What a long, strange, trip it's been

It's been a cold spring and summer. In fact, it's been the coldest July on record and one of the top 3 coldest Junes. But, you don't have to ask the weatherman to find this out. Just look at my garden. I've only picked 3 ripe tomatoes so far. The plants were started from seed in late January and planted out during the first half of April. Four looong months later, on August 3, I picked the first one - a Costoluto Genovese.

This is the first tomato of the year, just a few days before I picked it.

Costoluto Genovese

Japanese Black Trifele

August 3 is a full month later than I got my first ripe tomato last year! (And I even set out my plants about a week earlier this year.) A lot of blossoms aren't setting.

Principe Borghese is good about setting fruit in cold weather. (Way to go! You sweet little Italian heirloom, you!)

On the bright side, the beans are growing well. Especially, the Scarlet Runner beans.

Witness the chicken damage below knee-height :) The girls love their greens.

Plus lots of zucchini (surprise).


And several nice-looking spaghetti squash.


Cucumbers are painfully slow.

I still have some lettuce that's growing pretty well, this is Gentilla (green) and Lollo Rossa (red).

I hate the ugly, chicken-deterrent cages, but at least I'll have lettuce to pick.

Here are the recent additions. Two hardy kiwis: the male is on the left and the female (Ken's Red) is on the right. Also, 2 everbearing red raspberries in the center: Jaclyn (left) and Caroline (right). Jaclyn has buds right now.


I'm proud of myself for actually remembering to put in some flowers:

Vegetable Gardening Guide for central coast

A local sustainability group, Monterey Green Action, asked me to prepare a vegetable growing guide.

They have created a community garden in downtown Monterey and several new gardeners are starting up in our area. If you would like to download it, it's in the sidebar. I also put a link to my vegetable harvest tally and growing notes for 2010 in the sidebar, if anyone is interested. This spreadsheet is continually (& somewhat obsessively) updated throughout the year. Wow, I've grown over $35 worth of lettuce and over $37 worth of snap peas so far this year! (Yes, it's true. I heart spreadsheets).

Anthropomorphic Parsnips

After growing a few of my own vegetables, I'm starting to notice something about the store bought ones....they are kinda boring. All uniform and perfectly shaped, they are. It makes me wonder, what happens to the "nonconformists"? Do they even exist for conventional farmers? If so, what happens to them? Perhaps someone is pulling them off the veggie conveyor belt and tossing them out. I hope not. They make me smile. Take this pair, for example:

"Mama parsnip with a baby on her hip"

Can you see it? If not, here is a view of them separated:

Admittedly, it's easier to cook with uniformly shaped vegetables. But it's not as much fun. What do you think?

New Raised Beds!

It's my privilege to announce the debut of 3 new raised beds!
We used two 2x6s for the sides (rough redwood) and 1/2" wire mesh (galvanized) in the bottom to keep the gophers out. The dump supplied us with 2 truckloads of compost for only $85. (Lots of shoveling and wheelbarrowing ensued). Have I told ya'll how much I love our dump? I don't think so...well, I need to. Anyway, once we got the compost in the beds I planted out some kohlrabi and pac choy seedlings. They may not have time to grow very much before it gets cold, but I thought I'd give it a shot. Cabbage white butterflies are everywhere in the backyard, so I covered the seedlings with black netting. Maybe I won't have to pick off so many caterpillars this time. Can you squish caterpillars with your bare fingers? I can deal with the little ones that way, but the big boys are another story....they require stomping for me.

I found 3 trellises at OSH that fit perfectly in the back of the beds. Being a member of the "do-it-yourself" camp, I had a plan to make the trellises myself. But I found out it was going to cost almost as much to build them myself (and be a royal pain involving ripping several boards), so I bought the pre-made ones. Gotta pick your battles, you know? Peas are just starting to pop up under the trellises - Tall Telephone and Sugar Snap. I also planted snow peas for the first time, but they don't get a tall trellis, since they are shorties. It would normally be time to plant garlic and shallots, but since my garlic got rust this year, I'm afraid it's a bad idea to replant it. (Thanks, Michelle for your advice.) I bought some shallots at the farmer's market and I'm thinking about planting them. Note that this is a "no-no" in all the books, since there is a possibility of disease spread when you aren't using "certified" sets. I did it anyway last year and they grew really well...until the gopher ate them. Maybe I'll plant some more favas, too. Come on rain!

