So many cherry tomatoes look pretty but are lacking in the flavor department. Every year I try something new. Last year it was 'Black Cherry' (flavorful but not sweet enough), 'Snow White' (pretty but bland, like most yellow cherries), 'Isis Candy' (sweet but not sweet enough) and 'Matt's Wild Cherry' (pungent and identical to almost every other currant tomato I have ever grown). My cherry tomato trials have been going on for the better part of 15 years, and to date I have never found a cherry tomato with the perfect sweetness and flavor of 'Sungold.' It's golden orange color is pretty, too.


A salad with a mix of 'Matt's Wild Cherry', 'Snow White' and 'Supersweet 100.'

Certainly, there are close contenders--'Sunsugar' and 'Supersweet 100' are pretty close--but all have a lower Brix (sugar content) levels than 'Sungold.' Other widely popular cherries said to have top sweetness, like 'Sweet Million', fall pretty flat for me.


The tiny, currant sized tomatoes of 'Matt's Wild Cherry' are pungent and flavorful but not super sweet.

Sungold tomatoes are very easy to grow and offer excellent disease resistance. They are indeterminate (vining and everbearing) and should be provided a very tall cage to reach their full fruiting potential. I always plant them in my children's garden so they can snack on the sweet fruits all summer. The vines reach 5 and 6 feet, so there are always extra to harvest towards the top of the vines.


'Sungold' is truly the top tier cherry for sweetness, for now at least.

Before I plant any tomato, I work the soil up to a high tilth and mix in a fair amount of compost along with a teaspoon or so of organic fertilizer for vegetables. These days I use Black Gold Tomato and Vegetable fertilizer. (It's really good stuff.) I also try prune and train my tomato vines to keep them manageable. (If I have the time and inclination. Otherwise they ramble beyond their cages.)

Gardeners should be encouraged to do their own cherry tomato taste test. One easy way is to get the "Garden Candy" mix of three cherry tomatoes-- 'Sungold', 'Sweet Gold' and 'Supersweet 100'--from Renee's Garden Seeds. The seeds are color coded, so you can be sure of planting at least one of each.

Last spring and summer in the Mid-Atlantic was wet, wet, wet! There was barely a break between heavy rains, so boy was I thankful that I bermed my garden beds to the hilt. Berms are the best because they ensure garden soil is raised, well-aerated and drains well. When heavy rains come, there's no need to worry about standing water at plant root zones. It's the perfect alternative for gardeners that don't want to be locked into set raised beds or can’t build them.

Light, deep, bermed soil enables root crops, like carrots, parsnips and rutabagas, to develop perfect roots because they have plenty of friable soil to sink into. Later in the season, you will be glad you planted your melons on raised berms because light soil with good drainage helps them grow better and develop higher sugar content, which improves flavor.



Before berming the soil up, as with the bermed potato rows above, lightly till or turn your soil deeply. Next, establish bedding rows. Once these are set, begin raking your berms up (using a hard rake). This takes a little elbow grease, but the results make it well worth it.



Once the berms are created, put a layer of removable mulch cloth down and cover that with a layer of straw. This keeps weeding down by up to 75%, so it’s very important for busy people with little time and energy, like me.



It’s best to use a very light weight mulch cloth that’s easy to pull away, roll up and reuse the following season.



Before the plants are in the ground, my vegetable garden looks like a bumpy, straw-covered mess, but once the plants have grown in, you can't even seen the raised berms.

Garden photography is one of my passions, so I'm excited about Matthew Benson's new book, The Photographic Garden: Mastering the Art of Digital Garden Photography (Rodale Books, April 2012). As an award-winning photographer and Organic Gardening contributing editor and photographer, Benson has the subject down pat. The 180 page paperback explores good garden photography through loads of practical information, anecdotal stories and 250 beautiful color photos.

This is a book for ardent amateurs-something every shutterbuggy gardener with an SLR or novice garden photographer should have. Through good writing and well organized chapters, it covers all the basics from working with light and design to post production and camera considerations. For me, the sections on light and design were most "illuminating", immediately providing me with better tools for taking and preparing good shots under diverse conditions. My favorite book tidbits are the stopping points where Benson presents a specific technique and offers an assignment for practicing that technique. The assignments are extremely useful and fun.

At $24.99 this book is very reasonable and well worth the money. I highly recommend it.

*To learn more about other new Rodale gardening titles visit, the Organic Gardening Book Store.

Wedged between my driveway and stone retaining wall is a sun drenched strip of very well-drained, rich soil that houses most of my herbs. Chives are among them and this is the time of year they bloom full force yielding their delicate lavender puffs of deliciousness. Chive flowers taste like chives but are a bit milder and infinitely prettier. I like to add them to any spring dish where chives might be welcome--pastas, salads, spring vegetables and the like. They're also smashing on a bagel with lox. Chive flower season is brief so enjoy these edible flowers while you can.


Chives are easy to grow; just give them full sun and good soil that drains perfectly.


Harvest flowers when they are fairly well-rounded with lots of open florets but no brown ones. Gently wash the flowers before trimming the blooms off and eating.


