Today, our hearts are broken.

Mocha - full name Mocha Latte XXXVI - was born on May 2, 2004 and entered our lives on July 24, 2004, and left it today, December 11, 2017. She was 13 years, 7 months old.

The slide show above (just click the picture and it will advance) has one or more pics from each year of her life. There are no regrets - she was the best, and we are so fortunate for every second of her nearly 14 years.

I just located Mocha's genealogical info. Her full name was Mocha Latte XXXVI. Her father was Rexwald Forbes' Revenge, and her mother Jezebel Forbes' Desire. The breeder was Tonya and Thomas Forbes. She was born on May 2, 2004 - her AKC registration number was SR17568303. Mocha came to us when we responded to an ad in the Raleigh N&O that I found on the morning of July 24, 2004, which resulted in a trip to visit her first parent, Mona Creech of Holly Springs NC. Mocha accompanied us home and settled in to our family on that date, and our lives were changed forever, for which we will be forever grateful.

Tomato dinners will mean something different to me from now on.

I received a phone call on Monday that will stay with me for the rest of my life. It was the first notification of a tragedy - the death of a talented chef, wonderful husband and father, and friend, Sarig Agasi, chef at former Raleigh restaurants Butterflies and Zely & Ritz. What a loss for so many, far too young, and far too soon.

Sarig Agasi

I was first asked to participate in an heirloom tomato-themed dinner by Ashley Christensen at Enoteca Vin, in 2003 and 2004. They were small, intimate events, and just a hint into how enjoyable it can be to connect diners with the food on their plate. Zely & Ritz opened in late 2004, to be supplied with produce from Coon Rock Farm, created in 2005. It was exciting when I was asked to provide heirloom tomato seedlings to the farm, realizing that tomatoes from my babies would be used in the restaurant.

Zely & Ritz logo

Sarig contacted me about the possibility of providing some stories and answering questions at their first heirloom tomato dinner, in the summer of 2005. How I wish I saved copies of all of that and all subsequent menus, and spent some time blogging about all of the wonderful events...and that I took some pictures (cell phone cameras weren't the thing back then). My plants produced tomatoes that ended up on Zely & Ritz plates through 2009. Single summer tomato dinners turned into 5 or 6 events, each one filling the restaurant, often with repeat customers addicted to the wonderful food, and festive spirit.

Sarig's menu for the dinners settled down over time, and was beautifully and consistently executed. A typical dinner would go like this...starting with the best Gazpacho we ever had (the recipe for which is in my book, Epic Tomatoes, generously shared by Sarig with an OK to publish), a Caprese salad varied with whatever particular tomatoes were available, adorned with mozzarella and a balsamic glaze. Some variation of a superb risotto followed, typically stuffing smaller variety tomatoes such as Jaune Flamme or Tiger Tom. Then came a braised meat with a rich reduction of tomatoes as a "gravy". The dessert was often a time of mystery, occasional humor, and eventual triumph. From using Coyote in a sorbet to creating a version of tomato bread pudding, the answer ended up being a Panna Cotta using Sun Gold cherry tomatoes. Brilliant, and perfect.

Stuffed heirloom tomatoes on Risotto

Sue and I liked best sitting at the big, communal table and meeting a different set of tomato-eating aficionados at each event that we were available to attend. Sarig's wife, Nancy, always provided perfect wine accompaniment for each course and spent some time explaining each one. Sarig loved to come out of the kitchen and tell the guests about what they were about to consume. I was given the floor to take people through some stories about each tomato. I simply loved them, and it was certainly a privilege to have participated in them.

Sarig's special Sun Gold Panna Cotta

Heirloom tomato dinners won't be the same from now on. Actually, my summer gardens will feel differently as well. Sarig would often drop in - perhaps with some figs, or some plants that were extras from a planting at Coon Rock Farm, or a jar of home made salad dressing. Sometimes it would be to get some seedlings, or to walk through the garden - or just to have a chat about food, life, whatever was on his mind. 

I've had my last drop-in from Sarig. They ended far too soon; he left us far too soon. Susan and my hearts, thoughts and prayers for peace and resolution go out to Nancy, and the children, Ziv, Geffen and Maytal. All we  - any of us who were touched in some way - by Sarig and his friendship and talents - can do is to keep him, his humor, spirit, kindness - alive, and spread some of what we learned from him to others.

