When the Frost Is on the Punkin, Maybe It’s Time to Give Up

I might as well admit it: the season is over. An evening of temperatures in the low 40s a few weeks ago claimed most of the plants that were still growing, and I had to work hard to harvest all the tomatoes and pull up the tomato plants. I was lucky, for the frost that had blackened every plant and shrunken its leaves left the fruit intact. Only one small, green tomato, sticking up on a branch above all the rest, was frozen.

About six gallons of mostly green tomatoes came indoors with me. I placed them in shallow bowls and platters on the dining table, and they have been ripening a few at a time, prolonging the illusion of summer. These ripened “greenies” still have that home-grown freshness and savor. The red ones are still sweet, the green-and-yellows still tangy. The texture is not as firm as it was (moisture loss, I guess), but altogether they are better than I would have predicted.

The last two cantaloupe plants put in a fair effort at producing a new set of fruit, but ultimately failed. Clinging to the withered vines were some half-dozen tennis-ball-sized muskmelons. It was fun to throw the unripe melons across the yard in the general direction of the trash can, but it was also sad to contemplate the unrealized potential they represented. Their predecessors were truly the best muskmelons I had ever had the joy of devouring, tender of flesh and full of honey-like sweetness.

The snap beans grew until the frost, as well, but now they are frail skeletons clinging wearily to their posts. I’ve left them there because the snow peas, which are still alive, have been using them as a trellis. Some kind of rodent is eating the leaves of the pea plants. I doubt they will manage to produce a crop before they are either eaten to the ground or blistered by freezing rain.

Underneath the trellis, my lettuce seedlings have hung on, but I fear that they will freeze soon, too, unless I can find some suitable pots to transplant them into. I don’t know whether lettuce will grow well inside, but it’s worth trying. I transplanted the three basil plants that survived the frost (two cinnamon basil—very special and zingy—and one ordinary basil), and so far, they seem to be quite happy in their sunny window.

The entire row of Swiss chard, stalwart in cold as in extreme heat, endures, crisp, green, and thick-leaved, although the leaves are not growing as fast or large as they did in summer. I have grown to enjoy Swiss chard, and have found that it breaks down pleasantly in soups. It also makes a good stir-fry, as long as there’s something in the stir-fry that is flavorful enough to cut the leaves’ natural bitterness. Best of all, though, is sukiyaki with Swiss chard in it. Somehow, the broth of soy sauce, sake, and sugar brings out all the most pleasant qualities of this vegetable. It softens, but doesn’t get mushy, and its strong flavor subsides just to the point where it adds interest. This makes it superior to the usual Napa cabbage or bok choy.

At any rate, I’m glad to have something still growing out there besides my perennial herbs. I’ve contemplated planting onions, but it’s probably too late, and they would interfere with the rotation I’ve planned for next year. It’s time to plant a cover crop of some sort (more on that later), then sit back, drink some tea, and read—about gardening, naturally. After all, there's no better time than fall and winter to fantasize about what the next summer may bring. Only in the cold season can the gardener unleash her imagination without bowing to practical realities and the day-to-day drudgery involved in Making It So.

Coming up: cover crops, herbs, the fall vegetable roundup (what worked and what didn’t), book reviews, and plans for next year (of course!).

The Juiciest One of All

This morning, I sliced open the first of my Top Sirloin tomatoes to be harvested. I've waited a long time for these big beauties to ripen, and this one rewarded my patience abundantly. When I think of real tomato flavor, this is its epitome: something sweet, but not too sweet, bursting with congealed (and not too watery) juice and tender seeds, and with a tender, succulent, meaty flesh. And so red throughout! The Green Zebras are a fine novelty tomato, but the Top Sirloins are a fruit straight from Eden . . . yes, the tomato is a New World vegetable, but it deserves a place in Old World mythology. My ideal tomato is big and muscular.

