Fruition Garden Journal
video tutorials, tried-and-true tips + our latest learnings to surround you with abundance all season long
Regionally Adapted Seed: The Secret of Great Gardening
When Heirloom Gardener asked me to write about the significance of regionally adapted seed for their Winter 2019/2019 issue, the fact that such a story is of value to a nationally-distributed magazine gave me more than a sliver of hope for the world.
As a child in New York, I thought watermelons were an absolute waste of valuable garden space. I was a whimsical child, but still practical. With long, trailing vines yielding a single fruit and sometimes none, my anticipation was almost always unrequited. Every few years we’d give them another try, only to reach the same conclusion by September: We should have sown more tomatoes, more lettuce and more beets. Less watermelon.
I could not have been more wrong.
Like our reticent red peppers, eggplants lacking abundance, late-blooming dahlias and unenthusiastic peanuts, I simply needed different seeds to have different experiences. Sowing seeds adapted to your region makes all the difference.
August Ambrosia is Fruition's...
3 Lessons We Learned in 2018
We learn so much with each day, each season. We've grown immeasurably in 2018, both in the fields and in our visions. Here are three lessons helping us grow the most, both in joy and in trial. I share them, hoping they surround you with beauty and abundance both in and beyond your garden :)
1. You can grow glorious ginger in the Northeast without a high tunnel.
It's true: you can grow gorgeous ginger right in your backyard.
We're constantly experimenting, pushing the envelope of what can be grown in our climate. For years our market gardener friends have grown ginger enthusiastically in their greenhouses and high tunnels, but here's the thing: both Matthew and I grew up gardening and are deeply motivated to share seeds and techniques that every home gardener can enjoy. After much experimentation, we're totally confident you can grow impressive ginger without all the frills. Stay tuned! We'll be sharing organic rhizomes for you to grow your own as well as everything...
How to Ripen Green Tomatoes in September
This day always comes: It's early September and green tomatoes abound.
So much green fruit, heavy on the vines.
This fruit would most likely not ripen before frost.
With a little foresight and a bit of effort, you'll ripen more tomatoes than you otherwise might. Photo credit: Markus Spiske.
I'm honored to share our strategies to encourage our tomatoes to ripen at the end of the season, how to enjoy your green tomatoes in the kitchen as well as set you up for success for next season.
Ripening Tomatoes on the Vine
Give them a trim!
With scissors, garden shears or large pruners, trim your vines all the way back to the green fruit. Six weeks before first frost is your optimum window to maximize your harvest. Suddenly, your plants will:
focus their energy on ripening fruit rather than continuing to blossom
invite more light into depths of the plant helping fruit ripen, as well as
experience greater airflow, which discourages the spread...
5 Keys to Preventing Tomato Disease (there is no silver bullet, but #1 is close)
5 Keys to Preventing Tomato Disease
(there is no silver bullet, but #1 is close)
Whether you hope to harvest 10 or 10,000 tomatoes, diseases like Late Blight, Early Blight and Septoria Leaf Spot are affecting your abundance every season here in the Northeast.
Here are the 5 keys to preventing tomato disease:
1. Start with disease-resistant seeds.
Sowing seeds with natural genetic resistance to these diseases is the single greatest thing you can do to increase your success whether you are an organic or conventional grower.
Often flavorful heirlooms have little disease resistance and modern varieties with tons of disease resistance have little remarkable flavor. There are exceptions though, and here are some:
Chiapas
A delicious heirloom tomato that shares the classic tomato genus but belongs to a separate species, so it has natural resistance to late blight, early blight and septoria leaf spot. Chiapas is always the first and often the final tomato we harvest each...
