Shule's 2022 growlog

[Shule]

I got four more containers of watermelons from that soil (so, the extra perlite and stuff allowed me to get five instead of the original four).

Snacker_C0 and Snacker_C2 had yellow fruit yesterday, but it hadn't fully colored, yet.

Yesterday, I harvested all the ripe wonderberries (the first harvesting of the year), and I got lots for a first harvest! One of the plants in particular had quite a lot. We put them on a blackberry crisp. I've decided that that's a neutral use of them, flavor-wise, though, while eating it, but I felt like I ate something nutritious after I was done. I suppose the flavor has too much in common with blackberries to be very noticeable.

As a reminder, my preferred uses of wonderberries are these (in no particular order):
- Fresh-eating
- On pizza with tomato slices (for both the flavor and for aesthetic purposes; without the tomato slices, the taste isn't as improved by the wonderberries)
- In frittatas with tomatoes (for flavor)
- On ham (for flavor; I've only tried fresh berries with cooked ham, but it was very good)
- Some smoothies (all I remember offhand is banana burr gherkin wonderberry smoothies)
- Mixed with some other berries, but I forgot which ones
- Lettuce-based raw vegetable salads (for aesthetic and nutritional purpose; it doesn't seem to change the taste, but it looks awesome; maybe I didn't try it with tomatoes)
- Probably tomato sauces and salsas, but I haven't tried them in salsa, and all I can tell you about the sauce is that you probably need more wonderberries than you do when you put them whole on pizza with tomatoes.

[Shule]

Well, the wonderberries are quite prolific, this year, early on. Usually for the first harvest we get like a few to twenty berries, and then gradually more after that a few times, and then a lot more after that until the end of the season. However, on only my third harvest, I'm getting a whole lot of them! I've already filled a gallon freezer bag.

There are lots of ripe tomatoes outside that I should pick soon.

Here's my harvested fruit count:
- Cherokee Yellow Perfection Peach: 1
- Cilantrovaya_A: 20
- Galapagos Island: 30
- MKX_B1: 2
- Roma VF (A0): 0; 1 BER
- Snacker_B0: 4

I harvested the Cherokee Yellow Perfection Peach tomato on Friday, and my suspicion was right: It is a cross (probably with Italian Heirloom). The fruit is red (and oxheart-shaped). It's still somewhat fuzzy (not as fuzzy), but it doesn't taste like Cherokee Yellow Perfection Peach. It's good, though, but a totally different taste. The plant is semi-wispy, but not as wispy as Italian Heirloom. So, I should probably give it a project name now, so we don't confuse it with the true Cherokee Yellow Perfection Peach. I think I'll call the project Vethus_, and this year's plant, Vethus_A (the name was randomly generated, and had no prior meaning). It's regular leaf, as were Cherokee Yellow Perfection Peach and Italian Heirloom.

[Julianna]

Shule, are things ok in the garden?

[Shule]

@Julianna
Well, they are, and they're not.

I've been focusing on other stuff besides gardening, a lot; so, that's a big part of the reason I haven't been writing stuff.

It's been in the upper 90s and 100s for most of the time I haven't written anything. So, anything that's produced anything at this point is heat-tolerant. It's long past the time I mentioned where the heat was forecasted to subside!

Verticillium wilt had/has spread over the garden like wildfire, and there are viruses all over it, too (they look like TSWV and/or a mosaic virus, and/or a Torrado virus and/or something I've never seen before that has an interesting pattern). However, we're still getting plenty of tomatoes, and not all of them look infected with viruses. I harvested the biggest harvest of the season so far yesterday. The tomatoes taste good, but they all seem to be extra acidic (so they can actually be kind of dangerous, to the teeth and the stomach, if you eat very many without eating something alkaline like eggs or baking soda). They're really fascinating. I don't know which acids are the dominant ones in this case (as it's an acid whose effects are felt more than it is tasted), but I'm guessing they've been producing those acids in response to the heat, Verticillium, drought, viruses, and such.

Unfortunately, Verticillium wilt got Frog Princess (and a number of other tomatoes--not all of which I've pulled up, yet), but I did taste Frog Princess, at least, and save seeds (however, the plant was infected at that point; so, I put H202 in the water when I zapped the seeds).