Let's get caught up...what I learned in my 2017 gardening adventures

Bad me - over a month since a blog entry. As each year passes, I confess to falling victim to the post-growing season, post speaking activities, less daylight/colder weather malaise. I feel more like a mammal eagerly anticipating a long, sleepy hibernation. I've not been totally idle - among the activities bubbling under the surface are preparations for a new webinar launch, filling out my 2018 speaking dance card, and distributing seeds for our next 24 dwarf project releases. Though I've felt sleepy, lots is getting done (but about that messy office....). 

AND perhaps the biggest news - I am launching something new and exciting on Instagram in December - be sure to follow me there @nctomatoman to find out. There is more to come about this in my next newsletter; click here to subscribe!

Nice foliage from our fall trip to the zoo a few weeks ago

My 2017 gardening experience was quite rewarding, if not quite as ambitious as with previous seasons. As always, I learned an awful lot...that is one of the great joys of gardening. Of course, no garden is without frustrations and failures, but those contribute to the learning aspect. And so, as we enter December and get ready to wrap up the year, I want to share with all of you some of the major discoveries from the growing season that is already becoming a distant memory.

• Getting seedlings into the sun as quickly as possible is dependent upon the weather, but can remove the need for any time at all under grow lights. My seedlings went from my sunny office window directly into the sun (easing them in slowly, of course, to avoid shock from cold temps, direct sun and wind).
• Each season brings its own unique insect attacks, and this year, aphids hit early and hit hard. It was possible to wash them off young seedlings with a stream of water. The ladybugs that finally showed up (they were late to the party) took care of the ones on the more mature plants. 
• Plants left in small (3-4 inch containers), if kept watered and lightly fed, can produce a few tomatoes, which is fine for getting a sense of color variation when doing a breeding project but there isn't enough room to plant everything. This approach provides an opportunity for some seed saving.
• Sometimes, planting less will produce more. Last year I really squeezed in my container dwarfs and had a tough time with foliage disease. This year I reduced the density - increased the spacing  - resulting in healthier plants that produced more tomatoes.
• Blossom end rot hit hardest on a few of my indeterminate varieties when the plants were doing it all - growing vigorously, flowering, setting fruit and enlarging fruit. Sufficient water and food is important when the plants are so busy. The issue went away after a few fruit on the first few clusters were hit with it.
• You can't tell the quality of a straw bale by its appearance, and bales from a single source can vary. I purchased 6 straw bales from one supplier on one visit, and three of them appeared to have persistent herbicides. I need to be more vigilant about finding out about my bale source.
• It is sometimes hard to practice what one preaches. I am still just terrible at topping my indeterminate plants, but I did have a good reason. Blossom drop meant that setting fruit began quite high up the plant, so the extra growth (beyond the stake length), though flopping over, gave me the yields I was hoping for. It made for a messy set of plants, however.
• Giving our dwarf varieties lots of room really boosts the yields. Though they do just fine in a 5 gallon container, increase that to 20 gallons and the results are quite spectacular. Dwarfs planted in a traditional garden (with lots of space for roots) should produce very well.
• Previously unseen diseases can suddenly show up and strike hard. I've never experienced issues growing peppers or basil, but my crops were pretty well decimated - peppers with bacterial spot, and basil by downy mildew. My guess is that they blew in, or were spread by chewing insects.
• Foliage fungal diseases on tomatoes such as early blight and septoria certainly impact the appearance of the plants, but if regularly managed, won't kill the plants. Just about all of my tomato plants had lower foliage spotting with one or both, but regular removal of lower foliage and good spacing allowed for nearly all of the plants to grow until early September and provide good yields of high quality tomatoes.

I think that's it for my main eye-openers. Please email me and ask if you want more info on the above - more reflection on my part will likely lead to additional things learned that I will share in time.

Last, but not least - for those looking for a unique gift for their loves ones at this time of year, take a look at my wife's hand-crafted Memory Santas. Ordering info can be found by clicking the hot link in the previous sentence. Please note - they are going fast! Free shipping if ordered before Christmas! I've included a few example pictures below. More pictures can be found on her website. 

