Home is where you hang your heart

Tomato: Anna Maria's Heart

Summer didn't wait for me. I have been busy with my studies and rarely spent time in the garden. But it grew quite happily. I was able to steal away with a few tomatoes, handfuls of green beans for dinner, Swiss chard and arugula into my stir frys. However, the zucchini rebelled against the automated drip sprinklers. For some reason they didn't produce much this year, except for flowers.

One of the best parts of my summer garden was the flower bouquets I would bring in for my desk. The dahlias, sunflowers and cosmos seemed to be endless.

So last weekend I decided to remove the last of the tomato vines. I was excited to find these large ripe Anna Maria's Hearts towards the back of the bed. I hadn't noticed them until the vines had died back from the cold air. I gathered all the green tomatoes and pondered if I could let them ripen. Most of the time, I just leave the vines in the garden and pull the fruit off as they color. But I thought it's November, what's the point of tomato vines? I decided to clean up, amend the soil and add in my winter crops.

So many green tomatoes, what to do? The picture is only one-third of the green tomatoes I picked from the garden. I mentioned my dilemma to a friend and she suggested Green Tomato Mincemeat. I love mincemeat. She even stopped by last Saturday to show me how to make it, and to help process all the tomatoes. Not a huge crop, but I'm glad to have the quarts of tomato sauce and mincemeat ready for winter. And my greens are happily transplanted, ready to grow during the winter rain.

Tomatoes for fog

I overheard a conversation at the Farmer's market last Saturday.

"No, I don't grow tomatoes anymore. Just not worth waiting all summer for a few lousy tomatoes."

Too bad, I thought. But everyone makes those sorts of choices when they garden. And I can honestly say it's not easy growing tomatoes here on the coast; too much cold fog for those jungle weeds. But I like the challenge.

This year, in the spring, I was trying to figure out what to do about growing tomatoes myself. February was quickly disappearing and I knew that I didn't have the time to sprout the varieties that I have learned to love and that do well here. I had resigned myself to looking for something at the garden center or maybe going to Love Apple farms and getting a few plants. I was pretty resolved not to buy an Early Girl. I don't think they have much flavor.

It always amazes me the synchronicity of the universe. Just as I was reviewing my options I received an email from this blog. A neighbor had sprouted more tomatoes than they knew what to do with and would I like some? A neighbor I had never met before. Ah, the power of the internet. Can you believe my luck? I was so excited to pick up those plants, Azoychka, Anna Maria's Heart, Yellow Zebra, Silvery Fir Tree, Nygomous, Berkeley Tie Die, Bloody Butcher, Black Cherry, Lemon Boy, Moscovich, Cosmonaut Volkov, just to name . Then another friend of mine, a true tomato fanatic emailed me to say he also had extras. Double luck!

So although I'm not out in the garden much (thanks to graduate school), it always makes me happy to know that plants grow whether you watch them or not. And the tomatoes are looking great.

I'm happy to wait for them.

Silvery Fir Tree - growing outside the greenhouse. It produced my first tomato of the year on August 20th.

Expectantly thinking of summer

Please spot the nut job. She's standing under the apricot tree, up on her toes, straining to see if there are apricots. The flower petals just recently dropped. The pollen has barely had time to travel down the style to the ovary. Or has it?

Yes, I'm thrilled to say that there are lots of these tiny fuzzy knobs all over the tree. I might actually have to thin this year (fingers crossed). The five I had last year were just enough to wet my palate. I'm terribly excited to see these fruits, so small they haven't burst the flower collar yet.

Now in the other corner of the garden, this is what you don't want the cabbages to do:

You can tell that a cabbage is about to bolt when the leaves start to feel loose and "fluffy" versus tight and compact in a ball. A cabbage that is about to bolt can be slowed down by grabbing the head and twisting it so the root rotates in the ground and breaks some of the roots. But, if a cabbage seems like it's about to bolt, it's better to harvest it. My problem is that they look so enchanting in the garden. They are lovely, gigantic rosettes and sometimes I'm too enamored with them to harvest them.




