You would think January would be an easy month as far as the Pickle Patch, but nope, it is just as busy. I might not be harvesting much, but the only plants hanging in there before the Artic blast are kale, collards, mustard greens and Swiss chard. With the low temperatures in the lower teens, I am sure the blast has done them in, but who knows? I mulched them well, so they might come back.
Since January is iffy to be out at the patch where I live, I use the time to research, buy seeds, make schedules, and make any necessary outdoor changes (weather permitting) to be ready to implement our plans.
Research
Each growing season my garden partner, Chris and I discuss our garden–what grew well and what didn’t. It basically came down to rain, heat and humidity being the main culprits to the failure of some of our plants.
I have all the other seeds for our garden, and my seed research was solely focused on our tomatoes and cucumbers. Why? They are producing, but not their best, and we use them the most for fresh eating and canning.
Before I started researching, I asked some other community gardeners for recommendations on what did well in their gardens. Once I had a list, I asked ‘Bluebee’, my name for Copilot (AI), to tell me all the stats on the recommended varieties. Then I would ask him all sorts of questions, narrowing down my research until I had my final list of seeds, doing this with each category of tomatoes and cucumbers.
I don’t remember how I happened on looking for parthenocarpic (self-pollinating) seeds, but that was my goal for the tomatoes and cucumbers. I am hoping during the intense heat, that the self-pollinators will produce when the other varieties stop. If it doesn’t work at least we tried. I wanted at least one variety for the tomatoes and cucumbers. I have to say, using AI really helps to make the research simpler. They can even let me know if the seeds can be purchased locally.
Slicers-Tomatoes
I first started with what I call slicer tomatoes. My only goal for slicers is that they are big enough to fit a slice of bread and have a good tomato flavor for our favorite, bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwiches (BLTs). After these requirements, they must be able to handle high heat (over 100° F) high humidity and a lot of rain.
Last year, Big Beef Hybrid did really well and lasted most of the summer. Now that we expanded the garden last year, we have so much space to play around with (25 feet by 200 feet). Our new growing plan is to have three seasons, April (spring), May (summer) and June (fall). By doing this we can use different varieties for each season’s climate and have a continuous supply, which will hopefully take us to late autumn. Last year, we planted fall tomatoes at mid-July we didn’t do too bad, as we had our last BLT Dec 5th.
Slicers Lineup:
Big Beef (April, May, and June): Indeterminate, 73-80 days to maturity, large fruits (10-12 oz), disease-resistant, high heat and humidity tolerance.
- Arkansas Traveler (April): Indeterminate, 75-85 days to maturity, medium-sized fruits (6-8 oz), heat and drought-tolerant, high heat and humidity tolerance. Community garden recommended. MIgardener
Druzba (April): Indeterminate, 75-85 days to maturity, medium-sized fruits (5 oz), disease-resistant, high heat and humidity tolerance. I chose this one as it is so close to Dru’s name. Maybe start calling him Druzba. 🙂
Goliath (April): Indeterminate, 65-70 days to maturity, large fruits (10-15 oz), disease-resistant, high heat and humidity tolerance. Community garden recommended.
Legend- Parthenocarpic (May): Determinate, 68-80 days to maturity, large fruits (4-5 inches), late blight-resistant, high heat and humidity tolerance.
Homestead (May): Determinate, 70-80 days to maturity, medium-sized fruits (6-8 oz), high heat and humidity tolerance.
Ivan (June): Indeterminate, 80-90 days to maturity, medium to large fruits (5-8 oz), disease-resistant, high heat and humidity tolerance. Also, can grow up to 10 feet tall!! MIgardener
Texwine (June): Indeterminate, 80 days to maturity, large fruits (12-20 oz), flavorful, high heat, but may not be as well-suited for high humidity conditions.
Peron’s Sprayless (June): Indeterminate, 70-75 days to maturity, medium-sized fruits (3-6 oz), disease-resistant, high heat and humidity tolerance.
Next up is my sauce/paste tomato varieties.
Sauce/Paste Tomatoes
Now, the sauce/paste tomatoes did not have a variety that was a good producer all summer like the Big Beef. We were surprised that the Roma VF did not perform as well as expected. So, they are completely out, and we decided to give Opalka another try, but in a different season as we noticed they did better after the hot weather going towards fall. I used the same research technique and came up with our sauce/past varieties. Boxcar Willie and Hungarian Heart are varieties that do dual duty as they can be used as slicers their large size and sauce meaty texture and fewer seeds. I put them in my sauce as I had way too many slicers.
Sauce/Paste Lineup:
San Marzano (April & May): Indeterminate, 80-90 days to maturity, medium-sized fruits (4-6 oz), disease-resistant, high heat and humidity tolerance, excellent for sauces and canning.
Hungarian Heart (April): Indeterminate, 80 days to maturity, large fruits (8-16 oz), few seeds, crack-resistant, high heat and humidity tolerance, great for slicing and making sauce. Community garden recommended.
