The One that Got Away

From The Escapee

A few weeks ago, I decided to pick our prize tomato. The Rutgers plant was our most productive and this specific fruit was the biggest of the bunch. It was shaped like a hachiya persimmon and I knew that it would be delicious.

I placed the tomato in a plastic bucket and turned my back for 30 seconds when a gust of wind blew the bucket over our ledge onto a secondary roof about 10 feet below.

I considered jumping down to retrieve the tomato, but was unable to track down a grappling hook or a ladder. Sarrita convinced me that I should just "let it go" and we left the tomato to the elements. In hindsight, I think she was already starting to hate tomatoes, even back then.

Perhaps the Superhero Supply Store would've had the proper equipment to stage a rescue of the wayward son.

Friday Bounty

From A Tomato Grows in Brooklyn?

There was another weekend storm coming to the NYC area on Friday so I picked as much fruit off our plants as I could. Our tomato crop has had very thin skins on the fruits, so over-watering / skin breakage has been a significant problem. Also, our staking setup seems to be at the upper limits of its capacity, so I was concerned that the weather would bully the plants around.
Friday was our most bountiful harvest date yet!

The September 26, 2008 crop yield:

• Rutgers: 3
• Large red cherry: 6
• Sweet 100: 21
  

Is Fall Here?

The days seem a lot shorter and the weather has cooled down in the last two weeks. Normally, I would be rejoicing the lower humidity and milder temperatures, but our babies need sun! We got a late start on our planting so that is also a concern.

The tomato plants have definitely slowed down their growth and the tomatoes seem to have slowed in getting bigger.

Another thing that we noticed is that the tomatoes aren't getting that big and tend to have thin skins; a number of the fruits have split. Reading up on the Sweet 100s, seems like thin skins is a characteristic of that variety, but we are also concerned about over-watering.

Tomato Burst?

You're the Inspiration

(note: I had originally started this article back in July and am now catching up on finishing up some unpublished posts)

I tried growing tomatoes last year in San Francisco, with a tiny bit of success. I hadn't really thought of growing tomatoes again this year, but a few things added up and here we are.

A bit more about my inspiration:
Da Heat
One huge and obvious difference between San Francisco and New York is the summer weather, which I was introduced to during the early June heat wave in New York (what happened to spring this year?!).

Lots of people, especially tourists, come to San Francisco, thinking California equals sunshine and are greeted by the fog and cool nights. The weather in San Francisco tends to be cool year round with foggy days rivaling the sunny ones in the summer, especially July. I actually love the weather in San Francisco, "scarf weather all year round", but it isn't very conducive to growing tomatoes, which need a lot of sun.

The summer weather in New York is actually a bit too hot (and humid too) for perfect tomato growing weather, but with all this sun, I see many tomatoes in my future.

The Old Man
Last year, when I was growing my single tomato plant, I had pretty much killed anything that I had tried to grow in my life, so I made the decision to grow the tomato plant "by any means necessary", which to me meant plant food and fertilizer. I was looking for low maintenance and the time release fertilizer stakes that I had purchased were not organic.

My dear old dad was visiting and when I showed him my plants, he asked me whether the tomatoes were organic. Emotions swirling. Did my dad just call me out for not growing organic? Proud, the old guy knows about organic produce! You can teach a dog new tricks. Now if only we could teach him not to vote for party that lies and misleads in the upcoming presidential election.

Any how after feeling that shame, I'm going organic this year!

Tomatoes by Evan + Renee
I finally got around to visiting my friends Evan and Renee at their new house in Los Altos around the beginning of July, 2007. The had moved into a fixer-upper house with a completely run down front yard, so they decided to put their vegetable garden in the front yard.

I was kind of flabbergasted. What if someone just started stealing all of your vegetables? What about dogs and cats running wild and through your garden?

I guess I was inspired by two things:

1. Space - they rolled with the punches and put their garden where they could. Obviously, I'm going to have to grow our tomatoes in pots, but we have a huge terrace and lots of sun.
2. Hard work - Renee had the raised garden boxes put into the yard and they had obviously read up on what they needed to do to have a successful garden and prepared for that.

The key was that they had a passion to make it happen and they did it.