I guess I kept hoping it might get bigger. Oh well. But it does make an interesting pattern.


The tomato seedlings are up and I'm now brushing them everyday. Brushing them involves lightly running your fingers over the seedlings, almost like tickling them. Outdoors, of course, this slight motion back and forth would be caused by breezes, and the stress strengthens the stems so the plant is stronger and stockier. I was taught this technique by another gardener who loved my seed starts, but felt they could be a little stronger if I had added more light and brushed them regularly. My first ones would fall over at the slightest hint of a breeze. A few have their first true leaves, so I think next week I'll start to pot some of them up.

Picture taken on 21 March just after I arrived home from work. They're leaning towards the last rays of sunset.

Oh no. Not again.

I've started this year's tomatoes. I'm only planting those seeds that succeeded last year. So many didn't make it. The ones that did, I preserved the seeds, even if I didn't like the variety or it didn't produce many tomatoes. Tomatoes that made the list:

1884 (raised in the greenhouse)
Anais Noir (also raised in the greenhouse)
Azoychka
Basinga
Beauty Lottringa
Black Plum
Cherokee Purple
Cream Sausage
Florida Pink (raised in the greenhouse)
German Strawberry (greenhouse)
Great White
Heart of Compassion
Jaffe's Cherry
Japanese Oxheart
Jersey Devil
Kentucky Beefsteak
Marmande
Northern Lights
Roma Pompeii
Peche Jaune
Silvery Fir Tree
Sunset Red
Ukranian Heart
Ukranian Pink Pear
Orange Russian

(If you've reached this page by google search and wonder why I'm only listing these varieties, please read my post "Garden Mistake Confessions". Then you can try to find specific varieties if you wish.)

But on the other side of the greenhouse I was surprised to see this:


The German Strawberry, the Anais Noir, and the Ukranian Pink Pear have all sprouted from what I thought was a dead stump. And the German Strawberry has been busy this winter. I found a couple of rotten tomatoes from the freeze. If I had noticed them sooner, they would have been eaten. Too bad.

They've got my number

Here come the catalogs. I had to drag this one into work and show it to a co-worker. I think she's been amazed at the different colors, shapes and tastes of the different tomatoes I brought in to work. I don't know if I will buy anything, however. I have plenty of seeds saved.

The Thanksgiving holiday was busy. I was hoping to have more from the garden on the table. But I guess it was alright to have onions, some remaining fresh tomatoes and butternut squash. I had wished that I had some turnips, but perhaps I'm the only person who really likes them.

Once everyone had left, I had a small amount of time to work. I transplanted some of the Artemisia so that each one of the plugs have a plant. I also am trying to sprout more of the Beach Aster. But of course Sunday brought rain showers. I was so focused that I just kept planting in the rain. Mr. C finally brought me an umbrella. But I was glad to get that done. Now I have my fingers crossed that more of the Beach Aster will sprout.

Monday the gauge read 3/4-inch rain. However, a high pressure system has brought in a cold front and now it's really freezing. We're on frost warning from 2 am until 9 am and I've already dragged my kumquat into the green house. Ugh.

Adventures in Canning

The tomatoes are finally ripening up in large enough numbers that I finally can do some canning. I have 3 quarts already in the freezer (one with the spices ready for a moussaka). I finally got a test run of the pressure cooker. Now I remember my Mom using the pressure cooker, and I think I should have been on the phone more often with her as a consultant. And I also remember the time where her pressure cooker “blew up”. The vent pipe had become blocked with probably some bean skin or other bean by-product. I was at school when the pot blew, and when Mom rushed into the kitchen to turn the heat off from under the pot, to rush back out again. When a pressure cooker blows its pressure regulator, there’s little else you can do but kill the heat and let it cool down. Of course it will continue to blow the contents of the pain out through the vent pipe. So when I came home from school, there was Mom in the middle of the kitchen on her hands and knees cleaning up vaporized bean goop from every corner of the kitchen. The goop hung like stalagmites from the ceiling, dripping into a deep gelatinous pool in the floor. Mom was not amused by my uproarious laughter at her plight. It was a pretty funny picture at the time, but it has always made me wary of pressure cookers.


