New Heirlooms

Thanks to everyone who voted in our 2011 heirloom tomato poll, and double thanks to Alexander who voted twice. Six new heirlooms have been decided on for planting in our fields this May, giving us  a total of about three dozen tomato varieties. If you discover a tomato cultivar you would like us to grow next year, let me know, and I'll add it to next years poll. 

Here are the winners:

Andrew Rahart's Jumbo Red: This will be the first "regular" red heirloom tomato we've grown. I keep coming across more and more growers who love this tomato not just because of its flavour, but also for the quality of the fruit and health of the plant.

Blondkopfchen: This is a yellow cherry. We've grown lots of yellow cherries before, and like most yellow tomatoes, they are mild flavoured. This one is supposed to be the best tasting yellow cherry, we'll see! Anyone speak German? Tomato websites say it means "little blond girl", but Google translates it as "blond brains!"

German Red Strawberry: We grew an orange strawberry last year, so this is a welcome addition to the strawberry, or heart shaped tomatoes.

Indian Stripe: This one wasn't on my top six list, and come to think of it, I don't think I voted, oh well. It's described as being similar to Cherokee Purple (one of our favourites) but with occasional stripes.

Stupice: One of the best tasting red tomatoes. This small tomato is the earliest tomato to ripen, maybe we'll taste these in mid July! Stupice is from the Czech Republic and is pronounced "Stoo-peach-ka"

Speckled Roman: This is a red plum with orange stripes that looks great in photos, and supposedly tastes great also. Can't wait to see it!

The photo is of our three colours of plum tomatoes, about to go into the oven. In our poll, I was hoping that "Black Plum" would get enough votes, it would look so good next to the red, yellow, and orange plums. Better luck next year.

How to dry an apple gourd

This is perhaps an odd time of year to write about gourds, but bear with me, you'll see why. We grow too many gourds, but what's not to like about all the crazy shapes and sizes, multitude of colours, and textures? Most gourds are simply used to decorate your homes for the autumn harvest celebration, and probably get thrown in the compost when it is time to put up the Christmas decorations. Some of those gourds will have started to pass to the other shore, I know I've found my share with a puddle underneath where they are sitting, these are the ones you're sometimes afraid to lift up!

"Apple Gourds"  have a much longer life span.  They start off looking like a big apple, with their mottled dark green and light green skin, they even have a cute little stem on top. We've had one decorating our kitchen counter for three months now, and until recently it looked great, and its colour even matched our Christmas decorations.

As you can see from the photo, it is now time to banish it elsewhere. It is covered in white mold, which will soon turn black. If you saw any other vegetable covered with this mold, you would throw it out. With apple gourds (or any other of the "bottle" gourds), I'm don't have to do that. I don't want all those spores in my house, so I could wash it, but the mold would come back quickly.

I'm going to let that gourd dry out all by itself, covered in mold, in my garage. I'll post an update in a few months.

That Darned Highway

On Monday Dec 13th, 2010 we attended an information meeting hosted by the City of Burlington and Halton Region. This is what we learned, please forgive and correct me if I've got any facts wrong, I'm basing this on a tiny bit of research, and what I remember from the meeting! I have provided links to the official documents that I know of.

Links: 

The presentation from Monday's meeting, maps, etc.

Burlington Post Coverage of the meeting

Niagara to GTA Corridor Planning and Environmental Assessment Study

Halton's Regional Official Plan 

Map from Halton Region, I added our farm

• -Part of Halton Region's official plan (ROPA-38) calls for development to stop at Hwy 407, land north of 407 is designated as farmland or part of the Natural Heritage system (ie Niagara Escarpment).
• -ROPA -38 was passed unanimously by Halton Region, fully supported by all four of Halton's municipalities (Burlington, Halton Hills, Milton, and Oakville).
  
• -This would mean Burlington's development is nearly complete, land to the north of the 407 would remain unchanged, as it is today.
• -ROPA-38 was submitted to the province.
  
• -The province sent it back (only three days after the municipal election, coincidence or not?) wanting an amendment.
• -The amendment is for a highway corridor to be included in ROPA (see green arrow on map)
  
• -Everyone at the meeting, residents and politicians, is against this highway. No one at the meeting expressed any sort of support for the highway.
• -The purpose of the meeting was to inform residents and jump start opposition to the new highway. The elected officials indicated that even though construction of the highway is years away, once the corridor is put in the plan, it will be virtually impossible to stop the highway, so the time to stop the highway is now.
• -The message from the municipal and regional politicians is to write as many elected officials as you can (the premier, minister of transport, your MPP, etc.), indicating your opposition to the highway.

