Planet Veggie Garden

…no, no…not for the trendiest new beverage but a method to save seeds from this season’s most prized tomatoes…Or if you happened to pick up a delicious heirloom from the farmer’s market.
What better way to move towards sustainable gardening than to save your own seeds. Another plus is that as you save seeds from the [...]

This was the weekend of field trips…
Yesterday, we took a day trip down to Ben Lomond, CA home of Love Apple Farm. Farmer Cynthia Sandberg gave us and 30 others an incredibly informative class on growing heirloom tomatoes.
I first heard of Love Apple Farm when my sister sent me the link to her page on [...]

Those can be fighting words in the inner gardening circles.
Let’s add some history, and dare I say “flavor” to the discussion…
Perhaps we can rename it Charles Darwin versus Gregor Mendel
What’s an Heirloom
In broad terms an heirloom is an open-pollinated fruit. That simply means bees and wind carry out the pollination process. However, not all open-pollinated [...]

Did you know…

Tomatoes are self fertile. It’s flowers contain both male and female parts. All it needs is a gentle breeze to become fertile
Tomato fruit sets best at night time temperatures between 60F and 70F - a hormone is released facilitating the fertilization process
A study from Florida State University showed that high nitrogen and potassium [...]

No not a pink slip but a basket of tomatoes.
I picked a few of the Romas, Early Girls and my fav Celebrity . One more reason I like Celebrity is that is has fewer seeds than your average tomato (so, fewer seeds in the sauce). Only 4 pounds in all but I figured I’d put [...]

…you say ‘Toma toe’
I never knew tomatoes had flavor until I tasted my first vine ripened tomato way back in my college days. After that experience, I only bought tomatoes in season and most summers after that grew my own.
Tomatoes, originally from the Andes, have been alternately revered and feared. In the same [...]

With the last month of the Summer soon arriving, gardeners are often pulling in zucchinis and tomatoes.
By the end of August (if not sooner) comes the question:
What ELSE can I do with zucchinis and tomatoes?
 
We hear ya.
So, every August Friday - starting tomorrow - we’ll feature a post about the wonderful zucchini. And every August [...]

Offerings from the garden this morning. This is the second harvest for the tomatoes - last time was when we picked our first ripe one of the season - a full two weeks ago. That tells you what the weather has been like. The smoke from the 2000+ wildfires here in California filtered the sun [...]

Here’s what I picked this morning before it got too hot - it’s expected to be in the 90’s today in Oakland.
We have 3 kinds of lettuce: Cos Romaine, Speckled Romaine and an heirloom variety Brune d’Hiver - it’s long leafed like a romaine but creamy like a butter lettuce - and it’s a beautiful [...]