Tomatillos in March...

... probably.

Here are some of the tomatillos I have left from last summer. They were stored in their husks. There is lots of variety here with some having very inflated calyxes and others having those that fit more tightly. They are all yellow in colour though this year I have some seeds for a variety that tinges purple. Some varieties will burst out of their husks when ripe. I'm not sure how well those would store in comparison as I've not tried them.

If you haven't tried husk tomatoes yet - tomatillos and ground cherries - but can't imagine life without tomatoes, then you might just like these fruity flavoured relatives as well. They are started in the same way: about six to eight weeks before frost, transplanted in warm soil after last frost date. Some of them are quite rangy while others are more upright in habit. Tomatillos need more than one plant to fruit well so I've read (never tried to grow just one plant). Once they start producing the fruit, they can really pump it out.

Tomatillos, Physalis philadelphica (ixocarpa), are eaten at the well formed still green stage as well as the dead ripe, but you will be cautioned not to nibble on ground cherries, Physalis pruinosa, until they are golden with a tan husk. Some go as far as saying to wait until they fall off the plant. Not to worry if you have to collect them from the ground because they store well in those husks.

These fruits seem to be more popular of late. I've seen versions of salsa verde as a relish in chic-chic restaurants the occasional time I've been found inside of one and a nursery man at Make it Green told me that he has been selling a lot of ground cherries to chefs, with kitchen gardens I presume.

So what do they taste like? Green tomatillos taste tangy and tomato-esque and are often described as like citrus. Fully ripe, their fruity overtones intensify sometimes reminding me of a ripe apple. Ground cherries, on the other hand vary from reminiscent of pineapple, strawberry or something else dessert worthy. They make a nice addition to salads and some people use them to make pie.

I've opened some husks so you can see the innards. Note that they are nice and ripe looking. The top one is getting a bit wizened but still quite edible

But that's not what this blog post is about! You've heard me go on about small fruit tomato relatives before. No, it's that storage thing I mentioned.

If you pick them ripe in their husks and store in a cool, dry place (or just on your counter like me), they will keep for months. I have a few plants of ground cherries yanked by the root and left in the cellar too. Some of them may raison-up a bit but that doesn't take away their yumminess. In fact, it can intensify their flavour. My youngest told me the ground cherries were "Mmm, sweet."

Now what to do with these fruit? Something special to contrast with the snow globe outside today.

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Would you like some seeds? I have some seeds. They are no-named varieties and characteristics will probably vary a bit.

There is also a perennial ground cherry, Physalis heterophylla, that grows around here and probably stores well in husk too. Unfortunately, I seem to have eaten them all already so I couldn't test this theory. The variety I have has a heavenly fruity scent. Northern Bushcraft seems to think they can be stored for several months in a cool room making me think that indeed that'd store much like the above. They also describe the taste as pleasant sweet/sour. I'm reading that as pleasant sweet/tart: tomato-tomato. Anyhow, if you find a good tasting variety in your foraging - they are wild around here - then you may want to take home a rhizome or two as my experience suggests that they vary in quality much like most plants. Not too much mind as you wouldn't want to deprive the locality of this fun and tasty weed. Did I mention it was weedy? Think chinese lantern before you commit to a location in your garden though I'm not sure if it is really THAT bad yet.

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And another thing: A lady on FB asked me to write up a post on edible front yards so I am committing to doing that after I resurrect my old computer files to find some good pics. It'll be fun!

Apples and other dangerous Harvest(s) Monday

I've shared with the bugs. I will share with the critters including deer. And then we will feast on the bits that remain. This tree is close to ripe now.

A hint of autumn was in the air when I made my first batch of apple sauce yesterday but not before braving the bald headed hornet. Actually I didn't come face to face with them but my poor niece did. I just hope that the now eradicated nest build at head level in the apple tree isn't the thing she remembers most about her trip to Canada.


I asked the name of the tree that we got the large, early maturing soft and delicious apples and the previous owner answered: "This is an old tree." So that's their name folks: Old Tree Apples.