Vegetable bartering

There is a restaurant located deep in Carmel Valley. It's only open on Monday nights. There are no menus and the curtains are cut out of paper, like paper dolls. And you have to "know somebody" to get in. That's not to say that you have to know somebody who is rich or famous or powerful. No, you just have to know somebody who knows the chef. The General Store dinners are related to the chef's catering business - a chance to try out new recipes on friends. The cuisine is all about local, organic, seasonal food. A nice change from the typical catered affair. We have only been to the General Store once. It takes about an hour or so to get there on steep winding roads. When we arrived, the place was packed. A lively atmosphere inside the old wooden building. Bare bones everything, except the food. It was absolutely delicious! The meal was not particularly unusual. This is to say that I recognized everything on my plate: roasted chicken, steamed romano beans, roasted potatoes, and a salad with local organic tomatoes and mozzarella cheese. The beauty was in the freshness of the ingredients and the careful preparation!

I have a friend who lives in the valley near the Cachagua General Store. She grows loads of vegetables and has often been asked by the chef to bring in some of her extra vegetables...in exchange for dinner with her husband. That's a reason to live an hour away from civilization in the valley, if I ever heard of one. This year the chef asked her to grow out some Aji pepper seeds that he had acquired from Peru.

To be growing vegetables directly for a fantastic restaurant - what a thrill! Now I just need to find my own local, organic-type restaurant...and another half acre ;)

Make way for the vegetables, ye lowly concrete!

I'm getting new raised beds in the backyard! Whoo-hooh! Last weekend we went to work breaking up part of the concrete slab in the backyard. I said "we", but really it was my husband who did the concrete busting with the sledge hammer. I brought him ice water and helped pick up the broken pieces. It only took us about an hour to complete our mission. We thought we were going to have to rent a concrete cutter to cut the slab off. But lo and behold, when we moved the pavers, the slab below was already cut...almost exactly where we had wanted! I was very glad we didn't have to deal with a scary, loud concrete cutter. Now I have space for 3 raised beds on the east side of the yard.

"Make way for the vegetables, ye lowly concrete!"

The Golden Rule of Corn

I grew corn this year for the first time. Although it's maybe not the best choice for a relatively small garden, I decided that I had genetics on my side. My grandfather grew it for a living. And really, I simply love the taste of fresh sweet corn. The reason many people with small gardens choose not to grow it is because the ratio of food to growing space is very low for corn. In addition, sweet corn is relatively cheap at the market...usually around $1 for 2 organic ears. Nevertheless, I forged ahead and decided to grow corn...in the front yard. It grew quite well, I'd say.

Happy corn growing - check out the pink silks!

After picking about 2-3 ears from each of the 8 corn stalks over the last few weeks, I chopped down the plants today. My husband looked at me in dismay and said "That's all?" "Yep, that's all...that's corn," I said.

This is the first ear I picked:

Delicioso!

You may have noticed that I said 8 plants. The Golden Rule of Corn planting is that you should have at least a 4x4 foot area planted in solid corn. That's about 16 plants spaced 12" apart. This is so that there is enough pollen present to pollinate the silks. Planting only one long row is said to result in low pollination. Imagine if the predominate wind direction is perpendicular to the row...little to no pollen will fall on the silks.

For some reason, I thought that this rule really didn't apply to me and my corn. I planted 2 rows of 4 plants each. I would have planted more, but tomatoes were dominating the garden this year, so space was at a premium. As it turns out, several ears looked like this:

Notice all of the unpollinated kernels!

Next year, if I grow corn, I'll be playing by it's rules.

Corn freaks?

I'm seeing something strange on my corn plants:

Underdeveloped tassels and silks on the same node.

It's occurring not just on one plant, but several.


This tends to occur on the upper nodes - above 2 regular ears.

Is this common or freaky?

$50 Worth of Zucchini and A Day of Grace

Exponential zucchini
I've grown 25 pounds of zucchini so far on only 2 plants - that's alot of food! The Italian Romanesco zucchini seed from Peaceful Valley Farms has proven to be a keeper.

Last year I lost a battle with powdery mildew on my yellow crookneck squash. So I went looking for a variety with some resistance. And it looks like I might have found it. Needless to say, I haven't kept all of the zucchinis for our tiny household of 2. Instead, I put the extras in a basket and place it at the end of our driveway. It always goes fast! I've also pickled zucchini and frozen bags of grated zucchini.

The picture at left shows the Italian Romanesco variety with a sidekick lemon cucumber.

I wish summer's bounty would last forever!

A Day of Grace
I checked out a cookbook from the public library a couple weeks ago - The Art of Simple Food by Alice Waters. Very simple recipes with few ingredients are my favorite and this book is full of them. I was enjoying the book so much that I decided to renew it for a few more weeks. But that was not to be, since someone else had placed a hold on it. So, I had to keep it 1 one more day past the due date in order to scan all of the recipes I had marked. I hate breaking rules, well actually I hate breaking good rules. And I deemed this to be a good one, since I know what it feels like to wait for a good book to become available. Anyway, when I returned the book the next day, I put a quarter on top of it and slide it to the librarian. "I believe I owe you a quarter," I said sheepishly. She proceeded to scan the book and typed something into the computer. Then, she slide the quarter back to me, smiled warmly, and said, "There is a day of grace." A day of grace. I smiled happily and bounced down the stairs toward my car. A day of grace. I wish you a day of grace today.