Cucumber salad with cream and chive flowers is delicious and springy.

Cucumber Salad with Chive Flowers

2 medium sized cucumbers or one hothouse cuke
2  tablespoons white wine vinegar
1  teaspoon sugar
1/3 cup heavy cream
1 shallot finely minced
2 trimmed chive flowers
Salt & white pepper to taste
a sprinkle chopped fresh dill if desired

Peel the cucumber, if desired, and slice thinly. Mix vinegar, vinegar, sugar, cream and add salt and pepper to taste. Mix the dressing and cucumbers. Mix  in half the chive flowers and reserve the rest for sprinkling on top. Add fresh dill if desired.

Just one hour in the garden and I found one tick on my daughter and another on me, and it's only mid-April. Ticks are my phobic bane, and this summer promises to be ticktacular, so major ammunition will be needed to keep them at bay. (Nothing is yuckier than little spidery creatures latching onto you and sucking away your life's blood.) Thankfully these days strong chemicals like deet are no longer needed; newer natural options are in abundance and some even smell nice.

Natural repellents may not work as long or as well as deet, but deet is toxic and I won't put it on my children. (According to the CDC, eight deet-related fatalities occurred from 1961 to 2002 and six were children.) The best natural repellent tested is Repel's Lemon Eucalyptus Insect Repellent, and it  smells pretty good--something like an herbal citronella candle. I like it a lot better than OFF, though the familiar chemical smell of OFF brings back fond childhood memories of family and Girl Scout camping trips.


ExOfficio's Bugsaway Halo Check Shirt (UPF 30) provides added protection from ticks and sun.

Another option is BiteBlocker Xtreme Sportsman Pump Spray. It smells pretty good and works for quite a long time--up to three hours. Geranium oil is the chief botanical at work in this product.

One I have not tried but want to is Kiss My Face Sunswat Spray with SPF 15. Kiss my Face products have never let me down and this one is powered by citronella and eucalyptus,  much like the Repel repellent. It's on sale at Sierra Trading Post, which may inspire me to buy it.

Remaining well covered in light textured and colored clothing, and protecting one's hair with a bandana can also help keep ticks off and/or help you see them before they can get to the skin. I always spray my socks/shoes/shirts and bandanas with repellent for extra protection. ExOfficio makes a line of insect repellent clothing called Bugsaway that is said to be effective, though I've never purchased any. The price tag is pretty high but may be worth it for a pair of garden work pants and a shirt.  The styles are simple and attractive.

My favorite end-of-day tick remover is Dr. Bronner's Pure Peppermint Castile Soap in liquid form. The stuff smells minty fresh, makes your whole body tingle and external parasites like ticks hate it. In my experience, they drop off when washed with the stuff.  I bet Bronner's spearmint and eucalyptus soaps would do the trick too, though I've never tried them for this purpose.


Dr. Bronner's Peppermint Castile Soap provides a cooling end-of-day wash that ticks loathe.

Anyone who has dealt with Colorado potato beetles knows they are evil little critters, for solanaceous plants at least. They are ferocious eaters that can decimate a potato plant in no time, tomatoes too but these are secondary plants of choice. I've seen mature beetles consume entire leaf stalks in a matter of hours. Severe potato beetle damage disables plants from storing food, which stops potato development.

As our potatoes just begin to break ground, I await the first potato beetles of the season. Every year they hit the potatoes with force and even manage to attack a few tomatoes and eggplant while they're at it. There are lots of chemicals that can kill potato beetles, but one would need to dump a toxic arsenal on pest-covered plants to really make a dent. So, what's the next best answer? Potato beetle picking. It's a little labor intensive but green and effective.

Basil is on the mind. I just finished the last of my frozen pesto made from last year’s crop. It’s a sad time. The flavor of fresh grown stuff is so good it maintains in the freezer for a long time. Every year I grow a boatload of basil and include lots of different kinds, each yielding a different taste. But at the end of the day most of my basil will become classic pesto alla Genovese, so it’s the Italian types I go for. Here are my favorite Italian basils that make good green stuff.

Mini basils can be both sweet and pungent and have the double benefit of fitting nicely in small garden spaces or containers. They’re prettier and blend well with flowers too (beside the point but still good to know for the space constrained gardener). 'Verde Piccole Foglie' is a small-leaved basil with big, spicy, pungent flavor. Another short, but larger-leaved basil with stellar flavor is the French ‘Marseillais.’ It only reaches a foot tall but keeps producing those tasty leaves all summer if regularly deadheaded. Finally, ‘Pistou’ is a beautiful little bush type with tiny, super fragrant leaves that are a little milder than those of  'Verde Piccole Foglie.' Just keep it sheared back in summer, like a tiny hedge, and use the clippings for cooking.

The tidy bush basil  Verde Piccole Foglie has small, pungent leaves.

The Large-leaved basils are real pesto powerhouses. They can become large, bushy and even a few plants can make jars and jars of pesto. You can’t go wrong with the basic basil 'Genovese.' It has very big, fleshy leaves with great aroma and taste. Mature plant height is around two feet. The classic 'Lettuce Leaf' is similar to 'Genovese', but its leaves are larger, have deeper venation and a little less pungency. It is said to be slower to bolt, but I have not experienced this.

