Grow Superlative Tomatoes!

Wilts, Fava, Coffee Grounds!  Favas for Nitrogen, add a tad of coffee grounds, wilts prevention practices!  Here are some super tips on how to grow superlative tomatoes!  Prevent diseases, give them gourmet soil!

• Plant tomatoes where you had dense fava patches.  This year I was smarter, learned to chop the favas down for green manure while easy to chop when they started flowering.  You can see all the Nitrogen nodules on their roots!  Last year tomato plants I grew where the favas were, were robust and resisted the wilts longer.  As the one reference online suggested, I cannot say they prevented the wilts, but they did feed the soil beautifully.  I’m now letting some of the favas seed out for next year’s plantings.
• At planting time, I added a good dose of animal manures and compost, and my usuals – a huge handful of bone meal, a handful of non-fat powdered milk, worm castings, a tad of coffee grounds to the planting holes.  This robust combo works well.  As they decompose, coffee grounds appear to suppress some common fungal rots and wilts, including FUSARIUM!  Go VERY LIGHTLY on the coffee grounds.  Too much can kill your plants.  In studies, what worked well was coffee grounds part of a compost mix, was in one case comprising as little as 0.5 percent of the material.  That’s only 1/2 a percent!
• Plant on slightly raised mounds, with a well on top, for drainage, and plant only plants that need less water nearby.  That means your basil goes elsewhere even though they are often said to be tomato companions.
• Top the area with a one inch layer of compost, then cover with a thin layer of straw mulch to prevent the splash factor. When water splashes up from infected soil onto the lower leaves, the plant is infected.  Straw has air flow through its tube structure, allowing the soil to be drier even though straw is a mulch.  Deep mulch keeps the soil cool and damp.  No.  Use only the thin 1″ layer of straw that allows more air flow, the soil to heat a bit. Replenish the straw monthly.  Tomatoes like it hot!
• Plant resistant and tolerant varieties.
• Plant far enough apart so when they are mature their leaves don’t touch.  It’s hard not to be greedy and jam them all together thinking you will get more per your space.  But often that doesn’t pay if there are infestations or disease that spreads through the entire patch.  Not only is it sad, but, ugly.  And, it can reduce production since they shade each other out.  When you struggle to harvest through dense foliage, breaking the foliage, those damaged areas are also then susceptible to disease and pests.
• Plant alternately, tomato, a pepper or two, tomato, a couple eggplants, tomato….  You see?  That keeps diseases and pests from going from one plant they like right onto the next.  Instead of monocultures, work the biodiversity principle.  Take that further, and do separate plantings, two or three plants here, a couple over there, and a third group or plant in yet another place.  That can save them from gophers too if you haven’t installed barriers.
• Trim the lowest splash-susceptible leaves away religiously, even if they have tomatoes forming on them.  It’s a small sacrifice in behalf of the health of your plant, in favor of continued vigorous production.  Remove infected leaves promptly.  Don’t expect to stop the wilt, just slow it down, a LOT.
• Instead of long living indeterminate varieties, plant determinate faster producing varieties successively.  Plant new plants in other areas when the previous plants start producing.  Remove infected plants when production slows down.  Sick plants will sometimes suffer along with low production, but replacing these plants is more effective and less disease is spread.  The wilts are airborne as well as soil borne.  Consider the prevailing wind direction in your area.  Plant downwind first; work your way upwind with your clean healthy new plants.
• You can plant later. Rather than put young vulnerable plants in cool fungi laden soil, depending on the weather, you can wait until late May, even June, when the warmer soil is drier. In the past I have had volunteers come up in July and gotten healthy plants with good crops late August into September!

If you don’t have wilts in your soil, hallelujah!  And pray you don’t bring any home on transplants from the nursery or it blows in from a neighbor.  Keeping a clean crop is one good reason to do seed saving, buy organic seeds from a reliable seed house, and grow your own!  If you are not a tomato eater, ok.  If you are, enjoy every ‘licious bite!

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April Veggies! Heat Lovers’ Happiness!

Nighttime temps are now 50+ degrees!  If you have been waiting for these good temps, you just want to plant, plant, plant! Still, unless you have plenty of space, be a wise gardener and plant successively, some now, some later, some after that, to keep your table in steady supply of delicious organic food! If you are planting for canning, plant the amount you need all at once. Wait until the soil has warmed to 70°F before planting squash (except for winter squash – plant it ASAP) and melons. Santa Barbara, Pilgrim Terrace Community Garden, coastal ground temps are 60 degrees now.

Yes! Now we’re talking true heat lovers time!  TOMATOES! La Sumida has the largest tomato selection in the Santa Barbara area! Ask for Judy to help you with your questions. Heirlooms are particularly susceptible to the wilts, Fusarium and Verticillium. Instead, get varieties that have VFN or VF on the tag at the nursery. The V is for Verticillium, the F Fusarium wilt, N nematodes. Ace, Early Girl, Champion, Celebrity, are some that are wilt resistant/tolerant.  I do have to admit, though, there are many of us that can’t do without our heirloom SunGolds!

Eggplant, limas, melons (wait until May for cantaloupe), okra and peppers, pumpkins!  Sow or transplant asparagus, beets, carrots, celery, chard, corn, herbs, kale, kohlrabi, leeks, heat-tolerant leaf lettuce, okra, summer-maturing onions, parsley, peanuts, the last peas (choose a heat-tolerant variety such as Wando), white potatoes, radishes, rhubarb, and spinach.