The 2017 Season Review - Part 5. Dwarf Tomato Project R&D results

This is the final retrospective on the 2017 garden, and the longest. Continuing development efforts in the Dwarf Tomato breeding project was such fun, and full of delightful surprises. Becoming disciplined and harsh is always challenging (it is amazing how attached we can get to our "offspring"!),. From all that I grew out this year, there are some clear lead selections, and some apparent dead ends. There are also some interesting findings from some local gardeners that hosted some of my plants. All of this is in advance of the many results to come in from participants around the country who will post their results on Tomatoville. The story on the 2017 Dwarf project is far from complete, but certainly is coming into focus

Work toward worthwhile variegated foliage plants

The Acey family (which originated as a cross between Variegated and Dwarf Mr Snow)

Variegated Acey plant

Acey F2 potato leaf plant 1 - Bright yellow golf ball shaped and sized tomatoes with a delicious, intense, bright flavor - similar in fact to Barossa Fest. Well worth pursuing.

Acey F2 potato leaf plant 2 - Similar fruit size and shape and color as plant 1, but with inferior flavor. Not a high priority for further work.

Acey F2 regular leaf - medium sized oblate fruit that are pale red/scarlet outside, and light red with yellow overtones inside, not quite as flavorful as potato leaf plant 1 described above, but very good as well as prolific. Promising.

Acey F3 potato leaf - this was the best of the four, producing oblate medium sized fruit that are bright yellow in and out and with excellent flavor. Very similar in color, size and shape to Dwarf Mr Snow, but with larger seed cavities. This is a lead candidate going forward.

Fruit from the large fruited Acey potato leaf plant

Artsy F2 plant 1 - Artsy is my cross between Variegated and Perth Pride. Artsy plant 1 is a lovely plant, with excellent fruit set. The tomatoes are in the 3 ounce range, smooth slightly oblate, and red in color. The flavor is very, very good - clearly better than the Variegated parent, with some of the nice tang of Perth Pride. This is a promising lead. 

Artsy F2 plant 2 - This is a bit of a mystery. The young seedling had quite fine foliage, clearly smaller than expected - making me wonder if some Silvery Fir Tree is included in this possibly complex cross. The tomatoes ripened red, and were similar in size to the Variegated indeterminate parent, though with far better flavor. Promising lead.

Sandy F2 - Sandy is a cross between Variegated and the striped dwarf Sarandipity. My single Sandy offspring shows less variegation than the Acey or Artsy plants. Fruit set was very good and the plant was healthy. The tomatoes are in the 3 ounce range, slightly oblate, smooth, and red with faint lighter stripes, giving it a mottled appearance. The flavor is very good, certainly better than either parent. Promising lead

Fishy F2 - Fishy is a cross between Variegated and Iditarod Red - my expectations for this line are modest. The plant has only slight variegation, but was healthy and set lots of fruit. The tomatoes were in the 3 ounce range, smooth slightly oblate, and very tasty - no surprise that it is a red tomato, like both parents. I like the flavor more than either parent, and this is a promising lead

Scotty F2 - My aim in the Scotty cross was to start to delve into some of the E. C Green varieties offered by Livingston in the early 1900s - he was the first to use Honor Bright (a very unusual variety with nearly yellow foliage, white flowers, and tomatoes that go from white to red) as a parent, crossing it with some of the dwarfs of that time to eventually create yellow foliaged dwarfs. Scotty is a cross between a weird potato leaf, yellow leaf variety I found years ago in Turkey Chomp and call Surprise, with Dwarf Scarlet Heart. The offspring of this cross should be very complex - potato and regular leaf, green and yellowish foliage.

(For the Scotty F2 results based on expectations, see further down this report.)

Once the tomatoes ripened, it was clear to me that I mixed some Sandy seed into the Scotty sample, as the variegation patterns and fruit color (light stripes) matched my Sandy results...so mystery solved. See Sandy F2, above, for the description of the ripe fruit and status going forward.

Work toward dwarf paste tomatoes

My work on dwarf paste tomatoes - primarily the Speckly family (my cross of Speckled Roman with Dwarf Golden Heart) - is limited this year. Yet, there is good news to report. The numbers below, and further on, are my reference vial numbers that were assigned to seed sent to me by project volunteers. 

Speckly selection 5716 - moderately healthy, very compact dwarf, producing 2-3 ounce paste tomatoes with a nippled end - red in color, and quite flavorful. I'd like to see better production, but it is a good lead. 