We are also dripping with ground cherries. I bought these starts at a local organic nursery and I asked what variety they were and got 'Ground Cherries' as an answer. They are not partial to the searing heat we've been having or the mini-drought which thankfully was broken by a nice soaking yesterday. Other than eating out of hand, anyone have some good recipes?


Some sort of ground cherry that has been getting sunburnt over the last week. Still lots of life left in it though and it's smothered with fruit.

Related to the cherry in the husk is the tomatillo. I suppose these are almost salsa verde ready but not quite ripe enough for me yet -



- and their dangerous cousin, the Litchi tomato or Morelle De Balbis as it is known in French.


It's a pretty plant. In my garden, only reaching about 3-4 feet though I've heard stories of tree like monsters.

Unripe berries equiped with the same spines that cover this plant.


It's a weed in some places but here we 'just' get ripe fruit. Certainly not something I'd like to step on while trapsing around the garden.

I really like the flavour though some are less partial. I also like the fruit Sunberry (another tomato cousin) which is sweet and can be eaten out of hand unlike Garden Huckleberry but I know there are some who aren't fans of this fruit either. Well were on the subject, I like eggplant. Doesn't everyone?*


Todays tomatoes lining up for the cutting board.

That's a small list of the harvests this week which included herbs, summer squash, cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, greens, and much more. What I'm really looking forward to is the first of the melons! I have hopes for next Monday.


For the interested, the weed perennial Clammy groundcherry. The berries are not ripe yet but this originated from Yuko's Open Pollinated Seed and she tells me they taste yummy. They will cover the ground rather like Chinese Lanterns and also like them, the Colorado Potato Beetle seem to prefer them so might be a useful trap crop.

* Okay so not everyone likes eggplant. I figure it's because they haven't had it lightly battered and fried until it turns creamy inside and crispy outside. So good.

Eggplants in Ottawa: On your mark...

Long, asian type eggplant on highly productive plant.

The first year I tried to grow eggplants, they were pathetic. I mean ragged eared, mangy, whining puppy pathetic. I got one fruit out of it but it was whizened, overripe, small and probably bitter though I didn't taste it. What I had done wrong was assume that it would grow with the usual level of neglect I dole upon my plants.

Eggplants in the north are prima donnas.

They need heat! They need sun! They need water! They need nutrients! Provided you choose a short season variety (80 days or under is probably best), start early like tomatoes, and give them what they want, you can get an excellent crop in Ottawa.

This year, I'm growing Applegreen, Slim Jim, something unlabelled which I'm going to name 'Surprise,' and Rima F3 seed produced by in the Toad's Garden blogger in Denmark.

Sun & Heat: If you don't have an area with near full sun then they will struggle but I'm all for experimenting. More sun of course means more heat.


Here is an eggplant seedling that produced beautifully planted in the ground with plastic mulch.

To warm the soil, think raised beds and sandier soil. You can also warm it up by incoporating partially finished compost or by using plastic mulch. Some people grow in pots which is good but make sure you choose a small variety, and use a water rententive 'soil' so they don't dry out easily. Another option, one commonly employed in cool, cloudy, often coastal climes is to grow things like eggplants and melons under glass or in a polytunnel. This will cut down on the amount of solar input but has the added benefit of warming up the air and cutting back on rain splashing foliar diseases. Ottawa normally gets a decent summer so they do well (for me at least) with their heads uncovered as long as the soil is warm. Other ways of increasing heat include planting against a south facing barrier like a wall and slanting the planting beds to the south.


Flowers on a the variety Little Fingers if memory serves

Water & Nutrients: Incorporating some unfinished compost near the planting bed can provide extra water and nutrients. You could bury a plastic jug* with a pinprick hole or use ollas (terra cotta pots)* next to the planting soil to provide a slow but steady supply of water. Every once in a while give them some compost tea instead. I can see this type of watering being of most benefit if you are planting in pots or in very dry conditions.

Okay, so I'll wait while you start your eggplants and we'll do part two in May.