April 1 IS JICAMA PLANTING DAY! If you miss it, plant ASAP! All about Jicamas!

Transplant early-maturing varieties of beans, cucumbers, eggplants, melons, peppers, squash, and tomatoes. Wait on cantaloupe, ‘cz they will do better started in May.  Sprinkle Mycorrhiza fungi right on the roots of your transplants when you put them in the ground. It increases uptake of nutrients, water, and phosphorus that helps roots and flowers grow and develop. Ask for it at Island Seed & Feed in Goleta.

If you didn’t get your Winter squash in last month, do it NOW, soon as you can, for sure!  It is a little late, so be sure to get transplants so it will have a long enough season to harden for harvest.

Mid April, another round!  Tuck in some bean seeds where peas are finishing, intermingled with cucumber seeds that will grow below the beans, plus a few dill to go with the cukes! Plant radishes with the cukes to deter the Cucumber beetles. Squash! Plant some corn in blocks, not rows, for good pollination!  In a good hot area, lay in some cukes, melons or winter squash, to ramble among the corn, soon as they are tall enough, put down a thick straw mulch to keep their leaves and fruit off the ground.

Grow herbs for beauty and table taste!! Sow or transplant basil, borage, chervil, chives, cilantro, comfrey, dill, fennel, lavender, marjoram, mint, oregano, rosemary, sage, savory, tarragon, and thyme. Be mindful where you plant them… Mediterranean herbs from southern France, like lavender, marjoram, rosemary, sage, savory, and thyme, do well in hot summer sun and poor but well-drained soil with minimal fertilizer. On the other hand, basil, chives, coriander (cilantro), and parsley thrive in richer soil with more frequent watering. Wise planting puts chives where you need to repel Bagrada Bugs, by your broccoli, kale, but away from peas if you are still growing some. Cilantro, a carrot family workhorse, discourages harmful insects such as aphids, potato beetles and spider mites, attracts beneficial insects when in bloom. Dill is a natural right next to the cucumbers since you will use the dill if you make pickles. They mature about the same time.

Good Homes for Good Bugs!  Lure hoverflies, lacewings, ladybugs, and parasitic wasps, by planting chamomile, cosmos, marigold and yarrow.  Let a carrot go to flower!

Check out:  Growing UP, 4 High Yield Summer Plants!

See the entire April Newsletter!

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Vertical Gardening, a Natural Urban Choice!

It seems like there is never enough space for Summer Veggies! Depending on how and where you go Vertical, plan ahead, think it through! Your water source, and how water will be delivered. Will electricity be available for a timer, will you set up a self watering system, or is it you and your hose? What about sun and shade, rain and wind? How much space will each mature plant take?

Beautifully done bean and cucumber container combo from digginfood!  On the ground, use a bigger trellis and weave those cukes up on the trellis, get them off the ground, and/or lay in deep straw mulch, to avoid wilts and have clean harvests.  Plant radishes in front to deter Cucumber beetles!

When choosing your materials, details to know:

• Peas have tiny tendrils that grab onto things, even other plants that grow upright. Beans have no such constraints! The entire vine will grow around and through openings. If you want something that serves for both kinds of plants, choose something wiry and small so the peas can live there too!  Peas are SoCal winter plants; beans are summer.
• Oh, and think about harvest – can you get that cucumber through the opening? A lot of wire fencing just doesn’t have openings a size you can conveniently get your hands through to tend your plant.  Think remesh.

Trellises & Cages! The old fashioned standards! Stick them in the ground or in your container, or across several containers! Anchor well, plant beans, peas, cucumbers, tomatoes, even melons, to your happiness! Cucumbers below, beans growing through them to the remaining trellis space above! Trellises can be A-framed, or bent to an inverted U shape – run your melons up and over it, plant summer lettuces in the shade underneath! Cages can give a lot of support to big plants like indeterminate tomatoes. And you can buy them pretty now, in vibrant colors! Or, buy 2 panels of 4′ X 7′ remesh and bind them together lengthwise into a 2′ diameter cylinder. Or stagger and bind them together to make a taller trellis lengthwise.  Those will hold a lot of plant, one huge indeterminate tomato or a passel of pole beans or peas, so anchor them well in case of a major wind.

Fences - a sunny openwork fence is the next best thing to a trellis, and you don’t even have to anchor it; it’s already up! If the fence is not openwork, use some ‘S’ hooks and hang some remesh or wire fencing for your plants to climb. When the season is done, carry the remesh or whatever you got as a climbing frame, over to the compost pile and remove the finished plants. Put that wire right back up and plant again!

Arches & Arbors These are lovely, providing cooling shade over your patio or deck, or adorn the entrance to your home or garden area. Grapes are classic and oh, so, tasty! But you can do all kinds of fancy, pretty, specialty gourds as well. Add a couple of climbing roses for scent and beauty! A scarlet runner bean or two are superb accents!

Containers! Tons of options!

