Tomatoes

Occasionally someone will ask me about my favorite garden vegetable.  It’s a tough question to answer.  But having said that, tomatoes rank right up near the top.  I probably should also mention potatoes.  Rather than being a favorite, potatoes are a necessary crop, a dependable, not anything fancy crop that three families enjoy well into the winter.

Back to tomatoes.  We all like tomatoes.  Fresh tomatoes. Tomato soup.  Salsa.  Tomatoes in salad.  Tomato juice.  I grow lots of them. From forty or fifty tomato plants we usually harvest three or four bushels of tomatoes—and it seems the call is for even more.  So this year I have started 75 tomato plants.  As of this day they are about four inches tall and doing well.  I’m about to transplant them from their tiny little germination cells to larger pots so they can grow and toughen up and be ready putting into the garden at the end of the month. (I've learned the hard way not to set out tomato plants at my farm until after Memorial Day—too often they have frozen.)

For the curious, the varieties I have growing this year are:

Cupid Hybrid (66 days, a cherry tomato)

Ultimate Opener Hybrid (57 days.  A new variety)

Momotaro Hybrid (75 days and new for me this year A popular Japanese variety.)

Celebrity Hybrid (70 days)

Martino’s Roma (70 days)

Better Boy Hybrid (75 days—main crop tomato)

Manx Marvel (a non-hybrid medium-size tomato from the Isle of Man).  I grew Manx last year and saved seeds—every seed germinated.  Last year I had great luck with my Manx—very tasty tomato.

With seven different varieties, my cautious self doesn't depend on only one; we should have at least a couple varieties that do well.

THE OLD TIMER SAYS: When I’m not doing something else, I’m watching my tomatoes grow.

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT for those interested in enrolling in my one-day writing workshops at The Clearing in Door County.  The dates are June 21 and November 1—both Saturdays.  Each will be followed by a book signing.  Click on the following link for further information.  http://theclearing.org/current/classes_workshop_description.php?id=3

If that doesn’t work write or call The Clearing:
12171 Garrett Bay Rd, Ellison Bay, WI 54210
(920) 854-4088.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

May 14, Yahara River Writers Award Ceremony UW-Madison. Union South, Keynote speaker.

May 17, Dregne’s Gift Shop, Westby.  Book signing. 10:00 – 2:00

May 20, Midvale Community Lutheran Church.  Noon. Presentation, Limping Through Life.

June 20, Wausau Historical Society, 10:00 a.m. Presentation.

June 21, Writing Workshop, The Clearing, Door County 9-4.

Purchase Jerry’s DVDS and his Books from the Patterson Memorial Library in Wild Rose, Wisconsin (a fund raiser for them):

The library now has available both of Jerry’s DVDs, A Farm Winter with Jerry Apps and Jerry Apps A Farm Story.

Also available are several of Jerry’s book including The Quiet Season (on which the DVD A Farm Winter is based), as well as Rural Wit and Wisdom and Old Farm, (which are related to the DVD Jerry Apps a Farm Story).

Contact the library for prices and special package deals.

Patterson Memorial Library
500 Division St.
Wild Rose, WI  54984
barnard@wildroselibrary.org