April 10th was supposed to be the last frost date for Spring, so I got out this weekend and played in dirt.
Inside the house I’ve been growing tomatoes from seed in the window. I took a few of the balcony hybrids and replanted them in larger pots. I also have some not-exactly red type tomato seedlings growing in the window as well as I love the odd varieties, the yellows, the green stripes, the orangish and whathaveyou.
Last year, some heirloom varieties we (we being me and neighbor B) grew were duds, producing nothing but lots of vines. I’m going to blame the light, or lack of it, in the rear yard. The front yard produced a bunch of rudely shaped San Marizano (?) plum tomatoes suffering from mild blossom rot. There were tons, and tons of cherry tomatoes that were great for snacking and I’ll do them again this year. The Russian heirloom variety tomato was a late season type that produced these huge monster tomatoes that most of the time I did not let ripen on the vine because one part would look 1/2 way to rotting. Having them ripen in a sunny window (to fight whatever mold-like thing growing on one side) was my best bet.
Besides tomatoes I planted some bean seeds. I’m doing the french string bean thing again. I really enjoyed similar beans I had grown before and a meal at Corduroy featuring buttery string beans reminded me of how great this vegetable is.
3 thoughts on “Frost Free gardening”
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Vegetable gardening in our heavily shaded urban canyons is definitely challenging. Most crop species like tons ‘o sun, and we just don’t get that in the city.
But dang it I try.
There are some things that do okay in my sun challenged rear yard. The alpine strawberries, purslane, spring salad mixes, pansies, cilantro, onions, peas, beans, and thyme have done well enough.
I wish I could grow tomatoes. Unfortunately my back yard is completely covered over with a canopy of trees, so they don’t do too well. The year I tried I got one tomato which, just as it was getting big, was pulled off by a squirrel. The squirrel took one bite out of it and decided it was not tasty.