Growing basil from seed is so easy there’s no point ingrowing plants. You also have more variety to choose from when you take the seed route. Start the seeds indoors about six weeks before the last frost date.They should be grown under good solar fluorescent lights and kept warm. Plants should be no further than four inches from the lights when growing indoors. A heat mat will hasten germination and growth.

'Lettuce Leaf' is a prolific large-leaved basil with wonderful flavor.

I don’t usually plant mine outdoors until late May. Don’t forget to harden your plants off before moving them from the grow lights to an outdoor location. I generally place mine in a spot where there’s light wind and bright, indirect light and over the course of a few days move them into more and more sun.

Basils are great for planting around the base of tomato plants. Once the plants are mature and start to set buds, harvest leafy stems furiously. When in flower, the leaves develops a harsher, more acrid taste. Some say they taste sweetest when the flower buds just begin to develop, so this is a good time to harvest and make pesto.

Here's my favorite recipe for classic pesto:

      In a Cuisinart, blend together:

• 4 cups clean, fresh basil leaves
  
• 1/2 cup good extra virgin olive oil
• 1/3 cup toasted pine nuts
• 2 or 3 fresh garlic cloves
• 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt

I’ll end this blog with a big "note to self." "Freeze more pesto this year!" Early February is way too early to run out.

It was a shock when my gracious and lovely mother-in-law, Ursula (Uschi) Marie Meyer,  passed away peacefully but very unexpectedly last February (2012). The visit to the small, beautiful village of Osterwald ("Easter Forest") where my husband was raised was sobering, and the time with family and Uschi's many grandchildren was touching and bittersweet. After her funeral, we walked through the village to the restaurant where her reception would be held. I lagged behind to capture pictures for my children that would never remember their beautiful Oma or the town she called home.

 In 2001, as a MSU graduate student, I visited The Royal Botanic Gardens Kew just outside of London, England to meet up with a distinguished botanist and mentor, Dr. John H. Beaman. Beaman had been the curator of MSU's Beal-Darlington Herbarium and later come to Kew to complete his five volume set of The Plants of Mount Kinabalu for which he became the 2004 Asa Gray Award winner.  He first took me through the Kew library and herbarium, which house some of the most important plant tomes and collections on Earth and can only be accessed by researchers. Original copies of Linnaeus' Species Plantarum and Darwin's Origin of the Species sit on open library shelves for the reading and over 7 million specimens from famed collectors fill the herbarium. The experience was a dream come true .

In the herbarium, Beaman gathered some pressed specimens of the rare Texas Monarda species I was studying at the time. (How often to you get to study Texas flora in London?) The experience made me realize how important and precious herbarium collections are (something lost on many institutions worldwide). In fact, I could not have completed my thesis research (Monarda Section Cheilyctis: Patterns of Speciation and Endemism) without the many specimens I borrowed from a suite of herbaria.

Most don't even know that an herbarium (plural herbaria) is a collections of pressed plants, dried and cured fruits collected from all over the world. Each specimen has a wealth of information including the plant's Latin name, collector, collection date and exact collection location as well as other notes. 

The purpose of an herbarium is to fuel plant research of all kinds, from identifying new species to distribution, ecology and conservation studies. Genetic studies can even be conducted. (DNA of varying qualities can be extracted from even the oldest, dryest specimens.) And, as plant populations are increasingly destroyed by development and sprawl, and climate change impacts plant populations, these collections become more and more important.

Many land grant colleges and institutions have herbaria, but they remain undervalued and are often decaying and consumed by destructive herbarium/tobacco beetles (Lasioderma serricorne), aside from a few highly valued collections. (Another excursion took me to The Academy of Natural Sciences Herbarium where I was shown pampered pressed specimens from the original Louis and Clarke expeditions held in locked, environmentally controlled chambers. They were the best maintained specimens I'd ever seen.)
 
So, the take home message of this story is support your local herbarium. A little bit of financial support allows for the purchase supplies and better care for specimens. To learn more about American herbaria and find an herbarium near you visit the US Virtual Herbarium.


Image used with permission from usvirtualherbarium.org

A recent L2G reader asked, "Why isn't my princess flower blooming? I have it growing in a conservatory and it just stopped flowering this winter." Fortunately, there's an easy answer to this puzzle. The Brazilian Princess Flower (Tibouchina urvilleana) is an outstanding tropical that blooms through most of the year, usually from May to January, but it usually refrains from blooming from midwinter to late spring.

Most plants, tropicals included, have a period in the year where they quiesce or slow down to drum up energy for the next growing season. Princess flower is no exception. In the winter and spring months, when plants are quiescent, it is best to water them a bit less and refrain from feeding them. This is also a good time to trim back ungainly branches.

Once late spring arrives and temperatures are warm and accommodating, princess flower will begin to put forth its flushes of rosy red buds and brilliant magenta-violet flowers once again. Plants often bloom most prolifically in the mild, warm days of late-summer and fall.