Central Coast Tomato Trials - part 5

I've got good news and bad news....
Let's start with the bad. It's really not that bad, anyway. I noticed some sort of disease on the lower leaves of many tomato plants a couple weeks ago.
























Some plants were more affected than others. The west bed seemed to be suffering more than the east bed. But that could be because the west bed was planted first, which gives it more time to show problems. I believe it's some form of early blight (a fungal problem) or it might be a different fungus, such as Septoria leaf spot. Anyway, it has appeared as black spots which become larger and eventually kill the lowest leaves on the plant. It is progressing relatively slowly. To defend myself (& my tomatoes), I've chosen 2 approaches: (1) milk spray and (2) corn meal spray. The milk spray is a 1:1 dilution of 2% milk and water.
























Milk spray residue showing on the leaves...it doesn't seem to hurt anything.

The corn meal spray is created by letting a cup of cornmeal sit in a quart of water for a few days. I'm spraying each of these weekly. The milk is going on the west bed and the cornmeal spray on the east bed. So far the milk spray appears to be slowing the disease, but it's hard to sure.

The other bit of bad news is that a gopher has killed one of my tomatillos - the purple one. He chewed up so many roots underneath the plant, that it actually died. This surprised me because the plant is protected within wire mesh. And the gopher didn't actually get inside the mesh, he just chewed from underneath and on one side. Next year, I'll plant farther from the edge of the underground wire mesh. And while I'm at it, I'll plant more than 2 tomatillos!

And now for some good news! I've been picking tomatoes most everyday for the last week or so. Mostly cherry tomatoes - Sungold and a few Sweetie. I've also picked a few small Stupice and one Camp Joy, for a (not-so grand) total of 1.4 lbs and savings of $5.60.























But wait, there's more! I can see lots of greenies on the vines, so I'm still looking forward to an increasing harvest in the coming weeks and months.
























As a side note to anyone local, I'm planning to go to the NorCal Cacti and Succulent show in San Francisco this week. If you're into drought resistant plants, I've heard it's something to see!

UPDATE on bogus milk spray:

Sometimes the treatment is worse than the disease.

In a knee-jerk reaction to seeing some yellowing of the lower leaves on my tomato plants, I decided to spray a milk and water solution (1:1). I sprayed half my plants once a week for 3 weeks with this organic and "safe" alternative. At least I thought it was safe. After the 3rd application, I noticed a fuzzy black mold on the leave surface that got the milk treatment. I'm 99% sure that the mold is due to the milk. Maybe a weaker solution would have been better? We don't get rain in the summer, so there was no chance of the milk solution washing off. In fact, I began to hate the look of the leaves with the crusty dried milk solution..which then morphed into mold. I'm pretty sure there would have been less damage, if I'd just left the plants alone. The other half of the plants that didn't get my "treatment" look much better. No black fuzzy mold. I actually sprayed them once with a cornmeal solution. But then I ran out of cornmeal and forgot to spray again - probably for the best!

Don't believe everything you hear...or read...please...for your garden's sake.

What's it all worth?

Inspired by Daphne, I've decided to figure out how much money my vegetable garden "makes". I think I've spent about $250-300 on supplies for the garden this year. Much of that was spent on wire mesh to keep the gophers out. It's absolutely necessary here. For instance, I planted 10 potato plants in January. Last month I harvested potatoes from 9 of the plants:

What happened to potato plant #10, you ask? Well, it was the only plant not protected by wire mesh... = gopher dinner.

Anyway, back to my statistics on the garden's production. I weighed the potato harvest and the total was 8.4 lbs. Organic potatoes are only worth $0.80 per lb, so my total 'savings' on potatoes was $6.72. As it turns out, I paid $15 for the organic seed potatoes (including shipping). The order was much more than I could plant, so I gave away about half of the seed potatoes. Because I paid $15 for seed and only "grew" $6.72, I can safely say that it's not really profitable to grow potatoes at these prices. Potato growing was kind of fun, but kind of high maintenance at the same time. What with all the diseases, hilling, digging, and annual re-ordering. So maybe next year I'll just buy my potatoes at Trader Joe's and give the garden space to something else. Unless of course, I see some unusual potato variety that really catches my eye on some cold winter night while pouring over a seed catalog...