In general, I like the idea of planting heirloom varieties and other out-of-the-ordinary types of vegetables, because I like the idea of keeping up some diversity in our food sources. But when something so pleasing tempts the palate, it is foolish to turn it away. I might try a new Italian-style tomato, a new early variety, or a new novelty type, but this Top Sirloin variety will always have a place in my garden . . . that is, as long as I have seeds for it. I do have some leftovers from this year and last year, but I couldn't find it among the varieties at the Ferry-Morse Web site. If it has been discontinued, I'll have to search out another good beefsteak tomato, of a kind that doesn't crack or split easily, ripens to a most glorious uniform shade of scarlet, and perfectly fulfills its promise of velvety, supple flesh and a flavor that can make a person believe in miracles.

Tomatoes, Queens of the Garden

Sure, we gardeners are capable of growing everything from azuki beans to zucchini, but let’s not kid ourselves: the real reason for anyone to even think of growing anything in the first place is to possess, sometime in late summer, those succulent, sweet-tart, juicy tomatoes, whose flavor can’t be bought anywhere else. For my neighbor and me, tomatoes hold the central ground in our gardens. We baby them, carefully tending and transplanting the seedlings. We cage them and stake them and fertilize them lovingly. For their sake, we pick off large caterpillars—hornworms and corn ear borers—with our bare hands, and then smash their guts out on the ground.

It’s not just the taste, either. The tomato is a singularly rewarding plant. If it’s happy and well watered, it keeps growing until it makes a jungle of the gardener’s neat rows. It becomes heavy with fruit that balloons out in a satisfying way until it reaches the desired proportions. Then we have the satisfaction of watching the fruit ripen and become just a bit redder every day until it becomes as pleasingly fat and uniformly bright as a clown’s nose.

In a fit of experimentation (and not wanting to be outdone by the Man with the Perfect Lawn), I planted five varieties of tomatoes this year: Green Zebra, Sweet Pea Currant, Roma VFN, Early Girl, and Top Sirloin. The latter three had all been relatively successful last year, and represented three basic types I thought my garden should always have: the Italian tomato, so piquant in salsas; the early; and the big, muscular, highly impressive beefsteak. I mixed together my Romas and a Green Zebra with some cilantro, garlic, and an Anaheim pepper for a salsa that had more than the usual zing and tartness, so different from the vinegary flavor of the stuff sold in jars at the supermarket.

I chose not to plant Brandywines, deeming them too troublesome. After a long spell of hot, dry weather, followed by torrential rains, last year’s Brandywine tomatoes had all split down the middle, attracting those ugly, small insects that burrow into exposed vegetable flesh. The few Brandywines that ripened properly were mealy in texture. It might have been the weather that did it, but I felt that even an heirloom variety should prove hardier than that.

Instead, I tried the Green Zebras, just for fun. When ripe, they are yellow, with green striping and green flesh. Disappointingly, however, they tasted much like ordinary red tomatoes—perhaps just a little less sweet, but without enough difference to matter much. The plants also yielded little fruit, compared to the other varieties. I might plant them again, but like a blond news anchor who only knows enough to read the TelePrompter and crack silly jokes, they will be kept around primarily for their looks.

I grew the Sweet Pea Currant Tomatoes in planters, as they seemed too delicate for the main garden space. Their seeds were the size of grains of sand, so small that I wondered whether they could germinate successfully. But germinate they did, and the small, fine-leaved plants prospered after I put them in the big flowerpots. They soon started producing feathery yellow flowers that seemed too tiny to attract pollinators. Somehow, those flowers gave rise to hundreds of pearl-shaped tomatoes. When ripe, the tomatoes were thick-skinned but sweet—and something of a chore to pick, because there were so many of them. A hundred of them could fit into the palm of my hand.