* Pop bottle drip watering in a pot from The Fifth Street Palace Blog
** Ollas - unglazed ceramic pots for watering. The ones traditionally used are shaped like jugs but I've seen people glue two pots together, sealing the bottom drainage hole and using the top (upside down pot) to add water. These are especially useful for drought prone areas. A serious link here from someone whose done their experimentation about DIY ceramic pot watering system. Just one pot method.

Using terra cota pots in a self watering system for starts: seedlings, cuttings.

Other uses for milk jugs

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Seed Offers

Need some eggplant seed? If you promise to tell me how they do, I have some more Rima F3 seeds produced by a European amateur plant breeder. I'll happily send some along with a few Applegreen while supplies last. Let me know how they do.

I also have some cabbage seed from a cross between San Michele (blush savoy) and Red Rock Mammoth. Both are long season and these are seeds from the Red Rock Mammoth pod parent. It was an uncontrolled breeding meaning that I didn't chaperone them so I don't know if you'll get a plant that is crossed or is just Red Rock Mammoth. Actually 'just' is unfair because, in my garden, it was disease and pest resistent, stored well, tasted great and shrugged off the cold.

For those of you waiting for my excess seeds, I'm nearly finished sorting these out so I"ll drop them off this week sometime. If you want me to add either of the above, let me know.

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Last Snow Day?

I was starting to think that the two people who bravely guessed late March might be right but now I'm leaning toward early April. At least, I hope it's early April!

Harvest Monday - Winter heatwith overwintered peppers

I have written a tonne on overwintering peppers, so I won't bore you with a recap but here is the latest on my current hot pepper darling.


Scotch bonnet saved from grocery store seed. This is its second winter in the house.

You can see the last year's large, lush leaves are drooping and will probably drop though I am getting a new crop of leaves budding. I harvested most of the rest of the peppers today to pickle and dry.


Yummy but a bit much for one meal - this calls for preserving measures.

Aphids are plaguing this plant as they did last year but this year, I have some volunteers keeping their population down.


Rural properties have a lot of (lady)bugs apparently. Not that I'm complaining.

Wet Processing Seeds - Tip 3

Back on the seed riff, I'm processing tomatoes and other nightshades for seed saving as well as some melons and cucumbers that benefit from wet processing methods. Simply put, this is the add water version of seed saving.

Seed from Tomatillos
(and Eggplants/Aubergines)- The Fast Way?

Though you can just crush these paper encased balls of goodness with your hands, add liberal water and let gravity do the sorting, a sped up version is using a food processor so I thought I'd try it out.

Here are some nice ripe* tomatillos, past la salsa verde stage. I plopped them in a food processor with lots of water. Mine were cut in half.



Whiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiz

They were then poured into my gravity driven settling tank.

Hour an hour later, I scooped of the light floaty stuff which is mostly flesh and nonviable seed then poured the top layer of liquid off.

I added more clean water and removed the the last bits of debris ...

... then strained through a seive.

The cleaned seeds were spread on a couple layers of paper towel though paper plates are better.




Was that easier than squishing it up in my hands? It was faster, cleaner and the whizzing part was lots of fun.

* One of these tomatillos that I was eating was filled with teeny baby plants that had germinated inside the fruit. I noticed this right away as it tasted bitter, a consequence of alkoloids inside the green cotyledons I'm sure. I have heard of this a couple times with tomatoes and is a counter argument against letting the fruit get ripe on the edge of rotting before processing for seed in plants that show this tendency. All I can figure is that for some genetic or environmental reason, they lack sufficient germination inhibitors around their seed coat to prevent this.

Cucumbers and eggplants will be well beyond the eating stage when they are ripe enough to save seed from.

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Wet Processing - common plants

Squishy nightshades - tomatoes - Though you can simply remove the tomato seeds and rub off the gel capsules around them then dry and save, it is advised that they go through a period of fermentation to remove germination inhibitors and pathogens that remain on the seed coat. Some people just wash their tomato seeds with bleach - picture essay at Wintersown - and others like at Tatianna's Tomatobase combine the two methods.

Simply put, you squish out the tomato seeds and surrounding juice or scoop out depending on your tomato into a container. Add water if the flesh is very dry. Leave somewhere warm and sheltered (such as inside) for the fermentation process to begin. This can be a stinky process though I am not that nauseated by it. When a lovely whitish film has grown across the top - usually after a couple of days, pour off the gross stuff and save the heavy seeds at the bottom. Dry well!!

Sunberries are also squishy but I have to admit that I have never tried fermenting them. Anyone?

Dense nightshades - eggplants, tomatillos - Add the dense flesh into a bowl with water and then squish or mash it up until the seeds are released and fall to the bottom. Let this settle then scoop off the junk and pour off the water. Dry your seeds well! A quicker process, featured above, is scooping the seedy flesh into a food processor. Add lots of water. Whiz this all up a bit and pour into a container for settling. Pour off the stuff on top and save the good seeds that will have settled into the bottom.

Cucumbers - Scoop out seeds into a container with water. Let this stew for a couple of days to remove the germination inhibiting gel that surrounds the seeds. It may undergo a fermentation process similiar to tomatoes removing pathogens on the seed coat. Don't forget to have very dry seeds before putting away (yes I plan on repeating this with every item). Fellow Canadian Garden blogger in Toronto at the Urban Veggie Garden Blog demonstrates with suitably disgusting fermentation picture.

Melons, Pumpkins and the like - Really this is a method of seed sorting. Scrape the seeds into a large container and add water. Rub the guk between your hands until the seeds are free. Let it settle - this will take an hour or so. The 'bad' seeds and debris should float. Scoop this off the top then pour off the water. The good seeds will sink. Dry those thoroughly and save.

I've also seen people place the seeds in a strainer and run water over it, rubbing the seeds against the strainer to remove the stringy bits, such as at the blog My Life as Chuys.

Incidentally, rose seeds and others that are surrounded by wet goop are often processed in the similar ways.

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Wet-cleaning from ohioseed - they are much smarter than me when it comes to drying seed.

Harvest Monday - The Gateway Veggie

Cue the music...


Ah beautiful - a ripe tomato. This is not the first fruit but it is the first picture I managed to get this year as the kids (okay and myself) keep popping these earlies into our mouths.

Many people will recognize this gem of a fruit as the reason they got so hooked on backyard vegetables. On my favourite plant forum, Homegrown Goodness, in a post about garden related songs, was a youtube link to Homegrown Tomatoes by John Denver. You MUST listen.

"All winter without 'em is a culinary bummer"

Harvest Monday - Little Fingers

I'm talking eggplants of course. This week marks the beginning of eggplant season and may be just a little more excited than when I plucked my first tomato. I know, it's blasphemous but tomatoes are easy compared with this stubbornly heat loving fruit. My first couple years trying to grow these creamy delectable goodies was a failure. The fruit were undersized, whizened and overripe when I plucked them from their thorny branch. Since then, I have learned.


A many digit hand of 'Little Fingers.' Not my favourite variety but cute.

Eggplants are perfectly growable 'round these parts if you follow these tips.

1. They like it HOT, HOT, HOT. In Ottawa, it is probably hard to over do the sun and heat so pile it on. Put them in your sunniest location and heat the ground with clear plastic mulch, plant on a slight southern slope or use any other trick that you know.

2. If you want them big, don't let them go lean. Feed them with compost or well rotted manure and make sure they don't dry out. If you are planting in pots, use a moisture rententive mixture and put a light layer of mulch on the surface.

3. Not all eggplants are created equal. Choose early maturing, cool tolerant varieties. I find that many long asian variety are very early and productive. Applegreen is another excellent cultivar that outperformed my expectations during last year's cloudy, wet weather. I have yet to have luck with any large, Italian varieties, but I will keep on trying!

I would love to hear recommendations of other short / cool Aubergine* winners.


*Memories from the other side of the pond - common name for Solanum melongena in the UK and nearby.

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Seeds of Diversity database of Eggplant varieties sold in Canada

Pick a Pint of Peppers

I had decided not to start tomatoes, eggplants or peppers this year but despite my best intentions, people kindly shared seed, and I saved seed, and well I really wanted this or that variety so I ended up starting a near full house of plants including the above three varieties.

