Heirloom Tomato Tasting Party

What fun to attend a tomato tasting party! Vivian Reiss's annual tomato tasting is held on her city rooftop garden in August. She grows 57 different kinds of heirlooms and sliced them up for visitors to taste the booty, and I was lucky to attend. Deciding on the best ones isn't as easy as you'd think. These are heirloom tomatoes after all, the ones that actually have real taste - complicated taste. As plant breeder Joseph, from Greensparrow gardens says:

And they all taste different! Sweetness, tartness, savoryness, and all the 300+ flavor compounds that make a tomato shaken up into essentially endless variation. Tasting my way through... is a thrilling exploration: Some are okay, some vile, some—a rush of excitment here—are simply delicious.

300 flavour compounds! Not hard to believe when you actually start tasting them. I began to forget what a generic tomato tasted like after experiencing so many different flavours one after another.



There were a myriad colours, shapes and sizes, from the deep red and burgundy 'Paul Robeson' to orangey 'Wapiscon Peach', to the bright red micro-mini sized 'Spoon' tomato.

(If it was named because of its ability to fit into one, it would have to be an awfully small spoon. Perhaps it was named by Elves. ) I gave Vivian a 'Spoon' tomato to get her response." Ooh! It gives me the shivers!" she said, "It's such a surprise, that such a tiny tomato can burst and have so much flavour."

White wine and bread was the accompaniment with a bit of sea salt and olive oil for contrast. Vivian encouraged the tomato tasting au naturel, however, to get the complete flavour of the tomato and I tend to agree. Just a tomato on the tongue, eyes closed, really tasting gives you the full impact. And many of the sun-kissed, room temperature tomatoes were swoonworthy. I arrived hungry, prepared for a feast.
Tasting tomatoes is a bit like trying on perfume, or going to a wine sampling. After a few tomatoes, you wonder if you can start to tell them apart. There was a vast range in flavours and textures, from sweet and juicy to mellow and fuzzy, like a peach.

When thumbing through a catalogue or at at nursery, with tomato names—as with perennials—I am always suckered by the names. I can't resist a tomato called 'Mr. Stripey', but how does it taste? That's why a tasting like this is so valuable.

Dark, rich 'Paul Robeson'

My first tomato was 'Paul Robeson', a dark tomato in the black range, like 'Black Krim'. So flavourful, with a wonderful texture. It spoiled me for the next couple of tomatoes I tasted. "I love Paul Robeson, it's the baritone of tomatoes, with all those rich underbelly kind of tones to it," Vivian said.

'Clint Eastwood': "A dud, not a dude," in the words of Vivian.

We all agreed that 'Clint Eastwood' tomato was not Oscar worthy. It was mealy, watery and tasteless, "worse than a supermarket tomato". Stick to directing, Clint.

Beguiling 'Julia Child'

Everyone loved 'Julia Child'. "Luscious!" exclaimed Vivian in her best Julia Child voice.

Another winner was 'Isis Candy'. "Named after an Egyptian god," said Vivian, tasting it. "Mmmm, entomb me with your flavour!" Did I say tomato tastings are fun? "Isis Candy is so sweet, it's sweeter than raspberries. Would make a lovely raspberry and tomato salad." 'Wapiscon Peach' was described as "like honey".

Ariel, Vivian's daughter, helping to host the tasting, had an amazing vocabulary for describing the varied tastes and flavours of the different tomatoes.

Vivian Reiss (right) and her eloquent daughter Ariel

She pointed out the Japanese word for a pleasant savoury taste, umami which some food experts would label as a fifth primary taste along with sweet, sour, salt and bitter. A good, ripe tomato offers a hearty dose of umami.

I left the tasting with a goody bag including one tomato I somehow hadn't sampled. Two days later, I used it to make the best tomato sandwich I've ever had. A check in with Vivian confirmed that the pointy bottomed oxheart tomato was 'Anna Russian'. It's definitely going on my list for next year.

Thanks, Vivian and family for a fun, educational and mouth watering experience.

Nip this bug problem in the bud… or in the egg

During a post-vacation check-up of my heat-challenged, newly planted Japanese maple this morning I spied this pixel-patterned egg mass.