Boxcar Willie (April): Indeterminate, 80-85 days to maturity, medium to large fruits (10-16 oz), few seeds, crack-resistant, high heat and humidity tolerance, versatile for slicing, canning, and making sauce. MIgardener
Supremo (May & June): Determinate, 70-75 days to maturity, medium-sized fruits (4-5 oz), disease-resistant, high heat and humidity tolerance, ideal for sauces and canning. Community garden recommended
Foradade (May & June): Indeterminate, 75-80 days to maturity, medium-sized fruits (6-8 oz), disease-resistant, high heat and humidity tolerance, good for sauces and fresh eating. MIgardener
Opalka (June): Indeterminate, 85-90 days to maturity, large fruits (6-8 oz), few seeds, disease-resistant, high heat and humidity tolerance, excellent for sauces and canning.
Amish Paste (June): Indeterminate, 80-85 days to maturity, medium to large fruits (8-12 oz), few seeds, disease-resistant, high heat and humidity tolerance, great for sauces and canning.
Salad and Pickling Cukes
The next main vegetables we need to make sure that are producing are the pickling and slicer/salad cucumbers. Last year we planted one slicer variety, straight eights. They did not do well at all. The feedback from other community gardeners said they did not do well in their gardens either. So, they off our planting schedule this year. And as for pickling cucumbers, I wish I documented the varieties I planted. I think for the first small batches of bread and butter pickles they came from the cross country hybrid.
Then the fall planting I was out of cross country and used what we had in our seed cabinet, homemade pickles, Pickle A Bushel, Boston Pickleing and National Pickling. I had to wait until my fall picklers produced to make dill pickles and that was okay as we needed to wait for the dill to head up. So the fall cucumbers did okay, but not outstanding.
I had enough to make a couple of small batches of dill pickles. So, our goal for cucumbers is we get an abundance so we can preserve and eat fresh. Last year’s poor producing cucumbers we think has the same problems as our tomatoes, high heat, high humidity and a lot of rain. So some of our trials will be parthenocarpic, high heat and humidity tolerant as well as have disease resistance.
The cross-country hybrid pickling cucumber will be consistently planted with other trials, as we always want to have several good producing cucumbers for our weird weather. For the slicers, they will all be new, and hope to find some good producers.
Pickling Cucumbers Lineup:
- Cross-Country Hybrid (May, June & August): This vining variety matures in 51 days and is highly resistant to diseases like Cucumber Mosaic Virus (CMV), Bacterial Wilt, and Powdery Mildew. It produces fruit with an outstanding dark green color and has high humidity tolerance.
- Calypso (June): A high-yielding vine type that matures in 50 days, Calypso is resistant to mildews (including Powdery and Downy Mildew), anthracnose, angular leaf spot, and CMV. It’s known for its uniform size and high humidity tolerance, making it perfect for pickling.
- Homemade Pickles (April & July): This vine variety matures in 55 days and is resistant to common cucumber diseases, including Powdery and Downy Mildew. It’s a popular pickling variety with vigorous growth and high humidity tolerance.
- Wisconsin SMR 58 (June): A reliable pickling variety, Wisconsin SMR 58 matures in 58 days. It is a vine type and resistant to Powdery Mildew, Cucumber Mosaic Virus (CMV), and Cucumber Vein Yellowing Virus (CVYV). It has high humidity tolerance and produces uniform-sized fruit.
Slicing/Salad Cucumbers Lineup
Diva (May & August): Maturing in 55 days, this variety is resistant to Powdery Mildew, Downy Mildew, and CMV. It has high humidity tolerance.
Marketmore 76 (April, June & July): Maturing in 68 days, this variety is resistant to Powdery Mildew, Downy Mildew, Anthracnose, Angular Leaf Spot, and Scab. It has high humidity tolerance.
Poinsett 76 (June): Maturing in 68 days, this variety is resistant to Powdery Mildew, Downy Mildew, Anthracnose, Angular Leaf Spot, and Scab. It has high humidity tolerance.
Sweet Success (Parthenocarpic): Maturing in 55 days, this vine variety is known for its high heat and humidity tolerance.
You are probably wondering if I had any of the seeds already and I would say a few: Big Beef, Opalka, and Peron Sprayless. So, now that the lineups and scheduling are done the next was our seed-buying spree.
Seed-Buying Spree
My goal was to have all our seeds purchased and delivered by the end of January, as some of the tomatoes I will need to start mid-February to plant mid-April. I sent the seed list to Chris and said to buy the ones he bought before, like Opalka and our peppers from his seed source, and also buy some of the others like Druzba.
