Category Archives: tomatoes; garden

The Festive Garden

Smithsonian Folklife Festival, tomatoes; garden,

Plants and gardens take a lot of knowledge and skill to thrive, and are an important part of traditional folklife. At this year’s Smithsonian Folklife Festival, which just wrapped on July 9, both programs had gardens and a host of participating gardeners to interpret them.

What happens to those gardens once the Festival closes and the staff enters the grueling days of taking apart this enormous outdoor undertaking, you may ask? Well, having done my part during one of those days earlier this week to dismantle the gardens (and having done it many, many years in the past as well, this having been my 37th Festival!), I am here to tell you that we do our best to find good homes for all the plants.

Sometimes that is in my back, side or front yard, I have to admit. For instance, last year I snagged a fig tree from the United Arab Emirates program. It was about five feet tall, and a little worse for the wear, but once established in our front garden it was looking pretty hopeful. When spring came, however, only its bare branches remained, sad and dead looking, and we almost pulled it out. But, low and behold, it was sprouting new life from the ground up!

There are other success stories of the perennial kind lurking in our garden as well. I planted some sort of silver leaved thing requested by a flower wreath maker from the 1999 New Hampshire program, and it threatened to take over one of my flower beds. It still pops up every year here and there, as does my share of the hops we obtained for the participants from Kent, England for the 2007 Roots of Virginia Culture program.

Last year, we worked with the Earth Sangha wild plant nursery to put together a native pollinator garden for our Earth Optimism program. We had three 4’x4′ planters with a variety of natives, a number of which are in my yard now and doing amazingly well. We also got Black Eyed Susan seeds donated from a seed nursery in Pennsylvania. I threw bunches of these seeds into a sort of dead zone behind one of our raised beds, and they grew rapaciously. They are now attracting goldfinches, who perch on the flower heads and pick at the seeds.

In short, leftover Festival plants are the proverbial “gift that keeps on giving.” As is the Festival in general.

The large planter and water feature around the Ozarks program “Teaching Garden” was particularly impressive at this year’s Festival. One of the most attractive gardens we ever had! Yay, team!
I introduced Mia Jones from Springfield, Missouri, who grows microgreens, for her presentation in the Ozarks Teaching Garden one day. That’s a project for this winter now that I’ve learned the right way to do it.
In addition to the awesome planting around the Teaching Garden structure, there was a whole big planter of herbs, veggies, and foraging plants. I fear there were not many takers for most of the foraging plants, which were things most gardeners would normally be pulling out of their garden or yard like dandelions and burdocks… but they are all edible so maybe you should reconsider that action?
Who knew you could make a marigold infused simple syrup for summery drinks? Note, some of the portulaca and peppers from the kitchen planters seen here will be finding new homes in our garden (as well as a quantity of marigolds which were all over the site, so I can hopefully try this recipe at home).
As if we really need more plants in our backyard?! This is a glimpse between two of our raised beds which host the 70+ tomatoes. Hey, we like plants and especially ones that produce tomatoes!

Gardens, Real and Imagined

#collage, tomatoes; garden,

We’ve been redoing our back and side yard gardens this spring, and I couldn’t be more excited. New raised beds mean less stooping over for my tired old back, and new rich soil means we might actually get some decent veggies this year!

Meanwhile, I continue to collage with my friend Martha and I’m often inspired by flowers and gardens. I put all those seed catalogs that keep piling up to good use, cutting them into flower arrangements and fanciful dream gardens for cards to flower and garden loving friends.

Making gardens, real or imaginary, brings me back to my “roots” so to speak. My father always planned and executed a large vegetable garden in our yards – first in New Jersey and then in Vermont. After he passed away, my mother kept the tradition, enlisting both myself and my sister in the work.

I hate weeding and I never really liked picking green beans (they are really hard to see among their foliage!). I especially detest squash bugs, spotted cucumber beetles, and slugs, and whatever likes to take big bites out of ripe tomatoes. But I do like to play in the dirt. And to eat the results.

Watching things sprout and grow brings us hope. We all need a big dose of hope right now.

Here are some plant and garden pix, real and imagined.

New fancy raised beds. There are three this size and another smaller one. Blank canvas for all sorts of plants!
I always wanted some sort of strawberry tower thing. Hopefully this will thwart the slugs this year??
Some day maybe I will get a greenhouse or at least a hot frame. For now, its an indoor thing and when the day allows, taking these babies outside to hard up and get some direct sun! Always too many…
One of my imaginary collage gardens.
This was our 2020 “pandemic garden” in Pennsylvania. Lots of tomatoes! Black Krim are my faves.
Fanciful flower collage.

Tomato Time

tomatoes; garden, Uncategorized, , ,

The 100+ heat index last week was good for at least one thing: hastening the ripening of the tomatoes in our “suburban vegetable farm.” The moment the backyard gardener waits all year for, that first juicy flavorful bite that banishes all memory of the sad waxy things passing for tomatoes the rest of the year.

Unfortunately, that first bite is sometimes taken by some other creature than yourself. Grab onto a big delicious looking specimen, and you may encounter a messy, gooey, open wound. Chipmunk, squirrel, bird, or something else that comes by night and chews…no matter, damage done and hopefully something left to salvage.

Most of our tomatoes were grown from seed. This year, I got several varieties from the Gurney seed company because they had a sweet introductory discount. I was intrigued by a variety called Mortgage Lifter, explained (at a farm museum I toured last spring) as being so prolific that it raised Depression era farmers out of debt. Makes a good story, and, if I have figured correctly, a good tomato too.

“Figuring correctly” is what one must do in our garden, since the varieties of tomatoes somehow always get mixed up between the seedlings and the planting, no matter how I try to keep them labeled. So you just have to wait for them to mature to find out what sort of tomato they will produce. Even then, I am not sure sometimes, especially since I purchased a “rainbow” package of heirloom seeds with a number of varieties mixed in. Is it a Cherokee Purple or a Black Krim? Is this one going to stay yellow or has it just not started turning red yet?

  • I call this “BT toast.”

Who cares, really. They are all yummy. If you don’t have your own, go find a farm stand or a farmer’s market and pay whatever it cost for a few pounds. It’s the essence of summer, and it’s gone all too soon.