Speckly 5994 left, then Reddy, Fishy, Sandy

Speckly selection 5994 - another very compact plant, healthy, tomatoes round to oval and red with faint stripes, very good flavor, and a promising lead.

Speckly selection 5718 - healthy and vigorous, heavy yielding, with large blunt heart shaped red fruit approaching 8 ounces. The tomatoes are meaty, and flavor very good indeed - this is a very promising lead.

Large red heart from Speckly 5718

Speckly selection 5718 grown by a garden friend - this is an even more exciting result. The tomatoes were distinctly heart shaped, and were red with clear vertical golden stripes. The meaty tomatoes were delicious. This is a top lead.

Large striped Speckly from 5718, friend's garden, right (with Firebird Sweet)

Work toward dwarf cherry tomatoes

I made quite a few crosses toward some great dwarf cherry tomatoes. I focused on a few from Burly (Sun Gold X Dwarf Beryl Beauty) and Steamy (Sun Gold X Dwarf Pink Passion) and one each from Reddy (Egg Yolk X Iditarod red), Zooty (Sun Gold X Tennessee Suited) and Teensy (Mexico Midget X Summertime Green); there are lots of volunteers working on these.

Burly selection 5992 - nice healthy 3 foot tall plant, lanky, good fruit set of oval large cherry tomatoes that ripened red, instead of the expected pink. Flavor was sweet, and this is a nice lead for a tasty large pink cherry tomato.

Burly selection 5778 - same growth habit, fruit set, shape and size as 5992 above. The tomatoes were very similar to those obtained from 5992, described just above - one curiousity was that the tomatoes were often seedless!  Certainly a promising lead as well.

Other Burly selections grown by friends - This line wasn't extensively studied, but we have a few good flavored yellow cherries to further investigate.

Steamy selection T16-24 - Lovely plant, stocky, healthy, loaded with fruit - beautiful fruit shape of a smooth teardrop, pink, sweet, nice flavor. Similar result to last year - working name for this is Liz's Teardrop, in memory of Sue's sister. A real curiosity, though - the tomatoes have few to no seeds at all, which may be an issue for propagating enough seed to advance; otherwise, this is a top lead.

Steamy 16-24, Liz's Teardrop

Steamy selection T16-25 - Very similar to T16-24, with a slightly different shape - more of a mini paste - and not quite as heavy yielding - but with perhaps a slightly more intense flavor, and it does have some seeds.  Top lead, not yet named.

Shape comparison - Steamy 16-24 left, 16-25 right

Other Steamy selections grown by friends - Aside from pink, the other color found was red. Productivity and flavor of all selections is excellent. We still hope to see something orange, but alas, not yet!

Reddy selection 5784 - Healthy plant loading up with one ounce oval tomatoes that ripen a bright yellow. Very nice, lively flavor. Color of the father (Egg Yolk), fruit size half way between that and the  mother (Iditarod Red). This is a nice lead, and I like it better than the released Kangaroo Paw Yellow.

Reddy 5784 - nice large yellow cherry tomato

Teensy selection T16-41 - Healthy plant, on the tall side for a dwarf - half way between a dwarf and an indeterminate, probably due to the Mexico Midget parentage. Healthy plant with great fruit set, small cherry tomatoes that ripen chocolate brown, very good flavor, juicy. This is a promising lead and will have lots of competition from other chocolate colored selections being found in this line.

Other Teensy selections grown by friends - Aside from chocolate colored cherries, the other colors found were red, yellow, purple, and both clear skinned and yellow skinned green flesh; a few were more like small oblate beefsteak shapes than round. Lots of diversity, lots of work remains! Many are very promising.

Zooty F2 - now this is a find!  Nice compact dwarf; had lots of disease early (very dense plant), but that was removed and it looks fine. Fruit are small to small/medium oblate, orange with green stripes, and delicious! Since it is one of the few Sun Gold offspring showing some of the distinctive flavor, this is a top lead.