Aha! I exclaimed, summoning my vast store of entomological knowledge, Those are definitely the eggs of some kind of insect. No, I'm not an entomologist. But I can be a fairly good detective when it comes to mysteries like these. So I whipped off the leaf to ID this swarm-in-the-making.

The eggs are small, white, smooth (not fluffy) and laid in large numbers (not singly), narrowing the probable ID to Datana ministra (yellownecked caterpillar), a moth larva which is a common pest on hardwood trees in Ontario.

Bugs can't read, or the mum of these eggs would have known that she's supposed to lay them on the underside of the leaf, and she's supposed to do it in June and July. Luckily for me and my tree, she mistakenly deposited her brood on the top of the leaf, making it easy for me to spot.

One info sheet described these guys as "gregarious" because they chow down in numbers – though not in as large a mass as tent caterpillars.

While not a major danger in forests, where natural predators help with control, they can do significant harm to a small ornamental tree like my baby Acer palmatum. Newly hatched caterpillars skeletonize the leaf; older ones chomp up the entire leaf tissue, leaving only larger veins and stems. If the specimen is small, or if the attacks recur over subsequent seasons, this can seriously weaken the tree.

Other members of the Datana family feed on shade and fruit trees such as oak, chestnut, linden, elm, serviceberry and apple.

Once hatched, the caterpillars feed for about a month, shedding their skins between instars or nymph stages, before dropping to the earth to pupate, and emerging next year to start the cycle over. They only produce one generation per year.

If you find the black and yellow or orange striped caterpillars feeding on your leaves, simply pick them off and drown or squish them. Use garden gloves, however, as some use a defensive secretion that's irritating to the skin. Even better: keep a close watch and you might be able to catch them, as I did, at egg-sactly the best time.

Wisdom from Garden Rant

Just listened to a radio interview with three of the fab women of Garden Rant. It's not often that these far-flung garden writers get together so it was a great opportunity to hear them talk off the cuff on Mike Nowak's garden show from Chicago. Torontonians and others can listen on the web.

The gardening website, Garden Rant, is familiar to garden bloggers and other garden media, but it may be new to more casual readers. Here, four gardening voices come together to say what's on their minds, writing about things you "couldn't get away with in a gardening magazine". Check out the manifesto on their blog.
Some of my favourites are:

• We are fed up with magazine perfect gardens.
• We are flabbergasted at the idea of a "no maintenance garden.

For me they get points just for using the word flabbergasted!

They mean to change the level of garden discourse, as well as the way people garden, like they say, they are "Uprooting The Gardening World".

So they don't get lost in the ether, I'm posting a few interview gems here. Below are some very polite rants from Mike Nowak's radio show with Elizabeth Licata, Amy Stewart and Susan Harris. (The fourth member of Garden Rant, Michelle Owens, was in Germany at the time of taping. )

Amy on poisonous plants (She wrote a book on the subject, Wicked Plants)

Amy: Wicked Plants are plants that can kill you, can be used as murder weapons, and are offensive or horrible in some way. The dark side of the plant kingdom, and in the book it's a highly selective list, as I tell a story about each plant.

Mike Nowak: Everybody realises we are taking our lives in our hands every time we walk into the garden. Take Castor Bean—Defenbachia—"

Amy: It's a perilous business. I have a slideshow of all the poisonous plants growing in public plantings, Datura spilling out of the windowboxes of the Chicago Public Library..."

Mike: Oh, they love their Datura here.

Amy: They are beautiful plants and you don't have to be afraid to grow them. This is the thing I keep telling people. It's just not food! Grow them, but it's not food. You walk into the drugstore and you see all the things they have for sale, there's shampoo and there's shaving cream, there's bandaids and batteries and lightbulbs. You don't have to be terrified of those things. Just don't eat them for breakfast! That's all. That should be easy to remember.

How to deal with weeds
Caller Question: Can you give me the name of an evironmentally friendly weed killer?

