The Hawaiian Pineapple Tomato

This is an indeterminate that has take its time. We're at about the 110th day mark and each Hawaiian Pineapple plant is some 6ft tall and is filled with about three dozen fruits in various stages of life.

They seem to do an average of one pound per fruit. I'm starting to fantasize 40lbs/plant for the season. The largest fruit I've pulled out this far has pushed through the two-pound mark!

A burst of sweetness that fills my mouth

The Concord grape, which gets its name from Concord, Massachusetts, is a marble sized fruit that fills you entire mouth with a burst of robust sweetness!

Developed in 1849 by Ephraim Wales Bull, today more than 400,000 tons of Concord Grapes are produced each year. Although most are grown commercially, Concord Grapes are one of many grape cultivars grown in the flower and fruit gardening guides home garden.

Bear in mind, grapes change color long before they are ripe. To avoid picking clusters before they reach their peak, taste the them first. If they aren't ripe, wait for them to develop. Some fruits improve after they have been harvested, grapes don't. The Concord Grape is a mighty cultivar.

Here's what I plan to do with the butternut squash

Sour Cream Butternut Squash Pie
One 9-inch pie; 8 servings

A tangy pie with a light, souffle-like texture. Position a rack in the center of the oven. Preheat the oven to 350ºF. Building up a high fluted rim, prepare in a 9-inch pan, preferably glass, glazing with the egg yolk: Baked Flaky Pastry Crust, or Pat-in-the-Pan Butter Crust.

In a large, heavy saucepan, whisk together thoroughly:
1½ cups freshly cooked butternut squash
8 ounces (scant 1 cup) sour cream
¾ cup sugar
3 large egg yolks
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground ginger
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
¼ teaspoon ground cloves or allspice
¼ teaspoon salt

Whisking constantly, heat over medium heat until just warm to the touch.
Beat on medium speed until foamy: 3 large egg whites, at room temperature. Add: ¼ teaspoon cream of tartar. Continue to beat until soft peaks form, then gradually beat in: ¼ cup sugar

Increase the speed to high and beat until the peaks are stiff and glossy. Using a large rubber spatula, gently fold the egg whites into the squash mixture. Pour the filling into the prepared crust. Bake until the top has browned lightly and feels softly set when touched, 40 to 50 minutes. Let cool completely on a rack. At this point the pie can be refrigerated for up to 1 day. Let warm at room temperature for 30 minutes before serving. Call me. Then, serve with: whipped cream.

My tomato forest

They're six feet tall and counting. I am harvesting some 3lbs of tomatoes at least twice a week from a patch with 9 plants. They're the neighbor's envy and owner's pride. I will always maintain that it is ALL in the soil prep - amend, compost, till the compost in, compost some more and mulch generously. This is my essence of all the gardening advice I have to offer.

Perfectly shaped, delicious and loaded with goodness

Today, we pulled out the most perfectly shaped, proudly pink and delicious beets. This took a lot of patience - the seeds had endured a whole year in my freezer, took at least four weeks to germinate and were in no hurry to mature. The curiosity got the better of me, so I had to pull them out to see what lay underneath.


As I savor these soft and sweet chunks of pink, I learn that the wild beet, the ancestor of the beet with which we are familiar today, is thought to have originated in prehistoric times in North Africa and grew wild along Asian and European seashores. In these earlier times, people exclusively ate the beet greens and not the roots. The ancient Romans were one of the first civilizations to cultivate beets to use their roots as food. The tribes that invaded Rome were responsible for spreading beets throughout northern Europe where they were first used for animal fodder and later for human consumption.

Beets' value grew in the 19th century when it was discovered that they were a concentrated source of sugar, and the first sugar factory was built in Poland. When access to sugar cane was restricted by the British, Napoleon decreed that the beet be used as the primary source of sugar, catalyzing its popularity. Around this time, beets were also first brought to the United States, where they now flourish. Today the leading commercial producers of beets include the United States, the Russian Federation, France, Poland, France and Germany.

As noted in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (Detopoulou P, Panagiotakos DB, et al.), people whose diets supplied the highest average intake of choline (found in egg yolk and soybeans), and its metabolite betaine (found naturally in vegetables such as beets and spinach), have levels of inflammatory markers at least 20% lower than subjects with the lowest average intakes.