• Put tall plantings in raised pots behind medium and short plants in graduated sizes in front.
• Railings of balconies or decks are terrific for those specialty boxes made to fit. Concerns are water rotting the wood, or what the water drips on. You could put flowering herbs there, Mediterranean plants that need less water. Keep them trimmed by using them frequently, for yourself, and for gifts.
• Traditional hanging container gardens - baskets, pots, boxes, but nowadays, reused plastic bottles too! Be sure they are wind secure, won’t damage any nearby structures. Know where the water is coming from and where it is going! Put water lover plants under the hanging containers to receive overflow from above. Water more frequently due to drying out sooner. Anticipate that a large plant will shade others when it grows bigger….
• Vertical grow columns! These come in many forms. Be sure they are well anchored. Install your water and feeding system, soil, plants, and grow, grow, grow! Great for lettuces and strawberries.

BioWalls! In a manner of speaking, a wall garden is nothing more than a fancy container garden! Make your structure with openings the size to accommodate your plants’ containers. Set in your water and feeding system. Put in containers that fit into the openings! Add your planting mix, and plant! Voila, a vertical wall garden! You can take containers out to conveniently tend your plant, exchange for another. Clearly, there needs to be enough space between plants so they don’t damage each other when you take them out, return them. Make them your height so you can easily reach them to tend them. If your biowall is going to be a feature, know it will need a little more tending to keep it attractively vibrant.

Shelves are simple! No saggies! Use adequate support and use materials that won’t endanger your plants by sagging half way through the season. Instead of using one wide board, lay on 3 to 5 narrow boards side by side, on edge if possible, about an inch apart – that’s for drainage and drying so your wood doesn’t warp and rot out. Or, tilt the shelf/shelves slightly, down in front, away from the wall of your house if you are doing the shelves against your home, so the water drains off and away from your home. Leave a little airspace between the shelf and your home for air circulation. Wire racks, like old refrigerator shelves, make terrific shelving. Drier conditions keep mildews, molds, bacteria and fungi from forming. Keep your plants disease and pest free for successful harvests.

Untreated pallets! What fun! Usually you can get them for free! Stand them on edge, throw in some peat and soil, maybe some straw, plant both sides! Put them where you want them. Move them anytime, per season, or not at all! True space savers.

Roof! How vertical can you get?! Be safe. Water is heavy. Can the structure support it? Is it ok with the owner. Where will excess water go? Anchor plants well – no flying plants!

As one blogger says, ‘…believe me, with a little love plants can grow just about anywhere and on anything.’ Tis true.

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March! The GREEN Month!

Here are March and April compared so you can get an idea of your timing, and plan your succession plantings. If you are planting for canning, plant the amount you need all at once. The first week of March is considered by many to be the first time for Summer Planting! Per UC Cooperative Extension, ‘If the soil temperature has reached 60 to 65°F and the nighttime air temperatures are consistently above 50°F, it is time to plant tomato and pepper transplants. Wait until the soil has warmed to 70°F before planting squash and melons.’ Santa Barbara, Pilgrim Terrace Community Garden, coastal ground temps are still only 50+ degrees at 8 AM, and forecasts indicate nighttime temps are heading back into the 40s, so wait a bit for in-the-ground seed planting! Some transplants may not do well in this cooler soil either. Just because they are at a nursery doesn’t mean it’s the right time to buy them. Seriously. See Savio’s notes below in blue. Let’s wait until mid March at least, and see how things are then – that’s only two more weeks. That said….

MARCH- Tomatoes! Few gardeners can keep themselves from planting cold tolerating quick maturing tomatoes as early as March! Be warned though, as Dee at La Sumida says, likely, no matter when you plant you won’t get first red fruit until July 4th! Ripening depends on day length as well as temps, but if it’s hot, we may be lucky and get a few sooner! Btw, La Sumida has the largest tomato selection in the Santa Barbara area! Ask for Judy to help you with your questions. Heirlooms are particularly susceptible to the wilts, Fusarium and Verticillium. Instead, get varieties that have VFN or VF on the tag at the nursery. The V is for Verticillium, the F Fusarium wilt, N nematodes. Ace, Early Girl, Champion, Celebrity, are some that are wilt resistant/tolerant.

Outdoors, sow or transplant beets, carrots, celery, chard, herbs, Jerusalem artichokes, kale, kohlrabi, leeks, lettuces, green onions, bulb onion seed and sets (be sure to get summer- maturing varieties), parsley, peas, peanuts, potatoes, radishes, shallots, spinaches, strawberries, and turnips. Transplant broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, and kohlrabi seedlings. Winter squash NOW, so it will have a long enough season to harden for harvest. Sprinkle Mycorrhiza fungi right on the roots of your transplants when you put them in the ground. It increases uptake of nutrients, water, and phosphorus that helps roots and flowers grow and develop. Ask for it at Island Seed & Feed in Goleta.

Depending on ground temps, tuck in some bean seeds where the peas are finishing, intermingled with cucumber seeds that will grow below the beans, plus a few dill to go with the cukes! Plant radishes with the cukes to deter the Cucumber beetles. Squash! Plant some corn in blocks, not rows, for good pollination! If you lay in some cukes, melons or winter squash, to ramble among the corn, soon as they are tall enough, put down a good thick straw mulch to keep their leaves and fruit off the ground.

This is the LAST MONTH to transplant artichokes, asparagus, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, kale; also strawberry, blackberry, and raspberry roots so they’ll bear fruit well this year.

Indoors, sow eggplant, peppers, and more tomatoes for transplanting into the garden in late April or early May. Also Cucumbers, eggplants, melons, squash and sweet potatoes. Time for heat-resistant, bolt-resistant lettuces of all kinds!

