Heirloom and Open Pollinated Tomatoes

More pictures of some really great looking and great tasting Tomatoes!!!

This sweet little gem is called Bi-color cherry

A real good tomato with full tomato flavor this is it. This one is called Black Moor or Black Mauri One of my favorites it is a good firm tomato travels well and keeps good. A great tomato for the farmers market.

So far this year this is my pick as extra yummy. This tomato has great flavor and it holds well another great tomato for the farmers market. Evan's Purple Pear

 Red Boar and Black and Brown Boar great tomatoes great production.

 My Earliest tomato of the year. These tomatoes average about 10 to 12 oz and I have a few that went a pound and a half. This one is called   Pink Honey Tomato and it produces heavy a great heart tomato.

Red Boar a very attractive tomato and a great producer.

I was surprise how much I liked this one. This Tomato is called Dr. Carolyn A variety named after Dr Carolyn Male who wrote the book 100 Heirloom tomatoes for the American garden. 

Later Dusty...

Pink Berkeley Tie Dye

 Just thought I would post some pictures of this tomato. A very productive and attractive looking tomato. This seed I purchased from Wild Boar Farms. Brad Gates at Wild Boar Farms has some great looking tomato breeds.

 This one is Pink Berkeley Tie Dye but it is not all that Pink it is more of a port wine color.

  Very good eating I would put it up there as very tasty.

  This is one of those tomatoes I will grow again.

Wild Boar Farms for some really unique tomatoes you might want to check them out....Well I gotta eat and run...lol
   later Dusty...

How to Save Tomato Seeds

 There is just something about being self sufficient. Growing a tomato from a seed to a plant watching it grow and then picking a nice tomato!!!! and saving the seed and doing it all over again...How cool is that....

 I like to start by slicing my tomatoes, this way I can make sure my tomatoes are good and ripe. You need to use a ripe tomato for this. Next I squeeze out the seeds and discard the skin or do as good as you can, these small tomatoes they can make it hard to discard all there skins. If you miss some it won't hurt anything.

Seed jelly.....

 Once I have the guts of the tomatoes selected I put them in a jar if there is not enough juice in the mix I will add a little water and a pinch of sugar. I need enough moister in it to last for five to seven days.
  Make sure and mark the jar with the correct name of the tomato!!! I try to learn from my mistakes. LOL

 I use a rubber band to secure a coffee filter over the top of the jar.

 The coffee filter allows the mixture to breath and bacteria to grow this is what devolves the jell like membrane that surrounds the seed, the major benefit of using the coffee filter is it keeps unwanted bugs out. Your germination rate goes way up when fermenting your seeds in methods like this. 

 I next set the container with the seed mixture outside for five to seven days. I don't suggest letting them ferment any longer than this it tends to lower the germination rate. Also setting them outside is recommended because it can get a bit smelly. 

After the five to seven day period a mold growth will appear on the top of your seed mix. This is a good thing it is telling us the bacteria has done its job dissolving that jell like membrane. This will make it easier for the seed to sprout this spring. Your almost done all you have to do now is clean up the seed mix. I first try to fish out the mold growth (this is a yucky job) and discard it. Next I wash and strain the seed until it is clean. I use a fine wire strainer to help me clean and strain. Clean them several times. 

 Last thing to do is see if you have any seeds that float, if so discard any seed or seeds that float.  Next just lay out a paper plate set your seed on it set it in a warm dry place for at least two weeks to dry. I stir mine up every few days. Then pack it up for next years tomato seeds you can use envelopes or little bags to store them in.

Storage it is important so keep them in them cool and dry and out of light. 

  During the winter I will test a few of each variety so I can do germination tests to make sure I have a good viable seed. 

This is so easy to do give it a try.

Later Dusty...

Tomatoes are coming along....

Indigo Rose

 Black and Brown Boar

 Cherokee Green

 Spot Yellow

 Coyote

Green Zebra

 Tomatoes are coming along. Some very unusual tomato variety's for me at least. The small Coyote tomato is very small but does have that full tomato flavor very strange for a small tomato I am enjoying them. Until next time see ya later Dusty...

Tons of peppers and the garden looks great.

   Things are really growing at the Shumway garden my brother does a fantastic job. The Tomatoes are running a couple of weeks behind but they are really coming on. The Peppers on the other hand are a month ahead of schedule and are going absolutely bonkers. lol We have a ton of Bannana Peppers, and Jalapeno's, the bell peppers are huge and the fish peppers are coming on to, in about two weeks they all should be putting out and we will be overwhelmed with peppers. lol good...

 Soon it will be time to do a segment on bottling pepper relish. This is one of our family's favorite things we use it on so many things from roast beef to hotdogs and hamburgers.

 Peppers grow great in containers like this 55 gallon container cut in half.

 Here is another pepper bed. In this bed there are mostly jalapenos and fish peppers

  As you can tell we grow more jalapeno's than anything else it is our favorite pepper. We like to eat them fresh bottled dehydrated and smoked. yum....

  A favorite of my friends is this apple tree growing around the chicken coupe.

  The apple trees are loaded and with over a hundred apple trees were going to be very busy I am thinking...lol I hope everyone likes apple sauce, apple jelly, apple leather, dehydrated apple chips....

Soil Mix for Container Gardeners

   A very easy mix I use for my Tomato plants as well as Pepper plant. First of all this is a standard mix it is nothing I came up with it is just a good basic mix for most veggie's.

 I use 2 five gallon buckets of a good compost then 1 five gallon bucket of peat moss, next 1 five gallon bucket of Azomite or some other kind of rock dust like cinder sand or granite fines, last a five gallon bucket of Vermiculite or Perlite that is it. Mix well add water and just about any kind of veggie. Your good to Grow...lol

  The thing that makes this mix work great for me is the Azomite or rock dust it will give the soil a great texture and the soil microbes will go nuts with all the minerals the rock dust brings to the party and that is huge for taste and flavor for tomatoes as well as for peppers.
  This year I am growing about 25 tomato plants in 20 gallon containers.  The smallest I suggest growing a tomato in is a five gallon container. I am growing a few tomatoes in the five gallon containers. I don't suggest growing larger tomatoes in the five gallon containers but I have seen people do it successfully using lots of love and care.
  The tomato plants I used for my small containers are Dwarf tomato plants designed to grow in small containers. Tomatoes are heavy feeders and in containers you will need to feed them often at least every two weeks, that is because the soil will leach out the nutrition that is in the soil very quickly so keep feeding those maters. Now good luck to everyone I hope you have great weather and huge maters...later dayz Dusty
  I would also suggest reading a old blog of mine on rock dust  http://dustyrivergardens.blogspot.com/2011/11/growing-your-soil.html

Jalapeno peppers are looking good

  All the peppers are looking very nice the peppers here are being grown in Shumway Az. We should have lots and lots of all kinds of peppers. The peppers pictured here are a Purple Jalapeno and they are looking very healthy. 

We have several variety's of peppers growing including this the Purple Jalapeno,  Jalapeno M, the Habanero  Jamaican Hot Chocolate , Fish pepper, a really good Hatch type of Green chile and a few sweet peppers.