2019 Review

Red Flam Grapes - 2019

The best/most productive crop in the garden for 2019 has been the Red Flame grapes. The quantity & quality have never been better. The vines were allowed to reach out across the garden in an array. Only limited pruning was performed to tidy stray vines. I constructed a very unsophisticated system of support using tall wooden stakes and twine leading the vines from the arbor out across the garden. This provided me with much welcomed summer shade while allowing the vines to soak up the sun and produce loads and loads of grapes. The grapes weren’t grocery store big in size; but they certainly tasted superior. I may continue with my remedial method unless Farmer MacGregor constructs a better more permanent structure.

Thornless boysenberries and Santa Rosa plums also performed well.  Earlier in the year, carrots thrived during the cool rainy season. Disappointments were beets being devoured by insects.  Still don’t know the culprits. They continue to destroy my fall beets. Tomatoes and peppers were also duds.

Two trees were removed:  Blenheim apricot & O’Henry peach. A new Blenheim has replaced O’Henry.  The nursery didn’t have any O’Henry’s in stock; so we hope to snag a bareroot peach this coming season. Farmer MacGregor insists. The Granny Smith apple also needs to be removed. I’m thinking of replacing it with a Royal Crimson cherry that has been developed by Dave Wilson Nursery for the San Joaquin Valley.

A variety of onions and garlic has been planted in the winter garden and look to be enjoying the cooler, wetter weather just like me. Hope you all are enjoying your garden too.

Garden Update

Just a quick notation of Spring progress in the garden.

The Pink Lemonade Sunshine Blue blueberries are developing nicely.  These are in a pot so it's much easier to keep the soil acidic.  Netting to combat those thieving birds needs to be put in place this weekend.

Thornless boysenberries (6 plants) are producing well.  Once the petals have matured a bit more, bird netting will be installed here as well.  It's a lot more difficult than with the blueberries.

O'Henry blossoms have faded giving way to developing peaches.  This summer I will try to correct some pruning neglect from last year.  More on that in a later post.

Granny Smith apples are coming along beautifully.  I don't thin out the fruit.  Nature will drop the weak ones in most all cases.

Celebrity tomatoes (6) all have multiple blossoms and are thriving amongst the onions.  I suspect that when the heat turns up this week (95 by Wednesday), these plants will be going bonkers.  In the meantime, I'm loving this cool, overcast Saturday.

I picked up a little lavender plant that needs to be potted. It's already developed buds.  No doubt it will enjoy the heat next week and be in full bloom.

That's a quick peek at what's going on in the garden.

June Boom!

It's June 1st and, just like calendar work, the plums are ripening.  We enjoyed sharing the 1st juicy goodness for dessert a couple of nights ago.  Santa Rosa plums are the 1st trees to break bud in the spring and the 1st trees to have fruit ripe in the summer.  Makes sense.  Duh!

Santa Rosa Plum

Next up are the Blenheim apricots.  Netting was moved from one of the spent boysenberries to the apricots for protection for those pesky garden birds.  Is it just me?  Or do you get annoyed by birds pecking from one fruit to the next leaving many damaged fruit rather than simply destroying one fruit?  Birds.

Blenheim Apricot

Farmer MacGregor's tomato patch is coming along.  His Better Boy tomatoes have improved in vigor as the heat turned up.  Some tomatoes are large and should be turning red soon; while still others are just developing.  They were planted in early April. Salsa!

Better Boy Tomato

Unfortunately, I did not note when the Black Beauty seeds were put in the ground.  I may stumble across a scrap of paper with the information or perhaps I noted it on the seed package. 

Farmer MacGregor planted Black Beauty Squash (zucchini) on April 21, 2013.  Regardless, I still maintain that the world's hunger problem could be solved by providing each person 2 mourning doves (male & female) and a few zucchini seeds.  Bounty.

Black Beauty Squash (zucchini)

There is plenty more going on in the garden; but this is what I captured before the temperature knocks on 100°F and the battery runs dry on my camera.  Time to close the house up and stay inside until the sun kisses the Pacific.