Tend your compost, plan your garden, do further SOIL preparation for plant happiness.

APRIL- Now we’re talking true heat lovers time! Eggplant, limas, melons (wait until May for cantaloupe), okra and peppers, pumpkins! Many wait until April to plant tomatoes. Sow or transplant asparagus, beets, carrots, celery, chard, corn, herbs, kale, kohlrabi, leeks, heat-tolerant leaf lettuce, okra, summer-maturing onions, parsley, peanuts, the last peas (choose a heat-tolerant variety such as Wando), white potatoes, radishes, rhubarb, and spinach. April 1 IS JICAMA PLANTING DAY! If you miss it, plant ASAP! All about Jicamas!

Transplant early-maturing varieties of beans, cucumbers, eggplants, melons, peppers, squash, and tomatoes that will tolerate cooler soil temperatures. Wait on cantaloupe, ‘cz they will do better started in May.

Grow herbs for beauty and table taste!! Sow or transplant basil, borage, chervil, chives, cilantro, comfrey, dill, fennel, lavender, marjoram, mint, oregano, rosemary, sage, savory, tarragon, and thyme. Be mindful where you plant them… Mediterranean herbs from southern France, like lavender, marjoram, rosemary, sage, savory, and thyme, do well in hot summer sun and poor but well-drained soil with minimal fertilizer. On the other hand, basil, chives, coriander (cilantro), and parsley thrive in richer soil with more frequent watering. Wise planting puts chives where you need to repel Bagrada Bugs, by your broccoli, kale, but away from peas if you are still growing some. Cilantro, a carrot family workhorse, discourages harmful insects such as aphids, potato beetles and spider mites, attracts beneficial insects when in bloom. Dill is a natural right next to the cucumbers since you will use the dill if you make pickles. They mature about the same time.

Good Homes for Good Bugs! Lure their natural enemies ― hoverflies, lacewings, ladybugs, and parasitic wasps ― by planting chamomile, cosmos, marigold and yarrow.

Here are some WISE WORDS from Yvonne Savio, Program Manager and Master Gardener Coordinator for Los Angeles County’s University of California Cooperative Extension: ‘Wait until the end of the month to sow or transplant vegetables and fruits that prefer very warm weather to mature–including beans, corn, cucumbers, eggplants, melons, peppers, pumpkins, and squash. They will do better when they have consistently warm soil and air temperatures. Planting them into the soil when air temperatures are still cool results in growth stress which is difficult for the plants to overcome. Peppers, especially, will just “sulk” if their roots are chilled, and they won’t recuperate quickly [if ever] – best to just wait till the soil has warmed before planting them.’ I couldn’t agree more. I have done exactly what she warns against and can say the results aren’t happy. Sigh.

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Tomato Grafting?!?! THREE times the growth!

No, no, no, it’s scary, hard to do, uh, how do you do it?  OK, you might give it a chance?  Three times the growth is pretty darn attractive if you are a tomato lover!  It’s being called the ‘Jack in the Bean Stalk Effect!’

Well, first of all, it’s easier than you think!  Any of you that have grafted fruit trees will take to it immediately.

You get Maxifort seeds (Johnny’s Selected Seed), or any proven excellent rootstock that is turbo powered and super disease resistant.  These super rootstock varieties do not bear fruit, or at least, not tasty fruit.  You grow your Maxiforts and your tomatoes of choice.  When the main stem gets about a ¼” in diameter, you cut the Maxiforts down to about 2” from the soil level, cut off your other tomato, now called a scion, at a matching diameter point, and put them together, wrapping or putting a ‘Japanese grafting pin’ device on the join to hold them together.  The stems need to be the same diameter so the cambium layers line up so your plant can grow.  Voila!

In two days to two weeks your plant will be healed and ready to plant out.  Then stand back!  Watch the Jack in the Bean Stalk Effect and be happy!

This method was first developed because tomatoes are so sensitive to verticillium and fusarium wilts.  The Maxifort rootstock withstands it and if you love HEIRLOOMS, that have little resistance to the wilts, this is your chance in wilt country.  A lot of coastal marine layer gardens have it in the soil, plus it is airborne, so if your neighbor has it or brings in a plant with it….

11 Years ago, the method started in Japan. 4 years later, Canadian agronomist, Andre Carrier, popularized the technique here, and changed everything for North American greenhouse growers.  Since rotating crops is often not practical in greenhouses or small urban veggie gardens, grafting is a breakthrough answer!  Now many commercial growers are using grafted tomatoes because it is super successful!  If you are scared to try it, have never done any grafting, try anyway!  At worst you will be out the price of a couple or three seed packets.  But, do go to some grafting demos.  You will soon see how easy it is, and, the results will be way worth it!  A powerful root stalk with the scion of your choice.  Doable.

If you don’t order some seeds now, put it on your January 2013 seeds order list!  Ask your favorite local Nursery to stock them!_____________________________________________________________________
June 28, 2012   Follow up! Cherokee Purple or whatever your favorite, heirlooms! Yes! I was hoping to start a tomato revolution! We may have to educate our nursery people. If we all ask for those Maxifort seeds, or the Japanese equivalent, He-Man, then they just might stock them for the profit! Turns out the Maxifort seeds are $23 for 50 seeds! Yup. Even so, to get the rightful amount of tomatoes for our efforts would be wonderful, especially those favorites! To get 3X the regular amount?! There’s a little modification on that point. It depends on the variety. Some are more invigorated than others, but all tested had greater production! Pure tomato heaven – canning galore, drying for backpacking food! There are some nurseries offering the already grafted tomatoes. Yes, they too are expensive, and more so to ship. This last info is for lucky people who might live near such a nursery or might visit family in a nearby area. A fellow Master Gardener and I have gotten our seeds (from Johnny’s), little guys now growing, grafting to happen soon! Will keep you posted.