So this weekend, I had made some spaghetti sauce and some apple butter. I hot packed the jars and settled them into the pot. I only canned one quart of the tomato sauce as I really didn’t know how it would turn out and I only wanted to lose one quart if that’s what happened. I remember how the pressure regulator sounded on Mom’s old pot, but this thing sounded like a steam train coming through the kitchen. And the pot is huge. It dwarfs the stove.

The whole time while I’m watching the steam expel the air within the pot, and then the pressure building and being kept for the length of the processing time, I thought how much I didn’t know what was going on in there. And when it had cooled down and I got to open the pot, I found out my fears were justified. I didn’t leave enough head room in the jar for pressurized canning. So some sauce had bubbled out under the lid and into the water. So, I don’t trust that the jar is properly sealed, as there may be food in between the jar lip and the seal. Well here’s the end result, not a fair winner but I’m looking forward to seeing how it turned out. The other part of the sauce (that I didn’t can) was delicious. So I’m interested to see how the extra heat affected the end product.

Tomato Sauce from Anais Noir

So, I thought I would post a couple of pictures of what sort of sauce an Anais Noir makes. The tomato is classed as a bi-color and the only way to tell that it's ripe is to turn it over and see if the bottom is starting to turn red. And from my previous post, it makes a great sliced tomato. But I've always mixed the bi-colors with red tomatoes and I've always come up with red sauce. So here's what they look like after going through the tomato press.

Now, they do turn a bit redder under heat, but the sauce stays mostly green, which wouldn't matter in a sauce that has lots of spice, like curry, or my favorite chili mac. Or there are other recipes that the color wouldn't matter because Then you wouldn't see the green at all.

Autumn's Wild Ride

The picture above is an Anais Noir tomato.

Is it just me, or is there a flurry of activity everywhere? Maybe it's just the vibe here in California. But it seems that everything is stacking up and needing attention right now, please!

Fall is the best time for Californians to put in perrenials. Then there's "crush" and the other harvests that happen now. Time to build compost piles, clean up gardens, put mulch down. Add the local and state fairs, garden center sales, plant sales, weddings, birthdays, etc. etc..... Just seems like it all piles up at once.

Every day this week there's been something planned for after work. Fortunately, the cold fog has kept the plants from wanting too much water. I'm getting tomatoes and they are piling up on the kitchen counters. I've processed a few quarts, one quart frozen, one quart used for moussaka, one in the fridge. It looks like I could get another two or three quarts this weekend. But I don't want to repeat my last mistake. I cleaned up the counter tomatoes, par-boiled them, put them through the Tomato Press, and then cooked the sauce. I was pleased with the end product & the counters were clear of tomatoes. I went down into the garden to pick some flowers and whatever veggies were available. Wouldn't you know it that I picked almost the same number of tomatoes that I had just processed? So I had to do it again! Pick first, process second (make mental note!).

And I don't have much room in the freezer. I finally purchased the pressure cooker to can the tomatoes (and large pile of apples Mr. C brought home). But I'm just waiting for it to arrive. Oh UPS, where are you? So my frenzied mind tries to calm itself by thinking in rhyme:

Lack of produce? I now will recant,
As tomatoes drop off of my plants.
Till my pressurized pot
Arrives to my spot
I'd sure like to can, but I can't.

Ever have that little voice say "didn't I tell you so"?

Saturday I was working on one of the gardens in the Master's Tour and it was pretty cold and damp. I was thinking to myself, "I'm not dressed properly for this, I'm going to catch my death of cold." and thereby fulfilled my own prophecy.

Summer colds are the worst, I think. At least when you are smacked with one in the winter, you can feel assured that hiding under the covers and sipping hot lemon tea will not seem contrary. It's cold outside; it's likely I'd be in bed with tea anyway. However, a summer cold you think, why would I willingly miss a day out in the garden?

