my garden
The Time is Now
Many moons ago, when I was a wee 20 something traveling to Europe for the first time, I tasted what I consider to be my first tomato. I was at a rooftop restaurant on the isle of Santorini in Greece, a perfect setting for my romance with tomatoes to begin. This gorgeous specimen was far from the mealy, anemic cousin ever present in the supermarkets of the 80’s. No, this was more akin to steak. Juicy and meaty. Served with a creamy slab of feta and grassy olive oil, it was a revelation. Never did I taste another tomato like that until I started growing my own. In fact, tomatoes are the entire reason I got into gardening in the first place. It’s a gateway vegetable. Of course, a lot has changed in the offering of quality produce. But, even the finest farmer’s markets can’t beat what you can grow on your own. There’s just something about a fresh picked tomato grown by your own hand. If you’re not currently gardening, just try one or two in a sunny location in your yard or containers if you don’t have garden space. Here in Southern California, we can start transplanting tomatoes in early April and continue through the end of May. So get on it people. You’ve got 3 weeks left. A few things to keep in mind: Find a spot that gets 6-8 hours of sunlight minimum. They are heat seekers. Enrich your soil with lots of yummy worm castings, compost, or organic fertilizer. They are heavy feeders. Fertilize every few weeks during the growing season. I side dress with compost. In the past I alternated between fish emulsion and liquid seaweed and that worked well too. When planting a young tomato transplant, it is important to remove the branches on the lower part of the main stem and bury up to 80% of the plant. All the fine little hairs you see on the main stem will turn into roots and create a stronger healthier plant. After digging out a deep hole to bury 80% of the plant (so important I’m saying it twice) mix a handful of worm castings, compost or other organic fertilizer in to the soil you’ve removed. (This will be backfilled around the plant shortly) Sprinkle a two-finger pinch of mycorrhizal powder into the hole so that when you place the plant in, the roots will be touching the powder. This has all kinds of amazing benefits to both your roots and the soil itself. It’s not absolutely necessary but I highly recommend it. Backfill the hole with the soil/compost combo and lightly tamp around the plant. Stake the plant or use a tomato cage so that you can fasten the main branch on the stake as it grows taller. Keeping the plant off the ground keeps it away from pests and increases airflow to keep down invasive diseases. Water in. As the plant grows, prune the suckers. After a branch grows off the main stem, little branches will appear in the “armpit” between the offshoot branch and the main branch. Pinch these off as the plant grows. There is a lot of conversation about this in the gardening world as to whether it is necessary. I try to go the route of least extra work so tried not pruning last year. I had a tomato jungle which was awesome because it did produce mountains of fruit. But they were less flavorful and I was battling diseases all summer since there was decreased airflow. So, I’m committed to pruning now. There’s nothing to it but to do it.
Small Packages
It still completely blows my mind that a tiny speck of matter bursts through the soil and produces life in such abundant and varied forms. I get how it happens, I know the science, but that by no means eliminates the sheer wonder of it. This year, I’m growing as many things as possible from seed. Some plants are no brainers and easily sown directly into your garden like beans and squash but I’ve had mixed results with tomatoes, peppers and eggplant. Germination and the hardiness of the plants compared to store bought transplants just wasn’t as good. I suspect it is my fickle nature that is to blame. I get all excited about planting from seed and then I manage to forget about those reused six packs with unseen potential sitting in a corner of the garden. My attention is drawn to the visible plants that more obviously beg for attention. In the end they have been undone by uneven watering. Or life gets too busy and I miss the window for starting seeds all together. Each season I vow it will be different next time. Let me pause to say that if you want to start a garden and the seed thing is a bit much, you should absolutely, positively without a doubt do transplants from the garden store. There is no medal for doing a garden from seed. I’m doing it because I like the challenge but the point of a garden is to grow things you want to eat and if that isn’t going to happen without using transplants then DO IT and don’t look back. I have done it for a long time and the satisfaction of watching transplants grow and magically produce vegetables is no less. If you want to give the seed thing a whirl, consult a seed starting calendar for your growing zone. I used The Digital Gardener’s Southern California Planting Schedule . The Farmer’s Almanac provides customized schedules for your zone. I also tried Jiffy Peat refills for the cucumber seeds which maintain moisture more consistently and I really liked them. I used a mixture of seed starting mix and compost for the tomatoes and got good results but I think I’ll try them with Jiffy pots next year. I didn’t bother buying the ridiculously overpriced plastic container. I just bought the refills and placed them in used six pack containers and placed the containers on a large container lid. I also bought a grow light and started the seeds indoors since night time temperatures are still too low for the wee little buggers to stay comfortable and keep doing their thing. It still completely blows my mind that a tiny speck of matter bursts through the soil and produces life in such abundant and varied forms. I get how it happens, I know the