Blind Pig & The Acorn

The Best Heirloom Tomatoes

Last summer was the first year The Deer Hunter and I tried growing heirloom tomatoes. The term-heirloom-refers to tomatoes that are non-hybrid-meaning their seeds are open pollinated and stay true to form. In other words-if you save seed from your heirloom varieties and plant them-the tomatoes you grow will be just like the one you saved the seed from. If you save seed from a hybrid variety and plant it-the tomatoes grown will revert back to one of the 'parents' used to make the hybrid. The word 'heirloom' also points to the tradition of families handing down seeds to the next generation.

Till last summer we always planted hybrid varieties like Big Boys or Better Boys. I kept hearing folks talk about how much better heirloom varieties tasted and decided I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. I don't remember the names of the ones we grew last year. The tomatoes did indeed taste better-but the production was lousy. I think we got a whole 4 tomatoes off of the yellow variety we planted.

This summer our goal was to give the heirlooms another chance-but with a little more homework put into the process. We tired to look for varieties that produced high quantities as well as high quality. We ended up with 8 different varieties-here's what we learned about each of them:

Black Prince is a small sized tomato-but it packs a lot of punch in the flavor department. The skin color is a deep red with blackish green tints to it-and the flesh is a deep dark color as well. The Black Prince was a good producer.

Cherokee Purple is one of the most common black tomatoes-and it happens to be The Deer Hunter's favorite. The flavor is very similar to the Black Prince. We only had one Cherokee Purple plant-and it didn't produce very many tomatoes.

Bonnie Best was the only Heirloom Tomato offered by Hometown Seeds-who sponsored my garden this year. Even though I had never heard of it-I decided to give it a try-and I'm glad I did. The plants produced bookoos of tomatoes-no giant beefsteaks-but tons of small red tasty ones. When I think of a text book tomato-the look and taste of Bonnie Best comes to mind.

Some friends gave us several Yellow Pear plants-the tomatoes are tiny but very flavorful. And the plants produced so well that it was almost impossible to eat them all. 

 
Striped German was very flavorful-and so pretty on the inside-but the plant we had only produced 4 tomatoes. 

Now for my 3 favorite Heirlooms:

 
I heard a local ministry was selling heirloom tomato plants early in the summer-when I got a chance to stop by I ask them if they had a yellow variety that produced well. The gentlemen suggested Cream Sausage-he said they produce bumper crops of roma shaped tomatoes-he was right. On each plant the tomatoes hung like grapes. The flavor was sweet-and has they got riper the sweeter they got. The only problem we encountered was a few of the first fruits had blossom end rot. If at all possible-every garden I plant in the future will have at least a few Cream Sausage plants in it.

Yellow Brandywines were also a huge winner for us. Wonderful flavor and a great producer. The only downside I can see-was after you picked the tomatoes they needed to be eaten or put up fairly quickly.

I feel like I should do a drum roll for this one-German Johnson. Oh my the taste was outstanding, it produced great, and maybe it's cause I'm a girl-but I found the delicate pink color lovely.   

I realize the growing conditions at my house will vary from where your at-so if you've grown any of the varieties above-please leave a comment and tell how they did for you. If you have experience with other heirloom varieties-I'd love to hear about them too.

Taste wasn't the only reason we wanted to try heirlooms-the seed saving aspect was also one of our reasons. Having the ability to keep your own seeds from year to year is especially attractive to us. Coming up in a few days-a post about ways to save heirloom seeds for next year.

Tipper

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Blind Pig & The Acorn's 2nd Annual Planting By The Signs Test Results

Summer is winding down and the results from the Blind Pig & the Acorn's 2nd Annual Planting by the Signs Test are in. Seems like only yesterday we started the test-you can read about the details by clicking here.

The test was sponsored by Hometown Seeds. Each participant got 10 seeds. They planted 5 on a 'good day' according to the signs and 5 on a 'bad day' according to the signs (a few folks didn't have room to plant all 10 seeds). We aimed for planting the good day squash on May 17 or 18 and planting our bad day squash on May 19 or 20.