I did don a sweater and go out for a quick look around once or twice.

One, I ask myself, how many times must I lose a set of freshly planted out seedlings before I remember to use shadecloth? I mean how many times can you chalk it up to a "learning experience"? Well, I'll be sprouting more "yuppie chow" salad mix to replace the sad, wilted & dead seedlings I left to roast in the sun.

I had ripped up the three dying tomato plants and turned the bed. I added an entire box of vermicompost, 2 cups of blood meal, 2 cups all-purpose organic fertilizer and another bag of compost from the nursery. I wanted to increase the organic matter in the soil and boost the macronutrients that seemed to have "bottomed out". This is where I thought I was going to have some cabbages and leaf lettuce. The cabbages might just make it with the "now in place" shade cloth.

Two, what the devil is going on with the tomato monster? It's dying off in places, but it's also flowering like mad. And much to my surprise, some of the flowers are keeping fruit. Maybe it's true that you have to stress the plants a bit to get them to fruit.

"No more lounging in the garden boys, time to make tomatoes or become extinct!!"

I'm still not holding my breath for an overwhelming bounty, because botrytis can settle on any of the young green fruits and rot them out completely. But I've ordered the pressure cooker just in case the monster proves me wrong (again). I have been surprised by the Northern Lights tomato, which now has two fruits forming. I was resigned to not get any this year. Maybe I will, fingers crossed.

In addition, the lack of sunshine here has affected the pollinators. When it's foggy, the garden is oddly quiet. Moment the sun shines through, the place is a-buzz. During the weekend, I was so concerned the butternut squash not being fertilized; I ended up hand pollinating it (once I picked the correct male flower - couldn't believe I mistook the first one for a male, please tell me it's the Sudaphed working on my poor brain!)

I noticed one google search land here with the question "how to pollinate pumpkin". I'll try to post my method later, minus using a female flower as the pollinator. D'oh!

Seeing more red in the garden

Beauty Lottringa

Cynthia described this tomato as so beautiful that you will bring visitors down into the garden just to look at it. It's so true. Her tomato stand is open now, if you want a really tasty heirloom tomato! She will be open Saturdays, Mondays and Thursdays from 9 to 6. And there's more than just tomatoes to enjoy. It looks as if she'll have a variety of vegetables and dahlias for purchase.



The "pumpkin" is finally ripening. Again, I can't believe I have a tomato that is this big. I wonder what it will weigh? Can you see that it has grown?

The first ripe tomatoes

 
I picked the Ukranian Heart and a Jaffe's cherry on Monday. Snapped a few pictures. Now I really need to update the tomato page. Had guests over on Sunday and it was a real challenge to get everything ready in the record breaking heat. It was unusually hot here on the coast. We hadn't seen fog since Wednesday night and the air was unusually still. Last night was the first time the fog even made it to shore. Tonight we've had a nice cool wind off the ocean so it's certainly nicer to sleep at night.

It's funny the things you don't own when you don't need them. I hardly remember to whom I gave my oscillating fan. But I was regretting letting it go as the house was really stifling and I thought how unfortunate to have the house full of people and no fan! But the breeze thankfully picked up and it was more pleasant. I had thought about serving a hot black bean side dish, but that morning I changed my mind and made a black bean salad instead. It was really convenient to walk down to the garden and pick up the "extra" ingredients. The yellow tomatoes (Azoychka) came from a friend who has some of the original plantlings. She sees more heat in Scotts Valley and is already enjoying the tomato crop. Now I'm looking forward to tucking into mine. 

See me jumping up and down

like a kid at Christmas.

The first sign of a blush has shown up on three different plants. The one pictured here, which is the Ukranian Heart, the Jaffe's Cherry and the Japanese Oxheart(#2). I didn't know if the Jaffe's Cherry was red or some other color. I guess I will find out soon. It's looking like a red.

The Florida Pink, remains green and continues to swell. Mr. C thinks that I've mistakenly planted a pumpkin. It has set a number more fruit, but I'm trimming it back heavily so I can at least get into the greenhouse.