For those expectant moms, beets are particularly rich in the B vitamin folate, which is essential for normal tissue growth. Eating folate-rich foods is especially important during pregnancy since without adequate folate, the infant's spinal column does not develop properly, a condition called neural tube defect. The daily requirement for folate is 400 micrograms. Just one cup of boiled, sliced beets contains 136 micrograms of folate.

Radish galore

I really didn't imagine that all these leafy greens had fleshy roots underneath them that often went 8" deep. Some are skinnier and shorter than others; but that is largely my making - like most amateur gardeners, I am chicken when it comes to thinning aggressively.

Four and counting

I am glad that my kids don't grow up so fast; it wouldn't be enough time to enjoy them. The tomatoes in patch 1 have broken the four foot mark. The Snow White cherry is growing horizontally too - some five feet across. What does this all imply?


1) Heirlooms are probably hardy by definition. That's probably how they made it through all these years.

2) They will probably reach some seriously unexpected height

3) They probably need less nurturing (low maintenance). They don't want to be fed too much, resent excessive watering and routinely defy staking.

I can't wait to see how these hardy creatures combat hornworms in a few weeks. The good news is, virtually every one of them has fruits in the making.

Legumes on my countertop

Each growing season, I subject select patches to beans cultivation - they live in symbiosis with nitrogen-fixing bacteria, which 'fix' nitrogen from the air and make it available to their hosts. In my mind, I've then treated this little patch to the spa for the season and it may return the favor by nurturing a heavy feeder.

Another instance of my poor labeling habits - just when I was ready to engineer a trellis with bamboo and garden twine, I've been rewarded with blue lake bush. I'm not about the complain, the first harvest is here and its time for stir fry.

The trench has beans, onions and sunflowers

The magic and mystery of companion planting have intrigued and fascinated humans for centuries, yet it is a part of the gardening world that hasn't been sufficiently researched.

This picture is the trench adjoining the tomatoes. The near side is a bunch of carrots. To its detriment, these carrots may aid the tomatoes. Far behind in this same trench, I've a patch of spring onions. I've not invested the time to research the onion-carrot companionship. But that shouldn't deter me from experimenting. In part, this is to scatter onion plants throughout the garden - onion maggots travel from plant to plant when set in a row.

Extending this principle, here's the tip for the day: The active principle of tomato leaves is solanine, a volatile alkaloid that at one time was used as an agricultural insecticide. You can create your own insect-repellent spray for roses by making a solution of tomato leaves in your vegetable juicer—add 4 or 5 pints of water and 1 tablespoon of cornstarch. Strain and spray on roses where it is not convenient to plant tomatoes as companions. Keep any unused spray refrigerated.

A highly prized perennial

It is blue-butterfly day here in spring,
And with these sky-flakes down in flurry on flurry
There is more unmixed color on the wing
Than flowers will show for days unless they hurry.
But these are flowers that fly & all but sing:
And now from having ridden out desire
They lie closed over in the wind & cling
Where wheels have freshly sliced the April mire.
-Robert Frost
(1874-1963)

Virtually every British gardening print sings high praises for these undisputed regal blooms. In the US, I read that they were hardy in Zones 3-8. Now, I am pushing Zone 10 in coastal San Diego, but I must have these splendid blues. So, I've tilled in copius amounts of compost and gypsum into the soil and used it it to edge a part of patch 1. I've mulched it an inch or so to keep the roots cooler. I'm hoping this sees it through our summer sun. For now, it delights the hummingbird as much as it warms my heart.

Fuzzy - originally Chinese

A member of the rose family, the fuzzy peach is a native of China. In the Chinese culture, this tree is revered as the tree of life. Peaches symbolize immortality and unity. Peach blossoms are carried by Chinese brides. Peach images were placed on pottery and received as gifts with great esteem.

Travelers along caravan routes carried the peach seed to Persia before it was cultivated in Europe. In the early 1600s Spanish explorers brought it to the New World and by the 1700s missionaries had established peaches in California.

My own tree is rescued from a nursery that was going out of business. It has (this far) proved resilient after the leaf curl attack. I'm eagerly waiting for the fruit to reveal its varied flavors.

Peaches taste best consumed "warm" from the tree. Nutritionally, a good source of vitamins A, B and C, a medium peach packs only 37 calories.

I didn't know that you aren't supposed to plant peach right next to an almond tree. They are related, cross easily and result in bitter nuts!

My purple is Creeping Sage

Last summer, I'd rescued a couple of sage saplings from Home Depot's trash can. I promptly placed it in one of those cemented structures, buried the roots in dirt and said my prayers.