The wonderberries don't seem to prefer the Verticillium/prolonged heat combination, but I think they'll be fine, especially if I fertilize them. I ought to have done that more earlier in the season.

Amana Orange seems, so far, resistant to all the viruses. I haven't had any of them die from Verticillum, but I have had some with the Verticillium-style yellowing leaves.

Italian Heirloom is doing fantastically. I picked several of them two or three days ago. It really seems to like partial shade, a cage, and all that fertilizer that I gave it. It doesn't seem afflicted with viruses, and I haven't seen Verticillium-yellowing in a while (but it had some earlier in the season).

Nina_B is doing excellently. Still no ripe fruit, yet, but the fruits are much larger than any of it's ancestors that I've grown! Definitely not salad tomatoes anymore. It's growing a fair amount of fruit.

Hamson (A) gave me quite a few tomatoes yesterday. No virus symptoms.

The Amana Orange by our trellis really likes the trellis. The ones in cages seem to like those, too.

The peppers have had Verticillium symptoms mildly, and they've had a lot of sunscald and/or BER (I think Verticillium makes plants more prone to that, due to how it interrupts the nutrient and probably water flow). They are producing a lot, though (but most so far have had sunscald or BER to some degree).

Cilantrovaya_A and the Snacker_ tomatoes are some of the best producers, this year. They taste good, and I love how they're all-purpose (so I can broil them over omelets and stuff).

Our neighbor's cats seem to be scaring all the birds away from our blackcurrant bushes (unfortunately, because I saved a lot of berries for the birds, since they liked them so much last year).

We have plenty of blackberries. The wasps appreciate them, I noticed yesterday morning.

The variegated grape leaf hoppers were mostly gone for a period of time, but they came back in large numbers. The fruits are probably fine, as they usually are, though.

I was harvesting a lot of wonderberries before I started doing more non-garden things. So, I let them ripen extra, and a lot of them dried up (which is unusual; it might mean they need more copper). I've seen wonderberry fruits dry up before, but it's not common.

Our container chives and sage are doing excellently. They really like fertilizer.

The watermelons got a super late transplant, but all things considered, they're doing very well.

The rose that had been struggling for years, which I've been nurturing for a couple years is covered in flowers (but they're white instead of peach; it changes colors sometimes).

The rhubarb is vigorous in this heat.

A lot of the tomatoes have thick skins, this year. I don't think it's the variety; I think it's the growing conditions. However, Snacker_ and CIlantrovaya_ don't have thick skins, which is nice. Italian Heirloom does, but its thick skin tastes good and has a nice texture.

Roma VF is doing better than it was (not as much BER in the new fruits).

The houseplants are doing well.

I tasted some Brandywine Pink tomatoes from the garden.

Carolina Yellow tastes really good.

I should get some pictures of the tomatoes on the counters that I harvested yesterday.

How is your garden doing?

[Shule]

...

[Shule]

Here's Italian Heirloom (you probably can't tell, but all of them but one are obvious oxhearts; the one is a beefsteak).

[Shule]

I took pictures of the others, but the uploading on the image host I'm using is stalling. Perhaps another time.

[Shule]

Here we go. Some of these are the same bowl of fruit (there are four unique bowls):

[Shule]

The part in the bowl of large cherries where it's not as full is where I took out the ones that split (I ate them broiled on fried eggs with wonderberries, salt, pepper, and granulated garlic; the pan was oiled with extra virgin olive oil).

I believe salt is a big part of what makes cooked wonderberries taste especially good (but tomatoes are also important, and the other ingredients probably help).

[Shule]

Here's the tomato harvest from today. I still need to harvest the cherry tomatoes, and the pastes, though.

I got quite a lot of Brandywine Pink tomatoes (they're not visible; they're at the bottom). I was surprised at how many.

Those pretty mottled ones on top are Brandyboy F11 tomatoes infected with at least one virus. One of the viruses seems to be TSWV, based on the look of certain other fruits from the same plant (see the tomato in the lower left corner; it's from the same plant), but I've never seen this new look before, with islands of pink all over it. Anyway, I really like the way they look. The plant is producing pretty well, notwithstanding viruses; the fruits probably are smaller than they would be, though.