Check out everyone's results and see what you think:

Tipper: I planted 5 good day squash on May 17th and 5 bad day squash on May 19. Only 2 of my bad day squash came up. All of my good day squash came up. I planted all the seeds in hills and made sure the hills for both days were in the same part of garden. The bad day plants that lived-produced only a very small amount of squash. The good day squash plants produced quite a bit of squash-I would say twice as many as the bad day. However-the squash plants I planted further down in my garden-the ones that had nothing to do with the test-produced a tremendous amount of squash leaving the good and bad day squash in the dust. I did plant the super producing squash plants on a 'good day' according to the signs.

Stacey: Had bad luck after the seeds were planted-if I remember correctly it involved a tiller. (stacey-tell us in the comments if you're reading this)

WKF: I had a terrible year for squash. I got squash borer's and squash bugs. The borers got my yellow squash before they could produce. But I will say both plant dates came up nicely. This was my first experience with borers. They were awful. A healthy plant in the morning, a dead plant in the afternoon. Any input on getting rid of them for next year would be great.

Paul P: I planted half with the dates we discussed and half off schedule. No question they both produced well, but the ones I planted by the dates (early) were better. I hope this helps.

Helen G: Helen wrote about her test-you can go here to read about it-and see some pics that detail the growth of both the bad and good day seeds.

Warren: I have not posted about the results because they seem so dramatically goofy to me. I planted on your schedule and my good seeds produced tons of squash and they were delicious. My bad seeds were absolute junk for growth and production.  It was so dramatic that I suspect there must have been some other issue playing a role. I don't know if more bugs got to them or if the rain screwed them up (we had more than usual this year). By dramatic, I mean the plants produced absolutely no squash whatsoever...and they looked pathetic. I know I shouldn't mess with science, but that seemed too extreme to be right/valid.

Becky: Becky wrote about her results here. I will share one of her quotes "I'd say that the good day planting produced squash 2 to 1 compared to the bad day planting."

B & Roy N: Roy my husband said that the seeds he planted on the good days were (plants) about three times bigger than the seeds (plants) planted on the bad days.

Jen: I planted 3 seeds on a good day and 3 seed on a bad day.  My watering system failed miserably and only 1 of the bad day seeds came up.  MY fault and I am sad.  The plant that did come up, gave us gobs of squash and kept my family as well as my parents supplied all summer. I made "Zucchini Bread" from it for the freezer as well.  It worked perfectly. 

David T:

 
Bear with me in that I have a process control background and am so boring that I often start snoring and fall asleep on myself as I am talking, as do others around me.

About two weeks  prior to this picking I had cleaned all of the squash from both hills so I could have a starting point for some quantitative comparison of the yields once a new growth could be harvested. Once both hills had produced their fruit again I picked all the squash and compared the result.

 

Both hills produced an average of six (6) squash per plant. There was no difference in the quality, taste or size from plant to plant or fruit to fruit. I can say that the result was statistically inconclusive because the sampling was not from a large enough study. In quality and process control, a study of, say, thirty plants per variable (good day, bad day) would have given a statistically valid comparison.

 

There was this notable exception, however. The plants in the good hill came up ten days earlier than the bad day plants and bloomed and bore fruit much sooner than the bad day plants. This was in spite of the fact that the hills were planted only one day apart.

 

And this is also true: The seeds from your sponsor, Hometown Seeds, were very, very productive. We had squash all summer and we couldn't eat it or give it away fast enough and we should have taken time to preserve some of the bounty. I am impressed with the quality of their seed. I'll buy from them.

 

Martina: Good day seed-didn't work out. The one plant that came up is about 2 in. in diameter. Bad day seed-both propagated. Producing blossoms right now and are large plants.

