Garden thoughts from Xmas to NYE

Making the list and checking it twice. Not a Xmas gift list, but a list of garden seeds and plants for the garden of 2016.  The garden always starts anew every year, and the failures and the successes give us hope and give a sad face. So much hope! So much reward! and some failures. Just like life.

The container garden worked out pretty well. Just pretty well. I won't repeat it because: the no5 plastic boxes were very heavy, and cracked at the end of the summer since they aren't meant to last a long time (and not meant to last outside either).

I was surprised by a seedling that turned out to be a cherry tomato....probably a Sweet 100, since I do grow it every year, except 2015, but one came up on its own anyway. It's tough and I highly recommend it to novice and old-time gardeners alike.

The plants in the boxes didn't grow very well (probably  not high quality dirt), except the peppers and the marigolds.

The garden of 2016 will have more cherry tomatoes, more striped tomatoes, and my favorite peppers... Corno di Toro. Those amazing little Japanese eggplants and more pickling cucumbers because of their smaller size, and they are multi-purpose. Pickle them or eat them fresh! Another Meyer Lemon because Lemon! And I'm buying a miniature fruit tree or 2 to grow in a big wine barrel or 2.

More marigolds, more morning glories and nasturtium, more zinnias, more sunflowers. More alyssum, more daisies. 

On the other hand, the morning glories were glorious! And self-seeding.
pics from 2015 --- Oh, we didn't have any Japanese beetles but we had a late season tomato hornworm. UGLEEE. and a darling praying mantis lived in the wild geranium weed for a week or so.
The mantis is hard to seeeee, but he is there, right in the middle of this picture.

But the tomato hornworm is pretty easy to see. It did take us about a week to find him in the cherry tomato.

Here are some pics that I especially like from 2015. The weeds in the cracked concrete were especially adorable.

When last we spoke of the container garden, we had just planted the heirloom tomatoes and other such old-fashioned things. And we discussed the #5 plastic bins that we, the royal we, will plant our old-fashioned things in... and we have and they are up and look at what is going on now in the trailer park garden in early June!
For a quick review of the plantings and doings in March '15, clicky here, and then come right back! 

We are letting the weeds grow, and they are providing a lot of blooms now and look very adorable in a cottage garden kind of way. I practice an organic and biodynamic style of gardening. Weeds for the bees, butterflies and worms and caterpillars and lots of ladybugs, and lady bug larvae.
I am quite sure the manager of the trailer park is not happy with my weeds! But they are very important to the success of my garden and my produce I hope to have........ the tomatoes, the zukes, the cukes and all the lovely flowers too.

Here we have lettuce and tomato seedlings and they have grown so much......as you shall see in the pics nearer the bottom.
I planted seeds of 2 kinds of cukes to climb on the patio, and a zuke to grow all over the place. Okra, beans, bell peppers, and Jalepeno, and basil, mint and sage. Lots of flowers too for the beeeeeez and butterflies.
Indigo Rose is a great black little tomato that's new to me, Cherokee Chocolate, a relative of my all time fave Cherokee, Garden Peach (new heirloom to me), Black Prince ( love a dark tomato), Silvery fir tree with fine lace leaves and a red tomato, a big orange and yellow beeksteak weirdo named Hazel Mae, which is also new to me this year. This is gonna bee fun. ha ha ...

I re-use old plastic tags, mark them with a Sharpie, or use popsicle sticks or little random pieces of wood to mark the seeds and tiny plants (and big plants if memory might fade)

Cukes, Zukes, okra and peppers. Lots of tomatoes!!
The beans are running along and have had a lot of snails to attack and eat them so Sluggo to the rescue! I do love and need some bugs and spiders and worms and such, but I need far less snails and slugs. Go Away!

 Here's my Meyer Lemon. I LOVE my lemon. So much. At cocktail hour I pop out for a fresh lemon and put a sliver of fresh goodness in my martini.

OK, I planted the heirloom tomatoes, the peppers, and a basil and lots of flowers in the bins with yummy organic soil. Then I did a covering of the dirt using the  plastic from the big bags of organic soil, to A. Keep the soil warm and moist. and B. Keep the cats from taking a crap in my pots of dirt and tiny little garden plants.
I love the cats. I do not want them in the dirt, pooping.

The tomatoes and other tiny little things were transplanted at the end of May '15, and in a week they have doubled in size!
The marigolds, the sage, the lobelia....... are all blooming and attracting lots of bees all day.
We get California carpenter bees.... big buzzy and black velvet.
We get Apis mellifera, the good ol' Honey bee that Monsanto and Bayer are hellbent on KILLING OFF. And lots of teeny teeny bees, and lots of ladybugs too.

