Recipes

Some useful recipes for fruits and veggies that abound locally


Water-cured Olives
Drain-cleaner-cured Olives

Sicilian Sun-dried Zucchini
Nettle Pesto
Borage soup
Moroccan Mallow

Limoncello Lemon Liquor
Other Liquors

Fall Planting

Todays plantings near the vine: very dry, hot area in summer, south facing.
Sowed some sugar snap peas at the back (Oregon Sugar Pod II), supposed to be 28" high. In front of this, planted the shallots that grew so well this year in the same area, with a couple of lines of garlic in front.

The previous sowings of carrots and lettuce havent come up, so I'll have to sort something out there. The carrot seed was my own (F1 hybrid parents perhaps?), and the lettuce was bought in January, so perhaps freshness is the problem there.

The tomatoes are still bearing, although the last few fruit are taking ages to ripen. Still, it's nice to have a few garden tomatoes in December. Other than that, the only things really growing at the moment are the Leeks and Parsley, both of which are doing well. Some radishes are growing slowly.

November

Once again I'm having a problem in developing winter crops. On the one hand, I hate to kick out plants that are still producing the odd food here and there, like the tomatoes, peppers. On the other hand, seed I have been putting down recently hasnt been coming up. Carrot seed harvested from the color mixture that went to seed hasnt shown much signs of germinating, although at the beginning I thought I saw something. Maybe slugs are at work. But then I find carrots really slow to germinate. I've been throwing more and more seed on top of the area, and if nothing happens by the start of December, I think I'll give up on the carrots for now.
More worrying, I threw radish and lettuce seed down a couple of weeks ago, covered with a light layer of compost, and only a few radish sprouts are showing. I'd hate to have to move to pots to germinate things.
On the plus side, the leeks are growing well and are at pencil thickness already and a foot high. Hopefully I should get a decent crop in Jan/Feb for the pot. This year I'll be testing a no-till philosophy. The general idea is that if you stop digging the ground, all the plant roots will break up the soil. Adding buckets of home-grown compost on the top will then be worked in by the worms providing a great environment for plants. Certainly digging last winter while the soil was wet didnt result in great soil, even with the stuff I dug in. I'll still be digging in the occasional pile of chicken bones though, about a foot deep. Lots of nitrogen and long-term phosphorus (bone is calcium phosphate).
At the moment, the pomegranate and persimmons are yielding - not massive amounts of pomegranates, although more than 100 persimmons on one plant, and the apple tree still has some apples on it. For value-for-effort, its hard to beat the tree fruit. I recommend everyone in the area to grow citrus (Lemon, Orange, Lime, Grapefruit, Kumquat), all of which crop very well; Apricots are easy too (ours gets little to no water), I would plant 2 or three varieties of grape, at least one persimmon, and probably 3 pomegranates. I think its a little hot and dry here for apples to do really well, but they do grow. Our peach tree gets peach leaf curl, so to avoid spraying, I'd forget about peaches. I think the pomegranate sets fruit best when it has water, so consider that aspect - the persimmon doesnt seem to need much at all.
The herbs are all still bearing fresh herbs, although by now I have cut back most of the mediterranean herbs for drying. I have a huge jar of "Herbes de Almaden" ready already for the winter.

Zucchini finished

Another milestone to note for future reference; the Zucchini are more or less over now, still one or two here or there, but the lower sun is definitely limiting the speed and amount of growth of the fruit. With the recent rain, a few are now showing mildew spots, so its game over. The season ends here.

Garden winding down for winter

Well the garden yielded a fair amount this year, but with the first rain of any significance last weekend, its clearly time to migrate from summer planting to winter planting. Last week I cleared out the shade bed with the beans and corn (both unsuccessful, but then they were started late in the summer, so I wasnt really expecting much. I did get some beans, but not many, and the corn was fist-sized. Before that, I had cleared the neighboring Swiss Chard and planted out the leeks I sowed much earlier in the year. After digging the bean/corn bed over and incorporating a couple of buckets of last spring's compost (looking nice now), I sowed some carrots quite rustically - by crumbling some of this years seedheads over the area. Then I added another thin layer of compost, and the soft rain got it settled in nicely. There should be enough warmth left in the year to get things going.

All the beans are pretty much over now - I was hoping for a second flush in the cooler weather, but that never really happened. All in all, the beans were pretty much a bust again this year, despite changing to runner beans from pole beans. The experiment next year will be to sow the pole beans much more thickly and quite early, and I'll be using the Insuk's Wang instead of the regular runner beans to test its heat resistance. I really want to get some beans working in this hot climate, not only because their green crunchy goodness is a welcome change from the Solanum family, but also because it adds nitrogen to the soil. And particularly as this garden is a new one, I want to build up soil nutriment as quickly as possible.

The tomatoes are still hanging on, but I havent really had much from the "Health kick", the "Beefmaster" or the "Champion" for a while now. The cherry tomatoes are still going relatively strong, in that they are covered in flowers still; the Black Krim is throwing out a few more juicy treats before it shuts down, and the Green Zebra remains consistently throwing out a few tomatoes each week.

The tomatoes I have had pest problems with are the Black Krim and Beefmaster, both of which get pecked by birds and creeping things alike. I'm not sure why these should be so attractive, while others like the Yellow Brandywine, the Green Zebra, and various others growing next to them remain untouched. However, the solution is fairly clear: The "Brandywine" I bought cheap (its probably not) was tested in both a topsy-turvy and in the ground, sprawling over a wall. The birds attacked the ones in the ground, but not in the planter. Therefore, at least part of the problem occurs when tomatoes are close enough to the ground that the birds have a firm perch. Creepy-crawlies then finish the job. So yes, staking would probably have prevented the problem. But that doesnt account for the preferences mentioned earlier, as only the planter tomato was "staked". The rest were equally exposed, but unequally attacked.