I keep telling the greenhouse tomatoes that it's no good growing to their grand and luxurious greatness if the gardener cannot come in and give them refreshing drinks of water and nutritious supplements of compost tea, fish emulsion and liquid seaweed. I sometimes think I should write them a little book, Lessons of the Wild Tomato; a Cautionary Tale.

All of this exhuberance is due to a heat wave they have been enjoying. For me, it's a little uncomfortable, but livable. Flowers seem to be staying and fruiting instead of the usual drop off. When the temperatures regularly see 55°F (or lower) blossom drop is to be expected. But we have been staying at 60°F or higher in the evenings. A high pressure system is parked over the coast and the predicted temperatures are expected to rise and stay through the weekend. The weak onshore flow is creating humidity so there's a stickyness to the air that is really unusual. So I feel that the "experiment" has been blown. But if predictions are what they claim to be saying (as there is no snow on Kilimanjaro and there might be trees growing in Antartica soon), this might be the upcoming "norm".

ooh. I've scared myself......

But there's a blush on the tomatoes! :D (attention span of a kid, I know)

Will one of you just ripen already?

I was reminded of my college years this evening. I had a roomate while I was at UCLA who used to warm up her dinner in the microwave while softly chanting "hurry up already, hurry up already".

I'm feeling just as impatient.

Tomatoes are still green, all of them. The Florida Pink in the greenhouse is frankly the very largest tomato I've ever grown here. Ever. Probably the largest I've ever grown in my life. Everyday it seems to swell just a bit larger. I'm half expecting it to burst like a balloon that has been blown up too far. I'll come home, trot down to the greenhouse to find little green tomato bits blown everywhere. But not yet. It too is completely green and shows no sign of changing color. My prediction for having ripe tomatoes in two weeks may be off the mark. Sigh.....



But what really reminds me of my roomate and the microwave is the black beauty zucchini. The 2 female flowers opened on Sunday and the male flowers were not open. I looked in another bed where I popped in a mystery squash. I have sworn time and time again not to grow mystery squash that arise from the compost pile. You never know what hybrid genetic catastrophe you'll get. Last year I had these pumpkin looking squash but the shells were so tough you had to use a hatchet and then the insides were like a spaghetti squash only more tasteless. I felt it was a waste of growing space. But Mr. C convinced me that his little volunteer was worth saving and that was lucky because it had male flowers in bloom. I "borrowed" one to hand pollinate the black beauty. Now the 2 zukes are swelling, and even though they are growing amazingly fast, I can see myself standing in the garden with a knife softly chanting "hurry up already, hurry up already".

Rêver est plus facile (Dreaming is easier)

I will admit,in the evening I am more prone to dreaming than writing. So much easier to read what others are doing or perhaps to fantasize about going back to France for a while and dawdling in the gardens there. I found this interesting site, L'Atelier Vert, this evening and it nearly kept me from getting some documentation in.

This very nice 4 day weekend saw plenty of work in the garden. I started by harvesting 3 pounds of sugar snap peas. And looking this evening, it seems that I have at least another 2 pounds to pick (right away please!). And I picked all of the apricots (after one startled me by falling off!) There were only 6 this year, but that's 6 more than I've ever gotten before. So, I'm pleased.

I cleaned up the Rubine Brussel Sprouts (victim to the grey plague of aphids) and harvested the Elephant garlic and some of the Walla Walla onions. I collected seeds from the dying calendula and did plenty of clean up, dead heading, potting up, weeding and watering. The prunings that I took from the German Strawberry tomato (which Mr. C put in a bucket of water) are sending out roots. I suppose they will reach up to the shelf in the green house soon and add some fish emulsion when I'm not looking. I just have to be careful where they crawl out of the bucket and plant themselves.

Two new beds went in and I planted them with a bunch of bulbs and such that were needing planting out. I've been behind with planting dahlias, but they were about to join the tomatoes and plant themselves as well, since I wasn't working fast enough.

