Shule's 2024 grow log

[Shule]

I've dehydrated blueberries a few times over the years. They're very sweet although the texture is a bit papery, and keep for a looonnnnngggg time.

Thanks for the information about your experience with blueberries.

The wonderberries are probably a lot less sweet (most of them, anyway), but one great thing about them is the texture. They're a great texture for dried fruit, and if you're used to raisins, they're close enough in texture to theoretically be usable in the same scenarios (I'm not sure how they taste in the same scenarios, yet). I think they'd be good in pasta and stuff, too, dried, though. They probably have a lot more umami flavor than traditional dessert berries (although you might not notice it if you don't use them in savory dishes, notably with onions and/or tomatoes).

I think the combination of onions, white mushrooms, and wonderberries has enough of the flavor that meat provides that I don't really miss meat with that combination.

One cool thing yesterday was that much like the tomatoes sometimes do later in the season here these days, I noticed that the wonderberry plants outside smelled a lot like BBQ sauce. I always love it when the tomato plants smell like BBQ sauce outside, so I was pretty happy to smell something similar on the wonderberries. I don't know what causes the smell, but now I'm thinking they would be good in BBQ sauce.

[Shule]

Okay, something told me to harvest more fruit this morning. So, I went out and harvested the ripe Brandywine Pink and Caya tomatoes, and I harvested a lot of the Galapagos Island tomatoes (there are more; it's a true work horse, but by the numbers and the time it took to harvest, Brandywine Pink wins for volume and efficiency per plant today; granted, I'm not counting the Galapagos Island tomatoes I didn't harvest).

Here are the pictures (as well as pictures of the leftover Galapagos Island tomatoes that I didn't put in the dehydrator, which are no longer in the pasta pot).

I harvested and ate another Brandywine Pink earlier in the morning (for part of my breakfast).

Brandywine Pink tomatoes (9 pounds):

Brandywine Pink.jpg

More Brandywine Pink tomatoes in a different colander than the one I put the wonderberries in yesterday (~14 pounds):

More Brandywine Pink.jpg

Stainless steel bowl partially full of Caya tomatoes (~5 pounds):

Caya.jpg

Pasta pot full of Galapagos Island tomatoes (14 pounds):

Pasta pot full of Galapagos Island.jpg

Stainless steel bowl full of Galapagos Island tomatoes (~10 pounds):

Galapagos Island.jpg

Here are the Galapagos Island tomatoes left over from yesterday that we didn't put in the dehydrator or eat (they're in the colander that the ~8 or 9 pounds of wonderberries were in yesterday; evidently, wonderberries can fit more weight in the colander; I weighed this again today, too, and it came to 4 pounds):

Galapagos Island left over from yesterday.jpg

The solid stainless steel bowls in some of the pictures above are the smallest of the three sizes we have, but they're still pretty big.

[Shule]

One of my Galapagos Island tomatoes managed to get a virus. I was impressed by this fact, because I had never seen it do that before (and I've grown it every year since 2015, I think). It was one in the shade by the wonderberries; so, it probably had a fair amount of thrip pressure (thrips love the shaded wonderberries; the thrips I've seen look pretty happy and healthy; the wonderberries still produce fine, though).

I was worried it was Fusarium wilt at first (since it's one of those viruses that causes the ends of the plant to wilt), but then I saw little tiny viral circles on one of the leaves where the damage was, which a fungal disease like Fusarium wouldn't produce.

One of the Caya tomatoes earlier in the year seemed to have a virus, but it actually grew out of it, and it's been symptom-free for some time now. That's not something you see every day.

I think the volunteer that seems to be the bicolor Cherokee Lime offtype does have Fusarium wilt, though. That would be pretty nice if it were a virus instead, though, but I'm not going to stress about it like I did with Verticillium when it started to arrive. I'm not very familiar with Fusarium; so, it could be a lot of things, I guess.

