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People usually say that tomatoes are the gateway crops to changing into a gardener. The thought is that individuals get actually hooked on this interest of ours as soon as they develop one thing they’ll eat. And homegrown tomatoes . . . nicely, there’s one thing actually magical about selecting a handful of ‘Solar Gold’ cherry tomatoes and popping them into your mouth.
However tomatoes weren’t my gateway plant. That honor belongs to peonies.
I grew up in a household that gardened fairly a bit, however most of our vitality was spent on the vegetable beds. That meant there have been compulsory chores that got here from the upkeep of these plots, like limitless hours of weeding within the scorching August solar. Maybe it’s due to these core traumas—I imply recollections—that I by no means appeared to tomatoes as a purpose to begin gardening for myself. As an alternative, it was whereas watering 2-gallon pots of ‘Sarah Bernhardt’ peonies on the native backyard middle that I caught the gardening bug. I fell immediately in love with the massive, aromatic, blousy blooms of that alluring perennial. Utilizing my subsequent paycheck, I bought one and introduced it house to plant. The remainder is historical past.
Because the years glided by, I turned a house owner, planted a backyard, moved, planted one other backyard, and so forth. However I all the time made certain to have a number of peonies within the combine. I’ve heard all of the arguments in opposition to them: a brief bloom time, a susceptibility to botrytis, the big price ticket, and many others. To me these are all issues that may be missed. Peonies are gorgeous whereas in bloom, and should you stagger your varieties, the present can lengthen for a number of weeks. A little bit backyard cleanup in fall round their crowns, and illnesses can simply be prevented. And should you suppose peonies are costly, I’ve two phrases for you: Japanese maples.
And allow us to not neglect that peonies are fairly deer resistant, which you’ll learn extra about in 32 Vegetation for Solar and Shade That the Deer Gained’t Devour. In that characteristic article, creator Karen Chapman extols the virtues of quite a few crops deer keep away from, and a kind of occurs to be her favourite peony, ‘Coral Attraction’.
In one other characteristic article, Dwarf Tomatoes Produce Ample Fruit With a Small Plant, you’ll learn all about Scott Daigre’s affinity for dwarf tomatoes. For Scott (as for a lot of of you, I’m certain), tomatoes had been the gateway plant into gardening. He has maintained that youthful adoration into maturity, writing books and lecturing extensively on the topic and even orchestrating Tomatomania!, the world’s largest tomato seedling sale.
I’d nonetheless take a peony any day over a tomato plant—and that’s saying one thing, as a result of I like BLTs. True backyard magnificence is within the eye of the beholder, I suppose.
Nevertheless, discover me a deer-proof tomato and perhaps I’ll rethink my stance.
—Danielle Sherry, government editor
Problem 217 coming quickly!
See the articles Danielle references in her letter:
32 Vegetation for Solar and Shade That the Deer Gained’t Devour
Dwarf Tomatoes Produce Ample Fruit With a Small Plant
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