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June, Summer Solstice, the Magic Happens!

March and April plantings are paying off handsomely now as we have warmer and the longest days of the year!  Harvests are coming in, tomatoes on their way!  Pick beans when your plants are dry to prevent spreading rust and mildew.

Plant more rounds of your heat lovers - seeds or transplants –  basil with tomatoes, peppers and eggplant best from transplants, corn, beans, cucumbers, okra, zucchini.  Put in more melons, and some winter squash only if you are in the hot foothills.  Late plantings will often ‘catch up’ since they have more heat, longer hours of sunshine.  Plant another round of radishes to repel cucumber beetles from cukes and zukes, and as a trap plant for flea beetles on eggplant.  For fall toms, put in seeds now, transplants in July.  Pop in some more year-rounds:  beets, carrots, chard, bunch onions, turnips, fragrant herbs.  Remember, plant seeds and transplants of the same plant at the same time to get continuous crops!  And mix things up to confuse pests and prevent disease spread.  Some here, some there….

Strawberries want to make runners in June! Instead, clip off the daughters, give your strawberries a quick uptake 0-10-10 type fertilizer, high in Potassium and Phosphorus, P & K, to keep them flowering and producing. Plenty of time to get daughters in October. Keep your strawberries wet! If they dry they stop fruiting.

If you planted garlic in November, now is harvest time!  Dig down, see how the little guys are doing.  If they are fat enough for you, stop watering for a couple weeks, and harvest!  If not, we did have a cool spring, let them grow a bit more….

• When you harvest garlic, dig, don’t pull.
• Be gentle. Freshly dug garlic bulbs will bruise easily and it is easy to accidentally slice a bulb open while digging if you are not careful. When harvesting garlic, lift each bulb individually from the ground. Place it in a container where it will not get jostled too much.
• Get the garlic out of the sun as soon as possible. Garlic will blanch and burn in the sun. Put the freshly dug unwashed bulbs in a dark, dry place as soon as possible.
• Allow garlic to cure in a warm, shaded area where there is plenty of air circulation. When garlic has cured, about three weeks for warm inland areas, six weeks or more on the foggy coast, trim off roots and cut necks to one-half inch length.

Time to feed your hardworking plants! Feed them as they start to flower, and while they are producing fruits.  Leaf producers like lettuces, kales and chard need a little chicken manure scratched in.  Pretend you are a chicken!  If you lay in too much Nitrogen, put on some Sea Bird quano high in Phosphorus, to bring blooms as well as leaves.  In fact, once your plant starts flowering, you can put some fertilizer on that is higher in Phosphorus to keep them going!

If you laid straw under your tomatoes or along your cucumbers, to keep soil with the wilts fungi from splashing on them, replenish it, make it a bit deeper as your plant gets bigger.  Mulch crops that don’t need that much heat, but enjoy moist feet.  Plant moisture lovers more densely in summer so they can make a living mulch for each other.

WATER!  Be sure your babies have plenty to drink.  To be sure things are good, poke your finger in the ground AFTER you water. You will be amazed how the watering you did may not have wet more than a 1/4″ to 1/2″ deep. Your plants’ roots are deeper than that. They can be dying of thirst when things look prettily wet.  Regular water is best.  Cucumbers especially need that.  Their fruit is practically all water, so guess where that water is going!  Tomatoes are picky.  Too much or too little and they are unhappy.  Experience is going to be your best teacher.  If you succession plant, you have more chances of learning in the same season.

Clean up and deadhead!  Trim away any damaged, diseased, or done parts, remove sick plants or ones that are not thriving, or step up your attention to them.  Put in plants instead of letting weeds grow and use up your soil.  Beauty be.

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Tomatoes, Wilts, Fava, Coffee Grounds

Reporting on the Great Fava Versus Wilt Experiment!

Some of you have been following my fava experiment, that, per John Jeavons, favas counteract the tomato Fusarium and Verticillium Wilts fungi, hoping it would work. Issues for me were lower leaves, humidity, low spots, nearby plant water needs. I religiously watered only nearby plants. But that was still a problem because the neighboring plants needed a LOT of water, and the toms were in low spots. The fava ring, planted around each tomato, grew really well and was so bushy I forgot to reach in and trim the lowest ground-touching leaves off my tomatoes. The favas created a humid environment, blocked air flow. They got the wilt first, kind of like a trap plant. But then it spread to the tomatoes because I had planted them closely, not knowing how far apart I should plant them. Perhaps I should have removed the favas at first signs of the wilt?

I didn’t give up on favas.

• As per the long-term plan, I decided where I would plant some of this summer’s toms, and put in dense fava patches in those places. They are now ready to be used as green manure.  Tip!  Cut them down just as they begin to flower.  When they flower, the energy of the plant no longer goes into making leaves, but production.  And the stalks get tougher the longer they grow – harder to chop up.
• At planting time, I will add a good dose of animal manures and compost, and my usuals – a huge handful of bone meal, a handful of non-fat powdered milk, and worm castings, and a new item, a tad of coffee grounds (see below), as well, to the planting holes.
• I’ll plant on slightly raised mounds for drainage, and plant only plants that need less water nearby.
• I’ll top the area with a one inch layer of compost, then cover with a thin layer of straw mulch to prevent the splash factor. When water splashes up from infected soil onto the lower leaves, the plant is infected. I will replenish the straw monthly. Straw has air flow through its tube structure, allowing the soil to be drier even though straw is a mulch.
• I’ll plant my resistant and tolerant varieties so their leaves don’t touch, and trim the lowest splash susceptible leaves away, remove infected leaves promptly. I don’t expect to stop the wilt, just slow it down, a LOT.
• Instead of long living indeterminate varieties, I’m going to plant determinate faster producing varieties successively, removing infected plants when they finish producing.
• Another thing I’m going to do is plant later. Rather than put young vulnerable plants in cool fungi laden soil, depending on the weather, I’m going to wait until late May, even June, when the warmer soil is drier. In the past I have had volunteers come up in July and gotten good crops from them late August, September!

Coffee Grounds: Myths, Miracles or Marketing?!

Here’s some study results adapted from the Washington State U report! Disease suppression As they decompose, coffee grounds appear to suppress some common fungal rots and wilts, including FUSARIUM! In these studies, coffee grounds were part of a compost mix, in one case comprising as little as 0.5 percent of the material. Researchers suggest that the bacterial and fungal species normally found on decomposing coffee grounds prevent pathogenic fungi, like Fusarium, from establishing. Currently, disease suppression from coffee grounds has only been demonstrated under controlled conditions on a handful of veggies, bean, cucumber, spinach, and tomato. Their efficacy in gardens and landscapes is unknown, as is any protective activity on other plant materials such as trees or shrubs.

Not all get a jolt – Weed Suppression Not all plants get a jolt from coffee grounds. Seed germination can be inhibited by water leached through coffee grounds. Growth of crops such as Chinese mustard (Brassica juncea), komatsuna (Brassica campestris) and Italian ryegrass (Lolium multiflorum) were all inhibited by coffee grounds, as was that of ornamentals including inch plant (Tradescantia albiflora), geranium, and asparagus fern. One investigator speculated that toxic substances released from decomposing coffee grounds were responsible for their inhibitory effect. This effect also reduces weeds, and perhaps in a landscape dominated by large shrubs and trees, only germinating seeds and seedlings would be injured. But as there has been no experimental research on coffee grounds and woody plants, this is only speculation, says the author.

Moral of the story is go lightly, only 0.5 % in your compost – that’s a 1/2 of a %! That’s very little! Just as our soil only needs 5% humus, over composting is not helpful, so is too much coffee grounds. When I first started gardening, I laid some grounds down as mulch. Bad beginners move. The plants there died, and that area grew plants poorly for the following two seasons. I wonder if grounds work on Verticillium?!

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Give your plants a chance!

Healthy care and choices make the difference!

Not too much N (Nitrogen)  It imbalances your plants, just like too much sugar for us.  You get lots of leaf, no fruit, growth is too fast and ‘soft,’ inviting to pests and diseases.

Watering practices make a difference.  Overhead watering is not good for most plants, but especially not for fuzzy plants that like it dry – tomatoes, eggplant.  Too much nighttime wet equals mildews and more slugs and snails, more remedies and pest prevention, more costly.  Plants drink during the day – water in the AM when you can.  Make furrows, water deep, let it soak in laterally.  Make basins to keep water where you want it.  Drip systems usually don’t work in a veggie garden you are planting biodiversely, mixing things up.  Also, veggies come and go pretty quickly in an active garden.  If you are row or patch planting, if the area is long or big enough, a drip system could work well. 

• Water soaked soil is dead soil.  Soil organisms, soil builders, simply drown.  If in a low spot, check your drainage options; build a raised bed.  Add organic water holding compost, water less no matter how much fun it is!
• Dry soil is dead soil.  Nitrogen off gases, your soil organisms die or go away.  See if you can channel some water to that area.  Install furrows or build soil walls or basins to keep water where it is needed, avoid wasteful runoff.  Again, add organic water holding compost.  Water deeply.  If you are gardening at home, busy and forgetful, perhaps you could install drip irrigation on a timer. 

Avoid spreading viruses that can spread diseases.  Really check those plants you buy at the discount nursery.  Remove diseased plants and don’t compost diseased plants.  This is a tough decision when it comes to disease tolerant plant varieties.  They can have a disease yet still produce.  They are bred to do that.  Is that ethical?  If you are gardening at home and make that choice, that is one thing.  If you are in a community garden, and the disease is windborne, is it fair to your garden neighbors?  Maybe we all need to get tolerant varieties.  

Some diseases lurk in garden border weeds.  Or you can bring them into the garden by walking through weeds.  Insects bring some diseases and so do animals, like our skunks, raccoons, possums.  If the ‘weeds’ are habitat for beneficial insects, be careful what you remove, consider the balances. 

Ants.  Whether you mind them or not probably depends on how many there are and what they are doing.  If they are tending aphids, no!  Not only are there ants with aphids, but white flies are attracted to the aphid honeydew as well.  Otherwise, ants are virtuous hard working cleaner uppers!  The take away dead insects.  Balance is the key. 

