Let's Talk Tomatoes at Evergreen Nursery!

Are you ready to dig in and get your spring vegetable garden going? Before you do, come join me at Evergreen Nursery in San Leandro this Saturday, March 9th, at 1:00 p.m. I'll be focusing on organic growing tips for everyone's favorite edible to grow--tomatoes!--but there will be plenty of time to discuss other warm-season veggies as well as some of the cool-season crops that you still have time for. The talk is free and I'll be signing copies of my book, California Fruit and Vegetable Gardening afterwards.


Evergreen Nursery, 350 San Leandro Blvd., San Leandro, 510-632-1522

Tomato Sighting

Although my original plan this spring was to skip planting tomatoes altogether, when I visited the Baia Nicchia booth at the Alameda Farmers Market several weeks ago, I couldn't pass up the chance to try out some of their tomato plants. Baia Nicchia is a local grower that specializes in tomato plants that are particularly well-suited for our coastal climate. They sell heirlooms as well as F1 hybrids and judging from the pictures I've seen, their tomatoes are gorgeous.

I picked four varieties to try out:

1. Maglia Rosa, a Baia Nicchia original, is an egg-shaped tomato with mottled pink skin. It is a cross of Speckled Roman and Black Cherry.
   
2. Vesuvio, another Baia Nicchia hybrid, is derived from San Marzano. It is shaped like a long-pepper and well-suited for container growing.
3. SunGold is a cherry tomato.
4. Costoluto Genovese is an Italian heirloom.

The first to fruit is Costoluto Genovese, pictured here. They are only about the size of a penny right now, so we're a long way from anything edible. But there's something about that first tomato siting--it just smacks of hope.

(And yes, I still can't stand the taste of tomatoes, but I do like growing them for family and friends. I'm also hoping to get some sauce or salsa canned this year, and I'm also determined to try fried green tomatoes for the first time. The Costoluto Genovese should be a good candidate for this.)

First Blush and a Second Try

The volunteer tomatoes, which appear to be Roma, are finally starting to color up. The three plants don't have much fruit at all so far--not much more than a dozen tomatoes on each plant, and only a few more flowers. Pretty slim pickings compared to past years. I don't like tomatoes, so I say this with much less disappointment than most tomato-growers would feel. Still, it would be nice to get enough to pass on to friends and family and still make a bit of sauce to freeze.

I have tried a couple times to grow Roma bush beans and each time the results have been dismal--small, stunted bushes with just a few itty-bitty, curled up beans. Now I'm trying Roma pole beans (recently delivered from Pinetree Garden Seeds). I planted two 5-gallon containers with the seeds a week ago and another five poles of them in the ground in between the roses. The ones in the ground are barely making an appearance, but those in the containers are growing well. I should be able to harvest beans by early October, which would give them about a full month to keep producing before the weather significantly cools.

Vegetable Sitings

It's not just a slim hope anymore. Actual vegetables have appeared in my garden. Everything seems to be happening so late this year and the plants themselves are much smaller than in previous years, so I was doubtful that there would be anything to harvest at all.

Each of the three tomato plants has a couple of tiny tomatoes. There are quite a few more buds and I think I might go out there with a soft little paintbrush and try to help the pollination process along a bit. Can't hurt, I guess.

There is also one pepper on one of the bell pepper plants. These plants are rather puny so I'm surprised that one is producing at all. This weekend I'm going to give everything a shot of fertilizer and see if it helps.

On the other hand, I'm ready to declare the corn a failure and toss the pathetic little shoots in the compost bin. I have some cabbage seedlings to transplant soon, and I'm anxiously awaiting the arrival of my seed order from ContainerSeeds.com. I'm looking forward to trying the Super Marconi pole beans (instead of the Roma bush beans I've repeatedly tried and failed with) and the "perpetual spinach" chard.

I'm hoping that we'll have a long Indian summer this year to make up for the dismal spring, so that I'll still have time get some actual crops going instead of one pathetic little plant here and another one there. I feel like I'm giving new meaning to the term "micro farming"--as in "microscopic harvest."

Bye-Bye Tomatoes

Yesterday afternoon I began the tomato relocation effort. After scrounging a couple dozen 5-gallon and 1-gallon plastic pots (thank you, Magic Gardens Nursery) and purchasing three big bags of potting soil to be mixed with compost, I began digging up and potting some of the biggest plants. After putting three plants in 5-gallon pots, I realized that it was going to cost me a fortune in potting soil to pot all of the tomato plants--and then I'd have to find homes for most of them. Forget it. I decided that the rest of them would make a lovely addition to my compost bin and I began yanking them out with something I can only describe as glee.

The result was a nice orderly bed with room for the plants I really wanted. The sweet peas, about 8 or 9 inches tall, will now get the sun they need and hopefully a growth spurt. The poppies will have a little room to spread too. A couple liriope have started to make an appearance and there are a few mystery plants as well that I left in place until I can identify them. Then I was able to add some newcomers. In the far left corner of the bed I planted a small climbing shell vine that I'm hoping will grow up and fill the lattice work of the fence to give a little privacy. And I planted two angel trumpets, which I want to train into tree-like shapes, also to give a little privacy along that fence. And to fill in the empty spots, I sowed some crackerjack marigold seeds.

I dare the tomatoes to come back.

Tomato Surprise

Funny things happen in the garden when you turn your back. After detailing all my edible plants in my last post, I went out in the yard to discover that I'd overlooked a few things growing in the long narrow bed along the fence. This is the bed that I'd cleared and seeded about six weeks ago with sweet peas, shirley poppies, iceland poppies, snapdragons, and violas. The sweet peas are coming in a bit slowly but are now about 8 inches tall. But there has been a lot of growth that I assumed was the two types of poppies. They had distinctly different types of leaves, but I'd never grown these kinds of poppies before, so I just shrugged and kept watering. Yesterday I happened to brush up against the leaves and caught a whiff of that telltale scent--tomato plants!

Yes, I should have realized that was what they were. I've had volunteer tomatoes come up in the same area where I'd planted them the previous year, but I've never grown tomato plants in this bed. And I never would have imagined that so many volunteers would sprout--there must be between one and two dozen plants. They've actually come up more successfully than the seeds I planted there myself! I can only assume that it is the result of racoons having late-night picnics in my yard.

Today I spent an hour or so potting up a berry plant, two roma bush beans, and two bell pepper plants. But in the next few days, I'll be digging up all of the tomato plants and potting them up. I guess I'll keep a few and try to find nice homes for the rest. As if there isn't enough to do in the yard, now I'm running an adoption service for vegetables!