This small story will have to fall into the category of personal interest/artistic distractions. First of all, for those of you who don’t know me, I’m an avid gardener. I grow perennial flowers annual flowers, and vegetables. As a child growing up in the southeast United States, my family always had a tomato garden and I have grand memories of picking big plump tomatoes off of the vine and eating them like apples. Eventually I went to college and then grad school where I first planted my own garden. At the time, I was in Alabama, where the warm humid climate allowed me to create a vegetable jungle. Eventually my wife, Debbie and I moved to the much cooler high desert of Bend, Oregon. Gardening in Bend is an entirely different story! Cold summer nights frustrate many tomato growers in Central Oregon’s High Desert. In the past, I’ve had great success growing cherry tomatoes( I harvested over 3,000 last year) in my little downtown garden but never larger, slower ripening varieties. This past spring, I devised a plan to what I thought was nearly impossible, grow heirloom brandywine tomatoes in Bend, Oregon( without a green house). My re-occurring, swing for the fence mentality took over. I removed my daughter’s long unused fort and a couple of dead trees. In their place, I built four raised cedar garden beds filled with radishes, carrots,zucchini, squash, cucumbers, peppers, borage,marigolds,nasturtiums and most importantly heirloom tomatoes, such as brandywine, stupice, black branydwine, cherokee purple, Paul Robeson, Caspian Pink and sungolds. Below is a photo of my crowning achievement to date, a one day harvest of heirloom tomatoes!
Heirloom Tomatoes
While my harvest is far from complete, it has already been worthwhile, just because of the plate full of beautiful heirloom tomatoes you see above. Debbie, our daughter, Emma and I carefully sliced, and ate each of the beautiful heirlooms you see, all in the same sitting! They were as delicious as they are beautiful. While, the heirlooms had to be eaten, I thought the photo was worth sharing , even if it isn’t exactly landscape photography. Included in this image are Stupice tomatoes,Black Brandywines, pink brandywines, and sungolds.
Part of my passion for both landscape photography and gardening lies in the concept that the harvest has a sense of terroir. The landscape print or the heirloom tomato are a product of the soil, moisture, daylight and location which spawned them. With a beautiful landscape print, one is visualizing a sense of place and with an heirloom tomato, one is tasting that same place. I love our little home, our little family, and our little town. Below is a photo of my personal terroir with my wife, Debbie Putnam( who is 5’8″) next to our new raised garden beds and who appears to be in danger of being eaten by zucchini! and heirloom tomatoes!
Raised Garden Beds
Thanks for indulging my aberration from landscape photography and I hope you like my image of heirloom tomatoes 1/2 as much as I enjoy growing them!
Mike
Hello Mike. My wife and I are originally from Columbus Ohio right next door to Reynoldsburg the birthplace of the tomato. We have lived in Bend for 3 years.
We too miss tomatoes and plan to try and grow heirlooms as you have in raided beds. Your story came up on a search but you did not go into any detail on your strategy for getting heirlooms to grow. Can you share any quick secrets??
I have not built the frames yet or installed any irrigation. Any suggestions would be great..
Thank you!!
Tim
Tim@GTSA.net
Hi Mike! I also would love to know how you wer able to grow tomatoes so well!
Mike just moved to Prineville and am an avid gardener and cook. Moved from happy valley oregon. I only grow heirloom tomatoes. After I saw your pictures and got really excited. What are your secrets.
Richard, Welcome to Central Oregon! While tomatoes won’t be as easy as they were in Happy Valley, you will have success. Focus on the details. A Few tips I’ve picked up…1. Early morning sunshine is important, as it shortens our cold high desert nights. 2. warming walls…Masonry or concrete in the vicinity are helpful3. raised beds warm the soil a bit. 4. Pick your varieties wisely. I really like Stupice, Paul Robeson,Cherokee Purple, Sungold, and sweet 100’s for heirloom flavor and cold tolerant production. Also, buy or grow the largest plants possible so they are as mature as possible at the time of planting. Your season will be short, so your plants will need to hit the dirt and produce as soon as possible. Let me know how it goes! Happy Gardening,
Mike
First attempt to grow tomatoes, here in Bend. We are seeing the first Berkeley Tie Dye tomatoes ripen and ready to eat. Yield is limited to about 10 tomatoes total. Our Black Cherry tomatoes have a much better yield with as many as ten tomatoes on a branch. Even though the Black Cherry tomatoes were started at the same time as the Berkeley Tie Dye. they are a couple of weeks away from ripening.
Both plants were started from seed in our laundry room using a grow light and then transplanted to containers on our deck (to protect them from the local deer population). They have endured night time temperatures to just below 50 degrees and daytime temperatures up to 99 degrees.
Given that this our first attempt to grow tomatoes in containers and our first attempt to grow tomatoes in Bend, we are pretty happy with the results so far.
Charlie,
You should be happy with your results. It is especially cool that you grew your tomatoes from seed! You might try the variety,”stupice” next year. good taste, very early production and larger than black cherries. How much potential space do you have for gardening?
Best,
Mike