Varieties matter.  Planting a variety out of season makes that plant struggle and be vulnerable to pests and diseases it can’t handle.  In Santa Barbara we have the cool damp ocean areas and the hot dry foothills.  Different varieties will thrive in one and not the other.  Planting too early or too late, your plant will try, but may not be able.  Some gardeners are totally pro Heirloom, against hybrids.  But Nature herself hybridizes, it is a natural process.  It occurs naturally by area and plants that grow there do the best there.  In a way, we subtly do a similar thing ourselves when we select seed from our best plants.  I think being flexible in your choices will get the best all around results. 

Planting at the Right Time makes a big difference.  Sometimes you just won’t get germination if it is too cold or hot.  Or a plant thrives in temporary weather, but dies when it goes cold again, or too, too hot.  They need certain temps and day length.  Some may survive, but never thrive later.  That is sad to see.  So respect them.  Know them well enough to honor their needs.  Planted at the wrong time, pests they aren’t equipped to handle may eat them alive.  If you are a big risk taker and financially don’t mind a few losses, go ahead.  Some will succeed, for sure.  You may or may not get earlier production.  Sometimes plants can be planted a month apart, but the later one will ‘catch up,’ and produce at the same time as the earlier plant!  Same can be true of smaller and larger transplants because it all depends on temps and day length.

Once your plants are going, sidedressing keeps them going!  Sidedressing usually starts when your plants start to bloom, make fruits.  Scatter and lightly dig in a little chicken manure and/or lay on a ½” of tasty compost, some worm castings, water on some fish emulsion, blood meal if they are yellowing and could use a quick Nitrogen boost.  Water well.

Plant appropriate varieties on time, water and amend well, keep watch on pests and diseases.  Robust happily producing plants are worth it, and a joy to watch!

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15 Super Tips for a Productive Summer Veggie Patch!

Asymmetrical Design

Whether you are tucking things into niches between ornamental landscape plants, planting a patio patch like in the image, setting up a first time summer garden patch, or replanning your annual garden, here are some great ideas to increase your production!

1. If you have space, and are creating a back, or front, yard food forest, always start with your tree placements first! Determine which veggies grow well with each kind of tree. Santa Barbara Mediterranean Food Forests

2. Keep in mind veggies need sun! 6 to 8 hours, preferably 8! They are making fruit, and often many! That takes energy.

3.  Put tall plants to the north (see image below), so they won’t shade the shorties. If there is a partially shaded area, plant your tallest plants on the shaded side so they can reach up to get some sun; put the shorter plants in decreasing heights, in front of them so all get as much light as they can. When you are planting rounds, another batch every few weeks, start in the north or the ‘back’ – the shaded area, and work your way forward.

4. Trellises and tall cages are terrific space savers and keep your plants off the ground out of harm’s way – pests, diseases, damage. Your veggies will be clean, and have more even ripening. Cucumbers, beans, tomatoes. Squashes and melons can be trellised if you provide support for heavy fruits. Even Zucchini can be grown up through cages leaving a lot of ground space for underplantings. Harvesting is a lot easier and certain when those fast growing zuchs are up where you can see them!

Inefficient Single Row Planting

5. There are rows and there are rows! Single row planting wastes space! Compare the images. If you do rows, plant 2 or 3 different plants in side by side rows, then have your walk way, then another 2 or 3 plants together. Whether you do 2 or 3, or even 4, depends on plant size, your reach, and ease of tending and harvest. Plant taller or medium size plants, like peppers and eggplant, by twos so you can reach in to harvest. Plant shorter smaller plants like lettuces, spinach, strawberries together since they are easy to reach across to harvest. If plants in the rows are the same size, plant the second row plants on the diagonal to the first row plants. That way your rows can be closer together and you can plant more plants!

Attractive Multi-row Veggie Amphitheatre around the Eden Project restaurant!

6. Rather than rows, biodiversity, mixing things up, confuses pests, stops diseases in their tracks, because they can’t just go from the same plant to the same plant down a row. Since we are not using tractors, there is no need for rows at all, but they can be lovely. The curved rows in the image are behind the Eden Project restaurant outdoor seating! Truly garden to table!

7. If you need only a few plants, rather than designating a separate space for lettuces and littles like radishes, tuck them in here and there on the sunny side under bigger plants! When it gets big enough, remove the sunny side lower leaves of the larger plant to let light in.

8. Plant what you like, and will really eat along with some extra nutritious chards, kales.

9. Plants with the same water needs are good together. Like a salad patch – lettuce, arugula, spinach, bok choy, bunch onions, radish, chards. Putting the things together that you will harvest together saves time! Put carrots at the foot of pole beans.

10. Overplanting can take the fun out of things. Too many zucchini in hot summers, and you are going crazy trying to give away the over large ones you didn’t harvest soon enough. Too many green beans are labor intensive harvesting, takes forever. Planting green beans too close together is hard to harvest, and they mildew more with low air circulation. Overplanting is delicious when you plant lots of lettuces, carrots then harvest what you thin out! That’s baby kales, chard, mini carrots. These are the eat-on-the-spot-in-the-garden types!

