Tomatoes are complicated. The confusion sets in with the question, “are they fruit or vegetable?” They are legally defined as fruit in the agriculture industry but that doesn’t jive with the multitude of ways I use them. Then there is greenhouse verses field production, gas green verses vine ripened, north verses south, local verses long haul, and on and on…. For me, the only thing that’s simple about tomatoes is when they’re at their best – in my part of the world that’s August; and the shining jewels in my August tomato crown are heirlooms.

My own attempts at growing full-sized tomatoes of any kind are pretty pathetic. I can get great plant growth and I always have fun building elaboate plant supports out of bamboo, but getting good fruit (vegetables?) from my labor is a challenge. Field tomatoes, particularly large heirloom varieties like Brandywine and Marvel Stripe, need long periods of hot weather to grow and mature and it just doesn’t get hot enough where I live in California. The fruit that come off my vines tend to be small with poor texture. Tomatoes can also react badly to big swings between daytime and nightime temperatures; hot days and warm nights are ideal. But tomatoes have a remarkably resiliant and diverse variety base so I am certain that someday I will find a tomato variety sutiable to my climate.

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My daughter Delilah has a thing for peaches. About this time last year I introduced her to fresh tree-ripened peaches and she fell in love. Since then any yellow fruit she likes is “peaches” to her. Mango: “more peaches, please.” Cantaloupe: “more peaches, please.” Now that we have circled back around to peach season I’m happy I don’t have to correct her anymore (at least for a while).

The 2011 peach and nectarine season has been challenging for one reason or another in many parts of the US. Peach production is like the porridge in Goldilocks and the Three Bears — conditions that are too hot or too cold during the growing or harvest season can seriously impact the availability and eating quality of the fruit. This year, cool conditions on the west coast have caused the fruit to mature slowly. In the south and southeast, extreme heat has shortened the season for some varieties. Now, in mid-July as production moves further north and mid- to late-season varieties start coming off of the trees, the supply and quality of the fruit is expected to be “just right.”

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By July, there’s no denying the change in seasons in produce. Last Saturday at my local farmers’ market, our resident asparagus farmer had “last weekend” written in bold letters above her display. In my garden and in the fields throughout Castroville, splashes of day-glow purple signal the flowering end of the spring artichoke season. But as the titans of spring wind down to their annual period of warm weather reseeding, another group of vegetables makes their long anticipated summer harvest debut. Among these is the manifestation of summer: sweet corn.

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It might be hard to tell since they are around all year, but tomatoes actually have a season when they are at their best. Since they are warm weather plants, you may think that summer in general is the time when they are the most abundant and flavorful. The fact is, though, that field tomatoes need prolonged periods of warm weather to grow and mature so it is generally later in the summer when we see — and taste — the best.

Of course my gardening friends in the southern states are way ahead of the farms in New England and my home here in the west. In fact, many of the commercial winter farms of South Florida have finished and production has already started to move further north. My farmer friends here in California report good plant growth but unseasonably cool daytime temperatures. So, while full-sized slicers and heirloom tomatoes are still several weeks away in large volumes, their smaller cousins, cherry tomatoes, are coming off the vine now. Read the rest of this entry »

June brings a transition to my garden as well as to the business of buying and selling produce. At home the spring potatoes have been dug, the peas are almost finished, and the remaining artichokes on my plants are fated to be in flower vases rather than on dinner plates. Sunflower starts await the end of the shelling pea season and in the space recently occupied by potatoes go my and Aidan’s pumpkin choices for Halloween along with that great equalizer of summer: squash.

No other crop proves small local producers can still compete with giant, far reaching agribusinesses better than summer squash. The plant is hardy and prolific — producing multiple crops in a single season, and it flourishes in wide ranges of climate conditions and temperature zones. Any time a large scale shipper comes to us saying they can grown plenty of squash in the summer, we back away slowly shaking our heads — summer squash (particularly zucchini) is already spoken for by medium-sized regional and small local producers all over the U.S.

It’s this small, diverse family of farmers that drive the transition from long haul, single source product replenishment to the overlapping mosaic of smaller regional/local providers we simultaneously dread and look forward to every summer. The dread comes from the fact that every year brings with it a different start date for the local transition that we have to try and match that date up with the end of the long distance, larger consolidated product needs of the spring. This start/ stop supply dance is further complicated by weather and this spring has provided plenty all over — from flooded farmland in the midwest, tornadoes in the south, late cold snaps in New England, and unusually cold, wet conditions out west, the shift from long haul to local is even more of a moving target.

But once the transition takes place we are off to the local races. Summer squash, like the earlier pea crops of spring, provides a consistent commodity anchor that enables growers to put in and deliver lower volume but often more dynamic varieties of fruits and vegetables — thereby perpetuating plant diversity. Often even the same variety will have different culinary characteristics depending on where in the U.S. it is grown. It’s this diversity I look forward to in squash and other classes of vegetables – new hybrid or heirloom, it seems almost every year we discover (or rediscover) a plant type with promise.