Now if only Cal could have the passion to get to the Rose Bowl and do it! (passion there, but not yet to Rose Bowl).

You can also do it the easy way if you don't have the time: A Locally Grown Diet With Fuss but No Muss (NYTimes). I love San Francisco, but it sometimes makes me nosh.

Epitaph for a Peach
This beautifully written book was my first introduction to the concepts of organic and sustainable farming and has had a lasting impression on me. I read the book nearly 10 years ago in the long (and still) running "Brian + Linda Bookclub" and it seems even more relevant today with the localvore and Slow Food movements.

Growing up in California, I've always been spoiled by having good, fresh produce available, but it wasn't until I read Epitaph for a Peach by David Mas Masumoto that I realized that our collective choices have a significant impact on our world and how we eat and live.

I've had the pleasure of buying the Suncrest peaches featured in the book have been available at Berkeley Bowl (best market in the world) and they truly are amazing.

... and yes, I have romantic notions of farming potted tomatoes for a living.

Tropical Storm a Comin'

We were going to go up to Montauk today to hang out with my sister's family, but a huge storm is coming into the New York area. Supposedly 5 inches of rain, with crazy winds are supposed to fall in NYC.

We'll that storm has arrived and it is dumping rain right now!

We brought most of the tomato plants inside, with the exception of the Striped Germans. We had originally brought that plant inside too, but there were a lot of bugs in that pot (eek! a spider), which didn't sit too well with the lovely Sarrita, so out it went again (though not with a tantrum by me. i hate doing more work).

Batten down the hatches!

We created a little alcove in the corner of our terrace to shield the plant from the elements by draping a garbage bag over the top of the plant and putting a table in front of it to block the wind.

Tomato Fort

During the initial downpour, the garbage bag tarp wasn't attached to the center support, so it collapsed in on itself, so I ran out into the rain and used one of the large binder clips to tent the tarp so that the water would run off.

The Mighty Binder Clip

We've lost one flower far, but I guess we should've been pinching off those flowers anyways on the SG, since there are some tomato clusters that are collapsing under their own weight on that plant.

The Tomato Street Players: Striped German

photo source: http://www.johnnyseeds.com

Description from http://www.johnnyseeds.com:
Bicolor red and yellow fruit.
The flat, medium to large, variably ribbed-shoulder tomatoes are shaded yellow and red. The marbled interior looks beautiful sliced. Complex, fruity flavor and smooth texture. Medium-tall vines. Indeterminate.
Days to Maturity or Bloom: 78 days.

Tomatoburg says:
Where purchased: Sprout Home, Brooklyn

Apparently, these tomatoes can grow up to a pound. A nice blog entry is here: Rickrack Rag Striped German post.

I love the color! Hopefully we'll be able to grow 'em 1 pounders.

The Tomato Street Players: Sweet 100

photo source: http://www.tomatogrowers.com

"A well grown (Super) Sweet 100 will produce 1000 or more fruit and will get to be about 15 feet tall. That is for a well grown plant. Being a newbie your actual mileage may vary." Posted by wvtomatoman at forums.gardenweb.com

Description
Very vigorous, indeterminate plant is a prolific producer of crack-prone fruit with good tomato flavor. 65 to 70 days.

Tomatoburg Says:
Where purchased: Khan's Market, Brooklyn

I was inspired to grow cherry tomatoes this year when my friend Evan said that they got "hundreds" of tomatoes from their plant.

First Crush

Scrub a dub

Last night, I noticed that some of the ripening tomatoes though not very big, had split. Maybe this was due to over-watering, compensating for when the tomatoes nearly died during our road trip. We should've heeded the words of our waitress at Fornino this week ... beware the bursting tomatoes.

Extreme Tomato Close-up

Regardless, we had to triage the situation, stat! We picked 'em (3 sweet 100s and 1 rutgers), harvested a few stalks of fresh basil and dug out the fresh mozzerella that we picked up from Fairway Redhook (which by the way, is awesome and yes, we did have the lobster roll).

