Another gardening-related contest arrived in my inbox today!

5 people will win tomato seeds by leaving a “nice” comment on one of the posts on Cynthia Sandberg’s beautiful blog, Grow Better Veggies. Five people will be chosen at random to with a three-pack of rare tomato seeds from TomatoFest.com.

As Cynthia says in her latest e-mail newsletter, TomatoFest.com is

a fabulous on-line resource for over 600 different types of heirloom tomato seeds.

Sounds like a great contest to enter!

Oh, dear, it’s been over a MONTH since I posted here! I can’t believe it. My only excuse is that I’ve been busy gestating. Our baby is now officially three days overdue, actually.

There hasn’t been much action out in the garden since early autumn. My husband, Graham, helped me out a lot this year in getting things cleaned up out back. We actually managed to clip back all of the perennials and he helped me pull the finished plants from the vegetable garden after we harvested the tomatoes.

This year we didn’t keep all of our harvest to ourselves, preferring to keep things simple and give a lot of it away to friends and family members. (Although we did, of course, manage to roast several big baskets of tomatoes and froze four large ziplock bags of roasted tomato sauce.) Our next-door-neighbour traded us some nice little potatoes that he grew for some of our tomatoes, too.

Baskets of homegrown tomatoes, peppers and eggplant for our friends and family.

That little veggie trade had me thinking, actually, that since there are three of us now in a row on my street who grow vegetables, we should try to co-ordinate a little bit, and share our harvest.  We could collectively grow more food than we could individually.  I’ll have to give this some thought over the winter!

But now here it is, late November, and it’s been an unseasonably mild autumn this year, for which I’m grateful. Now there is the potential for snow flurries this coming week, the same week our new family member is expected to arrive (we have an induction scheduled for Monday).

I hope that although we’ll be busy with the new baby, I’ll have more time in general to devote to writing online over the coming year. We’ll be sure to post when the baby comes!

It’s raining! Do you know what this means? It means we’re saving water today. It’s pouring from the roof into those rain barrels and that is good news for the garden, for our planet and for our bank account.

Over the weekend I potted up my tomato seedlings into larger pots. I’m growing surprisingly few varieties of tomato from seed this season, compared to other years. I have some more seeds that a friend sent me, but I think I’ll just save them for next year. Now that it’s almost May, it’s getting a bit late for starting tomato seeds. This year I’m growing:

• Black Plum
• Red Currant
• Amana Orange
• Marianna’s Peace

I’ve grown Amana Orange before, and I’ve purchased Red Currant before, but the others are new to me, so it will be interesting to watch these new varieties grow in my garden.

Red Currant tomatoes growing in my Toronto garden in 2004.

Speaking of tomato seedlings, I’d like to draw your attention to my latest post at Suite101.com, How to Pot Up Tomato Seedlings. If you are growing tomatoes from seed this season, this tutorial will come in handy.

The temperature here today in Bomwmanville is 38 C (100 F). In October. On Thanksgiving. It’s a new heat record. I usually have some gardening to do on Thanksgiving Monday, but never before has it been this hot. Canadian Thanksgiving is a harvest celebration, and today I celebrate the amazing harvest I have been blessed with in my gardens this year.

I harvested this basket of goodies from the back yard yesterday. The red peppers are mostly Fish peppers, a hot Jamaican heirloom. I think I’ll pickle them whole. The rest of the peppers are jalapeno, both red and green.

Yesterday we went over to the community plot and harvested the rest of the tomatoes. We have four grocery bags filled with them, which means more roasting this week. I honestly think I harvested three or four bushels of tomatoes from the plot this year. Crazy! I also cut the sunflowers that were in bloom there. The largest one had been snapped off over the garden fence by someone who either really loved the flower or really hated it. Either way, I didn’t want to lose the rest of the blooms to strange hands, so I brought them home and they grace my dining room table. Here you can see how morning glories were growing up the sunflower stalks. I let the vines be, and I think they add something pretty to the arrangement.

Happy Thanksgiving to my Canadian friends.

One of our favourite ways to eat fresh tomatoes from our garden is homemade bruschetta. Many of the recipes I’ve come across instruct the cook to peel and seed the tomatoes, but I’ve found that if you use a variety of tomato that has fewer seeds, it really isn’t necessary to do either, and as for the tomatoe’s skin, a little extra fiber in your diet never hurt. This time around, I used the Roma tomatoes that grew as volunteers in our community garden.