Here is the big view. I took some bamboo poles, that I grew in Tacoma and lugged them down here with me, and I stuck them in the bins of dirt and tied them together for a frame to hold the tomatoes. Will this be strong enough? I don't know. But I can add more sticks and stuff later as the season goes on if the plants threaten to grow as high as an elephant's eye.

I have 4 more big pots that I'll fill with more organic soil and put in the cukes and zukes and other stuff I wanna grow. I use Kelloggs Organic soil , or Black Gold, (Organic Materials Review Institute) OMRI ok'd, and supplement it with organic compost.

so, yes, since we are very bee and butterfly friendly and we never never use poisons, and only grow in organic soil, we are lettting the weeds grow. Weeds are lovely plants with bad press.
Many plants have self-seeded from last year.... tomatoes, alyssum, lobelia, chamomile, dusty miller.... We have lots of sow thistles, and tiny other things, and I'll add my little film in a few days and make a list of the names of the weeds I've been able to identify. That there is a subject I want to know more about.

The butterfly bush and  a tiny tiny bee on the Luther Burbank from Santa Rosa Shasta Daisy.
It is all Heaven!

Let's Plant Some Heirloom Tomato Seeds for our Garden

Last June I was out garage sailing, and I noticed that a daisy flowered plant was cascading down a hillside with pretty purple flowers and a few ripe seedpods, so.... I think.... hey, seeds! So I took a seedpod, dry and ready to plant, and thought... mmmmm, I wonder if these will germinate? And I wonder what they are. Well, friends, I did plant those seeds, and by August they were a few inches high. Pretty little green leaves and I wondered, what is it? So late in September I got a few blossoms. Oh My! They were big lilac and purple daisies, as you can see in the pic here.
Turns out these are Osteospermum fruticosum,  or commonly, Trailing African Daisy. You can look that up. So, my advice, as a gardener from a long long line of gardeners, plant those seeds and see what comes up.

I am now gardening in big containers and little ones too. But I don't like using gross recycled pots and buckets to grow food in so a good cheap alternative is to find food safe plastic labeled #5.
A neat way to get a big big pot to grow big big plants is buy a Sterlite plastic bin with the recycle number 5. It is about 5 bucks, or less, and I found them at Target and at Home Depot, and um, the thrift store. This type of polypropylene plastic is Food Grade and deemed safe, so I use them to grow organic plants for eating, fruits and vegetable. You can also find Food Grade 5 gallon buckets, with a number 5 too.
While I'm all for recycling any container to grow ornamentals, I would not plant something I was gonna eat in an old computer case, an old oil can or a something odd and nasty, but cute! Click here for more info on plastics that are food safe and can be recycled.

When I grew heirlooms for sale, I always had Mortgage Lifter, Mr. Stripey and Brandywine and of course, Cherokee Purple and a few others. But now I'm trying some (new to me) varieties.  Here are the Organic Heirloom tomatoes I'm growing this year.    These are from Tomatofest Seeds, organic seeds from a Northern California company.

Hazel Mae, because it is a large fluted yellow and red tomato, I mean, right! And that name.
One that I'm trying this year I've always wanted to try, is Silvery fir tree. It will have lacy ferny leaves and lovely red tomatoes. Sounds lovely and I can't wait to see this beauty.

Black Prince for the short season and the dark dark red/black color. This one has extra tomato-chemical, lycopene, and should be delicious like all the Russian tomatoes.

My all time favorite tomato is Cherokee Purple. Deep, red-purple, and with a smoky taste and just enough sweet/tart. I'm growing Cherokee Chocolate this year and it's a plant that is a baby of Cherokee Purple, so I expect it to be quite delicious.

2 other ones I'm trying for the first time this year are Indigo Rose, that is a favorite of the new crop of "celebrity chefs" and people who wish they were. There is a whole family of these dark almost black tomatoes that are about salad size up to small beefsteak size. 

When I was growing up a fella named Oscar lived at my parent's hotel, the Rex Hotel in Yountville. Oscar grew the most fantastic gardens behind his cabin and he tended the flower beds around the Hotel. It was a pale yellow, almost white tomato, larger than salad size. He saved the seeds from year to year and I've always wondered what its name was. Maybe it's this heirloom (new to me), Burpee's Garden Peach tomato. "Velvety skin, rich flavor, and 3" - 4" size". Sounds right ...We'll see.

I am so excited to get growing!