Tomatoes: roll call (part 1)

It's my grandfather's birthday. He lives next door to me (semi detached houses), which I know is unusual. Back in the 80s and 90s, our family ruled this street - my parents, brother and sister and me lived here, my grandparents next door, and my great-grandmother next door to them.

Sadly now there's just two of us. My great-grandmother moved to another part of town (she died a few years ago, aged 101), my siblings moved out, then my parents, and my grandmother died last year. So it's much quieter, and a little lonely at times. To be fair, I like my own company most of the time, and my uncle and his wife visit next door every day (and lots of other family members come to stay at both houses quite often), so it's not so bad.

Anyway, I've been rather busy, baking a madeira cake, buying flowers, copying a video of my sister in a school show (in 1987!) as well as doing my own chores, but I have a moment now while I'm waiting for the dvd to finish, and I've been meaning to talk a little more about tomatoes (you may wish to stop reading - I'm sure most people don't find them as interesting as I do).

In fact, if it wasn't for my grandfather, I probably wouldn't be growing tomatoes at all. He always did, last year being an understandable exception, and in fact back in the mid-20th century had his own commercial greenhouse for a time. Back then, my home town was renound (at least regionally) for its tomatoes, and plenty of other produce, as its rich, peaty soil hosted a substantial market gardening industry. That's mostly gone now, though local raspberries and tomatoes can still be found in the summer months. Anyway, I always found tomatoes a little scary - too much work, in my imagination, to dare grow myself. But he never seemed to have a problem, although a small greenhouse helped. A couple of years ago I took the plunge, and although mine were outside, I had a fine crop. Last year I didn't grow from seed, but plants I bought and was given gave me enough to show me it wasn't really that hard after all.

Below I will, following the lead of Tomato Lover, give a run down of the varieties I'm hoping to grow in some detail, and then estimate the dates when I should be picking them. If nothing else, it will be useful to look back in 6 months' time and see how accurate the stats I'm relying on are (such as average final frost date, and days to harvest), and how long I can keep the crop going (I started later the past two years, but I was harvesting right into November).

Black Cherry
photo by Peppysis
A dark cherry tomato, unsurprisingly. I've read good things by people who have grown this, both in the UK and the US (where it originates). Up to a dozen fruits per truss, 65-70 days after planting. Indeterminate.

Costoluto Fiorentino
A big, red, ribbed beefsteak tomato from Italy. I suppose I'm taking a chance with this, as it will probably want warmer, sunnier weather than I can reliably provide. However, it can be grown in the UK, apparently. Tall plants, producing 75-80 days after planting. Indeterminate.

Cream Sausage
photo by swanksalot
I had to grow this, it's so unusual-looking! Plum-types (of which this is a particularly elongated example) growing in trusses of half a dozen or more. Pale creamy-yellow, recommended for drying (something I definitely want to try). 80-85 days. Determinate.

Gardener's Delight
The classic red cherry tomato. As I said in a previous post, these seeds came from a magazine - I wouldn't normally choose to grow such a mainstream type. Having said that, everyone who has grown it recommends both the flavour, cropping, and disease resistance. So, rather than cliché, it's a classic. Indeterminate. 65-75 days.

Great White
It's a shame I couldn't find a usable picture of this, as it's a really stunning variety. Huge, lightly ribbed creamy fruit, a little darker (yellow/green) around the shoulders, often weighing more than half a kilo each. Extremely tall indeterminate plants, fruiting after 80-85 days.

Green Zebra
photo by emkeller
I bought these seeds last year, and if I hadn't, I wouldn't be growing it now. Having read a lot about these, they sound like trouble. Striking they may be - pretty even - but they will only ripen under cover in this country, and are apparently prone to disease. I don't have as much of a problem with the colouring as some, but the killer for me is that it's quite a recent variety (developed in the mid-80s). Indeterminate. 75-85 days.

Jaune Flammée
These, on the other hand, I am very excited about. Lovely, round, bright orange fruits, borne in trusses of up to a dozen, with a flavour described as "spicy". Not too unusual to scare people off, but different enough to feel special.

Huge thanks for much of the information in this post and the next one to Passion Tomates, whose database of tomato varieties is second to none (lucky I speak French!).

The remaining varieties will be reviewed in the next entry...

Unseasonal pleasures

It has been a dry March, so the Met Office tells us. I believe them. The last few days in particular have been pretty nice, except a spell of dullness and light rain on Sunday. However, Saturday was so warm and sunny that my friends and I decided to break out the barbecue for the first time this year. Yes - a barbecue, in northern England, before the spring equinox. But it was a good decision, because we had a great time, and although it got cool by dusk, we were more than adequately warmed by the glowing coals (which, using my friend's thermocouple thermometer, were clocked at around 1050ºC).

