My Declaration of Agricultural Independence!

Well, the first seeds of the season are in the ground, um, basket.  This is my second season of growing sugar snap peas in a laundry basket.  While the temperatures have been balmy enough--70 degrees in Tennessee in January??????--the ground is sodden, ergo, basket farming!  (If you want to see just how sodden, check out the pictures on my Live a Savory Life blog!)

A previous entry in this blog detailed my adventures in potato basket farming (Mama, Them Tater's Got Eyes!)  Well, the sugar snap peas work similarly, except they need a column of wire in the center.  I just used "hog wire" and hooked it together. 

All of this water has given me time to think about last year's garden.  For tomatoes, I tried Opalka, Goliath (recommended by many in my community), and Roma with very little success.  A cold, wet spring prevented me from setting out the plants until the first of June.  Immediately, the weather turned hot, and night-time temperatures remained in the 80s for most of the summer.  During that time, I learned a valuable lesson:  weeds love night-time temperatures above 80 and those varieties of tomatoes will not set fruit at those temperatures. 

I have come away with a two-pronged plan of attack.  To combat the weeds, I'm mulching with grass clippings (see Thank You Very Mulch). 

As for the issue of varieties, I'm ignoring all those USDA zone recommendations and declaring myself a microclimate!  A microclimate is a "loophole" in the macroclimate--a place that isn't quite like the larger area.

This year I'm trying varieties appropriate for southern Louisiana and Florida to allow for nighttime lows above 80 degrees (which happened last June, July, and August).  I'm trying heirloom varieties Florida Pink and Creole from TomatoFest.  I'm also trying Burpee's old faithful heirloom Mortgage Lifter.

The variety I had the most success with last year was an unnamed currant tomato which lived in a pot on my back porch.  While only 1 cm to 2 cm in diameter, these little gems gave a flavor explosion when bitten into.  I really enjoyed them in salads and casseroles (try them instead of pimento!) last year and am expanding varieties this year:  Hawaiian Currant and Gold Currant.

I'm also playing around with some varieties just for fun:  Italian Tree, Roma VF, and Black Truffle Hybrid.  These will be my early-season tomatoes and may live entirely in pots.

I have other garden plans for the year, but that's a topic for another day.

So, that's the tomato manifesto, um, news from my newly-declared microclimate.  What's happening in yours?