Here's what the text book says: Creeping Sage (Salvia sonomensis) is a trailing groundcover that lives in the more mesic chaparral edges and along the edges of the yellow pine forest. Creeping Sage commonly grows in clay that is very wet in winter, but dry in summer. Occasionally a summer shower will wash the foliage off, but the ground stays dry. If you wish to grow Creeping Sage water it once every 2 weeks for the first year, then one or two waterings extra in spring, along with 2-3 summer dust wash-offs.


Here's what I did: Watered it somewhat religiously throughout last summer, completely ignored it throughout the fall and most of the spring. It caught my attention when it put out this vibrant purple a couple of weeks ago.

The yellow burst

It is amazing how a few sunflowers can dramatically enhance the "curb appeal" of patch #1. My motivations - show Chili some large flowers and in the process, welcome some butterflies home. For the fellow curious beings, here's the lowdown on these bright petals of vitality:

1) Traditionally, these plants would exceed nine feet and their flowers can span a whole foot in diameter. That would tower too many heads above my own. So, I've chosen this miniaturized hybrid that is supposed to be contained in a 30in x 18in x 18in space.

2) At the bud stage, sunflowers are heliotropic - they've motor cells in the flexible part of the stem right underneath the bud that turn east to greet the morning sun and follow him in a westwardly journey throughout the day.

3) What we call the sunflower is actually a composite flower comprised of densely packed little florets set at the golden angle (137.5 degrees) to one another. That formation then results in a series of interconnected set of left and right spirals. The number of left and right spirals are successive Fibonacci numbers.

All tops and that's a real problem

My radish shoots sport a rich, green complexion. They'd be winners in a spinach show. Except, I need them to put out some roots to be useful. Its a classic "inexperienced gardener" issue of not having thinned them aggressively. Or, perhaps I prepared the patch all too well - broke the clay and amended it with matter too rich in nitrogen.

I'm also told that the radish is a cool weather crop that I might have planted too late in San Diego. Apparently, such high temperatures may supress bulbing. Note to self: plant in Jan and feed it a bone meal.

Counting Chickens before they hatch (not!)

After spending the previous weekend riding an ATV on the Ocean Dunes up in Pismo, where I had a whale of a time, I was still very excited to return to the tomato craze back home in San Diego. Much to my delight, the white fly ridden plants from a couple of weeks ago were thriving, thanks to my sister's timely and multi-pronged intervention with all natural remedies.

The patch now is a vivid green, contrasted against the deep brown mulch from Miramar landfill. What a beauty! To make matters that much more thrilling, the semi-mature early girl we'd brought in started putting out the first of its fruit. I counted a good sized early girl, and two little siblings on the plant, a light green hard globe each. It will be very exciting to walk my neice around the yard and show her how this turns into a mildly acidic, yet sweet red tomato we'll pull off the vine and enjoy.

Patch #1: Mar 10, 2009 - Apr 10, 2009

Fed by copious amounts of sweat, a generous dose of wishful thinking, the cheerful San Diego sun, diluted worm tea and soil amendments from Miramar, here's patch #1 with tomatoes, radish, carrots and peas in the making.


PS: That was my thousand words, actually three thousand words for the 3 pictures in the collage.

Voila - another display of Mother Nature's self-healing!

Some weeks ago, I was quite sore about my peach tree being entirely consumed by leaf curl disease. I'm pleased to note that it appears to be behind us. I'd originally planned to spray it with oregano and thyme oil, but time got away from me.


What did the miracle - some hours of carefully pulling out every single affected leaf, packing it away in a plastic bag and getting rid of it. The key is to ensure that there aren't any diseased leaves littering the area when the job is done. It didn't escape me that the poor balded plant then needed to run on overdrive to put out more green. I promptly top dressed it generously with compost and coffee grounds.

Things are under control

It is amazing how a night's sleep lends moderation to panic, or any other excessive emotion. When I checked out the tomatoes the next morning, I concluded (with much relief) that this was not an epidemic of tomato fly or other such potent critters. So, I gave them a thorough bath in a home made soap and oil spray, washed that off later that night and brought home some live lady bugs.

I did want to give it a day to wash off the soap and not have my friendly ladybugs want to ingest soapy stuff. By the next morning, it seemed that I'd the minor infestation of unwanted fly under control. On the downside, it seemed that my zealous effort burned some leaves in one of the tomato plants. I'm yet to meet someone who holds me to higher standards than myself, but I also try to remember that mistakes are permissible as long as they are small and never repeated.


