Pillow Road

Sometimes the beauty of a simple tomato is striking — this one has just the perfect size, shape and color. I’m not kidding — it just feels good in the hand. I hope it tastes as good as it looks.

An Impossibly Perfect Garden Tomato

(I’m not sure the iPhone photo does it justice. Here a link to the original on Flickr.)

I was gathering tomatoes to do my first batch of canning. I made six quarts of tomato sauce, the first of the season. Canning is great for the far greater majority of imperfect tomatoes.

First batch of tomato sauce canned this year

Last weekend, I planted seeds — I’m usually overeager to begin this rite of spring. I go through the catalogs and I see what seeds I have on hand from previous years. I try to remember what seeds worked well last year. But this is couch work. Gardening starts calling you outside.

Each season begins with seed starter and seeds, and the idea that warmer weather is not too far off. First, I planted turnips from seed out in the garden. The soil may be too cool for them to start but I thought I’d try sowing two rows.

I also started five kinds of tomato seeds in the greenhouse, along with several other vegetables that can be planted weeks ahead of the last frost date. (I’ve been away for the week after planting them and I came back today to find that many had sprouted.)

There’s a lot to know about seeds — how long they last in storage, for instance, and the different ways to coax seeds to germinate. I followed one recommendation to start seeds on a moist paper towel, which is wrapped up and placed in a plastic bag.

As I was working with a range of seeds, I noticed just how different various seeds actually are from one another — even from plants that you might think would be more similar. So here’s an exercise — identify the seeds in the photo below. I’m practically giving you the turnip to start and there’s two root vegetables in the mix.

Click through to the annotated version of this photo on Flickr to see if you know your veggies and their seeds.

Just before Labor Day, the tomatoes began ripening. The Italian variety, Costoluto Genova, was one I got from a friend and I had not grown it before. This plant was among the first to have ripe tomatoes this summer. (My Roma and San Marzano tomatoes are not ready yet.) These bright red tomatoes are distinctively ribbed, almost pleated, and very firm. I made salsa from them as well as sauce. I’ve read that this variety is good for tomato juice.