In general, I would have to say that growing tomatoes in planters was very worthwhile, especially the topsy-turvy, which outdid its ground-based twin twofold. Its another $10 per plant, but its yielded about 15 pounds ($50?), and I can re-use it next year.
Of course there's another $5 of compost in it, but now I have my own compost stream, I can cut that cost down dramatically. Next year I plan to have 4 or 5 installed, and will try out other varieties. Getting Black Krim off the ground, for example. Black Krim was definitely the tastiest, together with Yellow Brandywine (few, but large fruit, with a great taste), Green Zebra and Lemon Boy. The cherries also taste good, of course, but I'm finding them a pain to deal with as they sprawl so much and are tedious to pick. The cherry I left sprawling through the rose Bush was an exception - it scrambled happily by itself, bringing the fruit to picking height and requiring no staking. That cherry was suppose to be "sunsugar red", and it was nice and sweet, but it was an orangey-yellow, definitely not red. Another Nursery mislabel.

The bell peppers in containers yielded well, so long as you're OK with half-sized peppers, and they're still going strong (although, of course, with the waning sun they arent growing as fast as they were earlier). The peppers I left growing from last year in the ground survived, but didnt do very well, just got one or two fruit off them. So much for my dreams of a larger, more productive plant second year round. To be fair, they werent watered assiduously, so they frequently got dry. However Peppers are supposed to like it dry...

One of the best experiments was in snapping off small branches and replanting; I got a few extra tomato plants that way, its easy and definitely works. I've also been saving some heirloom seeds, so we'll see how that works next year.


From here on, I'll be thinking of sowing lettuce, radishes, broad beans.

Leeks planted out

Finally ripped up the Chard as a bad joke (what with the leaf-mining grubs and a lack of familial appreciation) - otherwise it was fine.. and tilled the area and incorporated some home-made compost and some cheap store-bought. In that area (the right-hand third of the shade bed), I then planted out the leeks that had been in a seed bed all summer, and were still quite thin (about as thick as grass stems).
Planting leeks is unusual - one stick a broom handle a few inches into the ground, pops in a leek seedling, and when the bed is full, the entire area is watered - "puddling-in" the leeks. This method gives them a fair amount of moisture, and presumably, room to expand. Possibly it also encourages them to grow, as they now need to grow up again to regain their lost height (giving good stem length).

The tomatoes are slowing down quite a lot now, and the Zucchini appeared to take a bit of a break. I decided to trim off all the yellow leaves on the Zucchini, re-fertilize them a bit, and see what happened. As a result, they appear to be putting on some new, dark green growth. Hopefully this will re-energize them and encourage a second burst of fruit.

Although the runner beans did crop a little in the cooler weather we have been having, they didnt exactly provide a massive crop (about 4 meals for 20 plants). So far, my expectations of growth/yield improving hasn't materialized. The Insuk's Wang Kong (or, as I like to call it, "Giant Wang", so far hasnt developed very far - the plants vary between 2 and 3 feet high. I'm a little concerned that they might be upset by the fact that the days are starting to grow a little shorter, possibly triggering slowing in growth. We shall see on this one. Certainly, next year should provide a fairer trial of these.

August: harvest time

Crop so far; 100 Zucchini from about 10 plants, about 4 smallish bell peppers per plant, and enough tomatoes for 2 families. The runner beans havent been great, presumably because of the heat, but recent, more cool weather has at least set some.

Overall, August appears to be the month for tomato harvests, with 2-3 pounds to harvest every 3 days or so. There is no doubt that the heirloom varieties were far superior in taste, a fact appreciated by some pest (my guess, a bird) thats been pecking holes in the black Krims. My experiment at growing tomatoes largely unsupported has assisted the birds in this, I think. Next year, I'll definitely include some support. Perhaps its worth building some permanent support system, as most veggies can use it - peas, beans, squash, tomatoes, etc.

The sweet corn was mostly a flop, either because of a poor variety choice (Kandy Korn Hybrid) or because of insufficient fertilizer and poor pollination. The cobs were generally small, and the male flowers came much earlier than the female tassels, giving lousy ear fill at the ends. Overall, neither the taste of freshly picked cobs, nor the yield (one fist-sized cob per plant) was worth the trouble. Fortunately, my primary goal of growing the corn as stakes for the beans succeeded, as did my secondary goals of shading my wall from summer heat and getting compost material. Next year, I think I'll try a different variety and see what happens.

Growing Swiss Chard here without pesticide turned out to be a major disaster; some leaf-mining grub has continued to destroy each leaf throughout the season. I was hoping that this was a one-wave attack, and that the plants would eventually get a decent set of unblemished leaves, but that wasnt to be the case. The family dont like the chard anyway, so even though the stalks were healthy and pretty, its not worth growing unless you want to go the pesticide route.

The herbs have been a great success, with the exception of some basil and dill grown on a patch of rather thin soil. Other basil grown in the main vegetable beds is doing fine, and the oregano, thyme, chives, lemon balm, peppermint, and flat-leaf parsley is all doing great. The sage is spectacular as a garden plant as well as a herb. The bees have been working the peppermint and especially the oregano with a will.

