Exploding Cabbage and Horned Tomatoes

I've been out and about in the garden between rain storms, quickly harvesting tomatoes, cucumbers and anything else worth gathering that is at the end of its cycle. With all of the dry weather, then the sudden and intense rain I expected some of the tomatoes to explode, but cabbage?

Roland came in this morning to inform me that one of the Filderkraut cabbages has a huge split in it. I went out to have a look and sure enough, the cabbage had cracked around the middle. It is one of the larger heads and needed harvesting anyway, but I was waiting to see how big it would get. I guess it suffered from too much water all at once. The last shower was that one thin mint that did it in (for those of you who aren't familiar with that phrase, it comes out of the last scene of the Monty Python movie, Meaning of Life, where a restaurant patron eats until he explodes from one thin mint).

On top of exploding crops, the other weirdness has been the occasional horned tomato. I'm not 100% sure as to what has caused it, but every once in a while I find a tomato with a single horn protruding out, usually near the top by the stem. I've done a little research and the closest thing I could come up with is a problem called Catfacing. This problem is from cultural conditions where the fruits are misshapen with bulges, crevices, scars or holes at the blossom ends. Catfacing is caused by anything that damages the fruit as it begins to develop within the flower. This includes heat, dry soil, excessive nitrogen, and especially, cold temperatures. We've certainly have suffered from a combination of heat, dry soil and cold temperatures. I've been careful with the nitrogen levels this year, where too much nitrogen also tends to inhibit fruit production.

Several of the heirloom varieties suffered from blossom end rot. Heirloom varieties tend to be more succeptable to that problem than many of the newer hybridized types. I gave them a shot of Epsom salts this summer, hoping to avoid that issue, but with all of the extreme dry weather, it's been difficult to keep up with a consistent watering schedule which is also a contributing factor. Unfortunately, getting irrigation to the beds in the parking strip requires dragging a long hose over, which is a bit of a bother. I did like my set up with the plastic bottles as reservoirs which avoided overhead watering that could cause a host of fungal conditions on tomatoes. Each plant got at least 2 liters of water each watering.

Tomatoes can be so picky! I need a greenhouse. Really.

Spring Cleaning

transplanted leeks

Now that the worst of winter has past - one can only hope - it's time to take advantage of the sunshine and get out there to start cleaning out those beds! It's best to do it now for several reasons. First, you won't feel so overwhelmed when all of the chores hit you at once when official planting season begins. Second, you can assess what you have left to harvest and harvest it while jogging your memory of what worked and didn't work. Third, the ground is wet which makes it easier to pull out weeds. Finally, you can take inventory of your seed stash and see what you have and order the cool stuff before it's out of stock. This is the perfect time to get reacquainted with your garden.

Filderkraut cabbage - in at 8.8 lbs

I've spent the last two days bending over and yanking out tons of grass, shot-weed and old vegies out of the blueberry mound in the parking strip and in the raised beds. I harvested another giant Filderkraut cabbage. This baby weighs in at 8.8 pounds of spicy, cabbagey goodness. I'll make a soup then probably try my hands at sauerkraut, which is what this variety is traditionally used for.

Today, I planted French shallots and potato onions. I know, I know, I'm a little late as they should have gone in last fall, so I'll have to see how they do. Since I let some of my leeks go to seed, I now have leeklets coming up. I transplanted those in the same bed with the purple sprouting broccoli. Yep, that's what I said. My purple sprouting broccoli is back! It's shooting up new foliage from the same root systems and old stalks from 2 seasons ago, acting like a perennial. It has survived 6 inches of snow, ice, and below freezing temperatures this year. That stuff is tough! I got a lot of bang for the buck with that one.
 

Purple Sprouting Broccoli is back!

For soil replenishment I'll need to get some compost, corn gluten and mulch. The onions like a layer of mulch and I also want to tamp down the weeds. Corn gluten helps keep the weeds from germinating and adds nitrogen. It's also screaming yellow-orange, so best to mix it into the top layer of soil. I would like to get a load of arborist chips to put down on the parking strip where the blueberries are, but minimum deliveries for the free stuff off of Craig's List is from 6 all the way up to 15 yards! Although I would also use it around the raised bed's pathways, that's a lot of yardage. I would have Mt. Wood Chip in the driveway for awhile. I suppose I could let the neighbors have at it as a sort of mulchapalooza. Hmmmm. This might be the trick to getting Roland to get rid of those dead vehicles in the driveway. He works better with a deadline. I think I'll get on Craig's List and see about getting a load delivered next week.

Fiddling with Filderkraut

This year I was so intently focused on the fact that our tomatoes actually turned red, I rather neglected other crops in the garden. Almost daily, I zipped by the bed of brassicas as three cabbage plants got bigger and bigger. I had planted a variety of cabbage called Filderkraut last spring. The Territorial Seed package description states:

This arrow-shaped variety was bred for the cold regions of Europe so that self-reliant gardeners could make batches of sauerkraut for winter consumption.

I liked the idea of an "arrow-shaped" cabbage; the ones in the stores are mostly round with the exception of Napa cabbage. We are also rather self-reliant, I guess, even in an urban environment. We're probably more self-defiant than anything. We both have 'Kraut' genes, too. The problem is, neither of us eats that much sauerkraut, even though Roland is Swiss. In fact, he doesn't eat cheese, mustard, vinegar, mayo, or salad dressings either - but that's another post. In spite of these noble brassica's original purpose, I was thinking more along the line of making soups and stews.

By the time my focus shifted (when the weather turned colder - like it ever got hotter much this year), one of the heads was so heavy, it flopped over in the bed. To harvest the thing, it took some large loppers to cut through the 3" caliper stem. The leaves pretty much shaded out everything within a 5 mile radius and worst of all, this behemoth of a brassica became a snail and slug nursery! I spent the better part of harvesting this thing stripping off the layers of outer cabbagey leaves and disposing of the mollusks that hid deep down in the crevices near the base. After all, Roland doesn't eat escargot either. After that, I managed to wash off any goo residue and stored it in the refrigerator. Mr. Roland stood for a portrait of him and the cabbage for scale.

Growing monster vegetables serendipitously gives you a good excuse to have to clean out the refrigerator. Luckily, the fridge has heavy duty shelves as the thing must have weighed close to 10 pounds. Cabbages can be as dense as bowling balls.

The cabbage leaves have a rather peppery flavor. Even at this large size, it cooks up tender and goes great in soups and with pot roast. It's comfort food time, so I don't think I'll have much problem using it up, although it's taken us several weeks to eat down just this one cabbage. There are several more just like it still waiting their turn; however, they haven't flopped over yet, so I figure there's time. I wonder if they'll sweeten up like Brussels sprouts do after a frost. Oh, did I mention? Roland won't eat those either.

I may have to try my luck at making sauerkraut. After all, I seem to have good luck growing brassica crops. I remember Roland telling me that his dad scraped the mold off his batch every couple of days while it was doing it sauerkrautie thing. Luckily, Roland will eat it. Go figure.