Unique orange cherry with green stripes from Zooty

Work toward good tasting high anthocyanin dwarfs

These are fun, complex lines to work with, and the goal is to create unique looking, high anthocyanin colored dwarfs with good flavor (the main high antho variety, Oregon Blue P20, simply doesn't taste very good). The two main families are Anthy (a high antho pink determinate cherry sent to be by gardening friend Marcia, crossed with our green striped plum shaped dwarf Saucy Mary), and Lampy (Oregon Blue P20 X Tennessee Suited - a cross I made while being filmed for the Growing a Greener World episode; the aim is to create a tomato for Joe Lamp'l meeting his preferences that he can name and we can work on together).

Anthy plant 1 - Three of the Anthy selections were very heavy yielding - plants 1, 2 and 3. This selection produced slender plum to pear shaped tomatoes of about an ounce with no antho coloring. Ripe fruit were red with bold gold stripes, and red flesh. The flavor was balanced and mild, and this would make a wonderful drying or sauce tomato. Promising for the paste candidates, but no antho.

Anthy plant 2 - This and plant 3 were essentially identical, producing loads of elongated tomatoes of an ounce or more, 2-3 inches long by 1 inch wide, ripening to pink with strong antho shoulders. The flavor was mild and balanced. This is a very promising high antho colored lead with none of the off putting flavor that seems to follow the antho tomatoes.

Anthy plant 3 - Plant 3 is essentially the same as plant 2.

Anthy fruit from plants 2 and 3, left, and from plant 1, right

Anthy plant 4 - Clearly more of a determinate dwarf, the very compact plant produced clusters of small, egg shaped large cherry tomatoes that ripened purple with dark antho shoulders, and with a very good flavor. Promising.

fruit on Anthy plant 4

Other Anthy selections grown by friends - This is a very diverse line and friends found some interesting leads, such as yellow plum tomatoes with or without striping - some with very strong antho shoulders. A few will be nice leads; flavor on all of them ranged from good to very good.

Lampy line - I grew out 6 dwarf selections that showed antho shading in the seedlings. One of the 6 ripened fruit that were devoid of the antho coloring, but did have faint stripes, the final color being red with faint gold striping, with excellent yield and good flavor. The other 5 selections showed strongly antho colored shoulders, but no striping, and the ripe fruit color was deep red. One had good fruit size (6 ounce oblate), with flavor approaching excellent. I didn't find what I hoped to find (striped purple fruit with antho shoulders), but we do have a few promising leads....and it will be worth going back to the drawing board and seeing what else can be found.

One of the Lampy selections showing antho shoulders

Work toward pale foliaged dwarfs - either yellow toned, or chartreuse toned

I am growing only one offspring in the Morty line that is showing distinct chartreuse foliage (Morty is Charlotte Mullens Mortgage Lifter X Summer Sunrise). The real oddity is the Scotty line, described above in the Variegated section. See below for the specifics.

Unique chartreuse foliage in Morty

Morty selection T16-184 - Last year this was a lovely potato leaf chartreuse foliaged plant with medium to large red oblate tasty tomatoes. This year the plant looks as expected - a dwarf, but on the tall side - the chartreuse color gene seems to "stretch" the plants, making dwarfs and indeterminates with that leaf color particularly lanky. The fruit were of good size - 8 ounce range - oblate, smooth and pink, with very solid, low seed content interiors and a nice balanced flavor. This is a promising lead.

Large pink fruit in the Morty selection

Back to Scotty - and a curious observation - All of the Scotty seedlings show distinct spotting - different from Septoria - pretty much all the way up the plant, starting on the lowest leaves. They in general don't look very healthy - wondering if the cross revealed some genetic disease susceptibility.

All unripe fruit on the Scotty plants were white.

Scotty plant 1 - Potato leaf dwarf with the yellowish foliage of the Surprise parent. IThe unripe fruit was white, and it slowly ripened through orange, to red. Fruit size topped out at 8 ounces, oblate and shape, with excellent flavor - very promising and unusual.

Scotty plant 2 - The plant type was the same as plant 1 above, but the fruit were mostly heart shaped; more solid (less seeds) inside, not as tasty. Certainly unique, and worth pursuing, as it carried the fruit shape of its mother.

Scotty plant 3 - This plant really struggled, and managed to ripen one fruit before going down to disease...oddly, the tomato it produced was round and pink, after going through the white stage. Certainly promising.

Scotty plant 4 - The ripe fruit color was red, and the yield substandard due to early disease onset. Worth pursuing a bit more.