While I was generally disappointed with the carrots earlier in the year, they have in fact provided a decent crop with little attention. Some that went to seed gave a spectacular show and attracted and supported lots of hover-flies (good insects), and have yielded lots of seed, some of which I will test for growing in the fall.

My leek seed planted in late spring is looking kinda grassy, and I'll be replanting it out shortly for a winter crop. First, I'll have to bite the bullet and pull out the Chard.

Another great success was the shallots; given the price in the shops, its been remarkably easy to grow. Starting from shop-bought bulbs (grocery, not nursery), about half didnt grow at all. I suspect a growth inhibitor is applied. But those that did, each provided about 5 small-fist-sized bulbs - bigger than the originals, probably about a 10-fold increase over the originals. I'll be using these as starters next year, so they should all grow well. These were grown in an area that gets infrequently watered (once a month), and almost never fertilized. Next year, I'll try the garlic here too (which also grew well this year in the semi-shade bed).

So far, I'd estimate I spent about $50 on tomato plants, pepper plants, various seeds and a new spade, plus some incidentals. In return, I have had about $50 in Zucchini, $40 in tomatoes, $30 in salads, $20 in herbs, $20 in peas, carrots and beans, and $20 in corn, eggplant (didnt work well), radishes, rapini, and cress - with more on the way of most things. And the fall/winter crops arent even in yet.

Enterprise ahoy

Deep in the midst of my garlic harvest, I looked up to see Captain Kirk flying past...

This is the shade bed; you can see whats in now; Tomatoes and Peppers (rescued from drowning under the Zucchini) out of shot on the left, Carrots (in since Jan, not well looked after and small) on the picture left, transplanted Corn and just-sown Kentucky pole beans in the middle, and Swiss chard and Lettuce on the right.

The carrots are really an experiment at this point; the bed isnt as light and fluffy as I'd like - none of them are, as I cant afford to dig in huge bags of compost, and they were dug while there was rain around; hopefully next year they'll be better as the organic matter I stuffed in this year will have been redistributed a bit by worms;
They were only partially thinned, as the area is quite small so I didnt want to leave only 10 carrots in the ground... so for now, theyre just staying in because I dont really have anything else to put in right now. Also, I'm curious to see how big they can get in the end. Some of the other carrots with the smallest above-ground plants had the largest below-ground roots. The bigger of those other carrots are now flowering, bad for veggies of course, but good as color, for insects, and all around enjoyment watching them waving in the breezes. Maybe I'll get some seed also.

I now have a small chunk in the middle where the garlic was harvested, but I dont know what to put in; I'll be wanting some space to put out the leeks for winter as they grow, and when the lettuce is used up, this will provide some space between them. On the other hand, the leeks wont be ready to transplant for a while. I guess I'll be needing some space for my trial of Insuk's Wang Kong when the seeds kindly arrive as a gift from Jim Wright, so I can sow some here and see how they do in this bed. But I do want also to grow some in the sun to see how they fare.

Dove nesting in Robin nest

The nest wasnt even cold before a dove took up residence:


And here is a picture of the tomato bed by the fence (compare with spring photo April 3). The tomatoes arent as large as I'd like, some I have seen in tubs recently are monstrous. So I gave them a dose of fertiliser. I like to make them work a little, and keep the place somewhat organic, so they dont get as much as most would.

Runner bean suggestion

I dont like copying others' posts, but as I'm using this blog as my garden notebook, I cant think of a better place to put it. So apologies for duplicating content, but here goes:
"I like to hedge my bets and plant both scarlet runners and kentucky wonders. That way, during the hot spell, the kentucky wonders go wild with production, while the scarlet runners don't like the weather, and by the time it cools down, the scarlets are taking off just as the kentuckies stop producing. and if we have a really hot summer, I get armloads of kentucky wonders to make up for the paltry harvest of runners; if we have a cool rainy summer, kentucky wonders don't produce, but the scarlet runners go crazy."

Picture: Robins just about to fly the nest. Next week, a dove took over the nest!

Scarlet Runner Beans in the Almaden Valley

Having experience form Europe of huge crops with runner beans, I thought I'd try these this year after a particularly disappointing experience last year with Kentucky Pole Beans. The last couple of weeks I have had lots of beautiful red flowers - this is one of the more ornamental veggies - but no pods are forming. So once again I trawl the internet, to find that its simply too hot here. To quote: "blossoms will drop - regardless of pollination - until day temps drop into the 70's"
So I can basically write this off for a couple of months. Perhaps thats why my Kentucky Pole Bean crop was so lousy last year, and further reading lets me know thats certainly why my Fava beans stopped setting beans earlier - Fava beans will not crop in warm weather. So overall, it looks like I'm going to have to rethink my planting times with these beans - perhaps sowing for a fall crop, or perhaps even a winter crop. I'll try out a few planting times and see what happens. Unfortunately I only have 5 runner beans seeds left, so I'll have to be judicious in my experimentation for now. However, I have lots of Kentucky Pole seeds saved from last years crop, so I can seed those liberally. I guess the trick will be to label each vine with sowing date, so if I get a good harvest on any, I can look at the label and read off the optimum planting time.

Other tips from the web:
"If you live in a hot climate, try yard long beans (aka asparagus beans.) They love heat."
"Insuk's Wang Kong (Runner bean)... is remarkably heat tolerant for a runner bean."

The Robins nesting have all fledged and flown, its a bit quiet in the garden now, but the Zucchini are cropping well, although they appear to be variable. The plants in some shade are healthier plants, but crop less, whereas the plants in full sun have more yellow and smaller leaves, but seem to crop more. From my dozen plants, I have harvested about 35 zucchini so far - enough to keep me scrambling for ways to cook them.