Augusta West - Not

It's time for the Masters' Tournament in Augusta, Georgia.  That golf course is famous for its azaleas.  My garden is not.  In 2009, we planted a bunch of camellias and azaleas in the garden.  Wrong.  They did bloom, but then they went kaput!  Only one azalea survives today.  Thriving in their place are thornless boysenberries

 George L. Taber Azalea

Garden Update:

Tomatoes (Better Boy):  Farmer MacGregor could not imagine a summer without homegrown tomatoes.  So rather than solarize the raised beds to eradicate the nematodes, he opted to plant a variety resistant to nematodes.  This is what we grew last summer in another bed. Planted last week.

Bell Peppers (Golden Bell):  Three plants should be enough to take us through the summer. Planted today.

Hot Peppers (Serrano):  Pepper poppers are a favorite around here.  MacGregor also prefers home grown salsa. So...Serranos were planted today.

Note:  I still cannot bend so Farmer MacGregor has taken on the task of planting.

Nectarine (Fantasia):  What's nibbling on the nectarines?  Ants?  Grasshoppers?

Fantasia Nectarines

Espalier:  All the espalier fruit trees (except for the Granny Smith apple) had a spring pruning.  Nothing too heavy.  The leaves are necessary to prevent scald.  The most vigorous growth was on the apricot and plum trees.

Tomatoes in Winter

A cold, overcast Sunday is a great time to make spaghetti sauce. It's also a great time to clean out the freezer a bit by using up some of the frozen tomatoes from last summer. Farmer MacGregor makes great sauce. Not typical Italian sauce. No. This recipe comes from his Hungarian grandmama. And it's my favorite. I have never found an Italian sauce that I like better than this.

The sauce cooked for a few hours then I lit the BBQ mesquite to cook some steaks and garlic bread. Delicious with a green salad. Farmer MacGregor cheated and bought lettuce at the grocery store rather than pick from the garden. It was good just the same.

I'm glad I discovered freezing tomatoes. I simply wash and dry ripe tomatoes and place them in a freezer bag. When you're ready to use them, fill the bag with warm water to defrost a little. With a sharp knife, remove the core and skin. Voilà! Use the summer beauties as you would canned tomatoes.

There is a secondary use for frozen tomatoes. Should you need, these would knock someone out if you beaned them with a sack of frozen 'maters. They are like cue balls.

This summer, I will only be growing tomatoes in containers as I am trying to eradicate the raised beds of nematodes.

Bastille Day in Okie Territory

Sure it's Bastille Day.  I tip my big straw hat to the French Marigolds in the garden for thriving where nematodes lurk. Viva la marigolds!  I wouldn't mind experiencing a French celebration once.

Though I didn't celebrate today by eating cake, I did enjoy a French Basque lunch down at the Wool Growers.  Later this evening, while listening to the Buckaroos play down at the Crystal Palace, I twisted my sombrero around to give a nod to my neighbors to the south. Mexico has a pretty great celebration (Cinco de Mayo) here in the USA to commemorate when they beat up the French.

The old radio/boombox cranked out Buddy Allen Owens singing while I collected all the fresh produce to make salsa.  He gave a Hee Haw Yee Haw out to visitors in the audience.  England was the farthest location and 90 was the biggest birthday.  (The gentleman was there celebrating with his girlfriend!)

It's simply a UN experience in the garden.

The Tomatoes Are Here!

It's kinda disappointing when most of your local fellow gardeners are realizing tomatoes in their garden.  I have plenty of blossoms and the Celebrity plants are healthy.  Tall frames used year after year are being used in a different way to support the plants.  Heirloom varieties grow tall and are "strung" vertically.  This year, hybrid tomatoes are working to starve those nasty nematodes.  The string is still being used except I wind figure "8s" around the wooden posts horizontally -  lassoing the plants kinda like a ladder.

Nonetheless.  No tomatoes.  Tonight's garden inspection revealed that the plants are enjoying the recent heat and have pushed a bunch of green growth.  As I was tucking the new growth into the string supports, I discovered fruit!  There they were...developing beneath the shade of all those leaves.

