Radishrain

When you're out of ketchup for your hamburgers you can do any of the following things:

• Appreciate them without ketchup (not my personal favorite, but they are appreciable).
• Make your own make-shift ketchup from canned tomatoes, salt, vinegar, and something like onion greens.
• Instead of ketchup, slice tomatoes, salt them, dip them in vinegar, and put lots of them on your hamburgers. I tried this, today and it was great. Ketchup is basically tomatoes, salt, vinegar, sugar, and spices; so, this will get you some of the same flavor.

Here's a ketchup-free, mayonnaise-free, pickle-free, onion-free hamburger recipe that I enjoyed, today:
• Cook some hamburgers.
• Mustard some bread.
• Slice some cheddar cheese (thin-ish slices)
• Harvest one large Shark Fin Melon squash leaf for each hamburger.
• Bake the two squash leaves in the toaster oven on the racks at 450° F. until they're crispy.
• Slice some tomatoes
• Salt and vinegar the tomatoes
• Put your hamburger together (fold the squash greens to fit; expect them to crumble partially as you do), and eat.

The squash greens were pretty good on this, actually. FYI, I like ketchup, pickles, onions, and mayonnaise on hambugers.

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Tomato variety attributes to consider

Historical information:
Breed names
Ancestry
Breeder, discoverer, and introducer
Location of origin (City, state/province, and country of origin)
History
Is it PVP, PVPAF, or under plant patents?
Is it covered by a utility patent?
Is the breed name that you are using for it trademarked?
Has this tomato or any of its ancestors been genetically engineered?
How many sets of chromosomes does it have?
Awards
Contests won
Was it bred for a particular region, and/or purpose? What region and/or purpose?

Fruit information:
Size
Weight
Color
    Flesh colors
    Skin colors
    Anthocyanin?
    Striped (like Green Zebra)?
    Striped (other)?
    Green shoulders (when ripe)?
Shape
    Directional (balanced, long, wide)
    Distribution (balanced, pear, oxheart)
    Rounded or blocky edges
    Uniform or uneven (the beefsteak shape is uneven)
    Ribbing (none, light, moderate, heavy, ultra)
    Nippled?
    Hollow?
    Other
Best uses
Taste
    Sweetness
    Acidity/sourness/tartness
    Potency
    Retains the same flavor when cooked?
Texture
    Soft, moderate, firm, or as crunchy as an unripe tomato
    Thick or thin walls
    Meaty interior (walls aside)?
Fruit life:
    Shelf-life
    Hang-time
    Storage tomato (in the fashion of Burpee’s Longkeeper)

Flower and fruiting information:
Centiflora?
Days to ripe fruit (from transplant)
Days to ripe fruit (from seed)
Days to fruit set (from transplant)
Parthenocarpic?
Is it prone to megablooms, fused blossoms, fused stems, and such?
Jointless fruit stems?

Seed information:
Days to sprout
Seed size
Sprouts cool
Sprouts hot
How much gel on seeds?
Seeds per fruit

Plant information:
Species
Is it an F1 hybrid?
Does it breed true?
Size
    Growth habit
    Vine length
    Bushy or viny?
Leaf cover
Flexible or stiff plant
Thick or narrow branch stems

Leaf information:
Leaf type
Wispy?
Variegated?
Anthocyanin?
Chartreuse?

Tolerances, resistances, and afflictions:
Sets fruit in 90+° F. in arid climates?
Sets fruit in 90+° F. in humid climates?
Cold-tolerant (early season)
Cold-tolerant (late season)
Fruit itself is cold-tolerant
Drought-tolerant
Fruits fine in the shade
Does the fruit still taste good in cold conditions?
Does the fruit still taste as good when the plant is grown in the shade or partial shade?
Disease tolerances
Pest tolerances
Easliy stunted in hot temperatures?
Easily stunted in cold temperatures?
Easily stunted in drought?
Handles temperature fluctuations easily?
Handles uneven watering easily?
Prone to blossom end rot?
Prone to concentric cracking?
Prone to radial cracking?
Prone to splitting upon harvesting?
Prone to splitting before harvesting?
Prone to catfacing?
Handles warm wet conditions easily?

Alpine strawberries, as you may or may not know, are small. Tasty, prolific, and easy-to-grow, but small (usually; sometimes some bigger ones appear). It takes about two seconds to eat an entire handful.

So, I figured I'd freeze them to make them take longer to eat, and make a bigger impact in the mouth (due to the cold). Guess what: It worked! They're very tasty frozen, and they are much more substantial, and even more filling. The taste does change when frozen, but in a good way.