I keep trying to think how to present all the tomato varieties I'm growing and I think I will have to supply a link to an outside site where I can build a table in HTML. I've fiddled with this blog and the HTML long enough, and still don't like how it builds a table. But until then here are some green tomato shots:

Florida Pink (greenhouse)

German Strawberry (greenhouse)

(The Doomed) Kentucky Beefsteak (just before I plucked it off)

Roma Pompeii

Ukranian Pink Pear

Camalay

Cherokee Purple

Ukranian Heart (biggest tomato at the moment)




I think the only vexing thing is that I've lost a few tomatoes. Another one this evening, I noticed it on the ground. I think it came from the Japanese Oxheart. There is a little mold on the top, just like the Kentucky beefsteak. I pulled the beefsteak off (broke my heart too as it was one of the largest tomatoes I had) but the mold had gone too far. In fact, there was no saving it or frying it green as it had rotted out to the very center of the tomato. The third was off the Cream Sausage plant, but there are so many little fruits on those plants, it could have been a "bump" accident. The weekend was nice and warm and clear. I could see the fireworks in Monterey on Tuesday from my deck, it was that clear (pretty unusual for July). I can't figure out what is causing the continued blossom drop on some of the tomatoes, as the temperatures have been plenty warm. Maybe just not warm enough. There are about 45% without fruit: Sweet Horizon (removed only fruit as there was blossom rot), Mom's Paste, Aunt Ruby's German Green, Cosmonaut Volkov (why, why?) Julia Child, Northern Lights, Hawaiian Pineapple, Great White, Purple Russian (again, why?), Heart of Compassion, Black Zebra, Sunset Red Horizon, Ruffled Yellow, Orange Russian, Peche Jaune, Hungarian Heart, Great White, Anais Noir (I'm assuming the German Strawberry is overpowering it or I can't see the tomatoes through the jungle), and 1884.

If I haven't thanked Cynthia before (or often enough) I'd like to do that now. Cynthia is the owner of Love Apple Farms in Ben Lomond. It was her class that supplied 95% of the varieties I'm growing, and she will be selling tomatoes to anyone who ventures her way this summer starting in August. She also has a blog, which hasn't been updated in a while. She's probably busy working in the tomato fields. Please support her efforts, and buy some tomatoes. They really are wonderful.

Hope everyone had a happy July 4th. And now, a little fireworks ("Cactus" Dahlia Nuit d'été)

Run for your lives!

This year's first tomato plant has broken its cage! I came home this evening and went down to the greenhouse, contemplating what I was going to do about the jungle in there and just as I came to the door I realized the German Strawberry was toppled over. A gnarled and twisted cage was lying underneath. I always let the tomato plants take over during the summer, but this is just a bit much. It has taken more space than the Golden Currant Cherry tomato did last summer. So tonight, I've got to figure out if I go in with a machete or just a chair and a whip.



Next year's experiment: tomato pruning; does it affect yield? I am of two minds when it comes to "suckering" tomatoes. I understand "suckering" is pinching out the branch growths that appear at the top of a leaf along the main stem. I recently changed methods and instead of taking the entire sucker, I wait until it has 2 leaves and then pinch. Granted, keeping up with 40 tomatoes is daunting and I haven't done the best job. But according to the gardening books I read, suckering is done to improve the vigor of the plant. Does anyone really need to improve a tomato plant's vigor? From what I can tell, it's hard to keep them in check. Suckers are supposed to divert energy from tomato production. Now with dahlias, when you pinch the 2 side heads while it is growing a bloom, the main bloom does become larger as all of the energy goes to the remaining flower. Fruit trees are similar. I have already thinned the pear tree so there is only one fruit per spur. This increases the size of the fruit. But tomatoes?? The sucker produces flowers, and then fruit. So where is the problem? I sometimes think the garden writers are talking about determinate tomatoes, but not making the distinction. I grow indeterminate tomatoes almost exclusively. They are supposed to be aggressive vines. So next year, I'll plant 2 of the same tomato in the greenhouse and pinch suckers on one while letting the other go wild. Then I'll know for sure.