Amy: Ok, my rant about that. Here's an environmentally friendly weed killer: Pull them out with your hands! It's environmentally friendly, it's good exercise, and it actually works. One of the things we talk about on Garden Rant is "Are we just replacing one aisle of chemicals with another aisle of chemicals?" Maybe we need to garden in such a way that we are not buying little plastic bottles filled with substances. And instead, you know, do the work. I will say in all honesty with weeds, if they are in the sidewalk, I have poured boiling water on them, or I've occasionally used vinegar. But all my weed control is basically: sweat.

After a discussion on the "thug" morning glory, Elizabeth Licata chimed in:

Elizabeth: There could be worse things to happen in life than a bunch of morning glories coming up. My whole rant is not against these thugs—or whether they're thugs or not, and I'm sure some of them are—But the whole idea of rules. We had a guest rant today, The Plant Police. "These are the plants you can't plant. Don't plant this! Pull this out, cut this back." People are always being encouraged to be really neat in their gardens and that is what drives me crazy...Pull out a couple weeds, let a couple weeds grow...live and let live.

Elizabeth, by the way, was one of the masterminds who arranged the fantastic Garden Blogger trip to Buffalo this summer.

Susan Harris talked about her platform, Lawn Reform, getting rid of lawns with environmentally friendlier plantings, and also talked about how she is involved with a new generation of Independent Garden Centres who are getting into Social Media Marketing, as a way of dealing directly with their customers and finding out what they want.
Susan: Gardeners are telling us they want to see plants full grown, in the garden, in combination with other plants. They don't want these little closeups that we are used to seeing in catalogues that don't help them. They want to hear stories—like, here's how this plant did in my garden. To inspire them and teach them, but in an entertaining way.

To listen to the whole show, which is quite entertaining, go here.

Inspiration from Iceland: Moss Living Walls

You never know where you'll find garden inspiration – perhaps on holiday in Reykjavik, Iceland.

After a day of seeking out and being rather disappointed by the Reykjavik Botanical Garden, we headed to Reykjavik City Hall to look at the 3D map of Iceland.

Almost by accident, we exited via the not-so-obvious front door, and were astounded by what we found: A water-fed wall of moss stretching from one extreme of the site to the other; a rich tapestry of greens.

The wall itself is constructed of porous volcanic rock. That makes sense for Iceland, but isn't something most of us can whip up on a whim. The rectangular wall is broken by a fissure in the long two-thirds, and punctuated by porthole windows (doubtless, reflecting Iceland's maritime heritage).

It all reflects in a large pond, where ducklings dropped by to visit while we were there. The green wall softens City Hall's a modern structure of glass and concrete. Pillars on the other side of the building dip their feet into Lake Tjörnin, Icelandic for "the pond."

Mosses are the mainstay of this living wall. Amongst them, grasses and other greenery are finding footholds.

Strangely, I can't find much background (in English, anyway) on this wall. It's as if it's taken for granted. I'll do some more research when I return to Toronto – and internet is more reliable. Till then, enjoy this product of visionary civic minds. I did.

This post might qualify for Veg Plotting's Out on the Streets meme, which asks us to find garden inspiration in public spaces. Head over there to see what's inspiring people this August 2010.

Vivian Reiss's Rooftop Veg Garden

Where do you go when you've used all the space in your garden and in front of your house? You take it to the office and up the elevator. Gardener and artist Vivian Reiss has transformed two spaces in her office building on Merton Street into garden paradises in the middle of the urban jungle.



The first of Vivian's transformations was a dismal courtyard in an office tower canyon. There were chairs, but who wanted to go out there? It wasn't terribly inviting.


Now, as Vivian says, "It makes you smile." Vivian outfitted the space with retro garden furnishings and simple rectangular planters with grid fronts. She planted with the hot dayglo colours of geraniums and begonias to make a warm, inviting space.



Little elements like a one of a kind pot sitting on a mismatched pedestal give the courtyard a funky touch, not to mention the metal "arm-chair" with actual arms from the 80's. Re-using bits from here and there is Vivian's specialty, to make something memorable and unique.

And now up to the roof to see the vegetable garden aerie. This roof space is a full size vegetable garden, built inside massive planters, complete with an irrigation system. Watering would be almost impossible otherwise. Vegetables thrive with the hot, unshaded sun they receive all day.



Tomatoes, beans, corn—bonus: no raccoons to worry about up here!— everbearing strawberries and even espaliered apple trees are thriving amidst a backdrop of office towers. I sampled a strawberry, and it was divine.