Following the presentation, questions and comments were taken from the floor: Here's a summary of what struck me, and what I remember (I wasn't taking notes, so I may have got some things wrong). The general tone being that the proposed highway is ridiculous.

• -Development in Burlington would sprawl north to the new highway.
• -Building a highway across the environmentally sensitive, world biosphere heritage site of the Niagara Escarpment is ludicrous.
• -Air pollution, noise pollution, water pollution
• -If oil prices continue to rise, will we be driving the same way 20 years from now? Will we need this highway?
• -The proposed highway is based on Hamilton growing a lot. Is economically depressed Hamilton actually going to see this growth?
  
• -There is no super highway going from Hamilton directly to the 401, that's what needs to be built.
  
• -Upgrading existing highways, and increasing mass transit such as rail is the way to go.
  
• -You can't buy local if there are no local farms
• -Where are all those vehicles to go once the new highway connects to existing highways that are already gridlocked?
• -Assuming the new highway connects to the 407 (there is really no other option) drivers will be forced to pay the tolls. Is the new highway going have tolls?
  
• -The 407 should not be private, if anything is to be expropriated, it should be the 407. Canadians should never allow the privatization of infrastructure.
  
• -The arrow goes straight through Halton Conservation head office on Britannia
  

Stay Tuned! 

Too many tomatoes

One of the fun things farmers get to do when it is cold and blustery outside, is to look over the seed catalogs that are arriving in the mail, and decide what to grow next year. With thousands of different tomatoes available, it can get hard to choose. It's impossible to grow them all! We'll keep most of what we grew last year, eliminating a few, and trying a few new ones.

I've made my "short" list of tomatoes that I want to try, but there are too many. I need to choose about half a dozen new varieties to grow next year. I can't decide, I can find reasons to grow them all, but it will be too confusing in the field if we do!

Help me decide what to grow by voting in our tomato poll (see the column to the right)

Varieties under consideration

In addition to the 30 varieties we liked from last year, we  will be growing a few more taken from the following. The descriptions are from seed catalogs


Andrew Rahart's Jumbo Red -Deep Red Beefstreak great taste and aroma, healthy plant, HHS's main red variety  
Andrina Red Cherry -dwarf plants, we'll try them in hanging baskets
Aunt Gertie's Gold Yellow Beefsteak -one of the best tasting yellow tomatoes (most yellows are "mild")
Austin's Red Pear -SSE's best tasting red pear (we used  to grow a pear that was tasteless)
Beam's Yellow Pear -as above, except yellow
Black From Tula Black Round -one of the best tasting black's
Black Plum Black plum? we don't grow that yet
Blondkopfchen Yellow cherry -excellent sweet taste, enormous yield -we need a good tasting yellow cherry
Gary Ibsen's Red Red Round -Tomato guru Gary Ibsen loves it
German Red Strawberry Red Heart -best tasting
Gray's Sweet Cherry -Red best tasting red cherry 
Hahms Gelbe -yellow cherry -dwarf plants for containers
Indian Stripe -purple round -offspring of Cherokee Purple, great taste
Lutescent -Novelty ripens green, pale yellow, deep yellow, red
Mule Team -Red Round, Classic tomato, great taste, productive, blemish free
Orange Cherry -great tasting orange cherry
Pendulina Orange -orange cherry -dwarf plants for containers
Persimmon-Orange round -best tasting orange
Speckled Roman Red with orange stripes plum -meaty, tastes great
Stupice Small red round -very early, high quality, taste test winner
Sweet Pea Red Currant -best tasting currant (smaller than cherry) 

For further information on heirloom tomato varieties, check out Tatiana's Tomato Base

Fresh Picked Peppers

Poblano chile peppers -large, firm, blemish free, and so fresh they squeak when when they rub against each other. We picked these yesterday. If you're from more southerly regions of the continent this is unremarkable, but we've endured night times lows of -6ºC, so even these chiles that were growing in our unheated greenhouse are at the cusp of death by frost. Actually the plants within 12" of the greenhouse sides got zapped. I thinks these chiles are pretty amazing, especially considering they haven't had a drop to drink since October!

We made rajas with the poblanos. This is the same as roasting red peppers, but you use poblanos instead. Under the broiler go the whole poblanos, as the skin bubbles and blackens, you flip them over. Once that's done you take them out of the oven and leave them sitting in a covered bowl. After 10 minutes remove the blackened outer skin as best you can, and remove the stem, core and seeds. For authentic rajas cut them into strips, but we don't. We sprinkled them with a bit of olive oil and put them in the freezer. For the next few months we'll use them in sandwiches, sauces, fajitas, etc. etc. Yummy!