Here are some ways to eat Zucchini:
(1) In stews - Ratatouille, of course, but also any stew. Simply substitute for hard squash or turnips, etc., using them as filler.
(2) Raw: Either as sticks with a dip, or what I do for salads: Either coarsely grate, or peel them with a peeler into ribbons, and dress with lemon juice, oil, salt and pepper. I like to mix with 30% carrots for a colour/crunch improvement.
(3) The old standby: Fried. Slice into rounds and fry with a little olive oil, salt and pepper until golden on both sides. If you're not into oil, you can always simply microwave the zucchini, whole, for a minute or two, then slice into rounds. Either way, they should come out nice and sweet and juicy.

Dec28 2010: Update on shade/sun... later in the season - Sept/Oct - the shade zucchini were bearing well while the sunny zucchini were getting a little yellowed and tired. TIP! - Grow some in shade, some in sun, to stretch the season a little.

Mid-June harvests

The Zucchini are finally cropping, although irregularly, so far I have harvested about 16. Its going to become a regular part of meals from now on. A few of the cherry tomatoes have ripened, but mostly they are going to take another few weeks. Last week, I took out the Fava beans, with 2 meals from one packet of seed. Quite sad really, but if you count from the number of plants - about 12, I suppose its reasonable. Still, something seemed to stop them podding half way up. Perhaps a glitch in the weather? It did get occasionally hot and cold. The more tender leaves did give an interesting alternative to spinach - with an interesting fava-musty taste and chewy (but not stringy) texture. They went particularly well with Oyster Sauce.

The lettuce are starting to bolt (send up flower stalks), so its time to get those out of the ground before they get too bitter. Thats a function of the hot weather - even in Ireland my lettuce bolted when it got hot.

I've been able to clean out the tomato bed somewhat, by taking out some swiss chard (a decent crop, and useful in soups, but some leaf-mining bug destroyed many leaves) and the Fava beans, and weeds that came to light while doing so. That left room to put in some more runner beans that I had in pots waiting for just such an opportunity, and with the sunflowers starting to show some height (about 5 feet), they have something to climb, at least to begin with.

The bed against the house is now full of 4-foot high corn, which oddly, is male-flowering long before any cobs seem apparent. I hope there is still some male pollen around when its needed. The runner beans there are climbing nicely, some on sticks and string and some on the corn. So far, theyre about 5 feet and climbing fast.

Happily, a robin has built a nest beside the back door, and as I write, there are 3-4 hungry mouths gaping wide. Cute.

June Arrives

The spinach I sowed back in December is starting to flower, so I'm harvesting the crop, such as it is. Although I have harvested some of it earlier, and to be fair, my planting was small - about a five foot row - I dont really count this as a success. For a start, it was slow in germinating, then it was slow in taking off, and when it finally did start growing, its been attacked (like the chard) with something that paints tiny clusters of eggs, 4 or 5 clusters to a leaf. Whether these hatched into the leaf miners that later appeared or not, I dont know, but they certainly made washing the leaves more troublesome. I guess its just a mind-thing, the eggs are so small that theyre hardly going to affect the cooked product. Again, I have to be fair and note that the peas overshadowed the spinach for a month or two, but that to me just indicates that the peas were a far better crop. I'll try spinach again sometime, but for now I'll just say that it wasnt a star performer in my garden. Overall, I harvested about 2 or 3 supermarket bags of the stuff - and I have left the stumps in case it wants to try throwing out another few leaves.

By way of contrast, in the same bed I grew peas, got about 3 or 4 harvests, and then replaced them with lettuce seedlings which are now approaching maturity. The lettuce are needing more watering lately, as the temperatures are rising, despite growing in the shade for most of the day. Its a mixture of red leaves - red cos, red oakleaf, lolla rossa and others ("Lettuce Mesclun Valentine" from Botanical Interests), and is doing quite well.

The Garlic, also in the same bed, appears to be doing well, and will hopefully be ready to harvest within a month - the bulbs are already starting to swell. The plan, such as it is, is to use this as a carrot/leek bed later in the season. I already have the leeks sown now for about a month; they are a few inches high, and look like thin grass. They are sown thickly, so I can then dig them up and plant them out in the summer-shaded bed. They can then grow in the winter when the leaves have fallen and the shade has gone.

The winter-made compost is how ready for use, so I'm crumbling it into a bucket and using it as mulch. Hopefully the worms will dig it in, helping the soil for next year. One of my next projects is to buy more wire mesh to build a bigger bin. It would also help in turning the compost to have two bins, rather than one.

Yesterday, I hand-pollinated the first female Zucchini flower. I can see a few more getting ready to open, so within a week or two the Zucchini harvest should start in earnest.

Over the last few weeks, I have been planting out the runner beans ("Wisley Magic" from Thompson and Morgan), and theyre starting to climb already - just. I dont have as many plants out as I had envisioned, maybe 15, so I planted a few more seeds in pots to follow. Runner beans should provide a much bigger crop than the Kentucky pole beans did last year, but of course they dont have the same taste (poorer, in my opinion). I'm considering planting a few Kentucky seeds in and among the other crops and leaving them to their own devices. Finally on my agenda, I sowed some more sweet corn in pots to fill the gaps, and they need to be planted out. Suddenly, there dont seem to be so many gaps.