[JayneR13]

Few things worse than happy thrips. Except viruses. It’s been a great year for those. Tomatoes get a lot of things.

[Shule]

We're canning the Galapagos Island and Caya tomatoes. It looks like 33 pounds of tomatoes (including the container weight) comes to 13 quarts of stewed tomatoes. We're saving the Brandywine Pinks to can next week. This is the first time we've had only yellow tomatoes being canned since I was a child. However, it turns out that the most-ripe Galapagos Island tomatoes have orange skins.

Anyway, now I can make yellow ketchup and stuff.

There are so many calyces in the garbage can. But I'm glad for all the cherry tomatoes.

I'm planning to grow more big beefsteaks next year, including several Brandywine Pinks. If I direct-seed anything, it'll probably just be Brandywine Pink (and I'll probably start everything else in containers with the usual indoor/outdoor method I do).

[Shule]

Today, I'm thinking about growing tomatoes from among at least these next year:

High priority:
- Brandywine Pink (lots, as insurance in case the other ones don't handle the pests/diseases)
- Rose
- Mary Reynolds
- Pepe Jose
- True Black Brandywine
- Caspian Pink
- Nebraska Wedding
- Winsall
- Bradywine Cowlick's
- Brandywine Red
- Brandywine
- Chris's Greek Mama
- Daniel Burson
- Emma Pink
- Sweet Ozark Orange
- Aker's West Virginia
- Burpee's Long-keeper (I don't think this one is large, but still a good size, I imagine.)

Other priority:
- 1884 Purple
- Amana Orange
- Aussie
- Black Mountain Pink
- Brad's Black Heart
- Chapman
- Coldset
- Creole
- Cuostralee
- Dester
- Earl's Faux
- Fantome Du Laos
- German Pink
- German Queen
- Giant Roo
- Giantesque
- Golden Cherokee
- Golden King of Siberia (oxheart)
- Golden King of Siberia x Green Giant F2
- Golden Monarch
- Goldie Yellow (not sure of the size, nor if it's the same as Goldie)
- Grandfather Ashlock
- Jazz
- Korol Gigantov
- Malinowy Olbrzym
- Mama Irene's
- Margaret Curtain
- Marsha's Starfighter beefsteak
- Mexico
- Orange Accordian
- Orenburg Giant
- Paul Robeson
- Persimmon
- Pierce's Pride
- Polish C
- Ramapo
- Rebekah Allen (I don't think this one is large.)
- Rebel Yell
- Summer of Love
- Terhune
- The red volunteer from this year (not large, but decent-sized)
- Thessaloniki
- Thessie O (oxheart; I want to keep this variety going)
- Thorburn's Terra-cotta
- Todd County Amish

I need to check my seeds to see what other big ones I have offhand.

Here are some I'm looking for that I don't have:
- Apricot Brandywine
- Aunt Ginny's Orange
- Brandywine Purple / Purple Brandy
- Brandywine Sudduth's
- Oaxacan Jewel
- Stump of the World
- Whatever other Brandywine types I can get a hold of (besides Brandy Boy types)

I'm not particularly planning to grow any cherries, but we'll probably get plenty Galapagos Island volunteer again, as usual. I'll probably grow a Caya tomato from the sweetest plant.

[PlainJane]

Very ambitious and impressive!

[JayneR13]

So many varieties, so little space! Wow that's quite the list!

[Shule]

@PlainJane @JayneR13
Well, a lot of those are older seeds where I only have a few seeds. So, hopefully plenty of them sprout.

I should have enough space for them, but it's watering them all if I actually use all that space that's the concern. Also, the soil in some spots hasn't historically proven to be friendly to tomatoes. I think Pierce's Pride might handle that soil fine, though. If it weren't for Verticillium, I wouldn't worry about the watering issue so much.

[JayneR13]

Aye, Verticillium stinks I had that on potato once and it decimated my crop! Thankfully those were container potatoes so I was able to get rid of the soil easily. When I had Phytophthora leather rot on my strawberries, I had to dig the entire bed! Ugh.

