I'm Kaye and I'm a late bloomer.
(whistling logo)
You know how much I love tomatoes,
but this is the last day in July
and probably the last week
of good production on my tomato vines.
I'm gonna take you through my process this year,
discuss my strategy,
see how well it worked out,
compare my nine varieties
on my seventeen vines,
we'll do a taste test,
and, we're going to make Italian spaghetti sauce,
so don't you dare go away, ha, ha.
I was determined to do things a
a little differently this year,
to save time and energy.
For the first time,
I had a grow light
and heat mat for my seedlings.
I planted only eight varieties
of tomato seeds in 16 cells.
The 8th was Gary O'Sena
from my saved seeds.
Now, I seeded these two trays
under the grow light with peppers,
and tomatoes on the 19th.
And, look what we've got here.
We've got some germination.
They all germinated.
(soft acoustic guitar)
Here are my tomatoes.
Sixteen....
down from about forty
the last couple of years.
I'm gonna move my tomatoes
out into the, uh,
temporary greenhouse.
I got a greenhouse,
which made transitioning
to the outdoors much easier.
But, soon, the tomatoes were too tall.
Planting in the garden commenced
from April 1st to April 15th.
All tomatoes went in the ground.
No pots.
By May 27th,
the six tomatoes on the back 40
were crowding out the potted peppers.
(light acoustic guitar)
The layer of wood chips
required less watering.
All tomatoes were on
drip irrigation.
These four steps
got me off to a great start.
Mid-June, the garden was filling up
and loaded with gorgeous fruit.
(birds chirping)
First harvests were the volunteer red cherry
my ninth variety.
(acoustic guitar with a beat)
We had June gloom till noon
most days from mid-April
till mid-July.
This set the stage for an
encore performance of powdery mildew.
My single Black Krim
was the first to set large tomatoes
and the first to get hit.
Blight wouldn't be left out
of the fun!
I had sprayed my plants three times
by June 25th.
On July 2nd, I was at it again.
Blossom End Rot is a problem
I didn't think I would have again.
Because you're either watering
too much, too often...
...and...
you leach out the calcium
in your plants.
So, these are about
seven feet off the ground,
and, uh, they're dark...
And another thing that's interesting,
is these were all on the same plant
but, they're very different shape.
My set-up for eight plants
right at the fence,
turned out to be a little cramped.
Especially, because I had to use
bird netting to keep the vines
from extending into the sidewalk.
I've just spent three hours
on tomato duty.
There's a combination of issues
on the plants, from blight
to powdery mildew...
Four days after I sprayed,
things looked even worse!
Still, by July 9th,
I had a pretty decent harvest.
Miraculously,
the sun started shining
in the mornings,
and the tomatoes seemed to
put the brakes on the issues
and start delivering tomatoes.
(jazzy blues acoustic guitar)
(snip, snip, snip)
This Berkley Tie-Dye has been
sheltered by leaves.
(snip)
Observe the deep red.
Tomatoes don't have the color
or the flavor when most of the
leaves are removed.
Considering the issues,
I was very happy
with this first big harvest.
I added these Amish Paste
to what I already had in the kitchen,
and canned a few pints.
Early blight was especially
devastating to the Amish Paste
spreading over to the Blue Berries
on the Back 40, and
virtually wiping out the four vines
on tomato rings by the fence:
Amish Paste, Berkley Tie Dye,
and especially, the Black Krim.
I only tasted a couple of
wonderful tomatoes
from this plant early on.
I pulled the vine that day.
One thing about focusing on
cherry tomatoes this year,
it's a lot more labor intensive
to harvest.
So, the whole middle of
three plants...
collapsed from the weight.
Ah, ha!
I don't know how I'm gonna
sort that out.
And lots of...
sweet, cherry tomatoes...
have split and fallen.
If you bend them backwards,
they just pop right off,
but it you pull on them,
the skins are very thin and they just...
they just squish. Uh!
Come on, come on, thank you.
Oh, come on, come on...
Ah! Oh, oh, oh, that hurts, come on...
come on, one more...
oh, one more, one more, oh!
It's not easy, ha, ha,
picking cherry tomatoes.
Accessibility is important,
which is hard in a small garden.
But the hard work paid off.
This is my reward.
(soft guitar picking)
I followed that up with an even
bigger haul five days later.