For this recipe, you will need:

About six Roma tomatoes, or another variety that you like to eat. I’d love to try to make bruschetta from green zebra tomatoes!
Half an onion.
Two large sprigs of fresh basil.
A splash of extra virgin olive oil.
A clove of garlic, finely chopped.
Freshly ground pepper and salt, to taste.
A baguette or other bread that you like.
Garlic spread.
Freshly grated parmesan cheese, if desired.

Core and dice about six tomatoes. I like to use a pretty bowl, of course.

Chop onions into pieces about the same size as the tomato dice. Add to the tomatoes.

Finely chop basil and add to the mix.

Finely chop the garlic and toss into the bowl. Add salt and pepper.

Drizzle some olive oil over the ingredients, and toss gently to combine.

Allow bruschetta to sit at room temperature for at least an hour to allow the flavours to combine.

Meanwhile, slice the baguette in half. We like to use a multi-grain baguette (see note above re: fiber). Spread garlic spread on each half.

Lightly toast the bread, and cut into individual serving sizes. Top each piece with the bruschetta mix and, if desired, freshly grated parmesan.

Serve immediately, then bask in the glow of your admiring guests!

It’s officially September! For many gardeners, this time of year is marked not only by brisk mornings, dewy toes and the bittersweet appearance of one’s breath hanging in the air, but the preservation of the harvest.

I’ve discovered the great joy that comes from canning the fruits of my gardening labour. I’m hooked. I need more jars!

So far this season I have made “Zany Zucchini Pickles”, “Zesty Zucchini Relish”, “Red Hot Sauce”, Mexican- and Italian-style tomatoes, “Garden Vegetable Salsa” and most recently “Dill Sandwich Slices”. So far I have kept very much to just one book (seen in the left sidebar), with very good success.

In my garden the most bountiful crop, as you will not be surprised to read, has been by far the tomatoes. As the first frost date approaches I will be determined to preserve every last ripe (and green) tomato in the yard so we can enjoy their rich flavour throughout the fall, winter and early spring. The easiest way to do this is to pack them, uncooked, in jars. If you have the Bernardin book that I recommend, the instructions for doing this are entitled “Raw-Packed Tomatoes with No Added Liquid”. I’ll assume you have some basic knowledge of canning. If not, I recommend picking up this book. It contains really great, detailed instructions for canning all kinds of fruits and vegetables, and a lot of recipes, too. I started using it last season and it’s looking pretty weathered already.

Here’s my basic canning set-up. On the back left burner is the huge pot I use as a boiling-water canner. I bought it a few years ago at No Frills for ten bucks. It holds five 1 liter jars or 7 pint jars. Inside is a canning rack that sits on the bottom of the pot. On the back right burner are simmering lids. The front left burner is for boiling water to peel the tomatoes, and the front right burner holds a pot for recipes like salsa that require cooking the tomatoes first. For the raw-packed tomatoes, you won’t need this last pot.

There are more photos after the jump. Hope you’ve got a high speed connection!

Place a bowl of cold water next to the stove.

After preparing your jars and lids, you will need to peel your tomatoes. You need approximately three pounds of raw tomatoes for each 1 liter jar, or a half pound if you’re using pint jars (500 mL).

Before peeling, though, I like to sort my tomatoes by variety so that each jar contains mostly the same kind of tomato. This isn’t by any means absolutely necessary, it’s just my preference. Here I have a bunch of Paul Robeson tomatoes. I’ve removed their stems in preparation for peeling. Beside them is a bowl I use to collect compostable kitchen waste. I throw the tomato peels and cores into the bowl to add to my compost pile out back.

To peel your tomatoes, score an “X” into the bottom of each fruit.

Carefully drop several tomatoes into the boiling water for about 30 seconds, or until you can see the peel beginning to pull away from the fruit.

Using a pair of tongs, move the tomatoes from the boiling water into the bowl of cold water. One by one, remove the peel from your tomatoes (remember to compost!) and cut out the core.

Cut the peeled fruit into halves or quarters and reserve in a separate bowl.

