Meridian Co-Op Gardeners-KLEINER PARK

01/07/2025

Another popular hybrid is Better Boy. This tomato has excellent disease resistance and heavy fruit setting that produces lovely round, red 12-16 ounce tomatoes. It won a Guinness Book of World Records championship for high yields (340 lbs off of one plant in one season). It is highly adaptive to most conditions. It’s a great slicer and can be cooked and. canned. Flavors are said to be classic with a lovely balance between sweet and acidic.

01/07/2025

A great to do list for the rest of the month. DO NOT forget to sanitize your seed starting supplies (trays and pots). Options other than bleach include using a 50/50 solution of white vinegar diluted with water. food-grade hydrogen peroxide, or a combination dish soap and hot water. Be sure to thoroughly rinse and dry. I will often run pots that I washed in the spring through a hot dishwasher.

While we wait to start planting in February, here are a few things we can get checked off our garden to-do list in the meantime!

🌱 Order seeds and plants
🌱 Sanitize potting supplies
To sanitize trays or pots use a mild bleach solution and rinse well (10:1 water to household bleach)
🌱 Clean, sharpen and oil garden tools

What’s on your garden to-do list this month? Is anyone planting already?

01/06/2025

Johnny Seeds has an excellent guide to the disease code acronyms you often see on plant seed packets and labels.

Refer to these plant disease resistance codes, used by Johnny's to designate common plant and seed-crop pathogens, including the acronyms and type of causal organism.

01/06/2025

The Celebrity tomato is a well-known hybrid cultivar. Tomatoes are smooth, round, bright red, weight about 8 ounces and are 3-4 inches across. They are resistant to most tomato diseases and pests , resist cracking, and are adaptive to most growing environments (they don’t tolerate cold and shorter growing seasons). They are a meaty tomato with a mild taste.
It’s considered a classic tomato.

01/05/2025

What’s the difference in heirloom, hybrid, open pollinated, organic and gmo seeds?
This article explains things simply.

What are the different types of seeds and what does it mean when the packets says open-pollinated, hybrid, or heirloom? Learn about different seed types.

01/05/2025

Kellogg’s Breakfast tomato is another favorite heirloom beefsteak tomato. It’s a large 1-2 pound tomato with a beautiful orange color. It’s thin skinned yet meaty. Its flavor has been described as sweet/acidic, and tangy. It has won numerous taste contests. We were impressed with its performance last year despite some tomato disease problems we had. This tomato made it through until the end.

Other orange tomatoes that we have enjoyed include Amana Orange and Gold Medal.

01/04/2025

German Pink brandywine tomatoes are another large heirloom beefsteak tomato. (Picture from Baker Creek seeds). These can be huge 1-2 lb tomatoes that do take awhile to ripen on the vine. Flavors are described as acidic, rich, sweet, lightly spicy, and floral. It is an indeterminate tomato with a potato leaf.

There are a number of different brandywine tomatoes including different colors and sizes. The pink is the largest and not a heavy producer like most large tomato varieties.

01/03/2025

The Cherokee purple tomato is probably near the top of our heirloom list. The deep red purple colors are beautiful. It’s a medium to large 8-12 ounce beefsteak type tomato. Words used to describe its flavors by others: rich, deep, complex, balanced, super sweet, and smoky. It’s the closest in taste to what I remember tomatoes tasting like as a child. Do you grow Cherokee Purple tomatoes?

01/02/2025

We are putting together our tomato list (easier said than done). There are more than 10,000 tomato varieties so where do you even begin to find the best ones? We love the flavor, texture and uniqueness of a good heirloom. We love being able to save their seeds. The hybrid varieties are hardy, disease resistant and uniform in shape and color. We love slicers, salad tomatoes and paste tomatoes used for cooking.

You have to consider growing conditions, intended use, desired taste, and whether the plant is determinate or indeterminate. We tend to prioritize flavor as the most important aspect but also storage ability which works better for the food banks.

Do you have favorites?

01/01/2025

First Day Hike and first snow. A handful of our gardeners walked the greenbelt today because our favorite trails were too muddy. It was fun to reconnect, talk to new gardeners who are joining us for the 2025 season, and just enjoy the morning.

01/01/2025

Happy New Year to all gardening friends. 2025 has so many possibilities. This season let’s dream big! Take a moment to reflect on last years garden…what worked? What didn’t? Let’s plan and plant with intention and care, and create gardens that are a reflection of our hopes and dreams, persistence and adaptability. Here’s to a year of new growth, learning and blooming (lots of flowers) in our own lives and gardens.

12/29/2024

The new year is just around the corner. Our planning calendar is coming together. Last frost date is May 11. Seeds are purchased.
Counting backwards we can start figuring out what seeds to start indoors, when to transplant them out and which seeds are best direct seeded into the ground.

There are a number of local planting guides that I find helpful. I post these often because we refer to them often. Some of these I like for different reasons. Find the one that works for you.

https://www.northendnursery.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Spring-Planting-Guide-1.pdf

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5f1efd8b517056766a55754b/t/640f6676fd145910b791a746/1678730870631/TIMELINE.2023.pdf

https://snakeriverseeds.com/blogs/news/spring-planting-guide-1?_pos=1&_sid=5d4556c74&_ss=r

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0615/7500/4416/files/Zamzows_Seed-Starting-Guide_2021.pdf?v=1643236642

12/27/2024

I wandered around the garden today. The rainbow quartet stock is still blooming. It’s an early bloomer, likes cool weather, but tolerated the summer heat just fine. Here it is the end of December and it has flowers and new buds.

12/26/2024

Most of our seeds have been ordered and received, but over the next few weeks we will be checking our lists and filling in the gaps with anything we’ve missed. The catalogs (hard copies and online versions) are a wealth of information. 2025 New Varieties are fun to check out. Do you have a favorite seed company? A number of companies we have used are listed in the comments.

12/24/2024

Our gardeners come from different faiths, traditions, and beliefs. We are united by this garden and values of love, hope, and compassion, along with hard work and dedication to serving our community. We wish all of you joy, peace, and boundless hope this holiday season.

The 2025 gardening season is just around the corner. We are excited! We hope you will follow us in the new year.

12/21/2024

And here we are at the 2024 Winter Solstice, the day with the shortest period of daylight and longest night of the year, and when the sun is at its lowest. It’s also marks the beginning of winter and for many the start of a new gardening year.

12/18/2024

It’s been an incredibly mild and somewhat rainy December to date. The perennials, shrubs, and trees are happy. The garden is wet and muddy…and plants I thought would freeze are greening up with these warmer days…including the dreaded poa annua (annual bluegrass) which loves the cool and moist conditions. It’s easy to pull by hand and necessary to stay on top of it before it goes to seed.

12/16/2024

Planning ahead for seed starting…we start many of our own plants using winter sowing methods or a bakers rack, lights and heat mats. Winter sowing utilizes milk jugs and will begin for us after the winter solstice and into January and February. Indoor seed starting will begin in early February through mid April for spring planting.

Now is a great time to start collecting your milk jugs and to acquire indoor seed starting supplies.