Now it looks like summer

All those lovely sunny evenings, with no fog made me wonder if we'd get into our usual summer pattern.

Last night, I nearly had to turn on the navigation gps (fondly referred to as Laurie) in order to find my way home. The bands of fog were rolling in thick dark swirls. Which is interesting to watch from the driveway as they power over the hill to cool the sweltering silicon valleyites, but not much fun to drive through. I've only observed fogs like this in San Francisco and Pacifica (keeper of the fog). I was always amused that it could be sunny everywhere, but Pacifica remained socked in. Although I also noticed when the rest of the Bay Area was fogged in and dreary, Pacifica was bright and sunny. This sometimes is the case with Elkhorn, especially on our hillside; we are sunny while others are fogged in. When the high pressure system is over us and the Valley is baking, you can see Moss Landing and the ocean quite clearly. When we have the usual summer pattern, and the fog burns off, it's hit and miss whether or not you can see the ocean. Sometimes, it's amusing to look out and not be able to see Moss Landing for the thick fog that settles over it. Then you turn and you can't see the little neighborhood shop at the bottom of the road. Depending on the time of day and wind patterns, it might recede once more and give you a glimpse of the ocean, or it can swirl right over and sock you into it's cold wet layers.

So, if you grow tomatoes or any other warm season plant, you can imagine the difficulty of the situation. I was talking to a friend who mentioned how Pam Pierce, author of Golden Gate Gardening, seemed to have such a despairing outlook on warm season vegetables. I agree, it can be frustrating to the point of despair, but I feel sure that there is a tomato plant that can muster through such difficulties. They grow palm trees in Virginia Beach, VA - so why not tomatoes in Sunset zone 17?

Not that I'm complaining.....

But I think the weather is messing with my tomato experiment. As I look at the ever growing tomato monster this year, I'm realizing that this is the warmest year we've had since we moved here. The first year I was busy painting the house all summer. But I didn't mind so much as every time I went outside for a break, it was foggy. We had some lovely summer days on the occasion where we would take dinner out to the deck and eat in the glow of the sunset. But these stand out in my mind as they were the occasion and not the rule. Year two was about the same for the summer. I know that I was feeling a bit despondent that the sun would be shining in Scotts Valley or Mountain View during work hours, but as I approached home, I could see the fog looming dark and cold. It makes for a nice cool evening, and I wouldn't trade it for a hot sleepless night in the Bay Area. But I've been keeping these facts in my mind in regards to tomatoes. What can I grow in a fog belt? Year three saw the addition of the greenhouse and a very happy harvest of tomatoes, but not a huge harvest. I wanted big plants grown "in the ground" so they had a more aggressive root system and hopefully a larger harvest.

And of course I'm completely going overboard with the numbers this year (it wasn't my plan, but I'm coping). I think somewhere in my mind, I kept thinking that many of these plants wouldn't fruit. They are proving me wrong (again). I'm still seeing lots of blossom drop, and I need to make some notes as to why I think that is happening and on which plants. I also want to make a complete chart of the varieties.

Like I need more tasks in the garden. ;-)



Oh, before I forget, I picked the first apricot on Monday. Nice if a bit tart. I pulled it because some blinking bird beat me to it. Only 3 more, and it looks like they might be ripe soon. But I keep thinking how cool it is to actually get fruit. Mr. C. suggested planting a second apricot. I just might. I also put "bird scare tape" around the blueberries which are beginning to ripen. I'm hoping to see some for me this year.

Weekend work update

Was I the one hoping for cool weather? Gads, it was certainly that! It oftentimes felt as if we were standing on the beach with the ocean cooled air coming directly off the water. I swear I could smell salt spray.



But the wall progressed easily enough. We placed the other rows of blocks on Saturday. We made a lazy day of it, fetching blocks, stacking a layer, grabbing a cup of tea, repeat. So unforunately, on Sunday, I ran out of time running to Tri-County for the soil mix.