[Shule]

@JayneR13
Yeah. Every time someone plants potatoes in our garden they get decimated, and our Verticillium for other plants gets a whole lot worse while they're there. I try to only grow tomatoes that do at least reasonably well against it. So, if I do all those new varieties, I'll definitely be looking for which ones do well there (and which ones don't).

[JayneR13]

Yeah, Verticillium isn’t easy to kill either. From what I’ve read, the soil fumigation required to kill it, kills pretty much everything else as well. I tried using Captan for the leather rot. I barely got one dish of berries for eating and when I dug the bed, there wasn’t many worms or any of the usual soil fauna. My other beds have worms, beetles, and good microbes galore. Not that bed! No more Captan or other heavy chemicals in my garden, thanks.

[Shule]

@JayneR13
Yeah, I don't even worry about trying to kill it. Although, I might grow mustards in that soil where the potatoes were (which is supposed to be something like fumigation). I don't even know how you fumigate soil. The fumigation isn't supposed to fully eliminate it, either; it just reduces the problem a lot.

Freezes in winter do seem to reduce (not eliminate) the problem somewhat, too.

What I do instead is stuff like this:
- Save seeds every year (the more you grow plants in a set of conditions, the easier it can potentially get for them). This isn't just because of acclimatization and the restance benefits of ancestors having dealt with the same diseases, but also because of selective breeding. You're selecting for plants that can grow through it and give you fruit/seeds.
- Pre-fertilize the soil; this seems to help a lot. It's nice with Brandywine Pink, because it's more salt-tolerant than other tomatoes that I know about (so, you don't have to worry as much about burning it by putting too much fertilizer in the soil compared with other tomatoes). Well-fertilized plants are much less likely to have Verticillium problems. Verticillium cuts plants off from needed nutrients; ensuring they have plenty of nutrients helps.
- Pull up all the lambsquarter ASAP after it sprouts (same for any other weeds that show disease symptoms, even if you don't think it's Verticillium; Verticillium doesn't always look the same; it can cause chlorosis, dry, crispy leaves, wilt in the heat/sun, discoloration of the stems and leaves along with permanent all-day long wilt, discoloration of the fruit in the same fasion as the stems, and so on and so forth). Our lambsquarter seems to fairly reliably be infected with Verticillium.
- Never grow potatoes (especially around a bunch of lambsquarter).
- Clean up all the garden debris. It seems that some pests are probably capable of spreading Verticillium (maybe thrips or mites). I'm not exactly sure which ones, but I've noticed cleaning up the garden seems to help. I could be imagining this, but it helps against other things for sure (like anything thrips spread).
- Make sure the plants never suffer from too little water during the heat. Even though Verticillium might in theory spread more during cooler weather once it's there, it tends to stick around, and it seems most stuff in the garden gets it by default to at least a nearly asymptomatic degree. However, when it's hot and dry and the plants don't have water in time, the disease symptoms mount up considerably. Some other diseases mount in the same conditions. Weak plants are more prone to suffering when they have disease microbes in them; so, it's important to keep the plants strong to help be healthy and happy.
- Don't stress. Just because a plant got Verticillium in one spot doesn't mean you can't grow anything there again ever. If you grew potatoes, you have to wait a lot longer, but if you grew a mildly infected tomato that never wilted, I wouldn't worry. If you grew a tomato that wilted without discoloration and only wilted in the sun/heat, I wouldn't worry too much. If the plant totally succombed to Verticillium, I would still worry a lot less than with potatoes, but maybe be extra careful and wait a while.
- Find varieties that are easiest to grow with Verticillium around. While I do recommend looking at ones with resistance, I also recommend looking at plants that handle your growing conditions vigorously and well and that don't easily suffer from wilt. I don't recommend worrying too much about the chlorosis/leaf loss unless there's wilt, too.
- I used to recommend removing the yellowing leaves, and while that did seem to help before, I haven't been doing it at all this year, and the plants are fine. However, I'm only growing plants that have historically done well against it, this year; so, that might be a reason.
- Grow varieties that don't ripen right around the time the wilt usually strikes to kill plants (because they seem to be more prone to wilt). Also, avoid varieties prone to BER, because those seem to be the varieties that ripen at the wrong time (here, at least).
- Let Verticillium-resistant weeds outcompete the infected and susceptible weeds early in the season. Early in the season is a crucial time to prevent the spread of infection. I was actually really glad to see some new abundant weed on the western side of the house, because usually that's full of lambsquarter, but this year it was full of that, so the lambsquarter couldn't grow. It showed no Verticillium symptoms whatsoever. I have no idea what it is, but it's pretty awesome if it can outcompete lambsquarter and nearly completely prevent it from showing up. Oh, beware of prickly lettuce, too; it's also susceptible to Verticillium. Mallow might be, too. So, I'm tempted to harvest a bunch of seeds from those weeds, and put them in the other place we had potatoes (the place where the weeds were is one of the places we've had potatoes). Unfortunately, they've already been pulled up; so, I can't actually do that this year.

