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.