It filled the bed 3/4's full, but then they shut at 2pm, thwarting a final run. But it looks like nice stuff, 1/4 yard topsoil mixed with 1/4 yard organic amendment. Needless to say, even unfinished I did some planting. More tomatoes into their final spots (Kentucky beefsteak, Sweet Horizon, Azoychka, Camalay, Mom's Paste,) blue lake bush beans, parsley, crookneck squash and black beauty zuchini. I added some cosmos, cherry profusion zinnias, and marigolds for the beneficials.

I'm glad to be seeing lots of ladybird beetles (mature and larval) and syrphid wasps/flies. Of course the syrphids seem to like the dandelion blossoms best. I've yet to see a lacewing this year. Also I'm seeing lots of dragonflies.

Bed one is popping with sugar snap peas. The calendula is in decline and I am needing to take some of it down, especially around the garlic. I harvested the garlic scapes (sauted them with the other vegetables that I stuffed into cabbage leaves) a while back so the garlic is finally beginning to decline. I'm anxious to see the heads. I've let some (well, maybe lots) of the leeks flower. I enjoy the flower and I can't say they were going to get any bigger than a thick pencil. I see minor growths where the brussels sprouts should be but nothing large enough to cut. I may have to cut it down soon & count it as a no show. sigh.....

I'm still procrastinating over bed 2. Don't know what I can do to kick myself into gear on that one. Maybe find a home for the salvia.

Bed three is blooming profusely with campanula cup and saucers. I staked a couple of the tomatoes there (Jaffe's Cherry, Ukranian Pink Pear), as the Annais Noir (in the greenhouse) was standing on Saturday, and lying down Sunday morning. I didn't want to see that happen in the raised beds.

I had removed the wall-o-water from the cossack (Purple Russian). He didn't seem to be thriving. But he's looking a bit better, I'm sure the Nitrogen shot helped (alphalfa meal scratched in). I've seen fruit on the Jaffe's cherry, Ukranian Heart, Marmande, and the Kentucky Beefsteak. I removed the one from the Sweet Horizon because it had bottom rot and I think I knocked one off the Cream Sausage.

Found a landing site

Okay, official results from the SunCalc says I have finally found a "new" full sun spot. It's where I tore up the nectarine. I had planned to do something else with the space, but I'm just going to do tomatoes there for now. Next year I'll make the bed I planned. Sometimes you have to bunt.

Tomorrow, I'll do a reading in bed 2 again, I'm assuming the weather will cooperate.

Also, I may write a quick note to the SunCalc folks that they should mention that their device displays the last reading for a few moments before it goes into reading mode (which is signified by 4 LEDs flashing, versus a single LED flashing on the result). I thought my new toy had packed up. I would turn it on and the device would flash the last result. So I figured turn it off and back on again. Same result. Total lack of patience on my part. What do you expect at that early hour?

Tomatoes Break-out!

I can't believe how big the tomatoes are getting! Of course, I always say that, as if tomato plants might somehow be smaller this year for some reason. Compare the difference between them now and on April 2nd. I'm finding homes for most of them, which is a good thing as the ones I want to keep need potting up real soon! Mr. C. says I need greenhouse #2 to go up.

The hunt for where to put the new raised beds continue. So far, choice #2 weighed in with "Partial Shade". Even worse than choice #1. I tried the SunCalc in bed 2 only to be dismayed with the result "Partial Shade". That was a shocker. But the change in sun angles does cause the amount of sun to change in the yard. That bed is ideal in the winter, very productive with swiss chard and other winter veggies (I was musing that's where the Brussels Sprouts should have been this winter). But I had a hard time last year with corn in that bed. I thought it was a lack of nutrients, but perhaps, I thought wrong. I've also stopped testing as the dark clouds have been hanging over our area. No rain, but not much sun either.

Tomorrow I will try choice #3, weather permitting. I'll also have to try to test bed 2 again to see if it was too cloudy that day. I'm thinking Sunday according to the weather predictions.