Celebrity Tomato - pea sized

Celebrity Tomato - bigger than pea sized

I can hardly wait to report my progress.

Good Bye Summer. FINALLY!

It finally happened.  Summer is done in the garden and it took until January for it to happen.  A couple of freezes last week singed all the tomato plants so badly that the plants had to go.  That included plants that produced all summer long and new volunteers.

The beds need to get ready for onions or maybe more broccoli and cauliflower.  All those veggies get used easily in the kitchen.Can you believe it?  It will be time to plant tomato seedlings in just 2 months!  Since these little tomatoes will get turned under, there will probably be little sprouts struggling shortly OR the earthworms can help break them down.

Come On, Summer. Let Go.

Summertime is hanging on by some very thin roots.  Kind of like a guest that simply can’t take the hint to leave even when you turn out the lights.
The weather here has been like summer in most of the country…highs in the 70s with sunny skies.  Volunteer tomatoes and watermelons are trying to make a go of it.The tomatoes are trying to reclaim the pea patch and the watermelon is trying to survive in the garlic bed.  I suspect they would grow even with shorter supplies of sunlight.Even the remaining Gold Currant Tomatoes may find it harder to survive later this week.  By Friday, those warm temperatures in the 70s will give way to a rainy day in the 50s.  You can imagine my delight.  I’m hoping for loads of frosty, freezing weather to help kill any bugs on/in the deciduous fruit trees.  Farmer Fred has posted a nice checklist of things to do to get ready for winter. 
The winter garden is beginning to mature.  Radishes and beets have been harvested along with some stray green onions.  This might be a good weekend to pick the last of the tiny tomatoes and peppers and make way for more onions.
Summertime will be showing up way before I’m ready for it – just like that guest that can’t take a hint.

Don’t Bug Me

 

The tomatoes vines were ripped from their summer bed today.  12 plants that grew about 9’ tall was quite a jungle to mow down.  I started by hand; but Farmer MacGregor came to the rescue with a gasoline powered gizmo that made quick work to the labor.  Not only were the vines dislodged but their parasites were hopping all over the place.  Farmer MacGregor had them locked onto his T-shirt.  One flew into my hair on my neck.  Ewwwwwwwwwwwwww!  That was it.  War was in full swing.  I used my hands, feet, pruners, and shovel to push these creepy creeps to the other side of life.  Farmer MacGregor used one of his size 10 1/2 sneakers to smash the buggers into the wall they were clinging.There’s gobs more hanging out in the spent tomato vines.  Once there is room in the green waste we will have another battle.  Hopefully, the birds will swoop in and help themselves to a Sunday banquet.  Hornworms, caterpillars, and grubs were cleaned out of the garden as well as the smashed hoppers.

Plans are to have the beds prepped and planted by Saturday, October 1 (or there abouts).

PS – Good news to anyone heading to Bakersfield.  The high today is only expected to reach 79°!  That won’t last long though.  Mama Nature will probably keep testing us well into October.

Mystery Tomato

Never never trust yourself to remember something.  I thought I could remember the variety of this little tomato that a work associate started this from seed.  Probably underneath all of the massive canopy of the plant I may have a plant marker.  It’s a tiny little grape sized fruit that is golden to orange in color.  They take a mighty long time to mature.  I suspect they were started in the early spring and transplanted anywhere from May to March.  Heck.  I really didn’t track these little jewels at all.  They are a nice surprise in the the garden this summer.

Farmer MacGregor enjoys snacking of these little tomatoes; so that’s a good thing, Martha.

the Good Guys

The sunflowers are really attracting the “good guys”.

 

 

As a result, this bounty is enjoyed about every other day.

The oblong tomatoes are Cour Di Bue – ox heart type tomatoes.  That nice round one is a Heinz.

Harvest Interrupted

This morning, the skies were overcast as I plucked tomatoes and twisted squash for harvest.  I didn’t get a chance to grab some corn or peppers before the clouds started to spritzel.  Since I think of myself as a little sugar cube, I darted inside before I melted with the splash of a drop.  Really, my biggest concern was my camera.  To celebrate the harvest, we headed to Floyd’s for some canning supplies and seeds for the winter (broccoli, cauliflower, radishes, Buttercup squash) before we had lunch out at the air park.  French fries and ketchup is most likely a perfect food.  This afternoon will be spent canning salsa and dreaming of cooler fall days with the rain drops won’t mean swamp pants.