Farm to Table

One of the cherry tomatoes was very sweet and the rutgers was tasty as well. Great texture. The home grown basil was amazing, so flavorful. I want to say that the tomatoes were the star, but the mozzerella out shone them. I didn't think much of the mozzerella when I tasted it at Fairway, but whoa it really tasted good. Leaving it in the car for a few hours while at IKEA must've helped the flavor.

Sweat and tears were shed over these tomatoes, so tasting the bounty of our efforts for the first time was pretty darn cool.

Neighborhood Garden Supplies

Crest True Value Hardware
558 Metropolitan @ Lorimer, Brooklyn (map)(website)

From A Tomato Grows in Brooklyn?

Crest is a great neighborhood hardware store. The prices are good and the people working there are friendly and helpful. I went on a weekday and one of the employees took the time to answer all of my novice gardening questions and I learned that potted plants require potting soil and not garden soil.

Crest has an excellent selection of gardening supplies, pretty much everything that you would need to setup a patio or even outdoor garden and they also carry organic gardening supplies. Plus, they've got real, honest to goodness plants, including herbs! In addition to the display in front, there is a garden patio in the rear of the store.

Sprout Home
44 Grand Street, Brooklyn (map)(website)



Check out some unaffiliated to me photos of Sprout on Flickr:
Sprout Home Flickr Set

Stores like Sprout Home are why I live in Williamsburg. It is so frickin' cute. Sprout is what I imagine when I think of "Urban Gardening", selective, small, creative and beautiful. If you want your plants to be hip, eclectic and dressed in the coolest, well pots, Sprout is your place. If you want to look as good as your plants, while tending to your plants, Sprout has got you covered. Also, Sprout carries a small, precious selection of housewares and furnitues. We got our shower curtain from Sprout (though we had to order it online, since the Brooklyn store was out of stock).

Sprout is well-stocked and only walking distance from our apartment in Northside Williamsburg. Between Sprout and Crest Hardware our neighborhood is well covered. We got our two heirloom tomato plants, organic potting soil, organic tomato food, and some of our bamboo stakes from Sprout. The prices are reasonable (ok, you pay a tiny bit more for the cute-o-sity).

The only downside ... mosquitoes. Got got by them critters. Skeeters are especially bad this year.

An extra bonus, Sprout is right next to the A.P.C outlet, Two Jakes and Moon River Chattel. The Williamsburg version of the IKEA / Expo Design / Home Depot run in Emeryville.

Khim's Market
280 Bedford @ N. 1st St (map)(site)


Small selection of plants, including tomato, chiles and pepper and a few herbs. They had non-organic potting soil, but only a few pots.

Khim's is mostly a small grocery that also sells plants during the summer.

Unnamed place next to Om Sweet Om
(edit: walked by there on Sept 13, 2008 and the place now has signage and is called "Jungle")
57 Kent Avenue-ish, Brooklyn (map)(website)
Helen's friend, Jane, had a car and she was nice enough to take us drive us around Williamsburg and Greenpoint last month. It was really cool zipping around in a car and seeing more of North Brooklyn in 15 minutes than in our first 2 months here (some would say that I am kind of a shut-in). During our car tour, we saw a huge garden center just a couple of blocks away from where we live on Kent and N. 10th St.

We tried to check it out after the MGMT @ McCarren Pool thingy, but it was already closed. It is right next to Om Sweet Om, but I don't actually think they are related. About a week later we got there when it was still open.

This place was part garden lounge and nursery with an eclectic selection of plants. It kinda reminded me of Flora Grubb in SF, but w/o an indoor space and unfortunately no Ritual Coffee. They mostly carry really big plants and pots and maybe don't have all the garden supplies that you would need, but has cool stuff.

We were trying to buy some organic fertilizer for our tomatoes, but they only had a 30 lb bag. The price seemed good considering the fertilizer seemed like good stuff.

Home Depot, Chelsea
One of the things about Williamsburg is that without a car, it can be easier to get to Manhattan than other parts of Brooklyn that are not off the L.

This is one of the urban Home Depots, but they had a pretty decent urban gardening section as far as supplies go. I found medium sized planters and organic potting soil and plant food (along with the non-organic kind). There was a run on organic potting soil b/c both the Home Depot Chelsea and Crest True Value were out at one point when I went to buy. The plant selection is geared towards apartment plants and there were no tomato plants or herbs.