I made punch, a recipe that calls for the unlikely combination of bourbon, pineapple, passionfruit, maple syrup and sparkling wine, which had been a hit a few years ago, but I wasn't totally happy with it - not fizzy enough. However, I also threw together a dish that was delicious, so I thought I'd share it.

Barbecue garlic, lemon and herb chicken
serves 3
ingredients

• 1 chicken
• several cloves of garlic, peeled
• sea salt
• black peppercorns
• 1 lemon
• fresh rosemary
• fresh bay leaves
• olive oil
• method

method

1. Joint the chicken. There are plenty of guides on the internet, but it really boils down to using a sharp, thin-bladed (boning) knife, and following the contours of the meat so you separate it into natural portions (I got 6 - the wings, leg-thighs, and breasts). Remember to leave the skin on, to protect the meat when it's grilled. The carcass does for stock.
2. In a pestle and mortar, pound the garlic with salt, then pepper, to form a paste. Smear it all over the chicken pieces, and put them into a bowl.
3. Zest and juice the lemon; sprinkle these over the chicken. Crush the rosemary in the pestle and mortar, and sprinkle this over too. Take the bay leaves and slide one under the skin of each portion.
4. Cover with clingfilm. Leave to marinate for a couple of hours, or overnight. Before cooking, drizzle with oil to keep the meat moist.

notes and substitutions
Ready-bought chicken pieces would be fine, so long as they have the skin on. Other herbs could be used, such as thyme or mint; dried bay leaves would be okay, but they will probably crumble a little. Although I made it for a barbecue, the chicken would just as easily grill or bake in a conventional oven.

Today has been barbecue weather again - maybe even warmer than Saturday. I've been tempted to break out my own barbecue, but I will resist for now.

Running to keep up

This really is an exciting time of year for a gardener - perhaps, other than the height of the summer's harvest, the most exciting of all. Seeds keep going into trays and pots, on an almost daily basis, and almost as often, last week's show signs of life.

I started repotting my tomatoes today. Although I'm still waiting for the final few varieties to arrive in the post, reminding me that sowing season is still in full swing (the later-sown tomatoes apparently grow faster to catch up with their older siblings), I'm having to separate the largest plants already, which are showing signs of their first true leaves. This is partly my fault - I sowed ten to thirty seeds per pot, because they'd spent a year in a paper envelope and I expected most to be dead. Tomato seeds are famously vigorous, so I needn't have been so liberal - one pot inexplicably houses nearly 40 seedlings (good going from a pack of 30), so the sooner I separate them, the better.

I have taken to putting the date on the labels when I sow, so it hit me that it's nearly three weeks since the first batch went in. Given the wisdom is that they get planted into their final positions after 7-8 weeks, we're already approaching the halfway point. Scary and exciting in equal measure.

Meanwhile, I ought to mention the other things I have on my windowsill. While the tomatoes have taken centre stage in my thoughts (and posts) recently, I haven't forgotten to sow lots of other spring veg. I now have two trays of shallot sets 'Red Baron' bought on impulse in the Wilkinson sale (inspired by Monty Don on the first episode of this year's Gardeners' World), aubergines 'Turkish Orange', 'Rotonda Bianca Sfumata di Rosa' and 'Violetta di Firenze', beetroot 'Boltardy' (just emerged today!) and 'Chioggia', broad beans 'Karmazyn' and 'Red Baron', and okra 'Burgundy'. Outside there are more broad beans, as well as peas 'Serpette Guillotteau' and turnips 'Snowball'. Elsewhere, chillies and the curious South American fruit cocona (Solanum topiro) are keeping me on my toes.

And as for ornamentals (although some are also edible, most have been chosen to complement the vegetable garden), I've got 32 tiny Calendula 'Art Shades Mixed', two trays of ungerminated Musa sikkimensis (the Darjeeling banana, a plant of which I bought last year and have adored for its size, speed of growth and sheer indulgently tropical appearance), just-emerging sweet peas ('America', 'Beaujolais', and 'Senator', all heirlooms), stubbornly dormant Lobelia 'Red Cascade' and nasturtium 'Jewel Mix', and adorably vigorous Cosmos 'Sensation' and 'Daydream', and castor bean 'Impala' (soon to be joined by 'Carmencita Red', 'Carmencita Pink', and 'Zanzibariensis'). Having just sown trays of Delphinium 'Pacific Giant Mixed' and Eschscholzia 'White Linen', my garden sounds more skewed towards flowers than vegetables, but trust me, it's just a little prettification of my plot.