I used to think the frozen strawberry taste was particular to a specific variety of strawberry, but nope. Frozen strawberries taste different. No, every variety doesn't taste exactly the same when frozen, but you can learn to tell a frozen strawberry taste from a fresh one.

The great thing about these frozen alpine strawberries is that they don't stay frozen for a super long time, due to their small size. Plus, if you suck on them, the skins and seeds come off first, leaving the rest of the strawberry for you to taste in your mouth.

Garden strawberries are great frozen, too.

Another tip I have for you is that if you wash the dried up alpine strawberries before you freeze them, they absorb just enough water to be pretty awesome when frozen.

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Dr. Wyche's Yellow tomatillo

Offsite articles:
• Dave's Garden

Vendors:
• Annapolis Seeds
• Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds
• Garden Hoard
• Honeyman Seeds
• Meadowlark Hearth
• Reimer Seeds
• Seed Savers Exchange
• Southern Exposure Seed Exchange
• Victory Seeds
• Wayland Chiles

Offsite forum search results:
• Google: Dave's Garden
• Google: Gardenweb
• Google: Tomatoville

*****

Don't confuse this tomatillo with Dr. Wyche's Yellow tomato.

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Purple De Milpa tomatillo

Offsite articles:
• Cuttings; Growing Your Own Salsa Verde (The New York Times, 1993)
• The Plant Lady (blog post; grow report)

Vendors:
• Annie's Annuals & Perennials
• desertcart (has reviews)
• The Home Depot
• Honeyman Farms
• HRSeeds
• Morgan County Seeds
• Nichols Garden Nursery
• Planet Natural
• Reimer Seeds
• Richters
• Seed Savers Exchange
• Siskiyou Seeds
• Trade Winds Fruit

Offsite forum search results:
• Google: boards.net
• Google: Dave's Garden
• Google: freeforums.net
• Google: Gardenweb
• Google: proboards.com
• Google: Tomatoville

*****

I grew these once (in 2015), in a raised bed with partial shade. The plants grew nicely and flowered heavily, but it didn't set fruit until way late in the season when it was too late to develop and ripen. I got the impression that it needed a pollinator of another variety or something. It was a very hot year (the hottest on record, in fact), and that may have influenced the fruit set. I'm not sure if my seed was true; I didn't get it from a reputable vendor. I might try it again, some year, in better soil and sun conditions.

heirloom_tomatillo

Cisineros tomatillo

Offsite articles:
• Dave's Garden

Vendors:
• 123seeds.com
• Southern Exposure Seed Exchange
• Tomato Growers Supply Company

Offsite forum search results:
• Google: Dave's Garden
• Google: Gardenweb
• Google: proboards.com
• Google: Tomatoville

*****

I've grown this before (in 2016). It's one of my favorites, although it's not early. It got large green fruits with a very good lime-like taste, and it seemed that it had potential to be prolific.

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Everona Large Green tomatillo

Offsite articles:
• Dave's Garden
• Smart Gardener

Vendors:
• Seed Savers Exchange
• Southern Exposure Seed Exchange

Offsite forum search results:
• Google: Dave's Garden
• Google: Gardenweb
• Google: Tomatoville

*****

I tried growing these once (purchased from Reimer Seeds, who doesn't sell it at the time of my typing this), along with a bunch of other tomatillo varieties, but all the tomatillos struggled that year; so, I don't have much to report. I want to try it again, except in a container, mulched, or with black plastic, next time.

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https://www.androidpolice.com/2020/06/15/google-confirms-experiment-to-remove-full-address-from-url-bar-in-chrome-details-opt-out-mechanism/

People should be concerned about more than security here. Knowing the URL is important for a lot of purposes that are not security-related. Security is important, however.

This new move would not be pleasant for web designers (for instance), among others.

We've got a thriving, but heavily budding, oregano plant outside. I decided to make some herbal tea with some of it, to see what it was like. It was surprisingly good, even with all the buds! If you enjoy mint tea, you'll probably like this, too. The herbal tea had a pleasant floral smell as I drank it, and was relaxing.

Here's how I made it:

* Cut some sprigs of oregano, blossoms and all, and put them in a large mug. Maybe you'd prefer it weaker, with less oregano.
* Boil some filtered water.
* Pour the boiling water into the cup with the herbs.
* Let it sit for 15+ minutes.
* Drink (you can remove the oregano sprigs before drinking if you want, but they don't bother me).

Anyway, I rank it right up there with mint tea and blackberry leaf tea for enjoyability—maybe even higher.

You should probably research side effects and drug interactions before making oregano herbal tea.

Here's a picture of some of our Sempervivum. It may be Sempervivum tectorum, but I'm not certain: