Ben and Isabel's wedding

 

Goathead Acre Gathering

Goathead Acre Gathering, August 2019

Feet

Who's feet are these?

Surely, not mine alone.

My grandmother's, and her grandmothers, 

and her grandmothers before.

These feet belong to stories,

yet to be told.

Tomato Breeding - Year One Review

This year I grew some of my first hybrid tomatoes - hand pollinated crosses of some favorite varieties.

The first hybrid showed some promise as an early producer with big, beautiful clusters of fruit. It's a cross between Principe Borghese, and red Italian cherry tomato grown for making sun-dried tomatoes, and Sungold, a massively popular orange cherry tomato available at most farmers' markets.

The second hybrid shows a lot of promise as well. It's a cross between Principe Borghese and Japanese Black Trifele, a dark Russian heirloom. Although it was a late producer and low yielder, the fruit were gorgeous and delicious and the plant showed remarkable resistance to late blight. The picture below shows the resistant variety to the left of a more susceptible plant. 

 

Next summer I'm hoping to refine these varieties, as well as try new crosses between my favorite heirlooms and the tiny wild tomatoes that I smuggled back from Grandma and Grandpa's backyard in Morelos (the one with the killer plum tree and the scorpions). 

Hope to see you all soon.

Love, 

Ben

Playlist

Here is what I've been listening to lately. Guilty pleasures included per the request of G'ma! The Abuelos are here with us in Boulder and I am currently trying to get around that pesky DRM Protection that Apple Music so expertly implements  as to stock up G'ma's ipod. I'll update if we have success.  Miss you all.

Newspaper clipping season begins