I've noticed plants grown closer to the south-facing part of the house seem to be more resistant, too. I really don't know why, but it might have something to do with the light reflecting off of the house (the house is white). Or if might be because the soil is better closer to the house (which a lot of it kind of seems to be). We haven't put down compost or peat moss in years. We're due in for some organic matter.

That's probably enough about Verticillium from me for now.

[Shule]

I tasted the dehydrating tomatoes and wonderberries, and they taste awesome. I have a hypothesis:

Because 117° F. is a temperature that does occur outside sometimes with plants, it's possible that the fruits in the dehydrator aren't just dehydrating; they're actually ripening further, too, and perhaps the heat is helping them get sweeter and more tasty.

[Wildcat82]

Solarization is also effective against soil borne diseases. I had verticillium wipe out one of my beds years ago. After I yanked the plants, I covered the bed with a double layer of 2 mil clear plastic and kept it moist. Zero problems with verticillium the following years.

Not sure how hot it gets in Idaho but here in San Antonio heat, I can sterilize soil in about a month.

[JayneR13]

I've read about solarization and occultation for weeds. Heating up the soil to kill spores makes sense to a point, but spores are made to resist that kind of thing, more so than earthworms.

You and I do similar things in terms of disease management. At the pantry garden especially, I put some fertilizer in each planting hole because the soil test had shown no N to speak of. I also use Mycorrhizae, a genus of fungi that helps plants use the nutrients in the soil more efficiently. I totally agree that stronger plants are less prone to infection, although cucurbits are a written invitation to powdery mildew no matter what I do. For that, I just keep pruning and spraying with copper through the season to slow it down so I can harvest the goodies. That's not been easy either with all of the rains we've had! I'd spray tomorrow, except it's going to rain so what's the point?

Saving seed from resistant plants is a smart thing to do! As you say: selective breeding. It's no different from breeding any other desired characteristic and has been done since the Middle Ages. No bought variety will be as acclimated to your environment as stuff that's been grown there for a few generations!

Glad to hear you've found the magic temperature as well. Yummy food that preserves in a sane amount of time is a great gift.

[Shule]

Thanks for the comments, everyone.

So, I've been noticing that the wonderberries I dried the first time make me salivate a lot. It doesn't seem to be caused by obvious acids like those found in orange peels. That could be a sign of high umami content, maybe. Or maybe it has enzymes that promote salivation.

[Shule]

The dried wonderberries I first dried (which I have in a gallon zipper bag) seem to have spread their moisture out evenly among themselves while being stored in the bag; so, that's good. There aren't any that are too moist or too dry now.

[JayneR13]

And no mold? That’s great!

[Shule]

And no mold? That’s great!

No mold.

I've decided they taste a lot like prunes.