So, in order to keep track of my potential 'savings', I've created a Google spreadsheet that is located on the front page of my blog - see the link? It can be found just below the poll "What vegetable grows the best for you?" (BTW, feel free to join in on the poll...I'm interested to see the results!)

Anyway, Google spreadsheets are great because they can be updated in real time. You can view my veg stats here: Veg Harvest 2009.

Central Coast Tomato Trials - part 4 - Gaining tomato independence!

How appropriate that on July 4, I should gain my tomato independence. From store-bought tomatoes, that is!
Behold, the first tomato of the season, "Stupice":

Though it only weighed in at 1.125 oz., I'm still proud. It is common for tomatoes to be smaller than normal in our cool summers. That's part of the reason I'm growing 17 tomato plants! And yes, it was delicious!

During the winter months, when I see tomatoes at the grocery store, I often feel a little bit sad. Pitiful little specimens, forced to grow out of season...how can we expect them to taste like anything but wet mush? It's not fair to blame the tomatoes, since they are genetically programmed to sprout when given certain growing conditions. We can't really blame the farmer/grower; they're just trying to make a living. The only one at fault is the buyer of the wintertime tomatoes. The buyers are the ones who ultimately bring these poor, wretched tomatoes into existence through their buying power ;) Ok, snap out of it...it's summer!

Artichokes Bloom! And new baby artichoke plants...

As discussed earlier, artichokes are not only great to eat, but they also produce large, lovely flowers. However, in order to actually see the flowers, one must resist eating the artichoke. The dilemma here is that we tend to eat the immature flower bud. I had a series of out-of-town work trips recently that kept me away from my garden for a couple weeks and so several artichokes got too big/mature for eating. Thus, paving the way for artichoke flowers:

I'm thinking it's about time to cut the leaves and flowers off the artichokes.

I believe this is what the local farmers do around this time of year when the plants start to look quite raggedy. It seems harsh, but it's supposed to encourage new growth and possibly a fall crop. Any ideas, or advice?

Due to the success of my first plant, I decided to go out and get it some friends. So, I've now added 2 more "Green Globe" artichokes to the front yard:

Once they really settle in, they should take off!

Also, in case you were wondering ;) - this is what chard gone to seed looks like:

It's about 5 feet tall...more funky-ness for the front yard!

Central Coast Tomato Trials - part 3

All of my 13 trial varieties have set fruit by now and some are getting rather large...
like this Nepal variety.

I also noticed something a bit strange going on here...

Can you see the sucker growing from the end of the fruiting branch? What's up with that? Do I cut it off? Or will that hurt the developing fruit?

I like to see tomato flowers.

Do you give your plants a shake everyday? I've heard that this aids in pollination. I'm not sure if it's true, but that hasn't stopped me from trying!

Here is the updated data for the Central Coast Tomato Trials:

You can click the image for a larger view.

In other vegetable news, I harvested 1.4 lbs of zucchini today,

along with 1.8 lbs of German Butterball potatoes,

and another 1.8 lbs of Yukon Gold. That largest one is hefty!


I've also collected a total of 14 lbs of plums over the last week. I'll do a post soon on what I'm doing with all THAT pound-age!

Artichoke: Flower or food?

As you may know, I'm growing an artichoke in the front yard. It's almost harvest time, but I'm having trouble deciding between food or flower.

Artichokes that you might buy at the farmer's market or grocery store are the immature flower buds of the artichoke plant. Kind of like cauliflower or broccoli, with one major exception. Artichoke flowers are gorgeous!

photo courtesy of: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net


What do you think?

Food, to feed the tummies?











photo courtesy of: http://www.freedigitalphotos.net


Or a flower, to feed the soul?





















photo courtesy of: http://www.freeclipartpictures.com

Artichokes rising

Neighbors have been asking: "What is that huge plant in the front corner of your yard? Is that an Artichoke?"
My reply: "Why yes, it is!"

And it's a behemoth:

Artichokes are king in Castroville, which is only a few miles from my house. In fact, they host an Artichoke Festival every year in the small agricultural town. http://www.artichoke-festival.org/ has all the details of the 50th celebration of this lovely thistle.

Just one of several posters available for purchase on the site:













There's a reason artichokes are so widely grown in Castroville and I'll bet you can guess it.

That's right, climate. According to the festival organizers:

"Artichokes are a marine climate vegetable and thrive in the cooler coastal climates. The artichoke does best in frost-free areas with cool, foggy summers but will grow almost anywhere there are at least 100 frost free days. Freezing temperatures will kill the buds and hot, dry conditions destroy the tenderness though artichokes do, however, like full sun."

A baby artichoke just beginning to emerge.

It's all about the cool weather crops here on the Central Coast!