassing, intentional destruction of native species and pollution of the air and water. In short if a biblical devil existed it’d be straight tie between Haliburton and Monsanto for the title. For note the former was caught destroying records in relation to the BP deep horizon oil spill not so long ago. But I digress, because there is some Ranch news to cover also.

At some point on Monday the 23^rd, some careless driver hit the frontal mailbox bed. Now this is not new, as one of the mail delivery folks often side swipes the bed and knocks a few bricks loose which is no biggie. But just about every year someone side swipes the bed  pretty badly because the street in front of the ranch has a very subtle curve. This time however they seemingly backed up into the bed and ran over several plants including one rather mature prickly pear. The cactus was shattered to bits and numerous bricks were pulled out of the bed at least two feet and left in the street. The pictures really speak for themselves, but keep in mind they were taken on Tuesday as I had only noticed the damage late Monday night and had already recovered the bricks.

Look at that, they drive from the front of the bed at a slight angle over the coreopsis, prickly pear and to the back of the bed almost. Fortunately after the big sideswipe incident the bricks on the front of the bed are not mortared anymore.

You can see the snapped Hibiscus stems (the red ones), the damaged cone flowers and the snapped prickly pear pads. If you notice the soil line in the back it's impressed where the tire was. Those rear bricks were ballooned out. On the full resolution shot the color difference between the undisturbed and disturbed mulch is quite clear.

I honestly don’t know whether to be annoyed or relieved. On one hand there is someone out there driving this badly, but on the other hand no one was hurt. Considering my mailbox is as tall as a child under 10, had this occurred while the neighbor’s kids across the street were out this might have been a crime scene.  That said whoever you are that did this, I hope your vehicle took some damage you deserve it. More so, I hope your insurance company if you even have one; laughs at you when you try and file a claim for the damage. But enough on this, it’s a downward spiral to go on about the bad which brings us to some field photos of critters encountered in the last week or so.

Two times the Critter two times the fun! There are two Green Anole lizards in this picture, one is near the upper right the other is dead center,

The green Anole is a common but small lizard in North Carolina. They are generally beneficial as they eat insects and such and pose no real threat to humans or live stock. They prefer areas where they have adequate cover such as shrub rows areas with heavy vine growth and in wooded areas. It is a little known fact they can to a limited extent change their skin colors to match or closely resemble their surroundings. Int he image above the two sported differing colors. The one up top is clearly a solid green but the one below was more of a dusty tan. The answer for why is clear, They only became visible after I tore out the Kiwano vines in that bed the one up top was probably living in the vines while the tan one was probably in or near the surrounding lawn area.

A Red-Cockaded Woodpecker, as seen hopping about at last week's Farmer's Market.

These native Woodpeckers are known best for causing the rings of pockmarks on wax myrtles and certain other trees and shrubs in North Carolina.  This one seemed to be a bit young and seemed unable to fly as he or she hopped between trees rather then flying. The woodpecker was used to people to a point I was within two feet to snap this photo. For note the "red-cockaded" part of this woodpecker's name refers to a red spot on the back of it's head which you can partially see in the picture. Before anyone asks, woodpeckers are generally considered quite beneficial and the rings of pockmarks they make generally are not damaging to the trees they choose.

I told you I had a resident rabbit!

 The above is one of the resident rabbits at the ranch doing what he or she does best mowing the lawn by eating it! This little rabbit likes to hang about the growing trays and eat the crab grass that has come up about the trays as a result of the plant irrigation runoff. As far as I know, there are a total of three rabbits that are in the area, two adults and one youngster and this is the young one. This wraps up the summer photographs, and this brings us to the farmers market information.

Despite the summer heat I am still manning the booth down at the Fayetteville Farmers / City Market in downtown Fayetteville. Keep in mind the venue is open rain or shine with the proviso that obviously violent storms are about the only thing to impact the market being open. The market runs from 9:00 am through 1:00pm and is located at 325 Franklin Street. As always there will be great handouts about soil conservation and wildlife management and of course copies of my book Southward Skies.

Little did we know it is now officially fall and the weather has taken a delightful head start which makes for fantastic market weather. I am still holding up the fort at the Fayetteville City/Farmer’s market which can be found in downtown Fayetteville on 325 Franklin Street between the hours of 9:00 am through 1:00 pm. For note there is a ton of local parking, and our site is the front and side lot of the Fayetteville Transportation museum.  The folks who run the farmer’s market are reorganizing the vendor placement so if you don’t see me in the usual slot check around the farmer’s area as I may have been moved to that region. Without any more delay the list below is the Market Plant list for this Saturday!

House Plants:

4x Silver Ridge Aloe

4x Life Saver Cactus

Perennials/Herbs:

2x Herb, Purple Coneflower ‘Magnus’

Cool Season Crops:

6x Kale, Dinosaur/Lacinato/Black Cabbage

4x Asian Cabbage, Napa

8x Cabbage-Collards, Morris Heading type

5x Cabbage, Savoy

4x Radicchio, Red

4x Lettuce, Salad Bowl Mix

5x Collards, Georgia

Coming Soon:

4x Mustard, Japanese Red Giant (Spicier then normal R.G.)

?x Mustard, Red Giant

The plant list despite its day late arrival brings to a close this episode of lost in the farmer’s Market. I look forward to seeing those of who plant to hit up the farmers market on Saturday and those who have already RSVP’d for the garden tour at the end of October. As always folks, keep ‘em growing!