 

The good day seed was planted in a pot, the bad day in the ground near a path. They were watered equally as much, same light-the pot is about 3 yards west of the ground planted ones.

 

Barb G: We have had a hot dry summer. Both seeds took a long time germinate.
They have not had any squash yet but both have blooms. Finally! I couldn't really tell a lot of difference in the two plantings.

Paula: Well, mine were a bomb. We had a really cold and rainy spring and summer. My "good" seeds started to come up, but froze and were lost. My "bad day" seeds didn't even peek above the ground. Our average high this summer was 55 with only a handful of real summer like days. 

Jeannie: I haven't heard back from Jeannie. Hopefully if she reads this post she'll let us know in the comments how her squash grew)

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So what do you think? One thing is obvious-even if you plant by the signs you still can't control the bugs or the weather. I hope you'll leave me a comment and tell me what you deduced from the results.

As for what I think: I planted everything in my garden by the signs this year-I made sure I planted the seedlings I started indoors on a good day and I made sure when I transplanted them it was a good day as well. We had the most productive garden we've ever had-everything grew and produced to the point that I'm tired of putting it up and I'm tired of giving it away. You can't argue with success-so I'm going to extend my planting by the signs goal to next summer.

I hope a few of you will be up for participating in the 3rd Annual Planting by the Signs Test here on the Blind Pig next year. We may not make any earth shattering discoveries with the tests-but it sure is fun-and tasty too!

Tipper

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Planting By The Signs For August 2010

My summer garden is winding down. I do believe it's the best garden we've ever had. The lack of rain has almost completely dried up the big garden we share with Granny and Pap-but our smaller one here at home has benefited from our watering cans.

With the heat continuing to soar-it's hard to think about getting ready for the fall garden-but before we know it-those cooler temps will start sliding in and I'll be thinking of spicy radishes, stewed turnips, and greens. Our garden has been so successful this year-I'm going to continue my planting by the signs venture with my fall garden too.

Granny has already planted her mustard greens and turnips. I said Granny isn't it a little early? She said well I planted them too late last year so this year I figured I'd plant them too early and come out even. Who knows-maybe her logic will work.

Since Hometown Seeds sponsored the Blind Pig garden this year-I was able to plant a few new things-that I'd never tried before. Hearing Pap talk about the type of squash his Mother grew when he was a child made me want to try a variety of squash that would have a longer shelf life.

 
I planted Hometown Seeds-Winter Squash Green Hubbard. It seemed to take them forever to get started-but now they're growing like crazy. The vines have twined all over the garden-and the yard-till they look like some kind of alien invasion. See the size of the squash-it's double that now. Seriously the squash are as big as watermelons. So now I'm wondering what to do with them-how do I store them-how do I cook them? If you have any tips on green hubbard squash I'd love to hear them.

What was the strangest thing you grew this summer?

Tipper

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The Silver Queen Has Arrived

Over the last week we've been enjoying one of the delicacies of summer-fresh corn straight from the garden. We always plant Silver Queen and a few rows of field corn. I don't know what variety the field corn is-Granny and Pap save the seed from year to year-a friend of theirs gave it to them years ago. 

We use the field corn to make hominy with-and the Silver Queen we eat till we can't hold any more. I've always been intrigued by corn-not just cause I like to eat it. I'm fascinated by it's growth. From the moment it reaches it's 2 tiny arm like soft leaves towards the sky almost seeming to pray the crows don't see it-till it's sweet juicy ears lay in my supper plate.

One of my favorite stages of corn growth occurs when the tassels are long and full. Since I was a kid-I've liked to go deep inside the rows and listen to the bees doing their job. See if you don't like it too: (don't forget to stop the player in the top right of this page before you start the video)

I hope you could hear the bees at work. Seemed like once I started videoing every jar fly in the holler started up. Along with my corn interest-I've also always been fascinated by bees-especially honey bees.

When we were little-me and Paul shed our shoes during the summer months. It was common for one of us or sometimes both of us to be sporting a swelled foot from stepping on honey bees while playing in the yard. Now I hardly see them in my yard.