‘Mater Stringin’

Summertime is in full swing and harvest time is getting under way.  All varieties of tomatoes are maturing and the bell peppers keep on giving.  The bell peppers grow upright without any support needed.  The tomatoes are a different story.The most important support for the tomatoes is a nice, big roll of natural twine.  No.  Having a strong frame is probably most important followed by a generous amount of twine.Start out with metal stakes driven into the soil.  Screw on the vertical wooden stakes to the metal stakes.  Attach a horizontal wooden stake (beam) across the top of the vertical stakes.  There’s some eye screws at the bottom of each wooden stake that has the first row of twine threaded.  Twine is run vertically from the top horizontal wooden beam down to the horizontal string.  As the tomatoes grow, a row of twine is added.  This helps keep the vines upright and off the ground for the most part.  It makes detecting varmints and harvesting much easier.When the vines have played out, simply cut the string and haul everything to the compost pile. 

Heinz Harvest

It took about 1 week for my perfect Heinz green tomato to ripen to a red tomato.  It probably would have been quicker if the temperatures this week had been hotter.  I can be patient whenever July temperatures dip into the frosty 80s.  Tonight, we enjoyed sampling this beauty with our dinner salad.  “Very tomatoey”, raved Farmer MacGregor. 

Here’s what Tomato Fest has to say about this variety:

One out of four heirloom tomato varieties sent to me by Kees Groenewegen, Manager of Operations for HeinzSeed for TomatoFest to grow out and share. This open-pollinated tomato variety was developed in Bowling Green Ohio and Leamington Ontario when Heinz had breeding stations there many years ago. This variety was developed primarily for Eastern Canada and the Northeast U.S.. Plant produces very hearty, leafy plants in our Central California fields that yield huge crops of 3”, bright-red, round, tomatoes. Sweet-acid balance and complex flavors. Uniform fruit appeared to be slightly larger than other Heinz tomato varieties.  A great canning tomato, salad tomato, and sauce tomato.

This tomato is doing well in the garden.  So far, so good.  Ketchup making is out.  There’s no way I can improve on what Heinz has created.  These will be treated like all the other tomatoes in the garden – fresh, frozen, or canned.

Anticipation

Tomatoes are really ramping up in the garden with the summer heat pouring down.  Heinz looks like it may be in the lead for my favorite/perfect tomato.  It’s looking good.  I picked up a plant from the Tomato Lady at the local farmers’ market a few months ago happy to find the variety that I thought I wouldn’t grow until next season.  This is definitely a determinate variety.  All the fruit should be ripe at the same time.

Next week is set aside for canning tomatoes with the hopes that everything ripens.  Now I’m going to search for a recipe for Heinz ketchup.  Ketchup is my favorite condiment and the Heinz variety will be reserved to make ketchup - if I can find the recipe.  Any references to the Heinz recipe will be appreciated.

Twilight Garlic

I’m out in the garden well past twilight working and inspecting.  It’s about time to harvest the garlic that was planted back in October 2010.  I’m a lousy record keeper regarding the garden; and blogging is helpful but I didn’t note what date the garlic was planted.  At least, I can’t find record of it.  It was sometime in October.  Now the garlic is starting to dry out.  Today the drip lines were pulled away from the garlic and onions because irrigation will switch to automation in the morning.  Prior to that the garden was watered manually as needed. The temperatures are climbing into the 90s this week so it’s time to rely on the water conservation system to keep the garden and gardener happy.  This will help prevent swamp pants.The variety of garlic is a mystery.  In the fall of 2009, I picked up a package of garlic to experiment with.  It grew.  The harvest was dried (cured) then braided and used from June to December.  There was a small, junky head that remained from the braid so I busted it up and planted it in the fall of 2010 to see if it would grow.  It grew.  The circle continues.  From about 40 cloves of garlic came 40 heads of garlic.  The initial investment of 30 cloves was probably no more than $5.  From that came 30 heads plus 40 more.