The location of this Home Depot is excellent, within a couple of blocks of the Container Store and Bed, Bath and Beyond ... Home improving is the new sexy.

Also, if you want to wait an hour for a burger, the Shake Shack is half a block away.

Home Depot, Bed-Stuy
Have not been, but apparently has a garden center.

Hardware Store on Bedford
Limited selection of pots (a few window boxes), but they did have a small bag of organic potting soil.

Nice tomatoes...

Our tomatoes have finally become more photogenic, so here's a bunch of photos that I just took of them.

Rutgers


Cherokee Purple


Sweet 100


Sweet 100


Large Red Cherry


Striped German

Tomato Tomato

We were watching Sarrita's one-and-a-half year old niece, Sophie, yesterday and the genius that I am, I read through all of Sophie's books, including Little Miss Twins. The Miss Twins live in Twoville and say the ends of their sentences twice, say as in "Hello Hello". This reminded me of our own double tomato:

Tomato on Tomato Action


Cannot wait to eat some of our "ugly", yummy tomatoes!

Tomato Lewis & Clark

We downloaded some audio books for our x-country drive. Originally we wanted to listen to Crazy Horse and Custer: The Parallel Lives of Two American Warriors, inspired by Crazy Horse Memorial in the Black Hills of South Dakota. When completed, it will be the tallest statue in the world.

Crazy Horse Memorial


However, "Crazy Horse and Custer" wasn't available on Audible.com, so we ended up with Undaunted Courage : Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West

We've got two trailblazing tomatoes starting to ripen:

Sweet 100


Rutgers

Bees!

The tomatoes survived our vacation, but not without a little drama (more details in another post).

We have been giving our tomato plants a good shake every day to help with pollination since we hadn't seen any bees. Or so we thought...

Tiny Bee doing it's thing on a tomato blossom



I've seen bees digging our tomatoes every day since I took this picture last Sunday.

How was your day?

Of course I ask Sarrita how her day was before I ask about the tomatoes. I haven't even asked her why the Friday Tomato Update was not posted.

Here was a love note that I sent to her before I left on my trip:

On the Road

I'm on day 3 of my drive from San Francisco to Brooklyn with my friend, Derek. I'm bringing out my soccer-mom car to Brooklyn and Derek is going to grad school at NYU.

Today, we started out in the Grand Tetons National Park and now are in the middle of Wyoming. The Buffalo Bill Historical Center was a revelation. Definitely worth a visit if you are in the vicinity of Cody, Wyoming. Also, we had an excellent dinner at Wyoming Ribs & Chops. The rib-eye was tender and juicy and cooked in butter to a nice medium-rare. It was nice and fatty, though it could've had better marbelization. A total deal at $21.95 (including a nice house salad and a side). Derek had the baby back ribs. Nicely tender and carmelized. The sauce was just OK though.

Back to tomatoes. I've actually been away since Aug 10, so these are the SMS updates about the tomatoes. They are being cared for by the lovely Sarrita:

• Aug 15: So many tomatoes! I've been very attentive!
• Aug 17: Came home lots of tomatoes but a little dry

Sarrita is flying to Chicago on Wednesday and will join us on the remaining days of the trip. Of course, I will be excited and happy to see her, but also curious to find out her solution for watering our babies.


Mt. Rushmore Corn Mural, Corn Palace, Mitchell, SD

Friday Tomato Update (August 8)

Our plants continue to do well. We are training the plants to grow up and pruning down below. Lots of flowers and fruit starting to show. After some more internet research, we decided to use fertilizer (organic, of course) for our babies.

Plant Care

1. Monday: fertilized all plants with Espoma Tomato-Tone (4-7-10).
2. Daily: shake plants for 5 - 10 seconds to assist with pollination (haven't seen many bees)
   
3. Pruning: continue with moderate pruning for all plants except for our single determinate plant, the Rutgers.
4. Watering: daily. The moisture meter goes to dry every day and on some days the leaves start curling up / wiliting, so we've been watering every day.
   

Weather
It was a nice week. Sunny and in the high 70s, lower 80s. 2 short thunderstorms.

