I just ordered my tomato seed from Totally Tomatoes.

00085A Biltmore Hybrid Tomato 1 @ $3.75
00175A Celebrity Hybrid Tomato 1 @ $2.75
00592A Prudens Purple Tomato 1 @ $2.35
00625A Rutgers Ps Tomato 1 @ $2.45
00630A San Marzano Tomato 1 @ $2.35
00678A Stupice Tomato 1 @ $2.45
00696A Sungold Hybrid Tomato 1 @ $2.75
00868A Tamayo R Hybrid Tomatillo 1 @ $3.25

These are all indeterminates. Celebrity, Sungold and Biltmore are hybrids but with great flavor. Celebrity has the nice look and color that consumers like. Sungold is a yellow cherry tomato that is so sweet it is like eating candy.  I was watching a PBS show about Farmers Market and in some city Biltmore beat out all the heritage tomatoes in a blind taste test so I am going to try it this year.

Rutgers is a smaller heritage one with good flavor that is good for canning as well. If I could only grow one tomato it would be Rutgers.  Prudens Purple is just like Brandywine except a slightly smaller fruit that is more resistant to cracking and comes in earlier. Same top of the line taste. Stupice is the quick maturing  tomato I start early and put out under cloches.

Tomatilloes are of course tomatilloes and you can’t have authentic salsa without them.

I also get Bellstar tomato, a determinate paste tomato, from Johnny’s as Totally Tomatoes doesn’t have it. It is a hybrid but excellent flavor and it comes in before my other paste tomato — San Marzano. Both of which are superior to Roma.

So my 2013 garden is under way. Next I have to order from Johnny’s and Berlin Seeds. Berlin doesn’t have a website because they are Amish but cheap and best.

Then for New Vrindaban I am working up an order from Adams County Nursery and Daisy Farms.  Also I will be getting some currants from Nourse as the other two don’t have them and one of the beds they prepared for this springs planting gets some afternoon shade which is a plus for currants but not for other berries. From Forest Keeler I will be ordering 50 Carpathian Walnuts.

The 2012 garden is still hanging in there. The same day I made my tomato seed order I was eating  frozen tomatoes from last year. We are also eating frozen green beans, edamame and strawberries.

From the root cellar we still have carrots, beets, parsnips and potatoes.  Plus jams.

From the unheated part of our house where it stays 50  degrees (10 C) we have sweet potatoes and Butternut squash. 50 degrees and dry is perfect for storing them.

I also was picking turnip greens out of the garden in the middle of January. They had been under floating row cover. December was mild and then we got a blanket of snow when the weather turned bitter cold in January.The snow insulated the turnips.

When the snow melted in this current warm spell I was able to pick the greens. The older outer leaves were bad but in the center the more juvenile ones were still good.

turnip greens

So 2012 and 2013 gardens are overlapping.

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