Big Garden Give-Away Saturday!

We love to help give stuff away and TOMORROW a $1000 gift for Mahoney's Garden Centers could be yours if you stop by the new Boston Interiors, 759 Broadway, Saugus, to register. You can enter all day and the winner will be picked at the end of the business day. You don't have to stick around to find out if you won, because they'll call you at home.

But if I were you, I'd go close to 11 a.m. because I will be at Boston Interiors then giving away free copies of my $30 garden book, "The Boston Globe Illustrated New England Gardening Almanac," to the first 50 people. I'll be signing books and answering gardening questions from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

What to do in the garden this week:
Buying Tomato plants - Heirloom or Modern?

There are no insurance policies for the weather, but it's looking safer and safer to plant out tomatoes, so I started doing it this week. I buy individual starts instead of growing from seed because it is faster, easier and because I like to plant one each of as many varieties as possible.

There are many advantages to modern hybrids, but I like to plant heirlooms, which you can now buy individually in most good nurseries. To me it makes more sense to grow heirlooms than modern tomatoes because they often have more complex flavors, and because they are very expensive or impossible to buy as produce in most food markets, even when they are in season.

Each year there are more heirloom tomato varieties to choose from, but shop this weekend because they sell out faster than other vegetable plants.

Here's some of the outstanding heirloom varieties I found this week while shopping at Russell's in Wayland, Lexington Gardens in Lincoln and Mahoney's in Winchester.

BLACK CHERRY TOMATO - Still quite rare, these dark purple cherry tomatoes are possibly the best cherry tomato on the planet.

BRANDYWINE - One of the most famous of the heirloom tomatoes, this Amish heirloom was introduced in 1885.

BONNIE BEST TOMATO - Bright scarlet. 6 oz. fruit.

CHEROKEE PURPLE - This deep purple tomato was believed to have been grown by the Cherokee Indians in Tennessee in the nineteenth century. A very sweet and rich tomato.

GREEN ZEBRA TOMATO - The flesh is green. The taste is slightly acidic, but sometimes sweet. The 2-3 ounce fruit grow in clusters of 4-6. The vines grow 3-5 feet in height.

GREEN GIANT TOMATO - A huge tomato, sometimes producing 2 lb fruits, with brilliant green shoulders and a lime green body when fully ripe.

STRIPED ROMAN TOMATO - Banana-shaped, pointed red fruit with orange stripes make an excellent, sweet tasting paste.

GERMAN RED STRAWBERRY TOMATO - Uniquely shaped, with sweet taste and lovely fragrance.

PINEAPPLE TOMATO - Beautiful inside and out. Deep orange with yellow shoulders, it has a sweet flavor as pretty as it looks.

WAPSIPINICON PEACH - 揚each�tomatoes are named for the light fuzz that covers its skin. These creamy yellow fruits are supposedly the sweetest of all 損each�varieties.

WHITE WONDER TOMATO - A 搘hite�tomato, with a high sugar content.

YELLOW PEAR TOMATO - This is one of the oldest recorded varieties of tomatoes, dating back to the 1600抯. Not planted in home gardens until much later.

Post a comment if you have a favorite tomato variety to share and tell me your source!

Question of the day....
A Reader asks:
Is there any way to lengthen the life of cilantro before it goes to seed and becomes coriander? Also, is there a good method for keeping basil plants bushy and the leaves tender?
Answer:
Cilantro is easy to grow but goes to seed fast, so many people plant new seeds every two weeks to stagger the harvest.
Keep basil leaves busy and tender by constantly pinching off the beginnings of flower buds at the tips of the stems.