science, but that by no means eliminates the sheer wonder of it. This year, I’m growing as many things as possible from seed. Some plants are no brainers and easily sown directly into your garden like beans and squash but I’ve had mixed results with tomatoes, peppers and eggplant. Germination and the hardiness of the plants compared to store bought transplants just wasn’t as good. I suspect it is my fickle nature that is to blame. I get all excited about planting from seed and then I manage to forget about those reused six packs with unseen potential sitting in a corner of the garden. My attention is drawn to the visible plants that more obviously beg for attention. In the end they have been undone by uneven watering. Or life gets too busy and I miss the window for starting seeds all together. Each season I vow it will be different next time. Let me pause to say that if you want to start a garden and the seed thing is a bit much, you should absolutely, positively without a doubt do transplants from the garden store. There is no medal for doing a garden from seed. I’m doing it because I like the challenge but the point of a garden is to grow things you want to eat and if that isn’t going to happen without using transplants then DO IT and don’t look back. I have done it for a long time and the satisfaction of watching transplants grow and magically produce vegetables is no less. If you want to give the seed thing a whirl, consult a seed starting calendar for your growing zone. I used The Digital Gardener’s Southern California Planting Schedule . The Farmer’s Almanac provides customized schedules for your zone. I also tried Jiffy Peat refills for the cucumber seeds which maintain moisture more consistently and I really liked them. I used a mixture of seed starting mix and compost for the tomatoes and got good results but I think I’ll try them with Jiffy pots next year. I didn’t bother buying the ridiculously overpriced plastic container. I just bought the refills and placed them in used six pack containers and placed the containers on a large container lid. I also bought a grow light and started the seeds indoors since night time temperatures are still too low for the wee little buggers to stay comfortable and keep doing their thing.
The First Salad of Spring
My husband likes to take the piss with friends back in Scotland by casually referencing our mild California winters. If you’ve ever been to Scotland, where I swear it rains sideways, you’ll know that a creeping damp cold plagues a good portion of the year. His favorite dig when he skypes home from California is that the morning was so cold he had to put socks on. So we can hardly complain about the weather. But as an east coast girl born and raised I do miss those unmistakable days of transition where you can feel the new season coming on. The way the light changes and the thaw of spring. The changing color of the leaves and sudden chill in the air in the fall. Instead, I content myself with the changing harvest from the garden to feel the passing of seasons. I planted cover crops from December to early February to enrich the soil rather than keeping lettuces growing throughout the winter. So my first crop of lettuces and mixed greens as well as nasturtiums have come in just in time for the start of spring. I dressed them with a buttermilk/horseradish combo picked up from Amanda Hesser of Food52. I love this dressing and keep it on hand for a quick throw together salad.
The Joy of Leaf Compost
If you told me when I was 20 that checking the rising temperature of a pile of leaves would be the highlight of my day, I would probably have said “shoot me now.” But it has happened and I don’t regret it. Geeking out on the insanely intricate and intelligent processes of plant biology brings me serious joy. Depression and anxiety fighting type joy. This crazy world temporarily seems to make sense kind of joy. Leaf composting is just such a process. When trees drop their leaves, they decompose and the nutrients they contain are returned to the soil. The soil in turn is made both nutrient rich for the tree to feed on but also for a host of micro-organisms that live in the soil and magically do all kinds of good things for it. Think worms and vermicomposting times a million. Mother Nature ain’t no dummy. All that lovely flavor and nutrition you get from your vegetables comes directly from the complexity of your soil. The more you feed the soil, the happier everything is. Fertilizers, even organic ones, feed plants but they don’t feed the soil. So it delivers what is necessary to produce fruits but it doesn’t necessarily deliver everything it needs to be scrumptious or disease and pest resistant. Compost feeds your soil and the richer it is the more tasty your vegetable are but also the stronger they are to resist the bad things that come along. Of course, nothing in organic gardening is foolproof but from what I’ve gathered so far, focusing on complex soil is the best shot you have. I am trying to depend solely on compost, vermicomposting, cover crops and enriched mulch to keep my soils and plants happy. I’ll post on the rest of these practices soon. As for leaf composting, at it’s most simple you can create a 4×4 pile of dry leaves, wet it down from time to time to keep it moist, and in time you will have gorgeous, rich compost. This takes several months depending on where you live. If you have cold winters and won’t be planting a garden for awhile this might be the easiest option and the compost will ready for you in the spring. Here in Southern California where we have a longer growing season, I want to speed up the process so I always have good compost available and can avoid having to buy expensive, lower quality options. So, I’m going for hot composting where I can hopefully create dark crumbly compost in a couple of months. Hot composting is when you balance different materials and conditions to raise the