A frosty endsolanums versus brassicas

It looked like we might have had a November tomato, but 2 days before, frost hit.


Black cherry tomatoes, various other tomatoes, and in the distance, eggplant all frost bitten

Sad, yes, but not to despair, I still have my cabbage, brussel sprouts, kale, chinese cabbage, tatsoi, broccoli, rabe, as well as root crops and other greens.


From foreground back: chinese cabbage, kale, and brussel sprouts

Caution Gardening 201

For the not quite novice, the forgetful, or the bored.

This is the tale of two vegetable families.

The solanums

• tomatoes
  
• peppers
  
• eggplants
  
• ground cherries
  
• tomatillos
  
• potatoes
  
• etc...
  

These are warm weather lovers. They drink in the sun, and fear frost. With the exception of the potato, it is the fruit that we eat. They should be started between 6-8 weeks before the last frost date, eaten with gusto at the height of the season, and then bid farewell to at first frost in the fall.

For most neophyte table gardeners, tomatoes are at the top of the list of vegetables they grow. They are relatively easy and the taste fresh from a backyard garden is without comparison. I credit the growing requirements of the tomato as part of the reason that so few beginner gardeners are aware of the best practice for growing another group of veggies.


The brassicas:

• Cabbage
  
• Broccoli
  
• Many chinese greens including bok choy, tatsoi etc..
  
• Kale
  
• Broccoli Rabe
  
• Turnips
  
• Kohlrabi
  
• Collards
  
• Brussel Sprouts
  
• etc...
  

Ah, delicious and very healthy brassicas, all are quite cold tolerant. Some are extremely hardy and will survive vicious winters in a cold frame, such as kale, tatsoi, and mustard greens. Others, require a bit more pampering but like purple sprouting broccoli, will happily overwinter in mild winter areas. Most, in fact, prefer cooler weather. Or, should I say, that to get the most out of the vegetable and prevent bolting, you need cool temperatures. For gardeners with a short growing season or little strong sun (because of fog or rain or both) or where it is rarely warm enough to grow a good beefstake tomato, these crops fill in the garden.


Left to right, brassica, parnsips and parsley then dead solanums.

They can be put out when soil temperatures are still on the cool side. Under cloches, and coldframes, I started some fabulous savoy cabbage this year when we were still having light snowfalls. The quick growing brassicas, like short season cabbage, spring broccoli, and any of the leafy greens such as broccoli rabe and bok choy are great early season choices. If you don't have a coldframe, try pop bottle cloches.

Then mid-summer, start another crop of the quick growers to mature in the cool temperatures of fall. Many brassicas such as brussel sprouts and turnips, taste better after being bitten by a few frosts. Starches are converted to sugars to lower the freezing temperature of the vegetable so they are sweeter.

Even if you don't love these tasty treats (and how could you not LOVE BROCCOLI???), grow them just so that your garden doesn't look so sad after first frost.

Long season purple cabbage beautiful contrasted with fall leaves, don't you think?

Links

Coleman's Four Season HarvestFall Crops - tips on plantingFall Crops - an equationVirginia Tech - brassica growing tips

The October Tomato and frost watch 2007 - end game

So it's October. Halloween, pumpkins, colourful leaves and frost... Right?

Well in the normally chilly north of Ottawa, strange things have been happening with the weather or should I say climate. At any rate, after a slow start to last winter where it didn't really snow until JANUARY!!!, they are predicting temps in the upper twenties (Celcius for you nonconformist Americans) this weekend.

I not only have one October tomato, but many, enough for sauce and salad. Not only that but the peppers are rebudding and the eggplants are still going strong. I would show you pictures but my camera is on the fritz.

According to some, the average first frost is October 5th which would make this an average year (the weather network is showing frost possible around the 9th of October), but it sure feels unusual as I throw on my sandals and summer dress. Perhaps it's not so much the lack of frost as the balmy weather that has me thinking, which means googling.

According to The Weather Network, a normal for this time of year is 16C. It was 25C yesterday. The record is 27C in 1950. Just be thankful it isn't 1975 when it was -1C.

Get out there and garden but remember the frost is on the pumpkin some time next week!

Even more links on The First Tomato - an ode

How can us gardeners not but give praise to one of the highlights of the growing calender. The great and glorious moment when we realize that no it is not a red candy wrapper that was tossed under the tomato plant (like last time), but a ripe tomato.

The singing of the heart, the opening of the salivary glands, the writing of the blog entry.

Here is a quick review of my hastily collected but still wonderfully fun posts about the First Ripe Tomato:

I love the look of this variety on Dreams and Bones

A beautiful post with a beautiful tomato at My Grandpa's Garden

My Dutch Garden has written about some of the many challenges we tomato growers face but don't worry she still has a handful of tomatoes in her belly!

Garden Desk beats the crowd by picking this beauty on June 15th.

My Roots Run Deep showing that even vegetable wary children cannot resist the temptation!

Short and sweet (oh so sweet) on Fluffius Muppetus

May Dream Gardens gives her first beautiful tomato the royal treatment.