Even with my multiple stings of summer-I never became afraid of bees. One of my younger cousins, Maria, was terrified of bees-I guess she still is. When we'd play by Mamaw and Papaw's old garden site I'd find a cuckle bur and stick it on her back or in her hair and she'd run around like someone was killing her-thinking it was a bee. Kinda sounds mean now. But she knew I loved her most of all.

You can find all kinds of recipes for corn-from puddings to casseroles. But our favorite way to eat fresh Silver Queen-is on the cob. We get a pot of water boiling and drop the ears in-only takes about 3 minutes for them to cook to perfection.

Later on I'll show you how we cook the corn we put up each year. And as soon as the field corn comes in I'm going to make Pap's other recipe for gritted bread and see if I like it better than the first one.

So-what variety of corn is your favorite? How do you cook fresh corn? Do you like bees?

Tipper
 

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Planting By The Signs July 2010

 
So far my July has been hot and dry-and the garden isn't really enjoying the weather. We've been watering the garden at our house-but the big one we share with Pap and Granny is harder to water-and it desperately needs rain.

We've been getting squash, green beans, cucumbers, onions, cabbage, beets, zucchini, peppers, and a few tomatoes from the garden. This is my favorite time of the year to eat.  

With the help of these 2-I've made 3 runs of Blackberry jelly-and been eaten alive by chiggers along the way.

I've gotten a few updates from the Squash Test Participants:

On 6-24 Martina noted:

I planted the seeds on the 18th and 19th of May.  Two of the bad day ones came up, one of the good day.  I'm not holding much hope for success. So far the plants have three dinky leaves and are about 1 in. tall.   The tomato plants are just starting to bloom so I think that your growing season starts much sooner than around here.

 

On 6-24 B. Ruth noted:

I did want to report on the Squash seed plants.....Roy my husband said that the seeds he planted on the good days were (plants) about three times bigger than the seeds (plants) planted on the bad days.....even though the seeds on the good day were planted later than the bad day seeds.....I wasn't here but he planted them for me and marked the seeds....They are just now getting ready to set fruit so it will be interesting to see the size of the good day plants.

You can go here to see Twisted Fencepost's first report. And you can go here to see Reddirt Woman's latest Squash Report.

 

David Templeton sent me this photo of his Squash Test-along with the following information:

 

I'm sure a scientist could think of all kinds of questions to ask to try and assure that the study is being done using the "scientific method" but I have made sure that all conditions have been controlled and each hill of plantings has received the same treatment.

 

The hill on the left is the "Bad" day planting, the one on the right planted the day before on a "Good" day.

 

"Good" came up on schedule, "Bad" was slow to germinate and showed up about a week after the "Good"

   

The planting was during the last set of "sign" days in May.

 

In this case, so far, the "Bad" (on the left) is visibly bigger; taller, with larger leaves.  Both hills have buds forming and will bloom in just a few days.

 

I'll get many squash from each hill and I will try to compare yields (number of pounds per plant, or something). Mainly, I like yellow crookneck squash and that will be the bonus of the fun test.

 

 
This was my attempt to show you my 'bad day' squash-but my garden has turned into such a jungle-it's hard to get an individual picture of each of the test plants. So far my 

'good day' seem to be doing better than the 'bad'. The 'good day' squash were bigger from the beginning and sprouted faster-2 of my 'bad day' did not even come up. I've gotten a few squash from my 'good day'-but none from the 'bad day'-although the 'bad day' is setting squash.

 

Remember my volunteer Squash plant? Well it was a disappointment-it grew some rock hard small blobs then promptly died. But I found something even better volunteering for me-

A watermelon! Last year, Hubert (a past Mountain Folk interviewee) gave me several watermelon seeds-they all came up-but not one made a watermelon-or so I don't think they did. Anyway-I noticed this one when it was just tiny-now it seems to grow bigger over night. I'm not sure if it came from one of Hubert's or not. He says if it's yellow inside-I'll know it was his. Gardening is funny-last year I tried so hard to grow a watermelon and made a total failure at it-this year I made no effort what so ever-and I've got a dandy one growing in my garden.

