The House in the Woods Seedling Sale is approaching, organic heirloom plants for your garden. We feature beautiful heirloom tomato plants, and we’ve got some new ones to share with you, along with old favorites. I should have plenty of basil plants and some other plants to offer as well.

Sale Hours — Use our NEW FARM LANE, see below!
Friday May 6th, 10am-5pm
Saturday May 7th, 10am-5pm

***USE OUR NEW FARM LANE ON SALE DAY, on PARK MILLS ROAD*** for GPS purposes but there is no mailbox: 2225 Park Mills Rd, Adamstown, MD.
Take 270 to Rte 80 West, go two miles, take a left on Park Mills Road, go about three miles, pass Mt Ephraim Rd and Bear Branch Road. Watch on your left side–you will cross over Bennett Creek, pass a house, then immediately look for our new farm lane with a big “House in the Woods” billboard on sale day. Drive up the lane and follow signs for parking. Gone too far if you get to Lilypons Road.

Our tomato plants are now also available at The Common Market (www.commonmarket.com).
We may have more plants available later in May as well.
Contact: ilene@houseinthewoods.com or 301-607-4048

House in the Woods Farm 2011 Organic Heirloom Plant Sale

$4.50 per tomato plant. Ask about other plants for sale.
Bring a box for your plants. Return pots to our mailbox, we’ll re-use them!

May 6/7, 2011. More info–ilene@houseinthewoods.com    301-607-4048

REDS AND PINKS, PURPLES AND BLACKS (ie dark red)————————————
____ Black Krim–Dark red beefsteak with rich sweet taste from Black Sea of Russia
____ Brandywine–Pinkish red, most popular heirloom originated in 1889.
____ Cherokee Purple—A favorite, from Tennessee cultivated by the Cherokee Tribe.  Plants loaded with beefsteak tomatoes. Deep red interior flesh, rich, complex flavor.
____ Rutgers– From 1934 “the Jersey tomato”, red tomatoes great taste for fresh slicing or cooking.
____ Cosmonaut Volkov– From the Ukraine named for the famous Russian cosmonaut. Red slightly flattened fruit with good acid-sweetness balance.
____ Black Prince– From Siberia, one of the most popular black tomatoes. Rich taste for cooking or fresh. Smaller fruit.

UNIQUE COLORS————————————-
____ Old German/Pineapple—a mild sweet fruity tomato, with red-yellow streaks to skin and flesh. Low acid, as are most yellow, orange and green tomatoes.
____ Green Zebra–A magic tomato, green with dark green stripes, skin blushes yellow when ripe. Green salsa or even green sauce! A hit for contrast on a potluck platter. Also have some Cherokee Green.
____ Valencia– Beautiful round bright orange tomato—mild, fruity sweet that might remind you of a Valencia orange. From Maine.
____ Garden Peach–Yellow blushing pink, fruity sweet and juicy, with a slightly fuzzy skin. Just like a peach! Cute little 2 inch tomatoes.

PASTES for cooking and saucing————————————————
____ Speckled Roma–Paste tomato, Red with a hint of orange and wavy yellow
streaks, a beauty! And sweet, you’ll want to cut some for the salad too.
____ Orange Banana –another unique paste, this one is orange! Plum-shaped orange paste with pointed ends and a good sweet-tart flavor.  An all-purpose plum tomato with good disease resistance.
____ Amish Paste–reliable traditional red roma with thick skin and less juice, ideal for cooking and canning, but sweet enough to eat fresh.
____ Heinz– Red plum tomato 2 oz firm fruit ideal for cooking.

CHERRY TOMATOES————————————————
____ Matt’s Wild Cherry–Mini red wild cherry tomatoes, prolific. Cute little stems
with six bite-size tomatoes on each. Kids love ‘em!
____ Sungold Cherry–Orange, super sweet mini tomato. A rare exception to our
heirloom rule in our tomato collection, this hybrid is worth it. Our CSA members
eat them all up on the car-ride home.

PERENNIAL HERBS—————————————————-

Chamomile—beautiful little daisy-like flowers, dry them for tea

Sweet Basil and Thai Basil—great culinary herbs for any herb garden.

Do you grow a garden at home? Treat yourself to the rich flavor and unique colors of heirloom tomatoes. There is no comparison to most standard hybrid varieties, even homegrown, to these delicious varieties that have been cultivated for over fifty years, sometimes 150 years.

What are Heirlooms Tomatoes? Heirlooms are old, pure varieties known for their unique colors and wonderful flavor. More than hundreds of these family-heirloom varieties exist, seeds passed down and treasured for generations. Hybrid tomatoes were developed by industry in the fifties for red color and thick skin for transport to grocery stores. You won’t find tomatoes this good in the grocery store, and you won’t find these seedlings at a megastore garden shop.

These varieties are indeterminate. That means they set their fruit continuously, for a longer harvest than determinate plants. Determinate plants set their fruit all at once, so they will ripen about all at once. If you are growing especially to can your tomatoes, and want to harvest them all in a concentrated few weeks, a hybrid determinate variety might be a good choice for you. That would match the needs of big big farm businesses that pull up whole plants on a combine machine to harvest all the fruit at once. Way different needs than the average homegrower, but we’ve been marketed the same varieties. Time to re-educate and take back the old varieties!

House in the Woods Farm raises over twenty unique heirloom tomato varieties, seedlings for purchase in May by home gardeners. Certified organic and sustainably grown. The plants start from seed in our greenhouse, grown in our own compost mixture and all natural organic ingredients. When you plant, pour all the great compost in with the plant.

~~~~~~~~Planting timing and tips~~~~~~~~

When to plant? Plan to plant your tomatoes between May 5-20. The old wisdom of planting tomatoes and flowers Mother’s Day weekend is a good one. Some people plant early (with some extra risk of frost damage) and some wait until early June. We have risk of a night frost through May, so watch the forecast if you plant early. You can even rig up a sheet or row cover over some t-posts, chairs or tomato cages for a cold night!

How to plant? Dig a hole deep enough to bury the lowest leaves. You can even bury a couple sets of leaves if the stem is that long. Tomatoes like it that way. They are really vines and will grow quite tall. Put the compost from your pot, and extra if you have it, into the hole too, or pour it around the plant. Pour a couple cups of water around the stem area, to melt the soil around the plant. Sometimes the leaves look sad for a couple days but then they perk up. In a week the leaves will deepen green and be happy. Put a sturdy tomato cage over each plant, right away or within a week before the plants get too big.

Transition time– Your plants would benefit from a couple days of protection, if you can offer it. You can keep them in the pots on the sunny side of the porch for a couple days, bringing them in on colder nights. Next to your house, they will have some wind protection.