activity level of beneficial bacteria that speed decomposition. Anything between 100 and 150 degrees is considered hot composting. The ideal temperature is around 140 to keep things moving quickly but hotter than 150 and the beneficial bacteria may die off defeating the purpose of retaining the heat. Google hot composting and you can lose an afternoon on the various approaches but since I am trying to do everything as easily as possible, this is the approach I settled on. How to Hot Compost Leaves: Collect enough dry leaves to produce a 4’x4′ pile. You can also do this in stages as you collect enough materials and build the layers of your your pile one at a time. I got a couple of Geobins from Amazon to make the piles neat and easier to manage. Collect coffee grounds. Call Starbucks or your local coffee shop in the morning and ask them to save their used coffee grounds for you to pick up at the end of the day. I usually get about 10-15 lbs each time. You’ll need about 30 lbs total for the bin. Sometimes the baristas are thoroughly confused by this request but if you don’t mind the inconvenience of seeming like a crazy person it is well worth the effort and they get used to you after a while. Collect a pile of greens from around the garden. Could be grass clippings, the trimmings from bushes or old vegetable plants pulled up after harvest. Leafy trimmings are great for keeping pockets of air within the bin. The stems will take longer to break down but it’s not a big deal if they don’t. They’ll continue to provide good aeration to your soil when you add the compost to the garden. Fill your container or geobin about 1/3 full of leaves. Spread 10 lbs of used coffee grinds over the leaves and add a layer of greens. Water the layer in. The conventional wisdom is to keep compost as moist as a wrung out sponge. OPTIONAL: Grab a pitchfork or similar tool and mix up the leaves, coffee and greens. This will speed things up but isn’t totally necessary. And it’s kind of a bitch. So it depends on my mood as to whether I do it or not. Repeat the process with two more layers in equal thirds and top with a layer of dry leaves. After about a week, your compost should get up to about 140 degrees which means activity is buzzing along. It will hover there for a few days and then begin to drop. 2 weeks after reaching 140, my pile slowly dropped back down to 120, still a reasonable temperature to keep things moving. But when it dropped to 100 I decided to take action. Here’s the rub of hot composting. To keep it hot it needs airflow and moisture. Moisture is easy as you can dig a few inches in to check how moist it is and spray it with a hose if needed. The hard part is oxygen flow. This requires turning the compost which means mixing it all up and around to introduce pockets of air. Basically you are taking what has become compacted and loosening it all up. This is a serious pain in the ass. I did it once and and vowed never to do it again. Instead I bought another geobin and transferred the contents of the first bin to the second. In the process I introduced needed oxygen. I was happy to discover that from about 3/4 of the pile was already nicely composting. There were still leaves and stems but it already had plenty of nice crumbly soil texture and earthworms. Transferring the pile also takes a little effort but is not nearly as annoying and much more effective than turning it. The temperature dropped to 80 but within a day was up to 90 and within 7 days it retuned to 120. If you’re not in a hurry and don’t feel like adding this step then just leave it and it will eventually do it’s thing. The time spent at that higher temperature has still benefitted the process. Just make sure it stays moist. The compost is done when the leaves are unrecognizable and it smells nice and earthy, not rotten or damp. Take a clump of compost and squeeze it in your fist. It should hold together but quickly fall back apart if you poke at it. I don’t screen my compost because I’m lazy and internet research suggests it is not necessary when you are layering it in to your garden. Some level of chunkiness and unbroken down stems provides good aeration for the soil whereas a screened compost can become too dense and almost claylike. I’m constantly learning about this process. I will update this post regularly when I find easier and/or more effective ways of giving your garden the goods it deserves. And by all means, if you know something I don’t about hot composting, educate me. I’m here to learn.
Let the Fun Begin
I’ve been gardening for about 5 or 6 years. I started with zero gardening knowledge or experience, just a desire to have a bountiful supply of organic produce to cook with. There’ve been endless mishaps and many baby steps to figure out what produces the heartiest plants and the tastiest vegetables. From containers to raised beds to enriching the existing soil. From organic fertilizers to compost tea to leaf mold. From a few containers to a full on front and backyard urban garden. I was verklempt when I harvested 200lbs of tomatoes in one season and was decimated when squirrels nabbed every ripe nectarine on my tree overnight. (Little fuckers!) I squeezed in time when I could between raising two small kids and working. And to my great delight, it has become simpler and more effortless along the way. In Southern California we are blessed with year round potential but I have learned to reign in my enthusiasm to let soil rest, plant cover crops and rotate crops so that I am not pushing the soil beyond it’s limits. I learned to respect the soil and properly feed it’s complex web micro-organisms. What I don’t know could still fill volumes but I’ve learned a ton from master gardeners all over the internet. And so it continues. I’m slowly moving closer and closer to bio-dynamic farming which in the end is infinitely easier and cheaper and expanding the scale of what I grow. Wish me luck.