 

If any of you are taking part in the Squash Test-please leave a comment and update everyone about how yours are growing-or email it to me at tipper@blindpigandtheacorn.com

and I'll post it for you.

 

Tipper

 

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Cooking Beets

 

Thanks to the generosity of Hometown Seeds-this is the first year we've tried our hand at growing Beets. As you can see-we've had a huge success. Last week we got our first Beets from the garden. Not only had I never grew Beets before this year-I'd never cooked Beets either. Miss Cindy was here for a visit-so she showed me how she cooks them.

First she cuts off the tops and put them in water to wash. (who knew you can eat them just like you would spinach or any other type of greens)

Miss Cindy said since Beets can be hard to peel-she cooks them without peeling.

Once the beets have cooked-she cuts off the top and bottom portion-then the rest of the peel just slips right off.

Once the Beets are peeled-you can slice them up and eat them. But since The Deer Hunter likes Pickled Beets-Miss Cindy pickled them.

She sliced them up and cut the slices into quarters. On the stove she brought some water, ground cinnamon, ground cloves, sugar and apple cider vinegar to a boil-then added in the cut up Beets.

Then she poured the mixture into a canning jar and placed it in the frig for a couple of hours.

For the Beet Greens-she washed them good-then cut them into pieces-including the stems; put them in a pot with a small amount of water and cooked them. I was pleasantly surprised to discover I really liked the Beet Greens-they tasted similar to Spinach.

We forced these 2 nut-jobs to taste the Beets-they declared they tasted like dirt. I agree Beets do sort of taste like dirt-but I love them-I guess that makes me a nut-job too.

Tipper
 

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Volunteer Vegetable Plants

Do you ever find volunteer plants growing in your garden? Usually the seed sprouts from produce that was left on the ground the previous gardening season.

The most common volunteers I find in my garden-are tomatoes. If the seed that sprouted came from a hybrid tomato-the plant will produce small cherry tomatoes-or tommy toes as we call them. Since a hybrid plant is made from 2 'parent' plants-the seeds that come from their 'children' revert back to one of the parent's characteristics.

Even though-I know most of the time the volunteer plant won't be true to form-I find it hard to pull them up. The process of that little seed laying out there all winter and then sprouting-seems miraculous to me.

This year-I had a few volunteer tomato plants-and one squash/zucchini plant. I did pull most of the tomato plants-cause I need the room. But I'm letting the squash plant grow-it's huge already. I've read that the squash will turn out to be a misshaped hard globe-but I'm going to let it grow and see what happens.

I'll leave you with 2 questions:

~Do you let volunteer plants grow or pull them up?

~Hopefully some of you are more experienced with growing heirloom varieties than I am-can answer this one-if the seed that sprouts came from a heirloom variety does that mean it will be true to form?
 

Tipper

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Planting By The Signs June 2010

Can you believe June is here? I can't-seems like just yesterday we were celebrating the new year. All our gardens are planted-both the big one we share with Pap and Granny and the smaller one we have at our house. Everything seems to be coming along nicely-including the good day and bad day squash.

 

This is one of my 'good day' squash plants.

This is one of my 'bad day' squash plants. Not much difference so far. Most of my spring veggies are gone:

• Spinach gone-either eaten or put in the freezer
• Radishes gone-eaten-mostly by me and Pap
• Lettuce almost gone-but still enough for another bowl of kill lettuce
• Green Onions still going strong
• Sugar Snap Peas-almost gone-mostly eaten by Peter Rabbit and the rest of his clan

I'm anxious for the summer veggies-but at least feel good that the gardens are planted and now it's in Mother Natures hands. I also feel pretty good that I achieved my goal of planting everything by the signs.