There are still a lot of tomatoes
on the vines, in spite
of all the issues.
Many of these will be given away.
My focus this year was on smaller
tomatoes, my thinking being
they take less time to develop
and ripen...and...
maybe I can get a lot of tomatoes
before powdery mildew
cleans me out, ha, ha.
Out of my nine varieties,
I have seven represented here.
And this,...is...
the Butingghan...
wild cherry tomato.
It's only grown in the IIocos Region
of Northern Philippines.
Now, these seeds were sent to me
by my friend, Loren,
who's from the Philippines,
who's from there,
but lives in Germany.
And they don't cultivate it,
it just grows wild on bushes
all over the place.
And, she was able to get
some seeds when she visited
last August, and now
they're growing in my front yard
in Los Angeles.
How cool is that?
Alright, let's give these a try.
This, this is a paste tomato, so,
you know, it's not gonna be
probably as juicy and...
un,...wonderful as...
these two, but let's, lets
give it a try. I haven't even tried one.
Wow!
Um!
That is juicy and has
lots of flavor.
Um!
That has a sharper flavor,
very juicy,
very flavorful.
Now, the Berkley Tie-Dye
which I love.
Um!
Hm!
That has a darker,
kind of smokier flavor,
if you can call a tomato smoky.
Now....
the story with these tomatoes
is...
it was a volunteer plant,
hundreds of tomatoes,
but, it got devastated pretty quickly
with powdery mildew.
And once a vine loses it's leaves,
the tomatoes just don't have the flavor
they do when they have leaves.
Okay,...
those are too far gone.
Ha, ha, ha, ha.
Moving right along,
this is the blue berries
cherry tomato.
Um!
Mm! mm!
That almost tastes like
it has the basil in it!
Mm!
Oh boy!
Juicy, explodes with flavor...
Um hm!
Okay, now for the Sweetie.
Which is...
these two vines.
And I'll definitely be growing
that again.
Um!
Wow!
Um! Sweet, juicy,...
this is the kind of tomato
you could just
have a whole lunch, just... ha, ha.
Um!
Wow!
Okay, now we'll try
the Butingghan.
(soft guitar picking)
What an interesting flavor!
Um!
Wow!
This is a splendid-looking
Berkley Tie-Dye, so, fingers crossed
that makes it to maturity.
This is the Butingghan,
and you can see it just grows
like a big, thick bush.
I'll definitely be growing it again,
even though it's very
labor intensive to pick
those little cherry tomatoes.
Another variety that was hard hit
by powdery mildew
was the Indigo Apple.
And most all of the leaves
are gone.
I have a lot of tomatoes
left to ripen.
Here are my Amish Paste tomatoes.
There are about ten pounds here.
(peppy jazz guitar)
Most of you can, but for those
who do not can,
this is what you do to prepare
your tomatoes for canning.
Now that's what I call...
a big paste tomato.
This was my half pounder.
(speeded up chopping sounds)
(sizzling sound)
(high pitched grinding sound)
Ummmm!
That smells incredible.
(quick snipping sound)
Haaa..... so, this recipe
comes from Vegetarian Gourmet Cookery
revised edition by Alan Hooker.
Now, I've have had this
for at least twenty-five years
and I had the first edition before that.
It's a paste tomato, but it's a
juicy paste tomato, so I could
cook this for another hour and
it would be thicker, and it's way
too hot to boil pasta and have it
that way, so I'm just going to
give it the old taste test.
Here we go!
Oops!
Oh!
Little sauce on the face, ha, ha.
Oh, that is so good!
Wow!
Um!
Go to latebloomershow.com
for the recipe.
Bon Appetit!
If you enjoyed this episode,
please give me a thumbs up,
and share with a friend.
I'm Kaye, I'm a late Bloomer,
thanks for watching
and I'll see you next time!
(whistle logo)
(bloopers)
Let me just see what I need to say here.
If you en..., if you, mm, mn,
If you en, if you en,... okay...
that wasn't horrible...
Um, hm.
Haaaaaa...
You know how much I love
growing tomatoes (loud bird call)
You know how much
I (loud bird call) love gr...
Can I get a word in?
Ha, ha.
(whistle logo)
(high-pitched bird quack)
(soft guitar picking with bees buzzing)