Find out how to grow sorrel, and get ideas for creative sorrel recipes.
Skip the Transplants: Direct Sowing Seeds
Move Over Bedding Plants...and Try These Edible Garden Plants Instead
Replace some of your bedding plants with edible plants! Find out how to choose suitable crops to use as bedding plants.
Driveway Makeover! 5 Ideas for Growing a Container Garden for Vegetables
A container vegetable garden is a good way to fit lots of vegetable crops into a small space. Find out how to get started.
Vegetables to Grow: 12 Tips to Choose What’s Best for Your Vegetable Garden
Seed Company List: Where to Buy Vegetable Seed
Prevent Leggy Seedlings and Grow Vegetable Transplants Like an Expert
The best way to solve the problem of spindly seedlings is to prevent them from getting that way in the first place. Find out how.
Seed Shopping Smarts: Know The Lingo So You Can Get The Best Seeds
What’s your seed-shopping vocabulary like? Brush up on your seed lingo in this glossary of seed terminology so you can choose the best seeds for your needs.
Vegetable Seed Guide: When to Start Seeds Indoors
Planning a Kitchen Garden that Awes (in Purple!)
Guide: Grow Globe Artichokes in Cold Climates
Yes, you can grow this Mediterranean vegetable even if you're in a cold climate. This guide tells you what to do to harvest your own homegrown artichokes.
Best Vegetables to Grow in Pots (12 Great Container Vegetables)
Want vegetable container crops that will grow well? Here are 12 crops that thrive in container gardens.
Fresh Tomatoes in March
By Steven Biggs
Keeper Tomatoes Last all Winter
IT’S MARCH. Last week I used up the last of my fresh tomatoes—tomatoes that I picked last October, just before the first fall frost.
The “keeper” tomatoes have been sitting on a tray in my basement storage room all winter, hence the name.
What They’re Not
Let’s be clear: this is NOT a thin-skinned, juicy tomato. It’s a thick-skinned, “keeper” tomato.
I once gave plants to my neighbours Joe and Gina. They hated them. They loved juicy tomatoes for sandwiches and meaty tomatoes for sauces.
What They’re Good For
Keeper, or “winter,” tomatoes are perfect for chopping up to use on salads and in cooking.
My favourite way to use them is in bruschetta.
My Favourite Keeper Variety
The variety I grow came from my Dad’s friend Dino years ago. Dino simply called it a “winter tomato.” So I just call it Dino’s Winter Tomato.
When it’s ripe, the skin has an orange colour; and when you cut into it, the flesh has a light red colour.
There are other keeper varieties around:
My neighbour Natalie gave me a larger keeper variety a couple of years back — and it seems promising.
Prairie Garden Seeds sells one called Clare’s Tomato
No Need to Start Early
Because I harvest my keeper tomatoes at the very end of the season, there is no point to starting them too early.
The fruit can’t compete when there are tenderer, juicy tomatoes around.
So I don’t rush to seed them in the spring. I start most tomatoes starting 8-10 weeks before the last frost. The winter tomatoes are the last ones I get around to…sometimes 6 weeks before the last frost.
Get tips to grow great tomato seedlings at home.
Want to Store More of Your Own Food?
Here’s a Great Course!
I’m a fan of homesteader Steve Maxwell’s course Feed Yourself for a Year.
His guidance is helpful whether you’re in the city or a rural area. He gives simple steps to choose and store more food—good food—less expensively.
Steve and I collaborate to teach self-reliance skills—and I know first-hand that he’s a great teacher.
Find out more about Feed Yourself for a Year.