Growing Tomatoes in Almaden Valley

If youre growing tomatoes in this neighborhood, there are a few things you should know beyond the standard items. First; the general guidelines.

(1) The easiest way to grow tomatoes is to purchase plants. The cheapest is to grow seeds. Sowing seeds also allows you to purchase specialty heirloom seeds that you may not be able to find as plants in stores.

(2) Planting tomatoes is rather simple, find a nice sunny location (tomatoes love full sunshine, as much as possible), prepare the ground as normal - making it nice, loose, moisture-retentive - and unlike most other plants, you want to strip off a few lower leaves and bury as much stem as possible, but of course leaving the growing tip with some leaves overground. The reason to bury the plant so deeply (most other plants would rot if planted deeply), is that tomatoes will throw out extra roots from the buried stems, and the more roots you have, the better the crop.

(3) If you want a large crop with many medium-sized tomatoes, then leave the plant alone. If you want fewer, but larger tomatoes, then take out any sideshoots that appear between the leaves and the stem when they are small. My personal preference is to allow the plants to ramble as they will, but if you are into training things up cages, stakes and so forth to gain height and decrease ground space, thats what most seem to prefer. However, if you are purchasing a cage, be careful - the cheaper cages can be quite flimsy, and may last only a single season, if that. If you want to go the cage way, my suggestion would be to go to Home Depot or similar, and find some strong steel mesh and make your own cages that way.

(4) If you want to plant your tomatoes in a container, there are a couple of interesting options you can try; first, a water-saving "EarthTainer" that basically has a water reservoir in the bottom that the plant can wick up as needed, and the site provides detailed instructions about how to construct one (it will take reasonable effort though). Secondly, you can try these "Topsy-Turvy" things that dangle the plants upside down. I'm trying one out this year, mainly because I can use some space over the patio, in the sun, also providing some shade, and so far the plant is doing quite well over a test partner I planted in the garden. However, the garden-planted one didnt get two bags of potting compost to itself. I'm also going to grow climbing beans out of the top of the container, so we'll see how that does. My theory is that the bean will provide nitrogen for the tomato, and also clamber over the pergola providing more shade.

(5) Try not to grow tomatoes continuously in the same area, as diseases will build up in the soil. In fact, do not plant eggplants, peppers, chiles, or potatoes the following season either, as they are all the same family. If you have 3 suitable plots that you can rotate the planting in every three years, so much the better. To avoid disease, you can also restrict your choice of variety to disease-resistant varieties. However, crop rotation is still recommended. Not only to make sure diseases dont build up, but also because different plants take different nutrients from the soil.

So what are the specific guidelines for planting in the Almaden Valley? Well, if you've noticed, it has almost no fog, doesnt freeze often in winter, and gets scorching hot in summer. So that makes our climate very different from San Francisco or even Palo Alto. This has two major consequences.

First, the season starts much earlier; I planted my tomatoes this year in March, and I have continued planting them this month. The earlier you plant, the earlier they fruit, and they can continue fruiting in some cases into November. Last year, I eked out the last handfuls of cherry tomatoes, but in retrospect, I should probably have abandoned they last few, as they tended to get bitter, or dried out and sweet (but small), and I'd have been better off digging them up and putting in some winter crops earlier. The only real worry about planting early is that the plants may get frost and die - but the chance of that is fairly small, so I'd suggest putting some plants out early. However, the plants wont start growing fast until the soil warms up; mine took off around the start of May, and are now about a foot or two high, and setting some tomatoes.

The second issue is that plants will not set fruit if the days are too cold or the nights are too hot. I dont see the former as a problem, as the plants will simply continue to grow until the weather is warm enough to set fruit. However, if you plant later in the year, you may well have a problem with hot nights (over about 80-85°). In this case, youre possibly going to have to wait all summer, losing most of the ripening weather, until it gets cool enough to set fruit. So you may get a late crop, but miss the summer season. You can always try spraying with water in the evening and morning, making sure that youre not too close to heat sinks (brickwork, concrete paths, etc.), but if your plants have flowers that drop off without leaving fruits in hot weather, this is probably the problem. In most years, however, you'll probably have a few cooler weeks in summer to set fruit. There are also heat-resistant varieties you can try. (Note: I'm not endorsing any websites or merchants with these links, not unless they are good and/or they pay me - this is just FYI as an example). If I ever get paid for a link, I'll let you know.

CHOICE OF VARIETIES:
I'm trying out quite a few varieties this year, so I'll be able to let you know how that works next year. But for now, I'll just write a simple note on what to look for:

(1) Determinate versus indeterminate varieties. This should be listed on the label. If not, look it up online. Vines that straggle all over the place (most people train these) but which crop continuously are indeterminate. I like them because the harvest is spread out and crops can be heavy. Cherry tomatoes, for example, tend to be interminate. Vines that tend to form a more definite bush and which ripen all their fruit about the same time are determinate. These are easier to manage, in terms of staking and working in definite seasons, but you can end up with a lot of fruit at once (consider making paste, sundried tomatoes, etc).

(2) Heirloom/Hybrids
Heirlooms you can save seed of, Hybrids you cant (they will give plants that are not like the parents). However, more generally, hybrids tend to be commercial plants, bred for disease resistance, size, shape, etc. whereas heirlooms tend to be all shapes and sizes, better flavors, and prone to disease. Check individual plant descriptions for more details though, as this is a very broad generalization. I'd suggest starting by buying hybrid plants, and moving towards sowing heirlooms as you get more experience. If you develop problems with disease, youre probably then going to have to use disease-resistant varieties.