But all these tomatoes, though lovely to behold, are also a cause of great anxiety as fall approaches. (Yes, it may seem like the seasons have shifted already, but technically, we have three more days of summer to enjoy, if you include today.) I am keeping careful track of nighttime low temperatures. The Man with the Perfect Lawn says that tomatoes lose their flavor when the temperature dips below 50 degrees. I haven’t found information to corroborate this, but I have read that it’s important to save them from frost. Also, according to this account by Carl Wilson of the Colorado State University Cooperative Extension, if a tomato is entirely green, it may not ripen at all. With that in mind, I have decided to leave my tomatoes on the vine as long as possible before the first frost is upon us.

We’ll see who is right. The gardener with the most tomatoes wins the race. Since my neighbor planted his several weeks earlier than I did mine, he has an advantage that is probably unbeatable. Still, I’ll do my best to catch up (pun intended!). I will give the tally when the last fruit rolls in.

The Not-So-Cute Runt

Just as the garden has its monster plants that grab everyone else’s space, it also has those small fry that fail to thrive—for a while, at least. Sometimes it’s easy to figure them out and find a cure for what ails them, but more often they produce nothing but frustration.

I first learned about the concept of runts from children’s books like Charlotte’s Web and The Hundred and One Dalmatians. The runt, in the shape of a tiny piglet or a warm, furless puppy, sounds cute and cuddly, ready to be rescued by any reasonably sensitive, loving child. It’s (literally) the underdog, the one you root for because it has so much spirit for its diminutive size. Stories about runts are inevitably ones of overcoming adversity, of internal goodness coming through, and of unexpected triumph.

But plants that are runts are far from cute. They’re just undergrown, maybe diseased or yellowing, or possibly just weak and spindly. It’s hard to love a plant that won’t put forth new leaves and stems, especially if you’ve planted only a few of its kind. Until this past week, one of my two Green Zebra tomato plants was giving me serious worries in that vein. Of the eight tomato plants I put into the garden, that one remained the smallest, and for a while, it seemed that it had hardly grown at all after I transplanted it. There was no explanation for why it was smaller than the others; its partner plant was keeping up with all the other varieties.

I treated that plant exactly the same as the others, if not better. I showered it with just a little more water (not too much, but enough to demonstrate a certain concern). I gave it the same amount of liquid fertilizer as the others, when I used the artificial stuff about four weeks ago. Nothing persuaded it to grow faster, though it showed no indications of ill health. Then, a few days ago, it began to pick up a little. It’s still on the small side, but it’s looking more and more like a real tomato plant, something that might produce a few juicy ones by summer’s end. My runt tomato still isn’t lovable, but at least it is no longer an object of worried speculation.

Others have not fared so well. My runt squash plant, as I have explained, fell victim to a vine borer and thus perished. The eggplant that survived a vicious rabbit attack which left it with a single emerging leaflet is still in its cage, waiting for the day its leaves become big enough to withstand a few bunny bites without disappearing entirely into the bunny’s bowels. Actually, all my eggplants can be considered runts, because none is exactly thriving. I’d like to think it’s just because they haven’t yet reached that critical point in the summer when the lengthening roots start stimulating new growth and flowering, but I don’t know whether that will ever happen.

One of the three Anaheim pepper plants that I planted in a group beneath a crape myrtle tree simply refuses to grow. It, too, is caged, because three bites from any creature would effectively end its existence . . . not that it would matter much at this point, because I doubt the thing will ever produce a pepper. It is half the size of its sisters, grown in nearly the same conditions. I’ve been wondering, though, if a wandering tree root might be making trouble for the little plant, stealing away its nutrients. If that’s the case, it’s too late to correct the problem. I might throw some fertilizer granules around it, or I might simply give up and let it live out its days as a reminder of Why You Shouldn’t Plant Around Trees.

Essentially, runts in the garden are mistakes, flops, failures. They’re not there just because nature made them so; it’s the gardener herself who is ultimately responsible for noticing the squash vine borer, the inadequate nutrition, the infernal bunnies, or the thieving tree root. It still bothers me that I could never figure out what was going on with that tomato. The squash vine bothers me even more, of course, being dead. It’s a lost opportunity. The pepper plant deflates my self-image each time I hose it down. At times like these, it’s best to look away from the runts and just stop wondering about them. Success is a far better motivator, even if it offers less food for thought.