As I say, it's a busy time! I'm amazed I've managed to keep up so far - but it'll take more self-discipline than I normally possess to prevent it all falling apart in a month's time...

Tomatoes: the plan

Around 130 tomato seedlings have come up already; they're currently basking on my south-facing windowsill (except today; it's dull and cold) alongside aubergines and assorted other vegetables and flowers

So it's on! I have sown the tomato seeds I already had (mostly left over from last year), and the germination rate has exceeded my expectations considerably! I've also chosen a few more types, and the seeds should arrive in the next few days, making a total of 15.

Here's the final list:

• Black Cherry
• Costoluto Fiorentino
• Cream Sausage
• Gardener's Delight
• Great White
• Green Zebra
• Jaune Flammée
• Orange Strawberry
• Purple Cherokee
• Riesentraube
• Snowberry
• Sub Arctic Plenty
• Summer Cider
• Sun Belle
• Super Marmande

This may seem like a crazy number, and I admit, I am growing far more than most people recommend. I have been partially spurred on by the excellent blog Tomatolover, which aside from being an informative and fun account of home growing, shows that you can produce a huge range of tomatoes in a very small space, without too much fuss. I sowed the old seeds not expecting a high success rate, and in order to use them up, so that took me to 6 or 7 types; I absolutely had to grow Super Marmande again, after my one outdoor plant produced several kilos of fruit last year (which were delicious; see picture below), and then... well, since you can only grow tomatoes from seed once a year, and since I know I have the opportunity this summer to do so, I want to experiment as much as possible. Life's really too short to just grow Moneymaker or Alicante (yes, I'm growing Gardener's Delight, but the seeds were free with a magazine a year or two ago).

I wanted to grow as many different shapes and colours as possible, and to steer away from boring, round red types that you can get easily and cheaply in the summer anyway. The fifteen amount to four cherry types (one dark purple, one pale yellow, two red), six large beefsteak types (two red, one cream, one purple, one orange, one yellow-orange), and five miscellaneous (medium round red, long thin creamy yellow, medium green striped, medium orange, and small yellow pear-/bottle-shaped). They are mostly cordons, some can be grown outdoors, others are recommended under cover, and flavours range from sweet to acid, and even one described as 'spicy'.

All I can say is, I hope it all goes to plan!

Super Marmande ripening last August

Planning a summer of (homegrown) love

Last year's harvest highlights

I have been mulling something over for a while, regarding this blog, and it's now time to announce my conclusion: I am broadening its scope beyond buying and cooking to growing too. I have been growing vegetables for years, on and off, but it was summer 2009 that I really got stuck into it. This year I have gone up another gear, and it's my intention to become self-sufficient in a number of vegetables, despite having a tiny urban garden.

It's an exciting, frustrating, educational experience, and I think this is an appropriate place to share what I learn, and to post some nice pictures. Eventually, I'll be able to post recipes and pictures of the end point of all this work: home grown meals!

The last couple of weeks have been a busy time, with sowing seeds and preparing (garden) beds. I've embraced eBay as a source of unusual vegetable and flower seeds (and to a lesser extent, plants). Last summer I bought one or two things, including a couple of ornamental banana plants that are growing so rapidly, the changes are apparent from one day to the next. However, over the winter, I have made wish lists (standard for me), and then found the best-value trusted sellers. When the appropriate sowing time came along, I ordered them, and without exception, I have had good results.

My trip to Iceland feel at a slightly awkward time, as I would have preferred to have sown the Solanaceae (tomatoes, aubergines, peppers and the like) in mid-February. However, since I got back I've made up for the lost time, and by all accounts it doesn't make all that much difference - the later you sow, say tomatoes, the quicker they grow. And at this latitude, it's not recommended too early anyway, unless you have a heated greenhouse (which I don't).

Two years ago I sowed a range of heirloom (heritage) tomatoes, and had mixed results. To be fair, it was my first time, and I'm not the most disciplined of gardeners (I tend to go through bursts of activity, followed by weeks of indolence). However, I still had a glut of tiny yellow cherry tomatoes, and a few other assorted fruits.

Last year, I ordered about half a dozen types, almost all new to me, and proceeded to get waylaid by other things (namely, the death of my grandmother, and its consequences, which fell right in the middle of the sowing season). I bought several plants, and was given a lot more by my uncle's wife, so it worked out fine - especially as these were supplemented by a huge number of self-sown yellow cherries from the year before, which grew happily in the cracks of my terrace. I was more careful about feeding and watering, staking and pruning, and I got several kilos of fruit, this time split mostly between red cherries and huge ribbed red 'Super Marmande'.