(Scroll down for how to save pepper seeds)

For those of you gracious enough to share seed, a selection of your babies:


Black Hungarian from Southwest Ontario:



I was intrigued by this variety but had never tried it before. The plant is very ornamental and productive even in our less than ideal weather as of late. I am looking forward to tasting them.


D'eschellette (my ink ran... Michel what was that pepper called again?... How plant names get altered.) from MidEastern Ontario



Since I took this picture, mere days again, these peppers have really beefed out.


Banana Pepper from somewhere... I can't remember exactly where... (why you should keep better records than me.)




Mini Chocolate Bell saved from my garden



I did not isolate these plants from the others they were snuggle-close with so I don't know if there has been any crossing or not. However, they do have strange pointy bits on their flesh which I'm not sure is a change in the genes or some sort of pest damage. The peppers look undamaged just bumpy.


Scotch Bonnet Habenero from grocery store



Thanks box store, and anonymous growers, for these. They are just about to flower so I'm not expecting fruit to ripen outside or even this year but I overwinter my peppers so hopefully next year I can taste them. Beside it is the re-rooted variegated fish that I saved from The Museum of Agriculture's demonstration gardens (it was on the ground, I swear). I'll have to wait until next year to get fruit from that too.


4 year old peppers plants confined to small pots:



Long Red Cayenne, on the left, producing strong and Fatali taking a break this year after fruiting indoors.

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Saving Pepper Seeds


This is easy. Find yourself ripe peppers, scrape out the seeds, let them dry for a good week, spread out on a flat surface with good air circulation, not touching anything, and then label and put away in a cool, dry place like other seeds.

I like to dry mine on paper towels as they suck up moisture. They also tend to stick to the seed but a bit of dry towel on my seed hasn't yet been a problem for germination.


Okay, that's the way I do it but there are some caveats.

Caveat 1: Peppers are generally self-pollinating (they fertilize themselves) but if you are growing more than one variety, especially in the same species (same latin name), it's possible they might cross. Sources vary on how common this is (see Chileman link below for lots of detail)

Caveat 2: If you are saving from a hybrid pepper, then the result is anyone's guess but heck, if you have the room, it might be fun to experiment.

Caveat 3: I'm assuming peppers carry seed born diseases. Chileman recommends discarding any deformed, damaged or spotty seeds. You can treat seeds with 'hot water' before planting them. I have never tried this but it sounds like something you would want to do just before sowing them. As a general rule, don't save seed from plants with serious disease and warn the person you are sharing seed with of any potential problems. Destroy any deformed or suspicious seedlings or plants while growing too.

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Chileman gives you more details on saving hot pepper seeds
Treating seed with hot water or chlorine from the Ohio State University

Harvest Day - Tomatoes!

Yup, I'd like to announce that on January 19th, 2009, I am harvesting tomatoes.


Winter Keeper tomatoes nearly all eaten up.

These are long storage tomatoes by the name of Winter Keeper, a variety that I got from Mapple Farms. They have been sitting on this rack since the end of September and have been slowly ripening ever after. Some but only a few have succumbed to rot. Most have stayed blushy gold with a red interior until I eat them. The taste is no where near as sublime as a sun ripened tomato but it is not bad considering they have been riding the shelf for the past 4 months.

Let us harken backward to other end too where I am starting Tiny Tim dwarf tomato because I'm curious how well it will grow on a window sill. I'm also going to be trying Red Robin which is apparently adapted to this sort of growing. Aren't they cute?


Teeny tiny baby tomato with huge pointing finger.

Overwintering hot peppers - so far so good

I thought instead of rattling on about the latest garden subject I was heavily googling (right now I'm looking decorative and tasty members of the rumex and chenopodium genus - look up Rhubarb Pie or Saucy Sorrel, darn pretty), I thought I'd let you know how my garden was doing.