Happy Thanksgiving

Our latest newsletter.... 

Hutchinson Farm News Vol. 14, No. 8

Many years ago, back in the days when we entered our produce in the Milton Fair, one of the competitors had entered a large Atlantic Giant type pumpkin, and the judge disqualified it, by saying it wasn't a pumpkin. I don't remember what type of pumpkin we entered, nor do I remember how we did in the "pumpkin" class. I do remember wondering how the judge knew it was a squash, and why it wasn't a pumpkin. Did the judge think cucurbita maxima (Atlantic Giants) were squash and cucurbita pepo (jack-o-lanterns) were pumpkins? I just don't know, but I think it might have been the same judge that awarded first prize in the tomato class to an entry that consisted of five cherry tomatoes displayed on top of test tubes. I also remember that second place in the tomato class, went to an entry that consisted of five beautiful red ripe slicing tomatoes, with the attractive green stems still attached, grown on Walkers Line by a certain John Hutchinson.

• Thanksgiving Pumpkins If you've been up to the farm recently, or you follow us on facebook, or have read our latest blog entry (it has some great photos), you already know that we have some really cool pumpkins this year. From Australia we have Jarrahdale, a  Queensland Blue pumpkin (no orange pumpkins for the men down under). France provided us with three heirloom pumpkins, one that is possibly what the pilgrims ate, and another that is "embroidered with warts" -you've got to see it to believe it. One of my favourites is a new release called "One Too Many" -it's white with thin red veins running across its face. Now I'm in charge of making the pumpkin pie this weekend (a note of clarification may be needed here, I'm only making a few pies for our family dinner, we won't be selling any pies, sorry), so I want to know which pumpkin tastes the best. For years and years I've always used the standard "Small Sugar" pie pumpkin. Do these French heirlooms taste better? I'm having a pumpkin cook off on Friday night, watch for the results on facebook!
  
  
• Dog toy season
  It's a hard life being a dog on our farm. There are all the customers to greet, and then they want to take your picture, you walk out to the pumpkin patch with them, they throw your stick for you...after all that sometimes you just have to lie down in front of a big pile of pie pumpkins, and watch what's going on. Yes, the little puppy has grown over the summer, and if you can't tell our dogs apart (that's the pup in the photo), Molé, (six years old) is the one with the gourd in his mouth -he wants you to throw it for him (yes, we even grow dog toys on our farm). Our puppy, "PawPad" (he was born the same day as Apple's iPad) is the dog who is eating the gourds. He also likes green beans, tomatoes, peppers, corn on the cob...
  
  
• Thanksgiving Traditions
  Thanksgiving signifies change at our farm. It's the time that the summer crops end. It's the time Rafael, Marco, and Ricardo return to Mexico. It's the time we stop going to market. It's the time the harvest is over. It's the time we sleep in a bit (it's too dark to work). It's the time customers come to the farm for their last visit of the season. I guess because there are so many changes, we mark them with customs and traditions every year. In spite of it being a hectic and busy weekend at our farm helping customers get their thanksgiving decorations and pumpkins, we manage to have a large Thanksgiving dinner with grandparents, one uncle and one aunt plus our extended Mexican family. We'll have the traditional turkey, with a bowl of gravy as well as a bowl of mole, and lots of veggies that we grew on our farm. Dessert is, of course pumpkin pie, but this year, if I can pick enough of those Seascape strawberries, we'll have strawberry shortcake as well. Sounds like the start of a new tradition.
  
  So what makes a pumpkin a pumpkin? The quick answer is that nobody knows. If we turn to botanical taxonomy, we discover that there are four major botanical species in the cucurbita genus (which includes pumpkins/squash/gourds) and each of the four individual species has what we call pumpkins, squash and gourds in it. For example, acorn squash, Crown of Thorn gourds, and the classic carving pumpkin all are members of the Cucurbita pepo species. If we look at different cultures, we learn that what some people call squash in one country, will be called a pumpkin in another, and explains why in Spanish "calabaza" means pumpkin, squash, gourd, and even zucchini! For me, I'm sticking with pumpkin guru Amy Goldman's definition: If you carve it, it's a pumpkin. If you just look at it, it's a gourd. If you eat it, it's a squash!

Heirloom Pumpkins

For many many years, we have grown, a wide variety of pumpkins. Big pumpkins, small pumpkins, tall pumpkins, wide pumpkins, round pumpkins, cooking pumpkins....our seed catalogs would devote a couple of pages to pumpkins, probably close to a hundred different varieties.