Rutgers

• Height: 25"
• Width: 25"
• 5 tomatoes

Cherokee Purple

• Height: 24"
• Width: 21"
• 2 tomatoes

Striped German

• Height: 25"
• Width: 22"
• 0 tomatoes

Planter Box #1 (Sweet 100s)

• 12" - Tiny Tim seems to have recovered
• 17", 2 tomatoes
• 17"

Planter Box #2 (Large Red Cherry)

• 20"
• 18"
• 22"

Planter Box #3

• Sweet 100s
1. 16"
2. 24"
3. 16", 1 tomato
• Large Red Cherry
1. 23", 1 tomato
2. 26", 1 tomato
3. 20", 1 tomato

Friday Tomato Update (August 1)

We pruned most of the tomato plants last Sunday, so that is the big change this week. More on this somewhat controversial topic in a dedicated post.

Also, on Monday, I sprayed the plants with the aspirin compound that the Love Apple Farm blog recommended as a bi-weekly treatment. Did I mention that Love Apple Farm grows the veggies served at Manressa Restaurant in Los Gatos? Been there once and their produce was especially yummy.

We had planted herbs next to most of the plants as a natural bug repellent and the mint and basil are doing particularly well. The sage and thyme are good, but the parsley seems a bit sickly.

Our one Rutgers tomato is slowly developing and has been joined by another little green friend. Most of the other plants are flowering and are continuing steady growth. Wondering if we should be pinching flowers?

Weather
The weather this week was in the 80s with normal summer humidity. It dumped rain on Sunday.

Most of the plants seem well established and the heat is more moderate, so I've cut back on some of my watering.



Rutgers

• have not pruned yet
• 2 tomatoes
• 21" high, 24" wide

Cherokee Purple

• 20.5" high, 16" wide

Striped German

• 21" high, 17" wide
• no flowers yet :(

Window Box Sweet 100s (replanted last week)

1. 10" - may not make it
2. 12"
3. 14"

Window Box Large Red Cherry

1. 13"
2. 12.5"
3. 14"

Large Window Box

• Sweet 100s
1. 12"
2. 18"
3. 12"
• Large Red Cherry
1. 15"
2. 18"
3. 17"
   

Tomato Times

Two recently articles in the New York Times reported on the revival of the Jersey tomato.

The Return of the Lost Jersey Tomato -- July 23, 2008

Rutgers Helps Revive Ramapo (the Tomato, That Is) -- June 15, 2008

I'm glad that we are starting to live in times where taste, flavor and authenticity, not shelf life and uniformity are the criteria in which produce are made available to me and yous, the consumers.

Also, I would like to take this space to thank the newly hitched LizChaFoster for sending me every NYTimes article that I would remotely be interested in over the last few years. Liz, you are the queen of self-help, mailing lists, and most e-mailed articles!

Friday Tomato Update (July 25)

We had to buy some more supplies this week, which I picked up at Home Depot at 3rd Ave and E. 59th St:

1. Spray Bottle @ $2.19
2. Velcro tie straps @ $2.47
3. Window Box (24" x 8" x 6") @ $6.97

We replanted 3 of the large red cherry plants into the new window box. When we bought the large red cherrys and Sweet 100s, they came in a flat of 6, but I novice-like counted those 6 as 1 plant each. Our cherry plants needed more space! We'll do one more replanting of 3 of the Sweet 100 plants this weekend.

The tie straps are used to secure the tomato vines to their individual bamboo stakes. Next year, I might try using tomato spirals or building cages out of concrete reinforcement wiring.

The spray bottle will be used to spray an aspirin spray bi-weekly as recommended at the Love Apple Farm blog.

Small Window Box (3 large red cherry plants):

• height, left to right: 7.5", 8.5", 9"
• no flowers
• these were the runts of the 6 large red cherrys that were planted in the large window box. they seem to have taken a liking to their roomier new surroundings.
  

Large Window Box (3 large red cherry plants, 6 sweet 100 plants):

• large red cherry height: around 10"
• sweet 100s: around 10"
• flowers starting to bud on both types

Rutgers:

• 17" high
• 20 flowers
• 1 tomato!