The black tomato in the lower right corner is Carbon. The visible orange tomatoes are Amana Orange (there are lots of those that aren't visible). There are some Carolina Golds, a few Hamsons, and there's a plum-shaped cherry in there somewhere; probably a few more Carbons.

A couple days ago, we canned our first tomatoes of the season (11 quarts).

Daily highs have still been consistently in the late 90s and 100s.

[Julianna]

I read this and could swear i replied! I am sorry things kind of tanked. I am glad you got to try a Frog Princess! Did you end up liking it?

[Shule]

@Julianna
It was decent, but I think the disease probably affected the flavor some by the time I tasted it. I could tell it was a good tomato, though.

[Julianna]

@Julianna
It was decent, but I think the disease probably affected the flavor some by the time I tasted it. I could tell it was a good tomato, though.

Aww, yeah. I have had that happen before. At least it wasn't a total loss!

[Shule]

Ever since it started cooling off some time in September, the tomatoes have been getting sweeter (they were pretty tart before then). This is a change from previous years.

[Shule]

Nina_B has really excellent flavor—very rich, full, and potent, and very different from the flavor of all its ancestors. Strangely, it had black shoulders (not green or yellow), but was otherwise red. I don't mean it had anthocyanin shoulders (it didn't).

It has about the sweetness level of Pruden's Purple, but a lot of the same flavor notes as Cold Black Brandy did a couple years ago (without being as sweet as that, but with a more potent flavor, and more tomatoey flavor). The blossom end and the stem end tasted the same.

Nina_B0 seems to have gotten Verticillium. Nina_B seemed to show a little stress from it, but isn't in the state Nina_B0 is.

[Shule]

Here's our end of season pepper harvest. They're all green, except I think two very small Big Red Peppers (all the peppers on Big Red were small; probably crossed). These came from six plants; most are Canary Bell. Not all the Canary Bell plants had long fruits as you see.

[Shule]

We're harvesting and canning tomatoes today, and harvesting more tomorrow. I've got most of the ripe ones, except Galapagos Island. I cut down one of the plants (with great effort), pulled it out, and I think it's the biggest tomato plant I've ever seen in person. I had to cut it down to gain access to the fruit, since it has a lot of foliage, this year. There are two more plants by it to take out.

Well, out end-of-season stars appear to be Roma VF, Amana Orange, and the Snacker_ types. Verticillium seems to have spread a lot since I last checked. That troubles me, but at least it's the end of the season! Anyway, we got a lot of tomatoes from Roma VF. They're super firm to the end.

Due to the Verticillium, I'm probably going to grow a lot of Roma VF next year (and due to its production and ease of harvest without spoilage). It needs to be paired with something with a lot of flavor, like Snacker_ or CIlantrovaya_A, though, if you want it to have a bite.

[Shule]

We got 19 quarts, plus 1 pint from yesterday's tomatoes canned, and 7 quarts of elderberry juice (we have elderberries).

Today, I harvested our tomatoes, which were mostly green since I already harvested most of the ripe ones (the first freeze is supposed to be tomorrow), and covered up some of them (some of the Galapagos Island tomatoes). The green tomatoes are our storage tomatoes; they ripen gradually post-harvest.

Today's harvest is comprised mostly of the following:
- Amana Orange (lots of these; more from the plants on the east and west ends than the ones in the middle)
- Roma VF
- Hamson (A0)
- Pearler_ (the one just south of the one that is most southwest, and the one by Amana Orange)

I found some more peppers that had grown larger, and picked those, too.

I picked and washed our watermelons. They're ripe, fortunately, despite the super late start (they're ripe thanks to the spider mites)—and guess what? They're fragrant! I've never had fragrant uncut watermelons before, to my knowledge. They smell like strawberries if you're not paying attention, but it is a watermelon smell.

Hamson actually tastes quite delicious, even when extra ripe. Well, I haven't evaluated the regularly-ripe ones much, yet.

[Shule]

These Canary Bell peppers are huge! The yellow ones (I harvested them green, but they've been turning yellow), taste excellent on pizza and in quesadillas.

[Shule]

I just spent hours taking inventory of which of the following things I actually have in my obvious possession, one by one:
- Tomato seeds I saved myself
- Purchased tomato seeds
- Purchased sweet peppers

Since the frost, it's been raining more. I'm grateful for that.

Oh, we got our first snow of the season yesterday, too.