Continue to peel and quarter your tomatoes until you have the desired amount.

Next, you may need to add salt and citric acid or lemon juice to your hot jars. You will need to consult your own recipe, but for the one I use, for 1 L jars, add 2 tbsp of bottled lemon juice (1 tbsp for pint jars) and 1 tsp course salt (1/2 tsp for pint jars).

Pack the tomatoes into the jars until juice fills in the spaces and you have a half an inch headspace (the space between the top of the jar and the food inside).

Pack each jar, one by one, place the lids and screwbands and process in your boiling-water canner for 85 minutes.

After 85 minutes have elapsed, remove the lid from the canner, and allow the jars to sit in the hot water for five minutes before removing.

Label and store. Eat! Remember summer!

Earlier this summer I made some notes about things happening in the garden I wanted to remember for next season. One of the things I had written down was, “Banana Leggs…don’t grow again, too scraggly.”

While it is, indeed, quite a scraggly-looking determinant variety, this type of tomato is so prolific that I have completely changed my mind about growing this one again. From the four plants I have in my garden, I have harvested literally hundreds of fruit, and more are on the way.

They are a paste tomato, perfect for making a sunny, yellow sauce. The downside to preserving these tomatoes is that their shape makes them a little bit difficult to skin and core.

This tomato is one of the most fun to give away, since most of my friends and family have never seen them before. I will have to grow them again, although I could probably get away with just two plants rather than four.

I first grew this heirloom tomato two summers ago and instantly fell in love. It’s a beefsteak tomato that has very few seeds and is perfect for slicing and adding to sandwiches, burgers, or simply eating with a little salt and pepper.

It has a wonderful, classic “tomatoey” flavour, and the kicker is the colour, as far as I’m concerned.

I like this tomato so much that I grew three of the plants this year.

We rented a cottage with some friends this weekend, and I forced my heirlooms on them a few times over the weekend. We ate the amana orange sliced with our breakfast of barbecued bacon & eggs.

Tonight I popped out into the yard to have a look see at the tomato plants, maybe tie up a few that have been dragging their stems across the earth. For some reason, it was blissfully quiet in the yard, except for the cedar waxwings, whose chirping call burst through the quiet occasionally. There are some nesting in our lilac at the back of the yard, and tonight I could see their heads poking out of the nest as they waited for their mother to return.

About an hour later, I went back to the kitchen door with a bowl LOADED with tomatoes. Tonight I harvested Banana Leggs, Oxheart, Paul Robeson, Purple Prince, Green Zebra and Principe Borghese. I have a favourite bowl for harvesting tomatoes, in fact. It is an enamel bowl, blue on the outside, white on the inside. It’s just the right size, usually, and tonight it was nearly overflowing.

This is my favourite time of summer, and I’m very glad I bought an heirloom tomato cookbook because I have my hands full. It’s okay, though, because my heart is full, too.

Today the humidity has returned to this part of Ontario in a major way. Even though today is a statutory holiday, Graham is outside in the yard working hard at building cupboards for my mom’s kitchen in our basement.

Today is the kind of day we like to leisurely snack, and now that tomato and pepper season is pretty much upon us, I can quickly scrape together some yummy things for us to graze on, like fresh salsa.

To make fresh salsa, you will need tomatoes and peppers, any kind or colour. I like to use a variety because I like my salsa to be pretty. I like to use a spicy pepper because Graham likes his salsa HOT. You’ll also need an onion, lemon or lime juice (lime is preferable but today I only have a lemon in the house) and salt and pepper to taste. If you like cilantro, or have it growing in your garden, it’s great to add to a fresh salsa. I hate the stuff, though, so I don’t use it. The recipe is slightly different each time I make this. Today I used one each of Golden Marconi and Purple Beauty peppers, two Oxhearts and one Paul Robeson tomato, half a white onion, salt, pepper and the juice of half a lemon.

Simply chop everything up (wear latex gloves when cutting up hot peppers or risk burning your hands), toss in a bowl to combine and wash your hands thoroughly to prevent the condition I call “hot pepper eyes of fire”. Allow the flavours to mellow together for an hour or so. Even if you can’t wait that long, this will still be tasty. We eat it with multigrain corn tortilla chips.