I also grew peas, rocket, radishes, a huge range of herbs, a great deal of soft fruit (mostly strawberries and raspberries), turnips, courgettes, and probably other things I've forgotten.

I learnt a lot, as every gardener does every year, and given I knew I'd be living here for at least another year (probably longer), I started making bigger plans once the season was over.

This time, the intention is to make the most of every scrap of ground. Actually, a good half of the outdoor space around my home is concrete or paved, and the back garden occupies a slope - so not the best of plots. However, the front is south facing, with sunshine all day long (when it shines), and the slope in the back also faces south, and is sheltered by fences and walls on all sides. I have built a terrace at the top, and last year regularly recorded temperatures 10 degrees higher than ambient - allowing my to grow my tomatoes outdoors, and for Mediterranean plants like olive, grape vines, and oleanders to thrive there.

I have brought the front garden back into cultivation this year, it having gone from cottage flower patch to overgrown couch grass meadow since I last did much there. I will keep large perennials, like roses (which I love), but the rest will be stripped and planted with beans, peas, shallots, leaves and root crops. The slope in the back is half covered with soft fruit, which I'll leave another year, but the rest will be packed with sun-lovers, like summer squash. I built a greenhouse at the end of last summer, and another will squeeze on the other side, giving me somewhere to put tomatoes, aubergines, cucumbers, peppers and a melon or two. At the top, to begin with, more legumes and lots of herbs, and later I will see what I need to make space for. At the bottom, in an awkward shady space, I will put those crops that like shade, and those which tend to bolt in hot weather - so later peas, salads, and some herbs.

I'll post a full list of varieties once I've drawn it up - in all, in a space of around 60 square metres, I expect to be growing a good hundred crops. It sounds impossible, but it's really more a matter of watering, feeding, and making the most of containers. It can be done, as you'll see.

Icelandic food I: produce

Just over a week ago I had the great pleasure of visiting Reykjavík for a week. I was attending a friend's wedding, and we stayed in a lavish (but amazingly cheap) city centre apartment. It was billed as a largely self-catering affair, chiefly to save money. The kitchen was amazing - gorgeous, modern, sleek and well-appointed, with a large fridge-freezer (with a pointless built-in radio and LCD recipe book), dishwasher, microwave, fan oven (again with an unnecessarily complicated computerised control panel), filter coffee maker, toaster, kettle and lots of drawers full of utensils and cookware.

In fact, we ate out more than planned, sometimes in groups, sometimes separately, although we did cook a fair bit too. So here are my impressions of Icelandic food and produce. It's very subjective, but as I knew very little about their food before I went (and virtually nothing before I read a guide book), it might be helpful to anyone thinking of going.

Skyr
This is by far the best uncontroversial Icelandic delicacy I can think of. I guess you can make it vegetarian/vegan, although as it may be curdled by rennet, much of it may well not be (I honestly don't know what kind they use there). It is a dairy product, that comes in pots, plain or flavoured with fruit, vanilla, etc, sometimes with a crunchy topping. If that makes it sound just like yoghurt, that's exactly what it seemed to be, to begin with. However, Icelandic supermarkets also have yoghurt on their shelves, alongside the pots of skyr. It turns out, that the production of skyr is a hybrid process between yoghurt and cheese, as it is produced both by souring the milk with lactic acid bacteria and by curdling it with rennet. The curds and whey are separated, and the former constitute the skyr. I first accidentally bought (blueberry) skyr drink, which was delicious but rather missed the point. So next I got regular blueberry skyr, and I was instantly converted. I didn't try and of the other flavours until I left, when I brought back a pot of plain skyr so I could make my own (see next entry) - it was good, but the blueberry was sublime. What's more, everyone else agreed - skyr is a winner.

Meats
One notable aspect of Icelandic cuisine - both in "traditional-style" (i.e. tourist-oriented, Icelandic-themed) restaurants, and supermarkets - which is definitely NOT for everyone, is the number of meats available that would be considered distasteful or even immoral in the UK. Puffin, guillemot, minke whale, horse, and even (apparently, in rural locations) seal. I didn't go to the Icelandic restaurant my friends visited, where they had puffin, whale and foal, but I did buy a smoked, herb-crusted guillemot breast from a delicatessen in the city centre. Everyone agreed it was delicious, and so it was - dense, lean, and rather like pigeon. And since I was asked by most people what it was, I must tell you that a guillemot is a sea bird, black and white and a bit like an auk. Expensive, but nice. As for whale, I saw huge cubic slabs of whale blubber which, I must say, looked disgusting (I've seen its texture described as "stringy"). Horse was widely available, in steak and sausage form, but I didn't have time to try it, sadly. It resembled beef.