(3) Paste/Beefsteak/Salad/Cherry
These are all fairly explanatory; but briefly, paste tomatoes have thick walls and few seeds, so are useful for making paste and sauces with. Plum tomatoes like San Marzano/Roma are paste tomatoes. Beefsteaks are large with a lot of meat in the center, which helps to hold the slice together when cut. Great on burgers, sandwiches, etc. Salad tomatoes are regular-sized tomatoes that have plenty of juice/seeds, used for most salad purposes. Insalata Caprese - yum! And of course cherries are cherry-sized, often very sweet tomatoes, generally used whole in salads.

(4) Things to look for:
Flavor - make sure the flavor is good. Some tomatoes are high in lycopene, which adds flavor and is very good for you nutritionally. Color - there are many different colors and patterns (striping) available. Everything from brown through purplish, red, orange, yellow and green. Growing a mix of colors will make your salads look very gourmet.

(5) As mentioned, heat-resistant and disease resistant varieties are available.

Happy Gardening!

Hummingbird pollination

The fun in gardening is in seeing the unexpected, the flowers that appear overnight, stray seedlings planting themselves, and today, a hummingbird pollinating my broad (fava) beans. Last week I enjoyed the sight of a fat black bumblebee, about 3/5" long, attempting to hold onto the flowers as it desperately suck'd at the nectar. Today, it was a hummingbird that surprised me - usually, my veggies arent pollinated by birds!
Last week, the fun came from the carrots, first the multicolored carrots, which came in all shapes and sizes:


then it was a carrot that decided to sprout an extra root, rise out of the ground, strangle its neighbour, and then dive back into the ground:

Sowing, Harvesting...

Cropping at the moment are the Broccoli Rabe, which turned out not to be what I was expecting - its kind of bitter, and OK, but not really a useful crop in general, I think. I suppose its worth growing a handful on some waste ground for winter greens, but thats about it. I was probably thinking about purple sprouting broocoli. Strangely, Broccoli Rabe (rapini) is NOT Rape, as in rape-seed oil (Brassica Napus), but rather Brassica Rapa. Also cropping; the second batch of Peas, Lettuce, green Garlic and I'll be taking some Swiss Chard soon. The Broad Beans, the few that actually germinated, are now flowering, so hopefully I can take some nice whole pods sometime soon. I did eventually get some multicolored carrots, but these were quite a dissapointment with their size - most are quite small, and others are sending up flower heads. I guess winter sowing is not a great idea. This year I want to try sowing them in August or September.

However, its time to look towards new plantings; I've been putting in a few more Eggplants, Peppers, Chiles and heirloom Tomatoes (Brandywine, Black Krim, Green Zebra), as these become available cheaply as plants outside grocery stores, in the Farmer's Markets, etc. I put one Brandywine in one of those topsy-turvy planters to see who that works. It took a bag and a half of compost to fill, surprisingly.

Last weekend, I soaked some Runner Beans overnight, and then planted them in small pots of compost; these really need to get growing soon. I was hoping their supports would have grown more by now - the sunflowers and corn, but while the sunflowers are inching upwards, the corn planted outside (not in Jiffy's) doesnt seem to have germinated yet.

Not wishing to waste space for too long, I planted out that red salad mix that had been growing in the apple-containers for wayyy too long in the space where the peas used to be; this is a now a shady spot under a tree, but hopefully that should be fine for them.

Harvesting

Two meals from the Broccoli Rabe, four from the peas. I took down the peas today, harvesting the last of them and throwing the stems on the compost heap. Damn slugs knocked off a crookneck squash yesterday. The sooner these plants get beyond the slugs the better.
Soon it will be time to plant the runner beans, but I'd like the corn and sunflowers to be taller before planting. Still, cant wait forever. Perhaps 2 sowings of the beans would be a good idea.

Lovely Rain

This rain we're having is a godsend - its coming about half an inch or more, about once a week, enough to slowly build up a nice soil moisture bank that should take us through the next few months. To help it along, I have been taking some water thats pouring out of the gutters and pouring it into the ground at the top end of the garden, where it will hopefully build up the water levels even more. Because the rain was so strong today, I took the opportunity to shake out some fertilizer so that it could soak in nicely and not burn the plants. Not too much though, I'm trying to keep as organic as possible. I'm not a purist though.

The photo shows my recycling plant - the compost piles. These are largely kitchen peelings, lawn trimmings, weeds and leaf sweepings. I contain these in wire mesh cylinders - easily and cheaply made with wire mesh from a hardware store. These take surprisingly long to build, as the stuff rots and compacts quickly. I turn the heaps every couple of weeks or so, to re-oxygenate the piles - more often when the grass clippings are fresh. It also helps to mix the ingredients.

The peas sown in early Feb are now also putting in their first pods, and are about 3-4 feet high. The broccoli rabe has finally taken off, and may be harvestable soon (the crop isnt huge, but I should get a meal or two out of it - it was really a test run to see how well it grows here in Almaden. Meanwhile, I have been engaging in plotting my next moves in this bed - I've planted out some jiffy-pot-grown sweetcorn (Kandy Korn hybrid, Ferry-Morse) and filled in a few holes with seed, so I should have a little-staggered crop. Corn has to be grown in blocks, as its wind-pollinated, and the bed is fairly narrow, so I've been planting through the peas, broccoli, as well as in the bare spots. The plan, when these are starting to take off - say a foot high - is to plant runner beans beside them. The beans can then climb the corn as they grow. Hopefully.