Striped German:

• 15.5" high
• no flowers yet, but seemingly healthy now after suffering before we could pot it.

Cherokee Purple:

• 15.5" high
• 2 flowers
  

All the tomato plants are noticeably bigger and healthier than last week! My thumb is looking a little more green today.

Phoenix Tomato

We saw our first tomato!

It is so f-ing hot out here that I was worried that some of the flowers were dying because of the heat. The little tomato seemed to start budding out of the first flower that wilted.

Friday Tomato Update

Rutgers:

• height: 11"
• green and bushy with 18 flowers!

Cherokee Purple:

• height: 11"
• seems to be developing new growth

Striped German:

• height: 11"
• the Striped German seems to have suffered the most during the week between buying the plant and potting it. Lots of yellow / dead leaves and noticeably sagging

Large Red Cherry:

• height: 6.5"
• reaching for the sun

Sweet 100s

• height: 7"
• doing well, but may be too crowded. I put 12 plants in the window box. After further reading, I think each plant needs to have at least 18" of spacing.
  

Toxic (Sticker) Shock

Shock(ed about NY):

1. $8 heirloom tomatoes
2. Where are the good peaches hiding?
3. Food does cost a lot more here (granted, I moved right when food and gas prices have gone soaring)
4. Farmer's markets: disappointing so far (been to 3).
5. Bejeezus, it is hot out here.
6. Private terrace

Mix it all up and the obvious conclusion is grow some of your own freaking tomatoes!

Toxic:

1. Greenpoint Oil Spill - "up to 3 times larger than the Exxon Valdez spill". An estimated 17 million gallons of oil at an ExxonMobil facility was leaked into the ground in 1950. Cleanup continues to this day with 9 million gallons reclaimed.
   
2. Toxic Brooklyn - Boomtown Williamsburg ... my new neighborhood is toxic! VBS.TV series.
   

Maybe the higher levels of radioactivity will result in a crop of huge, godzilla-sized tomatoes? Sounds like a money saving proposition!

If anyone knows where I can get great peaches in Williamsburg, please let me know.

Shopping List

This is our initial list of purchases for our tomato and herb planting. We may need to buy a few more supplies for caging the cherry tomato plants.

All told, we spent around $80 on tomatoes and supplies. We probably saved around $50 by getting free stuff from Sarrita's mom (S's value add) and could've saved a bunch of money (and time) on potting soil mix, if I had properly calculated the amount needed. Tip: a 12 inch pot takes around 16 dry quarts or 17.6 liters. A few of the items are reusable, such as the pots and stakes, so next year's crop won't require as much startup capital.

Herbs were an additional $15 - $20.

Gardening supplies $100. Amusing yourself ... priceless.

Headliners
Striped German heirloom tomato plant $4.25 @ Sprout
Cherokee Purple heirloom tomato plant $4.25 @ Sprout
Rutgers tomato plant (already flowering) $2.99 @ Circle Farm
Sweet 100s $1.99 (6 plants) @ Khim's Market
Red Cherry $1.99 (6 plants) @ Khim's Market

Supporting Cast
Window box, plastic, 10" x 24" x 10" $10.97 @ Home Depot
Miracle-Gro Organic Potting Soil (32 quarts or 35.2L) $8.99 @ Home Depot
Miracle-Gro Organic Potting Soil (8 quarts) $3.97 @ Home Depot
Miracle-Gro Organic Plant Food. 6 lb, $9.99 @ Home Depot
Hamptons Estate potting soil (1 cubic ft or 28.5L), $9.99 @ Sprout
Hamptons Estate potting soil (1 cubic ft or 28.5L), $9.99 @ Sprout
6 x 6 ft bamboo stakes $2.99 @ Crest True Value
Moisture meter $4.99 @ Home Depot
Rite-aid Aspirin $2.99 @ Drugstore.com

Herbs to grow with tomatoes (pest prevention)
flat leaf italian parsley $3.99 @ Home Depot
basil (4 plants) $2.99 @ nursery in NJ
rosemary $1.99 @ Khim's Market
sage $3.99 @ flower district
thyme $3.99 @ flower district

Stuff we got for free from Sarrita's mom
16 inch pot
12 inch pot
12 inch pot
2 plant cages
Gardening gloves
Hand shovel & hoe

Planting Done?