Mostly, it's buried in snow. The two pepper plants that I am overwintering are doing well with descent leaf coverage as you can see on this 3 year old Fatali despite the low light levels. Now that we've passed through winter solastice, they should start to leaf out even more.


3 year old Fatali Habanero

I've even got ripening fruit on my 3 year old Long Cayenne.


3 year old Long Red Cayenne

It's the time of year that I normally repot these plants.

Overwintering peppers from this blog
Overwintering peppers from my old blog Ottawa Hortiphilia.
Some other guy at Hot Pepper Seeds gives you the dirt on overwintering peppers.

Show me your harvest day

As promised, this is the first of my intended meme on showing me your harvest. On a monday, I encourage other veggie gardeners to post their produce. To kick off I present to you the Winter Keeper Tomato. Here they are sitting on my kitchen counter.


Winter Keeper Tomatoes

For those unfamiliar with long storage tomatoes, they reputedly keep until New Years or Easter or some other far off tomato-less time. Often it is suggested that they are stored in idividual wrappers one layer deep not touching but Mapple Farms, my seed supplier, said he just kept his on a bowl in the kitchen and that sounded way easier. The type I have ripen from the inside-out which may be a common characteristic of long storage tomatoes but don't quote me.


Cut open winter keeper. On the outside it looked icy orange and inside, red.

Anyhow, last year something happened to my plant so this is the first year that I have to really experiment. They do appear to be ripening a bit more slowly than other tomatoes that I brought in and I have only had one rot on me but I suspect that the skin had been damaged. I picked them from the just off green to blush stage before frost in late September and they have an acidic but acceptable taste that is far superior to a supermarket tomato, however much less sweet than a vine ripened one.


Also harvesting:

The veggie patch is still going strong after our first true ground frost of the year. We have brassicas including tatsoi, broccoli, cabbage, kale and mustard; roots like carrots and beets and soon to come are the unusual roots (post next Monday); lots of greens like rocket, chard, mache, minituna, salad burnet and so on; and crops like celeriac and florence fennel.

The coldframes are up but the polytunnel has to be constructed again this week as we are expecting dips to -5C. Soon will come the snow.


Links

Mapple Farms - winter keeper (my variety)
Sand Hill Preservation Centre - various storage tomato types

Overwintering Peppers - 3 year old Fatali and friends

Fatali Habanero Pepper

Every once in a while, you learn a gardening trick that sticks in your brain like stubborn pine resin and this was one of them: Pepper plants are perennial; you can bring them inside and produce a crop from the same plant next year. As I have a tendency toward adventure gardening, I thought, "cool" so I did just that. The first year, my pepper lost all of its leaves and looked so dead that I threw it out. Further reading suggested that leaf loss was not uncommon so I tried again. The second winter was a fantastic success yeilding a crop of long cayenne even indoors. The third year I was plagued by insects and this year will be the fourth year that I try it.


I particularly like this method for hot peppers because though I love spicy food, I don't need an overwhelming mass of hot peppers at any one time and I find that this method provides me with two crops of the shorter season Long Red Cayenne instead of one bumper crop. For the longer season Fatali habanero, I get one crop ripening near first frost in September. In fact, it was the pathetic growth of what was previously known as 'four leaf fatali' that promted me to try again. It hadn't fruited at the end of the season and as my husband had picked it out, I thought I would try growing it a second season.


Other then the jalapenos that were devasted this year by a mystery malady (I was away much of the summer), I had thought I had all the hot peppers I needed until I took a stroll in the Canadian Agricultural Museum, aka the Experimental Farm (more on this garden soon). What did I see but a demonstration patch of varigated Fish peppers and some Medusa Head? (or small pepper plants that stick straight up in multiple hues of orange and red - all identifications are welcome). Some animal had rampaged through the patch leaving several pods strewn across my path. What could I do but rescue them? So next year, I intend on adding Fish, Fatali, and maybe Medusa Head to the party wintering over.