11. Traditionally, and if you lived in the North with cold winters, you planted the garden all at once in spring! If your parents did that, you are unthinkingly likely to do it as well. In our SoCal Mediterranean climate, we plant all year though there are warmer and cooler veggie seasons. But each of these seasons are longer, and overlap! It is easy to get 3 plantings in succession IN EACH SEASON! Some plants will grow all year, mostly the ‘winter’ plants in our coastal gardens, for example, beets, broccoli, onions and cabbages. It takes strength to leave open space for successive rounds. But you can do it. Mark that space off, plant temporary fast growers, nitrogen-fixing fava, or lay down some soil feeding mulch like seedless straw. That space will be super productive when its turn comes.

12. Pole plants, have a lot longer production period than bush, like beans! Indeterminate tomatoes are true vines, can last all season long, but are susceptible to Fusarium and Verticillium wilts/fungi diseases. Might be better to plant determinates, limited growth varieties, in succession. That’s plant a few, then in a few weeks a few more, and so on. Let the determinates produce like crazy all at once, pull them when they show signs of the wilts. If you have only a small space available, or want to do canning, then bush plants are for you!

13. Plants that act as perennials in our climate are smart money plants! Broccoli’s for their side shoots, continuous kales and chards.

14. Special needs or companions!

• Eggplants, though heat lovers, love humidity, but not overhead watering. Put them among other medium height plants.
• Basils are great on the sunny sides of tomatoes, and go to table together.
• Corn needs colonies - plant in patches versus rows! Every silk needs pollination because each produces a kernel! The best pollination occurs in clusters or blocks of plants. Consider that each plant only produces 2 to 3 ears, usually 2 good ones. How many can you eat a once? Will you freeze them? The ears pretty much mature within a few days of each other! So, if you are a fresh corn lover, plant successively only in quantities you can eat.

15. Consider herbs for corner, border, or hanging plants. They add a beautiful texture to your garden, are wonderfully aromatic, repel pests! Remember, some of them are invasive, like oregano, culinary thyme. Sage has unique lovely leaves. Choose the right type of rosemary for the space and look you want.

Please be CREATIVE! You don’t have to plant in rows, though that may be right for you. Check out this Squidoo Vegetable Garden Layout page! Check out the Grow Planner for Ipad from Mother Earth News! They may make you very happy! This is a perfectly acceptable way to play with your food.

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FEBRUARY is Seedling Month! Clean-up, Maintenance, More Plan than Plant!

This is your last chance to plant more rounds of winter veggies you love the most, and the littles that grow year round.  Peas are especially heat sensitive, but we Coastie pea lovers can get one more round!  At this time be sure they are mildew resistant varieties!  But it’s really time to think in terms of those summer treats you love too!  Space is an issue now unless you have fields!  Those of us in 10’ X 20’ Community Garden plots need to reserve space and prepare those soils.  I plant some of the smaller border plants, like lettuces, where they will be on the sunny side, then add the bigger plants that need more heat behind them in March.

Plant LETTUCE, beets, brocs, cabbages, cauliflower, celery, chard, kale, kohlrabi, potatoes, radish, spinach, turnips.  Asparagus and artichoke bare-root.  Or put in asparagus from seed in March.

Clean things up.  Prune your trees, remove dead wood in your herbs.  Divide clumps of Society garlic.  On ground that needs more humus, lay down some bagged steer or well aged horse manure, let the rains wash the nutrients down, in about 2 months dig it in.

Continue with your harvesting, sidedress your producing plants, do your snail prevention.  After rains, foliar apply another batch of aspirin – stimulates growth, boosts the immune system, and baking soda and powdered milk to boost their immune system and act as a germicides.  Don’t forget to add a dash of liquid soap to make the mix stick!  Hold off on watering for a few days to let the potion do its job.  Your plants will thrive!

Select your plants Mindfully!  This takes more than a quick trip to the Nursery and buying whatever they have on hand.  But, hey, if that’s all the time you have, then go for it!  If you have the time, do some quick online comparisons at Universities that specialize in Mediterranean climates.  Check out this year’s All America Selections!  Ask at your local nursery why the varieties they have are their choices.

• What pests or diseases did your plants have last year?  Select for resistance or tolerance.
• Is that plant heat tolerant, bolt resistant?
• What is the disease or pest cycle?  Can you plant at another time, just a few weeks later to avoid them?!
• Is it a long producing pole plant, or a heavy one-time bush producer?
• How much space will that amazing plant take up versus it’s return?
• Is that variety better for canning or table eating?
• Do you want a hybrid, or will you be seed saving and need an heirloom that plants true year to year?  In a community garden, with all kinds of plants close together, few true seeds can be saved.

Start Your Seedlings!  If you have a greenhouse, and it can be a very small humble enclosure, even a row cover setup, start your seedlings now to plant mid to late March!  At home?  Easy!  Use flats, peat pots, six packs,  punctured-for-drainage plastic containers reused from your kitchen.  Sterilized potting soil holds moisture and is easy for tiny roots to penetrate.  Put them in your greenhouse or with grow lights 7 to 10 inches above, on 14 to 16 hours a day.  Put a plant heating pad underneath, a heat cable, or a moisture protected 15/20 watt bulb in a ‘trouble light,’ for warmth, 70 degrees F.  For better germination, spray aspirin on your seeds before planting!  Another great trick is seed soaking and presprouting!

When they are ready, let them sit outdoors in the daytime shade for a week, then in the sun for a week, then all day the 3^rd week.  That process is called hardening off.  The beauty of seeds is you can get the very best plants, and varieties your nursery doesn’t carry!

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