I have plans to do the same against the fence - this time with a mixture of sweetcorn and sunflowers.

So far, from the Xmas sowing of peas, I have had 3 meals - or rather, 2.5 (the first was rather thin). I have at least one more coming, and probably one after that. Then, its off to the compost with the rest - and the soil will have plenty of nitrogen added by the peas. I hope to get these peas finished shortly, so I can plant other stuff in that bed - either Zucchini, or maybe salads (its getting quite shady now that the tree above it has leafed.

San Jose Plant (Tomato and Peppers) sale

San Jose Master Gardeners plant sale will be taking place on Saturday April 10 at Kelley Park, 1650 Senter Road, San Jose 95112
A good place to source your heirlooms. I have my tomatoes out already, so I dont know if I'll be going; parking looks as if it will be tight also, and most of it is paid parking, which will add to the cost. I notice that that Palo Alto have a similar sale the next week, I think, but if this is a leftovers sale, it may not have the same selection (but parking should be easier in terms of locating free parking).

In the picture above, you can see one of my test ideas for this year - milk bottles buried in the ground, filled with holes. The idea is that this will facilitate getting water down near the roots, without necessarily splashing so much water around on top. As you can see, its already a handy place to leave the hose while you switch the tap on or off, instead of just throwing it on the lawn, wasting more water.

Also, you can see how the tomatoes are doing - some growth since they were planted, not much, and there are flowers developing on all of them.

Peas

Well, so much for 2 and a half feet. My peas, sown around Xmas, are now so high that I'm looking up at them, at least 7 feet high, and possibly higher if you stretched them out. They're still setting flowers, so I can look forward to more peas in weeks to come. For a short row (about 5 feet), I'm getting an OK yield, 3 portions so far, but I have to say that the flavor isnt what I remember; next year I'll try Hurst "Green Shaft", the variety I'm more accustomed to. Maybe I just undercooked them - I just gave them a couple of minutes on the boil. Next week I'll try cooking them a bit longer.

The big mistake I made with these peas was (a) not planting enough - I should have used the full 10-foot length of the bed, and (b) I should have planted the peas (taller) on the north side of the bed, not the south, as they are shading everything else.

The yellow and white flowers you can see at the left are some mesclun lettuce-like thing and rocket, respectively. Under the peas, you can see more salads and above those, some garlic (doing well). At the right, a Kohl Rabi from the supermarket is providing sprouting broccoli-type greens. To the left of the rocket, you cant really see, but there are 2 rows of carrots and I have planted out a green pepper and a habanero.

Zucchini ready for planting out shortly

After the slugs got my purchased Zucchini plants, I sowed some seeds in Jiffy plugs inside, where they sprouted rapidly. On the weekend, I transferred them to pots, where they are currently putting on their first true leaves. The corn and sunflowers I sowed about a week later are currently germinating, and I'm in the process of putting the corn in the bed next to the house wall at the moment. My plan is to shade my window and keep some of the summer heat out, and at the same time to use the corn as support for some runner beans I will sow later. The Sunflowers I'll put against the neighbours fence, again as support for more runner beans. At the base of both, I plan to plant other vegetables, either lettuce or swiss chard (I have transplants waiting to go of both), or the zucchini. This squash/corn/bean combo is an ancient Indian trick, as the beans fertilize the ground, the squash shades it, and the corn provides support for the beans.

Catnip sown

Sowed Catnip seeds today, low groundcover to provide some useful insect forage. A few of the broad bean seeds are emerging, but some appear to have rotted in the ground. We did have a lot of rain though...
The second crop of peas are growing like crazy lately, they're now between 6 inches and a foot high.

Mesclun growing nicely

As you can see from the picture above. We are starting to have some warm days now, although it can get quite cold suddenly in the afternoons. Still some hail around.
So far, none of the seed sown at the end of last month is up; nasturtium, borage, broad beans - so I dug up a spot and found one of the beans - its got the start of a root poking out of it, so I reburied it, and am hoping for the best. One worry though, I keep finding small white grubs in the soil that look like theyre just itching to get going eating the roots of my plants. Not quite sure what to do about that.

The slugs or something have continued on the broccoli and cress sown last month, grazing most of it now. I guess the iron isnt working as well as it might. I sprinkled some of last years barbecue ash around, and that seems to have slowed them a bit. Unfortunately, there is a limited supply.

Planted out some tomatoes, about 10 plants, a mixture of different types so I can compare them later. When they get growing, I'll take some cuttings and see if I can make more plants from those and how fast they bear fruit compared to the parents.

Some of the pots had 2 seedlings (of course, they were the ones I bought $9/5)
In order, left to right, the plants are:
Beefmaster, Beefmaster, Sweet100, Lemon Boy, Large Red Cherry, Large Red Cherry, Sunsugar red, Health kick, and Champion.
I planted these at the very front of the bed so as to catch as much sunlight as possible. Behind are the broad beans, and in the middle, I will plant the runner beans when the weather warms.