I like summer squash in my garden because it makes me feel like I am a better gardener than I really am. Once established, summer squash will make everyone’s thumb look a little greener and it’s the rare summer that fails to produce less squash than any reasonably sized family could possibly hope to consume. I also like it because any squash I fail to harvest will continue to grow to truly mutant proportions and the outer skin will harden just like a pumpkin or winter squash — these I add to my stable of Halloween carving candidates.

Summer squash is also great in a wide variety of dishes — from simple sautés and grilling, to more complex stuffed and baked dishes or breads. It’s rare for me to end the summer without a new way to prepare summer squash – last year was all about scaloppini squash stuffed with tomatoes and parmesan, brushed with olive oil and grilled over indirect heat. Mostly though, out in my garden in a few weeks as I remove the first fuzzy, young specimens — most with the bright yellow blossom still attached — I’ll smile as I think about how this simple action will be repeated all over the country. In gardens and farms big and small, it’s harvest time (or will be soon) for the great equalizer of summer.

I planted a new tree in my backyard last summer. It was actually a rescue – one of my neighbors put an apricot tree in a pot, it had grown too big and they had nowhere to plant it in their yard. I placed it in a sunny spot in between a magnolia and a strange small tree I cannot identify that has beautiful white blooms in the spring. The apricot variety is Royal Blenheim – my favorite so it didn’t take much convincing to get me to adopt it. The weather around my home is not ideal for apricots and there is no other tree in the immediate area that I am aware of for pollination, so I have pretty low fruit productivity expectations.  But mature apricot trees are beautiful – dark, textured trunk and branches, elegant red stemmed leaves, and a beautiful leaf drop and bloom stage. Even if I don’t always get a crop I won’t be disappointed. I’m sure the little apricot will be a happy addition to my family of trees.

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I can remember a time when you couldn’t find a single strawberry from the start of November until the end of February. If it was a cold wet winter, the gap in strawberry availability would be even wider. Over the years new varieties and growing areas and methods have been introduced that have systematically narrowed the period of time when we don’t have this wonderful fruit. Growing methods have gotten so sophisticated that it is very unusual to be completely without strawberries for more than a few days a year. I think it is because of this that it seems we often miss the peak of the strawberry season.

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It’s silly, but I feel an almost childlike joy at the sight of the first sweet pea bloom of the spring. I’m not alone either – my whole family has a place in their own personal cycle of seasons for this small, delicate, softly fragrant flower. The bed next to the kitchen is the center of the sweet pea universe in our yard. Every year, the blossoms we don’t cut reseed the 3 by 6 foot area for the following year. For my wife, Erin, the bed feeds the bathroom bud vases for the last six weeks of spring. For my kids, unevenly cut bouquets with short and long stems wrapped in a damp paper towel go to a delighted grandma. For me, sweet peas remind me (sadly) that daffodils are finished and tulips almost so, but also (happily) that the peas we eat are almost ready.

Peas are the best garden plant on the planet if you live in a place that has a long cool spring. Even if you don’t and you time the planting right, shelling peas are one of the most rewarding crops to harvest fresh out of a garden. Like corn, English peas are best served right after harvest – the sugars convert to starch the longer you get from the harvest date before eating. Peas are also incredibly prolific producers. A single snow pea plant, for example, can produce several pounds of peas in a season.

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I have a personality quirk that emerges every year at the start of the artichoke season. Right around February I get it in my head that it is time for artichokes to be available and no amount of weather, historical data or calm reasoning can dislodge the notion. Fact is, availability does begin to increase around February as desert production near Coachella in Southern California starts to come on line. But conventional wisdom says the true season is much later in the spring and no matter how I attempt to impose my will, artichokes and Mother Nature will inevitably wear me down.

I think part of the reason I have a thorny relationship with artichokes is because they are only a few generations away from a wild plant. Part of the thistle family, artichokes (and their larger plant cousin, Cardone) seem at times to be just too wild and free to be consigned to a predicable “cultivated” existence alongside neat rows of other, better behaved vegetables. If an artichoke was a person, it would be a romantic and sometimes I wish they were. Mystery, spontaneity and unpredictability are all characteristics I love in family and friends — not so much so with vegetables.

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Spring is an exciting time for fruit in the field. Here in the U.S., trees start to emerge from their winter dormancy – blossom sets starting first in the southern parts of the country and gradually moving northwards. For berries and field crops like melons, the ground that was very recently barren and brown (or white with snow) also begins to show early signs of greening — blooms emerging with the promise of the fruit to come. Everywhere there are signs of spring and a reawakening, along with dangers too, in the form of aggressive storm systems and late frosts that can severely damage or even destroy crops scheduled to harvest months from now.

The first chapter of the 2011 summer fruit season was a sad one. The freezing January temperatures that crossed the border into Mexico all but wiped out some early summer peach blooms on an organic farm we look forward to every year. February and the first part of March was kinder to the U.S. apricot and cherry growers, though. There has been a lot of rain and some high winds in California but we are past the point where the crop is in danger of freezing. On the east coast, the winter chill hours necessary for a good dormancy period were nearly perfect this year and the early spring weather conditions have been excellent. In a few days, the danger of frost will have passed and the Southeast peach and blueberry growers will be off to a great growing season.

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