Þorrablót
It turned out that we were there during the closest thing Iceland has to a food festival. In fact, it's derived from an old Norse month, dedicated to Thor, and is now a roughly two week period when Icelanders are most inclined to eat their ancestral delicacies. It must be said that most of these sound repulsive - mostly fish and meat products that have been pickled or fermented to allow them to keep through the long sub-Arctic winter. Whether this was the reason we saw so much hákarl (fermented shark), I don't know. My friend, whose wedding we were there to celebrate, really wanted to try this particular experience, so I bought a small pot of cubes of the white shark meat. On opening, the smell we'd read so much about was impossible to ignore - truly vile, retch-inducing, ammoniac. I had no inclination to try it, but those who did said it was unremarkable once it was in your mouth (though nose-pinching was recommended). The only seasonal produce I tried was a number of Þorrablót beers. In fact, these were only a little more interesting than standard Icelandic beer, which was golden, clean and all the same - pretty boring.

Fish
The star of the show, besides skyr, was the fish. Smoked and cured salmon was so much cheaper than in the UK, and the smoked examples I bought (just basic supermarket stuff, between 600 and 1200ISK, around £3.50-7.00) were delicious. I mostly cooked them with creamy pasta sauces, with Icelandic mascarpone (again excellent), and alternations of herbs, mushrooms, cheese and lemon. Thinly sliced on rye bread was a good way of serving it too. The Icelanders also like dried white fish, but it was really expensive, so I didn't try any. I also bought quite a few pre-made fishcakes. Some were excellent - those that resembled our version - while others were rather bland.

Mulled cider (and juice)

While I remember, the cider I made from my friend's apples turned out to be utterly delicious - with a little help.

I didn't add anything to the juice - no sugar, honey, stabilisers - except, of course, yeast (I didn't trust "wild yeasts" to do the job). This meant the resulting cider was as pure an expression of the apples as I could make it, but it was tooth-meltingly sour once the fermentation was done. Not a pleasant drink at all - until I mulled it (I'd expected to have to do this anyway, in case the cider wasn't very nice; it *was* clean and clear, but unsweetened). Simply adding sugar to the cider returned the balance that had been in the juice - and the wonderful taste those apples had had revealed it was still there in the finished product. It occurred to me, too, that I'd need not worry about bottles exploding from unwanted secondary fermentation if there was no residual sugar.

Anyway, December being much colder than normal, mulling the cider was the perfect way to re-sweeten it in a seasonal way. I'd been mulling fresh apple juice for a few weeks in order to satisfy my craving for something warm without getting drunk every night (and using up my surfeit of homemade apple juice). I was experimenting with unusual spices, too.

So, here's a template for mulling dry cider (don't make the mistake I did once, and waste your money on sparkling stuff - it will obviously lose its bubbles when heated), apple juice, wine, grape juice and whatever else you can think of. It's very loose, because the tartness of the base ingredient, and the availability of spices will vary so much.

Ingredients
Liquid (e.g. cider)
Sweetener (I don't mean artificial sweeteners; white sugar is the least interesting option - try unrefined, brown, or honey)
Whole spices, roughly crushed (cinnamon sticks, allspice berries, cassia, green cardamom - these are great, if standard; try black pepper, nutmeg (freshly grated), black cardamom, grains of paradise, or anything similar).
Fruit (optional; orange slices are good in mulled wine, apple slices and sultanas are excellent in cider; finely-pared lemon peel can be interesting)

Method

• Fill a pan 1/2-2/3 full with the liquid. Place over the lowest heat on your hob.

• Add enough sweetener to balance the flavour - and remember, when it's hot, it may taste stronger, so you may want to marginally over-sweeten it. Ideally, start out with too little sugar, and keep adding and tasting until you reach the perfect level.

• The best way to add the spices is in a muslin bag, tied up, or a mesh infuser - I have one especially designed for spices, but you can use metal "tea bags", the sort to allow brewing of loose tea without any mess. This just stops people having to pick bits of spice out of their mouths as they drink.

• Add any fruit, if using.

• Stir until the sugar has completely dissolved.

• Heat until just hot - do not boil, as this drives off the alcohol (although not as quickly as you may think). If it cools down between servings, reheat - but never boil.
• Serve in heat-proof glasses or cups.
  

My favourite part is eating the swollen, apple-infused sultanas at the bottom of the glass.