New Sowings

In the lower garden, last week I planted some Cannas (Cannae?) that had unfortunately sprouted in the (costco) bag. So we'll see how they do. I also sowed nasturtiums in groups, and liberally sprinkled Nigella and California poppy seed around. In the background, and here and there, I sowed some borage.
The general idea is to get some color in the lower area, while having it as trouble-free as possible (drought-resistant) and ideally, attracting insects to the garden that can pollinate the veggies. For the same reason, I'm growing herbs in the "lawn" immediately in front of the veggie plot. The theory with the herbs is that they can be mown in the winter, when they wont mind the haircut, and then in the summer, when the "grass" (largely weeds) goes brown, they will spring up forming an insect-attracting border for the veggies. Of course, I need reasonably invasive herbs for this that can compete with the weeds - Oregano, Chives, Thyme, Lemon Balm and so on.
I finally got my T&M broad bean seeds yesterday (I ordered them on the 11th and complained twice about the delay, the second time when they converted it to a "rush" order to be delivered "during the first part of march"), but as usual, the squeaky wheel finally gets the service. Expecting weather, I levelled the bed and put in 2 rows ASAP, and before 10 minutes, the rain had started! Perfect timing. The bad news is that the storms broke a few pea stalks near the top, as the winds were gusting fierce.

Today I threw a few cress seeds where I had planted the broad bean seeds, to get a but of an intercrop and maybe deter slugs. These invaders have been decapitating some of the broccoli I sowed this month. More iron phosphate, methinks.

The picture at the top is some tranplanted mesclun mix taken on Feb 10. Its grown since, and I'll post a new picture for comparison shortly.

Garden Cress and Broccoli Rabe sown

Sowed a couple of rows of Broccoli Rabe today, with a line of garden Cress between them. Did what I could to even up the soil surface, added a little bought compost to make the seed bed that bit more cosy, and added the seeds. Instead of a single line of seeds, in both cases, I sprinkled the seed thinly about about a 4-inch wide strip. Then, I gently tussled the seed in a little, sprinkled a light dusting of compost on top, and gave a quick, gentle spray of water to settle things in.

"Alaska"

Here is an image of my first pea, taken today. You can see the pea pod at bottom center. The variety is Perry Morse, "Alaska". Its supposed to be "wilt resistant", but I bought it as "one of the earliest peas", "Days to Harvest" 58. Frankly, if I had known they'd be doing so well, I would have planted half the bed in this.

First Peas

I broke new ground this year, in an area that I know is largely shaded in summer by a large tree, and dried out by its roots, but when youre limited to where you can dig, you do the best with what you have. The area used to be a vegetable plot, many years ago, presumably when the trees were smaller, so thats where my landlady wanted me to use. First, I deep dug the bed, cutting out roots and incorporating any vegetable matter I could get my hands on to about 1.5-2 feet down, and as I did this after the first rains had softened up the soil a little, it wasnt too hard. When I was finished, the surface was a couple of inches higher than previously. Into this, I planted:
16% radishes, then 16% carrots, then 16% mesclun. On the remaining 50%, a row of peas, a row of spinach and a row of lima beans. (I had wanted to use fava beans, but couldnt find any seed at the time). That was about Christmas.

Radishes (Cherry Belle): Grew great, some good roots, some useful only as salad and soup leaves.
Carrots: Miserable. Today, they are still small, about an inch high. Other carrots, including come colored ones, sown elsewhere earlier are bigger, so I'm leaving these in for now in hope. I'm not convinced these are best started in midwinter though.
Mesclun: Doing great; have had a few haircut harvests already, and expecting more. I'm being careful to cut off flowerheads that are appearing on the rocket and a spiky green. I have also transplanted some lettuces and rocket from here to another bed where they will have more room to develop.

Peas: Doing fantastic. Grew very well in the warm, sunny weather at the start of Jan, and are now flowering heavily. The first pea appeared this week, and has grown from 0.5 cm to 1.5 cm in just a few days.
Lima beans: Disaster; nothing came up. More than likely way too cold for germination.
Spinach; growing very slowly; about the size of corn salad now. Hopefully this will provide a decent crop in spring though.

Because of the failure of the Lima beans, I have transplanted some of the mesclun here, and stuffed in a line of garlic cloves; these are all doing well.

One useful point of note: In the winter, there is no shortage of light in this plot as the leaves are off the trees, and there is plenty of moisture from the rain. I can expand this area usefully, at least for winter crops.

The image above shows the pea half of the bed; To the right are the peas, then in the fallen leaves, some tiny spinach, then the line of garlic (the grassy leaves) together with some large mesclun plants, and you can see a kohlrabi plant I stuck in at lower left (a vegetable I bought but didnt use in time, so I stuck it in outside to regrow).

New Garden Blog

OK, I've been meaning to begin this blog for a few weeks now, so its finally time to get around to it. Last year, I kept my notes on scraps of paper, which wasnt really that useful.

This blog is to record my successes and failures in gardening in the Almaden Valley, San Jose, so that myself and others can hopefully benefit from understanding this microclimate (hot) and pest environment. For example, even if you find the book on vegetable growing in the Bay Area (yes, there is one), youre still stuck because it talks more about it being too cold for tomatoes than too hot, as it is here. More on that later; yes, they will grow, and well, but you need to be on the lookout for heat stress, not cold stress.

The garden itself is not large; I am a tenant, and so am limited to some areas here and there where the owner doesnt mind me working, largely against fences and under trees, but the central grass area is out (even though it dies in summer due to lack of water).

* The soil isnt great, (pH is around 7, not too bad, alluvial soil, not too bad, but few nutrients and not too much organic matter)

* I'm not going to spend a lot of money, largely because the land isnt mine, and secondly because I dont have vast quantities at the moment - so I see this as a budgetary assist, not an expensive hobby

* None of the areas available, save one baked piece of poor soil, gets direct light from 10 am to 6 pm

* I believe in working organically where possible (I'm not going to be religious about this), and in limiting water use to the absolute minimum.

So those are the parameters of the garden and this blog.

If youre interested, follow along and see where we get to!