Finally got all of the tomato plants in their pots. We started on Sunday night, planting the cherry tomatoes and two of the vined plants, but couldn't finish because we ran out of potting soild. I finally finished up the planting today, Tuesday, July 15. A few of the pots could use some more potting soil, because we ran out again, so there will probably be more potting soil purchased and another round of potting to do.

I had been researching container tomato growing for the past two weeks, but there is no replacement for experience. Lots of rookie mistakes were made :(

More detailed posts about the planting (with pictures) to follow.

San Francisco Fog Tomatoes

Near the end of last summer, I found out about a tomato variety called "San Francisco Fog". What a great name and it sounded perfect for growing in my foggy neighborhood.

I've since read that the "San Francisco Fog" tomatoes might not be the best variety to grow in SF: 'San Francisco Fog' Tomatoes Disappointing, but in the process, I discovered that different types of tomatoes are suited to different climates (duh).

There are hundreds of tasty tomato varieties, often with clever names to match. Tomato Growers Supply Company has pictures and descriptions of many.

So though I may never grow "San Francisco Fog" tomatoes, still love the name!

The 2007 Crop

Last year, I grew a tomato plant on my patio. I was inspired by my new micro-watering kit. Turns out that plants need to be watered to survive and now with my micro-watering kit, my potted plants were thriving.

I picked up a tomato plant at FlowerCraft (an affordable and stocked garden center in SF; I heart FlowerCraft!) and re-potted the it to a 6" or maybe 8" pot. Eventually, the plant (tomatoes are actually vines) started sagging, so I purchased a wire cone to provide support. In the process of putting the wire cone around, I broke some of the branches, which I tried to "repair" using scotch tape. In case you are wondering, it did not work.



Eventually, I got around 8-10 small to medium sized tomatoes. They were pretty tasty, flavorful and medium-bodied. I thought this was pretty decent, given that my patio doesn't get too much sun (and in hindsight, I had no clue what I was doing).



I'm not even sure what kind of tomatoes they were, maybe "Shady Lady" or "Celebrity". Can any tomato experts identify the variety?

The Pad

We love our place. It is in a great location, a few blocks from the Bedford L. There are three amazing things about the apartment:

1. Washer and dryer in the unit!
2. Radiant floor heating! (almost looking forward to my first non-California winter)
3. Private terrace! ... and right outside our living room.

In my opinion, you gotta have #1 and #2, but the terrace, that's living in luxury.

Brooklyn Calling

"Manhattan is full of douchebags, but Williamsburg ... those are our kind of douchebags." -- a wise man, many drinks deep

I moved to New York City a few months ago on March 23. I packed up two huge suitcases and hopped on a one way flight from SFO to JFK. Other than a few weeks here and there, I had never lived outside of California, but it was time to see if the long distance relationship had staying power. New York is no San Francisco, but hey, I could do a lot worse.

As a city dweller, the neighborhood that you live in defines like 63% of who you are. Live in the Mission? You are 63% likely to be a hipster, Ritual Coffee swilling, geek. Marina? Let's talk about your sorority (63% certainty). I had targeted a few neighborhoods in Brooklyn that sounded like cool places to live 'cuz Brooklyn seemed to have some of the advantages of Manhattan, without some of the insanity, like high rent, people constantly in your business, some of those aforementioned people being real annoying types, etc.

Exactly a week after making the move to NY, this article was published in the New York Times: Sisters in Idiosyncracy. Don't think "Sanfranrooklyn" is gonna quite stick as a word, but it feels good to be validated!

We signed the lease on our apartment in Williamsburg and moved in on June 1. Sarrita, my wonderful GF, Manhattan native, likely the only one reading this blog, "I've only been to Brooklyn twice in my life" was now a Brooklyn-ite!

Brooklyn Calling - I took this picture on the Williamsburg waterfront in January, 2007.

TomatoBurg

Welcome to TomatoBurg! This blog chronicles my attempt to grow tomatoes on our terrace in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. I probably should've said "our attempt", but we'll see how much Sarrita actually contributes.