How much garlic can you buy in the grocery store for $5?  I don’t know.  I believe I’m getting a pretty good return on my investment AND I know how it was grown.  That’s a pretty good feeling.

 

Garden Note:

The summer garden is moving right along.  Here’s what has been going on:

• Tomato starts have been planted in their summer bed.  The supports need to be strung in preparation for a burst of growth.
• Cosmic Purple Carrot seeds from Heirloom Acres Seeds were planted with some of the tomatoes to see if carrots really do love tomatoes.
• Malali Watermelon seeds from Baker Creek were planted along with some French Breakfast Radish seeds.  Last year, this variety of radish was planted with squash as a beneficial.
• Nastursium seeds were planted in the holes of the cinder blocks that form the raised beds to help attract pollinators.  If the pill bugs let some seedlings grow to maturity, it should look good.
• Strawberries received an application of Garden & Bloom.
• Scale was discovered on the grapefruit tree and the orange tree could be threatened.  Take down was applied.  A 2nd application should take place in 10 days.
• Scare tap was tied to the grape arbor to scare away nesting mourning doves.  One empty nest was removed.  The following day a nest with an egg was discovered.  Scare tape does not scare stupid mourning doves.
• Sweet Peas continue to be harvested.  This area will be reserved for more beans this summer.
• Irrigation drip lines are in place to start a regular schedule to begin May 4.
• Bolting parsley was trimmed back.
• Shoots were removed from the healthiest (eastern most) wisteria.  The canopy was adjusted to encourage growth to spread over the top of the pergola.  Tomato cages were removed from the bases of both vines.  Cages were used to prevent puppy from teething on the trunks.
• Received a couple of cherry tomato seedlings from a co-worker.  These have been transplanted into small pots to harden.  They will be used for grilling.

Gardening – More Than Just Plants

Local red tape seems to be getting in the way of school children caring for, harvesting, and enjoying a school vegetable garden.  Nutty.  Some local schools have the garden set up but are blocked from eating what they grow.  The local paper had an article on Sunday delving into the details. When my garden gnomes were in middle school, their science classrooms looked out onto a garden with a greenhouse.  The entire garden area was big but unattended.  It was a shame.  I believe the garden continues to decay but I’m looking into the matter.

What a shame that free meals of junk are readily available to munchkins of all ages – some three times a day, yet they cannot eat a healthy carrot grown in carrot country.  What a shame.

They won’t know how a juicy summer plum forms as it hides in the shelter of a canopy of green leaves.

Plum - Santa Rosa

Or how a juicy ripe strawberry can also be enjoyed by the birds that hunt the bugs that also love the juicy ripe strawberries.  (Can you find the ravaged berry?)

 Strawberries – Sweet Pinky

Or how a juicy peach grows from a hard fuzzy weird looking thing that points straight up from the tree branch.

Peach – O’Henry

The deteriorating middle school garden would be a great site for a weekend garden club to meet.  Perhaps the Senior Center a mile to the south could provide some expert gardening volunteers while sharing with the children.  I don’t think it’s a matter of money here.  It’s a matter of matching up all interested parties to make something good happen again.  Honestly.  I’ll give each student 2 zucchini seeds each if need be.  What a tremendous way to give students lessons in botany, biology, geology, math, art, literature, physical education, and so much more.  I’m of the mind set that there would be much less ADHD diagnosis if a child ate right and had the opportunity to burn off a load of steam.

I would like to know if you have gardens at your local schools – most especially if those schools are in California. You thought our State flower was the California Poppy.  Wrong.  It’s red tape dispensed by the nuttiest group of squirrels ever!  Leave your ideas in a comment following this post or comment on the paper’s website.  In the meantime, I’m going to check out the California School Garden Network.  Is Mrs. Obama in the neighborhood?  I may need her help.

Garden Note:

Two varieties of tomatoes have blossoms forming - Tigerella and Santa Clara Canner.  They haven’t even been put in the ground!

