Determinate vs. Inderterminate: Guest post on Chicago Now

Local garden blogger, photographer, and connector of people, Mr. BrownThumb asked me to do a guest post on his Chicago Now Blog describing determinate vs indeterminate tomato plants. My post is here.

Take a look around Mr. BrownThumb's site. He has unearthed some of the more interesting gardeners in Chicagoland and is a great source for information. For example, he followed my post with great info of staking tomato plants. He also has a flickr pool set up for Chicago Garden pics.

Uncommon Tomato Sale

(L to R) Greg Powell, Candid Wines, Martha and Charlie Barra, Barra of Mendocino

Close to 150 more heirloom tomato plants found their ways into the hands of Chicago area gardeners, chefs, and community garden organizers at our Uncommon Plant sale on Friday, June 5th. Special guest Farmers Charlie and Martha Barra joined us to offer insights and experience, and $400 was raised for Slow Food.

We had a few plants that remained unsold at the end of the night, and they were donated to a community garden group on the North side, to the gardeners at Uncommon Ground's rooftop garden on Devon, and finally to a few local friends who were willing to trade smoked brisket and good wine for a plant or two.


Now that the plants are sold, the real work begins. As your tomatoes grow, please send questions, comments and pics. We'd love to share the experience of growing tomatoes across Chicagoland, and we look forward to tasting the fruit of your labor at TomatoFest at The Honey Coop in September.


All of the pictures in this post come from Mr BrownThumb. Before our first sale this year, I had never met Mr. BrownThumb, but his blogs, his advice, and his photos have rapidly become an important part of Tomato Fest. Check out his good work at the link posted above.

Stay tuned! The best is truly yet to come. We are planning for our Heirloom BLT fest in August at Chicago's best restaurants, as well as TomatoFest itself.

Cheers

Lou: One of Chicago's Heirloom Tomato Groupies

From Conservatory Tomato Plant Sale 2009

At 3:40 on May 27th, an entirely new class of food lover came to my attention: The Heirloom Tomato Groupie. This is a picture of Lou, waiting patiently for us to set up the 150 + plants that we brought to the Garfield Park Conservatory. Never in a million years did I suspect that we would have people waiting to buy the plants. What were we selling. Pearl Jam tickets?

With specific directions from his wife encouraging him to "buy as many varieties as possible" Lou was our first customer. He snagged about 12 plants, including Black Brandywine, Tess's Land Race Currant, Mortgage Lifter, and Paul Robeson. I hope they have room. Thanks Lou, and best of luck this season.

Within minutes after we opened, we were swamped. Here is the scene at 4:15:

From Conservatory Tomato Plant Sale 2009

What this does not show is that included in the customers where young women with kids in tow, older couples, younger couples, kids, serious gardeners, serious Garden Bloggers (that's you, Mr. BrownThumb) and people who were just walking by at the right time. Great stuff. All told, we sold nearly $500 worth of plants that was split 50/50 between the Garfield Park Conservatory and Slow Food Chicago.

If you are among the people who were shut out, I apologize. We will have more plants for on June 5th at Uncommon Ground on Devon and June 6th at the Green City Market. For more, please follow this link.

Finally, a big thanks to our co-conspirators, Michael Thompson of The Chicago Honey Coop, and Leslie Swibes and Kassia Perpich of Slow Food Chicago. Robin Cline of the GPC is not pictured, but she made the space available. To see all my pictures from the event, visit the album here.

From Conservatory Tomato Plant Sale 2009