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Gardening 201 - How to Overwinter Peppers


Pot to Pot


This is the easiest method, plant seedlings in a large pot and repot in something larger when needed. You might want to add compost tea every once in awhile as well. Bring out for the summer, bring in for the winter. The only problem with this method is that you have to remember to water well. I have had branches die back - even the whole top of the plant - from what I assume is drought. My solution this year was to mulch. The plants only received rain water so it seems to have worked. This year was however a bit of a soaker.


Pot to Garden Bed to Pot


I have done this as well and the plants grew much larger bearing heavier yields. Of course they were much more disturbed when about a month before first frost near the end of September, I dug them up. I have read that you should trim the roots and tops at this point but I have never done this.


Problems and Observations


Before bringing in your plant, observe very closely for whitefly, aphid, spider mites and the like. They are difficult to combat inside so do so outside while you can. If you do get an infestation in the middle of winter, you can try applying a light soap to water spray, rinsing off after 10 minutes or so. You can also just try jetting the plant with water to dislodge at least some of the interlopers. I would do this when I watered them about once a week. I also used the squish method of pest control by examining my leaves very regularly and manually smushing the pests. This kept them under control enough to keep them alive until natural predators cleaned them off in the spring outside.


Peppers are very frost tenders so you can start introducing them to real sunlight as opposed to that filtered window stuff as soon as daytime temperatures are warmish. For me, that's 10 degrees celcius. I usually have them in a covered coldframe. Increase the amount of time spent out each day in increments or if you are me, forget they are outside and start swearing when you see them in the evening looked bestraggled. Once danger of frost has passed, you can abandon them in pots in a warm, sunny place or plant them in the ground.


From my short time overwintering, I have noticed that my pepper plants will grow and crop well then show decreasing leaf size and then the leaf size will gradually increase and they will grow and crop well again. I haven't grown enough peppers to say that this is always the case but it has been for me in the two pepper varieties that I have inside.


So now you know, go ahead and try it. As for me, I'm going to try overwintering minature sweet bells next year too in order to see how they do. There is a rumour that the smaller fruited species overwinter more successfully.

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Links

Most of the links are to my older gardening blog - Ottawa Hortiphilia which talks on length of my overwintering peppers saga.

The White Death - too tender for frost

Tomatoes before the fall. They were not trellised this year as I was gone for most of the season but the vines stretch at least 6-8 feet.

I decided to give a mercy killing to my tomatoes today as it calls for frost tonight. I chopped off their mighty vines and yanked out there firmly grasping roots. My Chiapas Wild tomatoes tumbled to the ground where they will undoubtedly reseed lots of Chiapitas in the spring.


Spilt tomato progeny. It just occurred to me that I should save some more seed with these fallen ripe ones.

What was really interesting for me was their roots. I have always been amazed at how tomato roots tend to grow laterally, just undernearth the surface of the soil, but this time I was amazed at a difference. The Chiapas Wild tomato had huge, tenacious roots to match the massive size of the 6 foot sprawling vines I imagine. The more demure and more cultivated varieties had much smaller root systems.


The left is a cultivated variety like brandywine or black plum. I don't remember but they all had similiarly smaller root systems. The right is the mighty chiapis wild.

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More on Chiapas Wild Tomato

Question: Is it wild?
Answer: Apparently, it is a wild progenetor of the modern cultivated tomato

Question: Is it disease resistant?
Answer: They say yes. All I can say is that it didn't seem that bothered by foliar disease in my garden.

Question: Did you like these tomatoes?
Answer: These are the perfect kid tomato. There are tonnes of very small, intensily sweet tomatoes. They are also very good whole in salads.

Question: What did you not like about these tomatoes?
Answer: Whoever said that they had 5 foot vines and didn't ramble (I also would call them red rather than orange?) was not growing my seed out. It had huge vines that should have been trained. They also tend to drop there tomatoes much like ground cherries when ripe. This is fine as long as you collect them. They'll stay fresh for quite a while. They also hold onto their stems unlike other currant sized tomatoes.

Question: Worth growing.
Answer: You bet.

Not just any solanum - sunberry, wonderberry, litchi tomato and more

Seeds of Diversity and Feast of Fields...