Another early bird with a harvest on July 6th at View from the Mountain

For a tomato of a different colour try Growing Thumbs Gardens who is actually growing tomatoes in this post. ;)

I love the light in the Inadvertant Gardener's photo, very spiritual.

More on tomato gold at Gotta Garden.

An interesting picture. I love the small plastic pig beside the perfect cherry tomato at the reluctant remodeler

Little bit about heirlooms, and a lot of tomato love at Geek Buffet

You Grow Girl harvested July 2nd... did they say Canada Day? Canadians. I'm jealous

The all important question of what to do with the first tomato is discussed by Eat Air - A Vegan Food Log.

I like the picture of this cherry by Richie Design.

More on my harvest schedule on Po Moyemu - In My Opinion.

No photo but I love How Mary's Garden Grows describes the other method of handling the first tomato - eat it immediately.

Down on the Allotment has ripe tomatoes too!

Bifucated Carrot has orange/red tomatoes to eat.

A subdued post on Skippy's Vegetable Garden.

I keep forgetting to add mine.

Do you have a ripe tomato? Share it by dropping me a link. I'm happy to edit (hee hee hee).

Bad Tomato Mommy take IIGreen Thumb Sunday

You should always cage your tomatoes properly so that they have good air circulation which lowers the chance of disease, and keeps your fruit off the ground so that no critters take a bite, and frankily caged tomatoes take less space.


If you happen not to get around to doing this until later in the season, you may resort to less elegant solutions...





... for example, smushing them together in an impromptu fence made of plastic trellis and parts of a plant stand... you might do this... but you shouldn't.


P.S. The tomatoes did recover but next year, I vow not to bother with those puny so called tomato cages. My robust babies need better support.

Want to see more tomato abuse?


Join

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information.

First Tomato of the season...

The harvest crowds to get a closer look at:


The finger is my youngest. She wants to eat the tomato. I don't blaim her. Amassed harvest includes, eggplant, golden turnip, kholrabi, beans, chocolate and yellow mini pepper (bitten by children).

The first tomato. Unsurprisingly, it was from my monster tomato, seed saved from a volunteer last year.

Frost Watch 2007 - Day 8Peppers are frost tolerant?

Crabapple, Pretty plant interlude

It seems that the frost watch is nearing its end. We are heading into a mini heat wave, though there may be a few more dips in temperature, we should be leaving 4C and under behind.

All plants survived... (so far)

So to round it all up, a question... my big book of plants says peppers, even capsicum annum (the common garden pepper, including most hot kinds and all sweet kinds) are frost tolerant.

Heads turned on that one, didn't they?

So I endeavor to find out the truth. I figure they ain't that frost hardy! But exactly how hardy are they? Will they stand a light frost?


The Unintentional Experiment:

You may remember my frosted tomato post. That same night, I also left out my eggplants, peppers, ground cherries and sunberries. All frost tender but differently affected. The ground cherries seemed unphased. The peppers appeared wilted in the morning but recovered completely by midday - no obvious damage to the leaves at all. I can't remember what happened to the sunberries though they seem to have no leaf damage either. They may have been very immature at the time. The tomatoes initially seemed fine, but as the day progressed, brown marks appeared between the leaf viens, eventually these lower leaves fell off and new ones grew at the leaf axis.

Does this mean that peppers are marginally (like 1 or 2 degrees) more frost tolerant? Does this mean that ground cherries are husky northern cousins in comparison?


Googling peppers and frost tolerance

According to Plants of a Future database:

"Plants can tolerate a small amount of frost[171]"

My favourite source for plant info - Floridata - agrees, stating:

"Mature plants can tolerate a touch of frost."

That's all the evidence I need, for now. So it seems that a mature pepper plant could take a light or patchy frost occasionally but would be happier without one. I imagine it would drop its leaves but they would soon grow back, as happens when they are stressed for other reasons such as drought, change in light level, doesn't like the look of your shirt...

Ground cherry and frost tolerance?

I have been on this google romp before and found that there are solanum (tomatoes, eggplants, potatoes, ground cherries, sunberries, garden huckleberries all belong to this group) brothers and sisters that live, even thrive, this far north. Amoung them are ground cherries. They are not necessarily the best tasting ones (though I have never sunk my teeth into them) but they exist.

Amoung the solanum relatives up north are:

1. Deadly Nightshade - not recommended eating

2. Chinese Lanterns. Anyone with them in their garden will vouch for their hardiness.

3. Clammy Ground Cherry

There are others, I'm sure, but let's focus on the 'ground cherries'. Of the many species listed, I saw a predominance of those that preferred to be in warmer climes but there are some that grow wild here. So was it a fluke that my Aunt Molly's Ground Cherry seemed unaffected by the mild frost that singed my tomatoes and scared my peppers?


I have yet to find a definitive answer, but as always I will notify you immediately when I do.


Black tomatoes more frost tolerant?

And finally, let us think on this quote from Ferme du Zephyr:

"Black tomato plants tend to be quite cold-hardy, with some degree of frost tolerance".

Really?

Anyone have any experiences?