Other dwarf families with no particular category aside from curiosity - Leafy (Dwarf Jade Beauty X Yellow White), and Betty (Chartreuse Mortgage Lifter X Dwarf Jade Beauty)

Betty selection with tasty green fruit

Leafy F2 regular leaf - Lovely result - medium sized, smooth oblate white tomatoes that were very tasty. Very promising.

Leafy F2 potato leaf - Another really nice tomato - medium to large, smooth oblate clear skinned, green fleshed tomatoes that were just delicious. Very promising.

Betty F2 regular leaf - This was quite an oddity - medium sized, oblate tomatoes - lots of them! - that were clear skinned, green fleshed, but with a strong purplish blush in the center and on the blossom end - very meaty interiors with the seeds around the periphery, and very good flavor. Promising and unusual.

Betty F2 potato leaf - Another Betty oddity - the tomatoes were bright yellow with a strong pink blossom end blush, marbled interiors, and good flavor. Promising and unusual.

Tiggy F3 regular leaf - From a cross between Tiger Tom and Dwarf Mr Snow, my plant grown from seed saved by a volunteer from small striped tomatoes gave me large striped, tasty tomatoes, which are very promising.

Tiggy selection upper left - next to Beauty King and Caitydid (bottom)

So, that's it - a long read for those who have been following our project. There will be lots of opportunity to jump in, as I saved plenty of seeds from all of the selections. At the appropriate time, all you need to do is contact me and ask for seeds of those that you wish to try.

Very attractive, productive Anthy selection showing antho shoulders

...what a pleasure it is to blog from the back deck on a beautiful late August day.

My soundtrack consists of buzzing cicadas, the low whir, then toy-like squeaks, of zooming hummingbirds as they head for the nearby feeder, horn-like toots of the white breasted nuthatch - it is utterly delightful. A family of goldfinch just flew in to spend time at the feeder. The sky is deep blue and dotted with puffy white cumulus clouds. It is dead still - the angle of the sun and quality of the air advertises the coming fall season. What better time to start to describe my garden results of 2017.

Hummingbird interested in Jerusalem artichoke and lantana blossoms

A few days ago I removed just about all of the Dwarf tomatoes growing in 5 gallon grow bags. Aside from 2 of them, they were still alive, but stretched beyond the 4 foot mark, leaning here and there, and any future production would be spotty and too late for optimum quality. It was encouraging to see them still doing so well, as early blight and septoria were a constant enemy throughout the season. 

The vacancies allowed me to rearrange things a bit. I had been ignoring now-crowded and leaning eggplants and peppers. I relocated them all to give them more space, fixed the staking and provided a good dose of fertilizer. The eggplants were slow and steady all season; the peppers were severely impacted by bacterial spot from the very beginning, yet they are all still alive and somehow looking better; I am hoping for more of each. I've now made 6 pints of pepper jelly, which will make our fall, winter and spring lunch time bagels and cream cheese unbeatable.

(pictures of before and after can be found at the end of this blog)

I left the indeterminate tomatoes where they were, but following a really successful summer for most of them, it is only a matter of time before they are sent to horticultural heaven. They worked hard, yielded plenty of absolutely delicious fruits, and, with 20 quarts canned and a few bags roasted sauce in the freezer, all is well. 

My next series of blogs will take each crop - and in the case of tomatoes, each little project - piece by piece so that I can tie up the story of the 2017 garden. What I can say is that, for the most part, the weather cooperated. We didn't have an extended drought, and I was available to handle the few stretches of extreme heat and humidity. Blossom end rot was an issue for a few of the large container indeterminate varieties, but didn't really touch any of the dwarfs. Aside from a very few hornworms and fruitworms and early spring aphids, the plants were essentially pest free. 

Tomato spotted wilt hit a few varieties early on, which seems par for the course. Septoria and Early blight were their typical pesty selves, but removal of blemished foliage and better plant spacing meant that it never became unmanageable. A few of my straw bales seemed to be embedded with persistent herbicides, which led to premature death of both of my Sun Golds, as well as Egg Yolk. Downy Mildew really hit the basil hard, and bacterial spot caused grief for most of my peppers. The deer got me bad just one night.

The fun is in the details, so I will begin digging into specific results in the next blog.

Below is a carousel of pictures from my driveway rearrangement work.