Anticipation – Worth the Wait

Ye Gads!  My windows are hideous.  But that’s not the point.  The point is that I scored a Heinz Tomato plant at the Tomato Ladies stand down at the Farmers’ Market this morning.  I wanted to try this variety and thought I would wait until next season.  What a nice surprise to see this variety available to me for a simple $2 investment.

This is what Victory Seeds has to say about this variety:

75 days, determinate — An early, bright red, crack resistant fruit. Heavy yielder with Fusarium and Verticillium disease resistance. A good processing type tomato bred and originally released by the Heinz Company.

Crack resistant?!  That’s a relief.  It’s good to know that “Just Say ‘No’” is working.

There are several sub varieties of the Heinz.  All I know is “Heinz”. 

I’m hopeful.

Where were you in 1979?!

More ‘Maters!

This morning I headed down to the farmers’ market.  The Tomato Lady has a stand with loads of tomato plants for sale that she has grown.  I didn’t see her at her regular station so I walked on down to the gal that sells cut flowers and potted herbs.  Today, she had tomato plants for sale.  Great.  I’ll pick up a variety that I haven’t tried before to supplement my measly seedlings.  I about choked paying $3.25 for one plant!  Heavens.  That’s about the price of a packet that contains about 100 seeds.  Oh well.  I’m tired of the mess inside that starting seeds brings.  It’s the price I have to pay.  The Santa Clara Canner originated in Italy and is a great all round tomato.

After picking up a sack of oranges from a Dinuba citrus farmer, I wandered down to a stand that grows veggies and eggs up in the foothills east of my neighborhood.  A nice bunch of carrots and a bunch of beets had my hands full (I forgot to bring my canvas bag.).  Dang it.  The lettuce was great over at Farmer Tesch’s stand; so I grabbed a nice head of Romaine ($1.50).  I saw stuff at the grocery store that was close to $3 a head that wasn’t fit for pigs.  I don’t have any green lettuce in the garden thanks to the appetites of pill bugs and earwigs.  Now my hands were really full.  Then I spotted the Tomato Lady!  She had moved her stand closer to the sunny side of the street.  Yikes.  She had tons of tomato plants from which to choose.

Her helpful self made photo albums catalog each variety with photos and growing information.  Her plants in paper cups cost only $2.  Did you know:  The Rutgers tomato was introduced in 1934 by Rutgers breeder Lyman Schermerhorn as an ideal locally (New Jersey) well-adapted and improved "General Use" tomato for processing (canning and juicing) as well as fresh market. Rutgers tomato was developed and released in the period between WW I and WW II. 

• Pleasing flavor and taste of the juice
• More uniform sparkling red internal color ripening from center of the tomato outward
• Smooth skin
• Freedom from fruit cracking
• 'Second early' maturity
• Handsome flattened globe shape
• Vigorous healthy foliage to ripen more fruit and reduce sunscald
• Firm thick fleshy fruit walls for its time, though considered extremely soft by today's definition of tomato firmness
• Uniformity true to type in the field

A fellow backyard farmer at work brought in some tomato seedlings for anyone to enjoy.  She hasn’t been able to face the necessary job of thinning her seedlings.  I understand and will separate my choice.  I picked up a Tigerella cup.

Here’s a few things about Tigerella:

• Maturity -59 days
• Type – Heirloom
• Vine – Indeterminate (That means tomatoes all summer long instead of determinate which means all at once.)
• Plant height - 9 feet
• Fruit Weight - 4 oz
• Leaf - Regular leaf
• Color - Bicolor: Primarily red with yellow stripes
• Shape – Globe

Tigerella was developed in England and produces orange and red striped fruit.  We’ll see if this English dandy can hang with the big boys in Bakersfield.  My money is on my favorite, Al Kuffa.  But I hope I’m wrong and every plant is a wild success in the garden.

I headed up the hill to check out Garden Fest.  Everything was just getting underway.  Loads of plants for sale, gardening related booths, and booths not so garden related offered a bunch of stuff.  It looked like there would be a great crowd to help fund the Agriculture Department at Bakersfield College.