I volunteered to represent Seeds of Diversity at the Feast of Fields last weekend and had a great time. It is an event that pairs a local, organic grower with a team of chefs to create fabulous dishes. As a volunteer, I was spared what I consider the heavy entrance fee, and was able to sample the vittles.

Sunberry / Wonderberry?..

As well as thoroughly enjoying talking to people about seed saving, I got to sample two interesting tomato relatives from Greta's Organic Gardens. The first was the 'wonderberry,' also known as sunberry (Solanum burbankii). What intrigued me about this little black berry was that it was very different from my 'sunberry' that I had purchased from Mapple Farms a couple years back. The berries (couldn't find the seed listing this year) of Greta's variety were larger, but the taste was more bland and skin was thicker. They are similar but much better tasting than Garden Huckleberry (Solanum melanocerasum).

It could be that the growing conditions on my plot were different but the morphology was too distinct from mine leading me to beleive that these really were different, though very similar plants. Interestingly, Baker's Seeds described Chichiquelite Huckleberry (Solanum nigrum) as slighlty larger than the sunberry, and it is part of the cross so I wonder if there are just different phenotypes out there?

I love my Sunberries even if their small size makes them tendious to pick. They are no more of a chore than picking blueberries. They are also tasty raw. Not just edible, but flavourable with a unique smoky 'blue' taste. They also self seeded in my garden. I transplated one into a semi shade area at the back of the yard which has been heavily ammended with organic matter over the years, and it has done quite well. This year we had less sunlight than usual with tomato growers complaining of slow ripening times so it is quite possible that the crop of self sown Sunberries would be respectable next year. We'll see.

Self seeded sunberry plant growing in my raspberry bed

The Lovely Litchi Tomato...

Greta also allowed me to try litchi tomatoes (Solanum sysimbrifolium) which are apparently related to eggplants. The plant itself looks like a thorny tomato but the fruit has a small husk like the physalias. In fact, I would say that the seed reminds me of a tomatillo or something just as much as an eggplant.

It was delicious.

I immediately asked her if she would have some for sale next year because I will buy them. They were crisp, juicy, and fruity.

Ground Cherries...

It reminded me that I am going to try to get some ground cherries to self sow this year. I had one of Aunt Molly's ground cherries (Physalis pruinosa / prevuinia) pop up this year from last year's crop but it has not fruited and I do not think it will before next frost. Yuko, from Yuko's Open Pollinated Seeds, on the other hand often talks about where her ground cherries have migrated next. Many complain that ground cherries are a pain to pick as you have to wait until they are ripe and fall to the ground and you do not get a great deal of them but my kids love them and they do make a nice addition to desserts or salads even though I rarely get enough to bake a ground cherry pie. Last year, they also lasted in their husks until well into winter so they are worth growing again.

I would love to get my hands on the 'clammy ground cherry' (Physalis heterophylla Nees) which is a wild perennial around these parts though I have no idea how well it crops or how tasty it is but hey it would not hurt to try.

Don't eat a chinese lantern...

Because of my constant hunt for new vegetables, I decided to brave a chinese lantern (Physalis alkekengi). There are claims that it is edible though there are also counter claims that though it won't poison you, it tastes awful.


Chinese Lanterns in my garden littered with insect chew holes.

Yes, chinese lantern didn't kill me. Yes, it tasted AWFUL.

I suspect that indeed it had a high level of bitter alkaloids and the life preserving part of me said stop. So, I am happy to keep them in my yard as a trap crop for the colorado potato beetles, that love them above all other solanacea, but I will not be trying another.

And Tomatillos too...

What I would like to try to grow again are tomatillos (Physalis philadelphica) though I am undecided as to the variety. I secured some seeds from Chris who runs the CSA common ground for 'Yellow tomatillos', which are actually yellow/purple in colour when ripe, but I also have Mapple Farm's 'Indian tomatillo' variety. The problem is that 'Yellow tomatillo' seems to split its husk whereas 'Indian tomaillo' does not. I find that members of the physalia family keep much better in their husks even if I think I like 'yellow tomatillo's' taste better. Decisions, decisions.