"It just makes me happy to be here," Vivian said, smiling. It's her garden baby-and it's a bouncing and delightful one at that!



Today Vivian is hosting an heirloom tomato tasting event on her roof garden. I'm happy to be going to taste the bounty.

Edibles as ornamentals

Sarah and I were talking about blue foliage plants this afternoon. She'd been thinking of a blue hosta for a friend's garden. Large blue leaves would be just the right counterpoint to her friend's fine-textured gold spirea. Trouble is, that spot in the garden gets baking-hot sun.

The glaucous waxy coating that makes blue hostas look blue can melt in a very hot, sunny position. It certainly happened to a few of my hostas this crazy summer of 2010.

On the other hand, how's this for blue foliage! This unknown variety of red cabbage is so blue, the leaves look almost metallic. And why not use edible plants as ornamentals, especially when they're as ornamental as this! As long as you don't touch the leaves (never a good idea with powder-blue leaves, as it removes the "frosting"), the cabbage blueness might be more sun-resistant than a frosted hosta.

Like the taro and rainbow "front chard" we showed you in Vivian Reiss's garden, useful things like vegetables have their own beauty. How about it? What edible ornamentals are your favourites?

What's giving your tomatoes the gold shoulder?

Too much direct sun, especially along with unusually hot weather, can be a bad thing if you're a ripening tomato. It's one factor that can lead to the colour disorder shown above, which goes by names including yellow eye, yellow shoulder and green shoulder.

Some tomatoes, particularly some heirlooms, grow naturally with a bit of green at the stem end. But when it's as pronounced as this, it's a sign of a problem. With too much chlorophyll in the tissue, just a touch of the orange pigment carotene and almost none of the red pigment lycopene, these yellow patches will never ripen, despite the lovely red in the rest of the fruit. There is often white tissue deeper in the tomato. And the flavour and texture in the unripe portion just isn't as… tomatoey.

This is a disappointment for home growers. You can imagine that commercial growers would find it a costly problem. It makes the tomatoes hard to process, too.

The danger time is when the tomato is close to mature size, but hasn't begun to change colour – a process which also be delayed when the weather gets too hot. We can't do much to avoid a major heat wave like the one we had a few weeks ago. However, on hot, hot days like that, if there is insufficient shade on the ripening fruit from the plant's own leaves, you can temporarily shade the plants with cloth.

The best defense is to choose varieties resistant to green shoulder. These tomatoes are 'Arkansas Traveler' – which usually has high resistance. That these babies gave me such a "gold shoulder" is an indication of just how hot the sun was. I have to say that the rest of the fruit was quite tasty!

Soil conditions, especially with the right balance of acidity, potassium and organic matter, also contribute to green shoulder resistance or susceptibility. Precise acidulation and just-right potassium levels might be too scientific for you or me, but we can make sure our soil has plenty of organic matter.

Interested in more info on tomatoes? This article from Purdue University talks about the adverse effects of high temperatures on your not-so-red tomatoes. Other tomato defects? The excellent website Growing Tomatoes gives you tonnes (or tons, as I think it's a U.S. site) of everything you'd want to know about, well, growing tomatoes.

A time to reap, a time to sow

Before the end of July 2010, we've harvested radishes, many bouquets of frilly lettuce, a kilo or more of bush beans, and nearly that in tomatoes, with more to come. Not to mention the flowers. Aren't they all pretty? The contrast between this year's and last year's tomato harvest alone from our community garden is profound.

But, as we proved by our late garden acquisition (mid-July) last year, it isn't too late to plant seeds, either. Mid-October is the average date of the first frost in the Toronto area; maybe a bit later close to the lake and a bit earlier north of Hwy 401. That still gives us about 60 days, and with luck a few more, before tender crops risk being felled by frosty temperatures. Some crops, such as chard or cabbage, can stand a touch of frost.

So hurry hurry hurry. Get 'em into the ground: Radishes, lettuce, spinach, short-season bush beans, short-season peas, and other veggies should bear fruit in Toronto. Here's a useful late-season planting guide from the University of Minnesota. Lots of the same information applies.