Salad Tomatoes, Small but Mighty in Flavor & Production

Good things come in small packages. This platitude rings true for saladette tomatoes, commonly known as salad tomatoes. Their small, ping pong ball form and robust flavors deserve a special place in your garden.

Often overlooked when compared to big beefsteaks or cherry tomatoes, salad tomatoes generally grow larger than cherry tomatoes but smaller than medium-to-large paste and slicer varieties. Many varieties of salad tomatoes possess a relative tolerance to cold, so you can plant them outside when cooler temperatures prevail and other less hardy varieties must still bask in heated greenhouses. No variety of tomato, however, is frost tolerant.

Famed tomato breeder Ben Quisenberry created the Large Red Cherry, that he claims can be canned whole - seeds and all. His unique variety differs from the smaller, more commonly available tomato "Red Cherry, Large.” Lesser-known salad tomato varieties include: Garden Peach, Tigerella and Black Vernissage. As indeterminates, all three varieties require staking and pruning. Garden Peach, a "long keeper" tomato, stores well when picked green just before frost arrives in autumn. Excluding their green stems, the ripened fruit look like small, slightly fuzzy peaches. Tigerella, an English heirloom tomato, wears beautiful orange stripes over a red skin and sets fruit early, often three weeks before than other salad varieties. Immature fruits bear light and dark green stripes. Tigerella demonstrates a degree of cold tolerance and disease resistance, too. Black Vernissage tomatoes sport a deep mahogany skin with subtle green stripes. Excellent for drying, eating fresh and making tomato sauce, this variety remains productive throughout the entire season.

Another benefit of selecting a salad type tomato for your garden is resistance to the dreaded Beet Curly Top virus, a known scourge to tomato plants in the Treasure Valley. The Payette and Owyhee varieties of tomato developed in the 1960s by University of Idaho show resistance to the virus. They grow well in our region, too.

Salad tomatoes have earned the right to be known as the garden workhorse. They produce prolifically and ripen fruit early compared to other non-cherry varieties, making them ideal for higher latitude and altitude gardens. During years of difficult weather conditions, they can be an insurance policy to ensure a tomato harvest. Salad tomatoes also fill multiple niches in the kitchen, performing equally well for canning, making pasta sauce, or used fresh in salsa. 

Branch out, experiment, and plant new tomato varieties this season. You can’t go wrong growing salad tomatoes in your garden.

Welcome Wildlife with These Attractive Bushes & Trees!

We all feel it—the desire to try harder to coexist with nature. When choosing a new tree for our landscape, we want something that will provide us with shade and beauty plus provide nourishment for our birds and pollinators. We are highlighting three attractive trees that grow well in the Treasure Valley. Each of these deciduous trees are small enough to fit in most yards. They boast beautiful spring blossoms, colorful fall foliage, wonderful fragrance, and bright, edible berries. 

Saskatoon Serviceberry (Amelanchier alnifolia) is a delightful landscape tree, and a favorite among birders in the Treasure Valley. Birds of all kinds flock to the Serviceberry in the summer for the sweet, juicy, red fruit. The berries are edible for humans too, tasting somewhat like blueberries! Billowing white blooms attract bees and butterflies in the spring. When fall arrives, the foliage turns a beautiful, deep red. Hardy in zones 4-9, the Serviceberry tolerates most soil types once established It grows quickly up to 25 feet and prefers full sun.

Choose the Chokecherry (Prunus virginiana ‘Canada Red') tree or shrub if you're looking for something showy that will grow in rather poor conditions. This hardy little 20 to 25-foot tree tolerates heat, cold, wind, and poor soil in zones 2-10. Even though it asks for little, it will grow beautiful clusters of long, white flowers in the spring, attracting butterflies and other pollinators. Each new flush of bright green leaves turns reddish purple by mid-summer, providing striking color throughout the growing season. As the name implies, chokecherries taste bitter to humans when raw, but the fruit can be used to make wines, syrups, and jelly. You’ll have to act fast, though, if you want some for yourself! Birds love to feast on this important and nutritious food source. The leaves and berry seeds are toxic to humans and animals, so do not plant this tree if you have pets that might ingest the seeds or foliage.

A classic in Idaho landscapes, the Crabapple(Malus spp) never fails to delight our winter-weary eyes with its masses of pink flowers in early spring. This outstanding tree thrives in full sun and acidic soil but is quite adaptable to other conditions and is hardy to zone 4. The Malus ‘Indian Summer’ variety has excellent resistance to disease. Crabapples trees are a wildlife magnet. The bright-red fruit remains on the tree from fall through winter as a welcome, nutritious treat.

Martin Luther once said, “Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.” 

There is never a better time than now to choose a tree and plant it. Even a small yard can attract birds, butterflies, and helpful insects, benefiting us all for years to come.

Rose Pruning - Why, When & How

WHY

Pruning our roses stimulates new growth and allows for more flowers to bloom throughout the season. Properly pruned roses make for a healthier plant with stronger canes while allowing for better air circulation. Roses produce flowers on new growth making annual pruning an essential part of basic rose care.

WHEN

In our climate, early-mid spring is the best time to prune roses once there is no threat of a hard frost and the weather is conducive for the plants to start growing. Many rose growers suggest waiting until the forsythias start to bloom as a general guideline that it’s time to start pruning. However, diseased/dead wood should be removed immediately at any time along with deadheading spent blooms (to encourage new blooms). Even if your roses have started to bud out, you’re still ok to prune. 

HOW

Deadheading  

Grab a great pair of leather gloves to protect your hands, and a clean, disinfected pair of sharp bypass pruning shears (and be sure to disinfect pruners in between plants to prevent spreading disease). The best method for deadheading spent blooms throughout the summer is to cut the stem back to an outward facing bud at a 45-degree angle or about a ½” above a set of 5 leaves (not the set of 3 leaves as this will result in a weak stem). Continue as often as needed to keep your roses blooming all season long but stop September 1 to allow the plant to begin hardening off for winter.

Annual Pruning (video)

Again, starting with your leather gloves and disinfected bypass pruning shears, make your cuts at a 45-degree angle about ¼” above outward facing buds. This cut should slant away from the bud. Remove about one-half to two-thirds of the plant’s height leaving the canes about 18-30” tall. Your rose bush should have 4-7 canes that are the width of your finger/thumb and all pointed out and away from the crown for air circulation. Remove canes that are pencil width or smaller and/or dead (cut them off at the base or the point of discoloration). Here's to a great growing season for beautiful, healthy, blooming roses!