Hi, my name is Leo and I farm a small 30' by 40' organic garden in the mid-Hudson Valley of New York State for fun and fresh vegetables. One of my great joys of the growing season is to walk around my garden before work, morning cup of coffee in hand, to see what came up out of the earth or blossomed overnight. The miracle of plants growing never ceases to amaze and gratify me. By the end of the summer, I've worn a path around the garden fence.
Keeping a garden is a family heirloom for me. Both sets of grandparents and my parents tended gardens before me and, though I showed little interest in doing so until recently, I adopted this family avocation after years of suffering the tasteless tomatoes and other sad products of industrial farming available at the market. Now, we grow and eat all kinds of vegetables fresh from the garden to our table. We couldn't be happier (or sadder when the harvest is done).
My girlfriend Linda is a great cook and she always finds ways to incorporate the harvest from our garden into the dishes she makes. I'm hoping she'll use this space to share her culinary successes with the rest of us!
11 comments:
Great photo and first blog post! I am excited to see what you plan to put in the garden this coming year and what goes into the cooking pot!
Testing
Healthy food and delicious recipes...what more could I want in a blog. Add me to the list of "followers"
Great Start. Can't wait for the recipes and to see how this year's garden grows.
Hey Leo, No worries, I'll never make fun of your blog since it took me two tries just to leave a comment! Happy New Year old friend!
Eileen
I'm a little confused, but I guess thats the nature of your game. Whats wrong with chemicals? I heard from a reliable source (Dow Chemical Company) that without chemicals, life itself would be impossible.
This is great!! So, can you explain to me why my tomatoes were tastless last growing season. I actually threw them out! Happy New Year!!
Hey Joann,
That's odd. What was different in your garden last year? What varieties of tomato did you plant? I always think that the flavor of the vegetable that comes out of the garden is a function of the variety planted, the quality of the soil it's planted in, and the availability of water and sunshine during the growing season. Last summer, folks in this part of NY had a fair, but manageable amount of rain. I know that north of here, some folks had way too much. We had very tasty tomatoes and other veggies that we harvested. Some vegetables did better than others (it was a banner year for zucchini and summer squash)and others did well but not as good as some other years (for example, cucumbers). My biggest problem with tomatoes the last few years has been battling tomato leaf spot which is a nasty bacteria that browns and shrivels up tomato plant leaves and eventually kills the plant and limits the tomato harvest. Short of using fungicides (so far, a no-no in my garden), I don't know of a good way to avoid it other than by keeping the garden clean of plant debris and rotating crops every year.
Leo's zucchini were banner...but a mere 10 miles away we yielded 1.
But alas, we followed his 12 step garlic program and hope that will help us :)
Leo,
I planted the tomatoes late and I think it may have been all the rain we had. We had the same tastless problem with the butternut squash. What variety of tomatoe do you recommend? I think I had some kind of Burpee....I got the plants at Lowe's and like I said, late. The plants themselves were HUGE with a ton of fruit. Thanks for the info on garlic, I think I will try that next season. Say hi to Linda.
Hey Joann, The best tasting tomatoes I grew last year were Sun Gold cherry tomatoes (very sweet and prolific) and Evergreen heirloom tomatoes, a green tomato that was just meaty, juicy, and wonderful when served with fresh mozzarella, fresh basil, and drizzled with olive oil, large crystal sea salt, and pepper. Yum!
Other varieties that are very good are Jubilee, Brandywine (red, yellow, black), Green Zebras, Taxis, Black Cherry tomatoes. I order seeds from organic companies like Fedco and Johnny's Selected Seeds. I think I like Fedco best.
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