I worked on the rest, and would you believe only two local stores had their seeds out? They didn’t have the seeds I was looking for. You would think they would have the seeds out just after Christmas, as they have Christmas out in July. Why not the same for gardening? At the end of January they finally got the seeds cases displayed, and I found some of the cucumbers. One of them, the Cross Country Hybrid, I actually ordered from an Etsy store and was very disappointed in their service. I bought 100 seeds and paid $8.61 after a 20% discount. When my order came it looked exactly like the other packages of 25 seeds. I quickly sent an email with no response and then sent 3 more emails within a few days that included images. Still no response, so I took it to the next level and made a case with Etsy. I really just wanted my seeds, Well they refunded my money. I am not going to name the company on my blog, but I will definitely give them a bad review on Etsy.
This got me thinking. the seed packages are little zip-lock bags with just a simple computer-generated label. Now I ordered several tomato and cucumber seeds, I wonder if she put all the same variety in each bag. Time will tell.
If you are looking for some flower seeds and a few veggies seeds and don’t have a big garden or have a budget, then Dollar Tree is just right at 4 for $1.25. I bought 26 packages of mainly flowers like marigolds plus three big packages of wildflowers and spent about thirteen dollars. I plan to start then in my plug trays and either transplant to large containers or directly sow the little plugs. Last year, I had marigolds, zinnias, sunflowers, borage and petunias all over the garden and for the most part my garden did so well. So, I keep doing what works and will add more varieties until I have varieties that will work for my USDA zone 7b or 8a climate.
The last place I bought seeds was from MIgardener. They are so popular that I had to switch some of my cucumber and tomatoe varieties as they were out-of-stock. I can understand why, as they are very reasonable $2 for 25 seeds. I found Luke’s YouTube channel and was hooked on his videos; he is so down-to-earth (did you get that pun?) that I decided to order my fall garlic from MIgardener. The ordering went so smoothly the first time that I became a repeat customer and now have his app on my phone.
Now that the seeds are ordered, we can now start making the changes.
Changes
I guess the nut doesn’t fall far from the tree. When growing up, my grandparents used to go garbage picking, as we called it, for good things that people didn’t want anymore but were still good. This was before Facebook neighborhood pages. They would then take these items to the flea market.
I am a grandma, and I can honestly say I am a proud garbage picker. It is amazing what people throw away. When starting the pickle patch, I found my wheelbarrow left on the curb, and it is still being useful. After Christmas, our area collects and bags the leaves for the curb. You probably guess where I am going with this: yes, I have either taken bags from the curb or my neighbor helped by using our tarp and I wrapped them up like a burrito. The tarped leaves I process right away, but the bags I turn the opening to the side or down so no water will get in.
So, the first change is mulching by chopping the leaves up with my weed whacker or borrow an electric shredder from a fellow gardener who lets me use his truck outlet. We first spread a light mulch spreading all around the garden. Then the rest of the chopped leaves are re-bagged and are ready to go for mulching around the plants. Here is a photo of my bags.
The next change is collecting pine needles. Since Chris has pine needles, it takes just a few minutes to use a leaf rake and load them on a tarp or sheets. We then burrito wrap them and can store them in our geobin, which was my birthday present.
Another new system is our composting. I should say composting is not new, but now I have three spinning compost containers, including one being a big barrel plastic drum on its side. I use the big drum for finishing the compost before it goes to the final containers of two rolling big trash cans with lids. This is our final holding station before using for planting. If I run out of my holding space, I can always use trash bags or reuse purchased soil bags for my compost. We are always environmental conscious.
The physical garden changes include adding our ‘Back 40’ fence with an additional 1/2-inch square, 2-foot-high rabbit barrier. The fencing also incorporating ‘Rudy’s Radish Ranch Garden’. His garden has a nice setup with rows of premade holes and landscape fabric to keep weeds down. I am tweaking it by opening the beds to accommodate a hand tiller so we can grow his favorite radishes (white icicles), cucumbers, squashes and tomatoes better. His tomatoes holes were spaced evenly about 3 feet. Our new plan for the tomatoes will be spacing them even further by planting our cucumber trials in between.
I am sure I missed something, but this gives me more to post later.
Pickle Patch 2025
Well, when I started this post it was a frigid cold January, and by the time I finished this post it is now almost March. I always seem to be late with posting as gardening takes a lot of my time. My first batch of tomatoes, which are slated to be planted in mid-April, have germinated with my new germination station.
I spent at least two weeks researching the tomato and cucumber seeds. All the other vegetable seeds we have will do great like last year. It’s the main crops of tomatoes and cucumbers that we need to grow better. With all our trials, we should be able to fine-tune for 2026. We keep adding what works.
By the way, if you are wondering if the kale, collards, Swiss chard and mustard greens survived the frigid weather, I am happy to report all made it except the mustard greens. So, for my climate, mulching helped. 🙂
If you are planning to start a garden, take some time to research and plan your garden. If it’s not too cold, make changes to the garden, and before you know it is planting time.
Happy Gardening!!
Nancy Dru
