Give Yourself the Gift of a Vegetable Garden

My friend, Dale D'Souza, decided last Christmas to start a vegetable garden during this past summer. Below is his guest post about his experience making his 15' x 15' garden.

It all started last Christmas when a friend gave me a mason jar of tomato sauce as a gift. I love making pasta sauce and decided that I would try to make my own tomato sauce the following year. In the age of 'Google' I decided to do my homework and see if I could make a true scratch tomato sauce by growing my own tomatoes. I discovered that there are two types of tomato plants: Determinate (provides fruit once, in the fall) and Indeterminate (provides fruit throughout the season). It was obvious that I would need all my tomatoes to be ripe at once so as to simplify the sauce making day.

So off I went to the local garden centers. Nobody at the big box garden centres knew what the heck I was talking about. Then I met a lovely lady, Barbara Lawton, who owns Taylor Nurseries. Barbara is a certified horticulturalist and knew all about tomatoes! Based on her advice I purchased 24 Roma tomato plants for about $24.

Now for the big challenge!

• 3 yards of top-soil
• Bone meal
• Miracle Gro
• Tomato cages
• Chicken wire
• Wooden stakes

My daughter has a keen interest in gardening and helped me with the planting and layout. Full sun for these babies! We planted two rows of 12, keeping enough space in between to prune and weed. Miracle Gro once a week, daily watering and weeding regularly was our new routine.

In late July we had our first harvest of about 400 tomatoes, followed by a second harvest a few weeks later of another 400 tomatoes. I did have to freeze the first harvest as we were still a few weeks away from sauce. The last harvest before sauce-making produced another 100 tomatoes.

We made the sauce under the guidance of Rob P. (pure Italian) using some pretty cool equipment that he has developed over the years.
The frozen tomatoes did not yield as much sauce as the moisture had crystalized and 'bled' into the pot when thawing.

Total yield was 14 - 1Liter mason jars. I added a couple of leaves of Thai basil which we grew as well.

I plan to plant 48 tomato plants in the spring and see what I can generate in sauce.

All in all a great experience that I highly recommend!

Tomato Plant Prunning Silliness

My tomato plant obsession continues ...

Before Prunning

The other day I came across a video showing how to prune tomato plants. I knew that the "sucker" branches at the bottom of tomato plants should be removed. This video, however, says that once your tomato flowers are set, all branches that don't have flowers should be removed. This apparently allows the plant's energy to go to the ripening tomatoes. I decided to give it a try.

After Prunning

Now for my silliness (idiocy?) - for some reason I thought he said remove the leaves on non-flowering branches! So I spent an unreasonable amount of time trimming off leaves instead of branches - should have had my computer with me to look at the video while I was doing the pruning. I was thinking that pruning the branches of leaves was ridiculous - and it was!

Not sure if I went far enough or too far. Still, it did give the plants more breathing room and already the green tomatoes of a couple of days ago are red or almost red.

Here is the video - and remember, prune the non-flowering branches, not the non-flowering branches' leaves!

My First Crop of San Marzano Tomatoes are Ready!

Growing the San Marzano Tomato
This year I decided to plant the San Marzano variety of tomato. I chose this variety of tomato as they are favoured by Chefs world-wide and are apparently the best when used in tomato sauce.

My first harvest of lucious San Marzano Tomatoes

I’ve been pleased with the results. I planted four plants and each have yielded an impressive amount of tomatoes with more to come. The first harvest gave me about 30 tomatoes.

I’ve read they’re also one of the easiest to peel.

The thought of peeling a bunch of tomatoes usually daunts me so I don’t bother. This year, however, I decided to give it try. I read that the San Marzano variety are one of the easiest types of tomato to peel and it’s true!

See how to peel tomatoes
Watch my video to see how easy it is to remove their skins. I noticed when previewing that the complete video screen is not showing - have to make some design adjustments. Until then, if the complete video screen doesn't show you can view it on YouTube.


You can also see full instructions below, good for any type of tomato that needs to be peeled.


Instructions to peel tomatoes

1. Cut an ‘X’ into the top of the tomatoes.
2. Boil a pot of water.
3. Place tomatoes into boiling water in batches as necessary.
4. Boil for 1 minute.
5. Remove from boiling water (I used a sieve).
6. Then immediately plunge tomatoes into a bowl of ice water.
7. After about a minute they’ll be cool enough to handle.
8. Peel the skin from each tomato.

What's your favourite kind of tomato to grow?