Thinning Seedlings: Evil but Necessary

I always have mixed feelings about thinning out my seedlings. They’re small and cute, and I’ve watched them since they first peeped out of the soil. But in the vegetable world, a Highlander-like ruthlessness prevails: in a given area, There Can Be Only One. So I dutifully chop the heads off these dainty little sprouts, one after another, in the hope that the remaining seedling in each compartment of the container will grow strong and large.

It’s hard to know which seedling is the best one to keep, this early in the season. I select first for size (nice large leaves), then sturdiness (a short, thick stem), then placement (towards the middle of the compartment, not at the edge). There are a few oddities that I’ve left behind—eggplant seedlings with three baby leaves, or cotyledons, rather than two. As my approach to gardening thus far has been largely experimental, rather than research-oriented, I’m not entirely sure what having triplet leaves means. Is it a sign of strength or an unwanted abnormality? After all, eggplant, by definition, is a dicot, the di- meaning its seeds naturally have two cotyledons. So I’ve decided to wait for the first true leaves to emerge before deciding which stem to lop off in these cases.

The culled seedlings look good enough to eat, but in this case, I’ll pass: tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers are members of the nightshade family of plants, whose stems and leaves are largely toxic to humans (though tomato leaves, in particular, are quite tasty to the larvae of the hummingbird moth). If I want sprouts or young leaves, I’ll have to plant something I can actually eat. Tomatoes and their brethren are a deferred pleasure, not to be enjoyed until midsummer. The wait will be long . . . and hungry.

Seedlings

The vegetable and flower seeds started appearing in February, arrayed on tall racks at Lowe’s and Target. Each packet showed off a picture of the ideal specimen of its variety, a picture that practically screamed, “Plant me now!”

It’s hard for a gardener to resist that siren song. Last year, I heard it clearly and felt I was getting a late start when I planted my seeds indoors in March. It was a choice I ended up regretting. Everything looked perfect at first. The tomato seedlings sprang up vigorously, the thyme ran riot, and the basil—ah, the basil!—grew into a verdant mass of scented leaves. But outside the house, the cold winds howled all through April.

By the time I was ready to transplant my tomato seedlings into the garden, they were tall, skinny, spindly things. I planted them deeply, knowing that tomato stems planted underground will produce roots, but the plants still poked too far above the soil. The next harsh wind weakened the plants. I kept the peppers, eggplant, and cucurbits (cucumbers, melons, and squash) inside for several more weeks, until the weather turned milder, and they tangled themselves into a jungle on the dining room table.

This year, I was determined to do things differently. I started buying the seeds early, but I stored them away. My next-door neighbor, The Man with the Perfect Lawn, started his seeds in late March. I decided to start mine in mid-April. When the time came, however, I was immersed in other activities, too busy to dibble in seed starter. I planted my seeds just last week—too late, perhaps, to get much of a head start on the growing season, but certainly not too early.

The tomatoes started coming up a few days ago, starting with the Early Girl tomato seeds I bought last year. Yesterday, the first eggplant seed sprouted. The Anaheim and Aurora peppers haven’t yet reared up any vestige of stem or leaf.

Each time a seed sends out its first stem into the sunlight, I wonder at how such a large mass of life can emerge so quickly from something so small. Some of the tomato seeds I planted—the seeds of tiny currant tomatoes—were no larger than a grain of sand, yet their seedlings are already one inch high. Still, after the first leaves have emerged, the seed’s most important job is done. It has given the plant embryo enough nutrition to meet the sunlight and send out roots to photosynthesize and absorb moisture on its own.

Underestimate the seedling’s powers of growth, and you might end up, as I did last spring, with a table full of young plants straining to break free from their peat pots.