Hope you'll leave me a comment and tell me how your garden grows! Drop back by tomorrow for May's Spread the Love Giveaway.

Tipper

p.s. For all of you who are local-The Andrews Farmers Market starts on June 5th from 8-12 at the Hall Memorial Park beside the Post Office in Andrews.

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Blind Pig & The Acorn's 2nd Annual Planting By The Signs Test

Yesterday we kicked off the 2nd Annual Blind Pig & the Acorn Planting By The Signs Test. This year's test was sponsored by Hometown Seeds-they donated enough crooked neck squash seeds for each participant to plant 10 seeds-5 on one of the best days for planting during the month of May-5 on one of the worst days for planting during the month of May.

This year's Participants are: Stacey, WKF, Janet, Paul P., Helen, Warren, Becky, Bev, Jennifer, David, Martina, Barb, Paula, and Jeannie.

 

The rain we've had over the past few days-has made the green greener around my house-and it seems everywhere I look I see a waving wall of green.

May 17th and 18th are both in the fruitful sign of Cancer (sometimes called the Crab by old-timers) so those are the days I chose for folks to plant their 5 good day squash seeds. Yesterday started out drizzly and grey-but by lunch the sun was shinning.

Pap taught me to plant squash in mounds-is that how you plant them? I mound up the dirt-then use my pinky finger to make a hole-a small stick or pencil works good too. I usually plant at least 3 seeds in each mound. Since I had 5 good day seeds to plant-I put 3 seeds in one mound and 2 in the other.

The 'bad days' I picked for planting the other 5 seeds are the 19th and 20th-both fall under the sign of Leo-which is a fiery, barren and dry sign.

Throughout the growing season I'll post updates on how everyone's good day squash and bad day squash are coming along-and by the end of the test hopefully we'll be able to clearly see if the good day squash did better than the bad day squash.

Tipper

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That Early Mess Of Lettuce And Onions

Ethelene Dyer Jones sent me the following piece about her memories of eating from the spring garden as a child:

That Early Mess of Lettuce and Onions

 

 A palatable memory from my childhood is the first taste of spring lettuce fresh from the garden and early spring onions, tender and juicy, cut over it. Then, to top off that treat after very few greens through the long winter (especially after the cabbage we'd "buried" in the keeping pit had run out), hot grease from freshly-fried side meat (bacon) was the salad dressing, poured over the greens until they wilted.  It was indeed, "Kill Lettuce," a taste to kill for!  And we all rooted to have our share, so delectable and fresh and tasty.

 

And the treat didn't end with the salad bowl being passed around at our table.  After the lettuce started bearing, we children would often slip into the garden and "rob" Mother's lettuce bed.  We'd pick the tender leaves fresh on site and eat them.  Nowadays,  we would frown at this repast not being washed and clean, but we could always find leaves fresh-washed with dew, and never gave a thought to it's otherwise having to be washed before consumption.  After all, we were hungry, growing kids, and here was something delightful to eat, right in the garden. These "messes" of lettuce, whether served on our table or straight out of the lettuce bed in the garden, were benefits of having grown up on an Appalachian farm.

 

by Ethelene Dyer Jones

Ethelene's wonderful memories reminded me of a conversation I had with a friend the other day. We were talking about the goodness of eating the first fresh veggies from the garden in spring. She said her father was so crazy about green onions he kept a spare salt shaker in the barn-so he could eat onions right from the garden. She went on to tell me-at the super table her father sprinkles salt in a little mound and dips his green onion in it as he eats it. She asked me if I had ever seen anyone else eat their onions with salt in the same way-I said yes-ME! 

Granny eats her green onions by dipping every bite or so in salt. I'm sure that's why I eat mine the same way. But it got me to thinking-is eating green onions in this manner common across the US or only in Appalachia? 

Hope you'll leave me a comment and tell me if it's common in your area.

Tipper

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