On to the ladybugs. My package is supposed to contain 1500 of them. They say you can't use too many ladybugs. Here's a valuable lesson from last year: remember that ladybugs do need time to work - they need to be released early enough in the pest cycle so they can do their job, and regular, repeated releases of small amounts are often for effective than one, very large release of ladybugs. For home use, 1,500 is usually enough for one application in a small greenhouse or garden. For larger areas, a quart (18,000) or gallon (72,000) of ladybugs may be desired. Many people store ladybugs in the refrigerator, and make regular repeat releases, perhaps weekly. If you're like me (and have a pressing need to know the numbers), I'll confirm that a ladybug eats ~50 aphids a day.

Barely visible, silvery wings - kiss of death

I'd all the reason to be jumping in joy today.

1) I completed mulching patch #1 - some 100+ gallons of mulch from the Miramar landfill + human grease carting it + flexing some lower back muscle spreading them evenly. The dark brown surface with neat pockets of green emerging from the ground - it has got the makings of art now.

2) The peas have put their first pods out - tiny, green and tender. I wanted to sit there and sing to them.

3) There was a healthy germination rate in the fenugreek seeds at the base of guinea pig (in companion planting) tomatoes.

Life was going really well until I noticed that someone was chewing off the leaves on my thriving tomatoes. Closer examination revealed these miniscule, yet devasting things call Tomato White Flies.

These critters are much too similar to aphids in the sense that they lay their eggs on the underside of the leaves, they reproduce rapidly and have piercing parts in their mouth that can suck the living juice out of my young tomato plants.

It turns out that these are not easy critters to control. I would choose to replace the plants rather than administer some industrial grade chemical pesticides to address this situation. Before fast forwarding to something so dramatic, here are the steps I plan on taking:

1) Buy a pack of lady bugs from the local Home Depot. By some estimates, a single lady bug would eat a thousand white fly eggs in its life time.

2) By another count, white flies can indicate phosphorous and magnesium deficiencies. So, I plan on drenching the roots in a mild epsom salt solution. It doesn't quite deliver the Vitamin-P, but is a decent first step.

3) I will stop by the friendly neighborhood store called Grangetto's with some sample in a zip loc bag and seek their expertise. The staff there are tenured, exceptionally knowledgeable, passionate gardeners themselves and courteous - everything I would want in my own employees. In return for this outstanding service and expert advice, I am only pleased to pay a premium at their store. In the past, they have always provided me a diagnosis, an organic solution (if one is available) and advice on prevention for the future. Enough said, I will be there when the clock strikes seven tomorrow morning.

4) Any critter treatment is incomplete without my magic spray that addresses it all - freshly brewed worm tea. I will stop at the local hydroponics store on Saturday to bring my two gallons of it. It is important to spray it all that afternoon and bring back more freshly brewed team mid-week for a follow-on application.

Not that I really want onions

Do I really care about Texas Sweet Onions? No, not really. But, there exists a patch of harsh clay adjoining the NE part of my structure (house). Well, in reality harsh clay exists throughout my yard. But a mountain is conquered one step at a time. So, one step would be to deal with this chunk on the NE that is right under the drip.

They had the Bonnie bulbs for sale - 80 of them for a dollar. Some one hundred days from now, that crisp dollar bill plus 2 hours of weeding and burying these bulbs should turun into 5-10lbs of onions. But these onions have it cut out for them - no mercy in this clay; this is a test in resilience for them. If not, its another step in cultivating that area and keeping it fungus free for the season.

Dolly is growing it for Vaishnavi

I was sure that I was done buying tomato plants twice this season. But the third time is a charm - you can take my word for it. Yesterday, we brought home a grown (defined as something taller than 4 inches) Early Girl tomato. The selection critera were: as woody as possible, as few branches as possible, healthy (disease free), as tall as possible and ideally, with some flowers. The winner was about a foot tall, had poor posture (which I will address with aggressive staking) and three yellow flowers.

This morning, hubby and I drove to landfill to bring it some fresh compost and mulch. She is now in the ground, watered and well. All this preparation is to welcome Vaishnavi to San Diego on May 3. Generally speaking, Early Girls deliver a ripe fruit some 40 days from flowering. If that does pan out, Vaishnavi can step out to the garden, harvest her tomato and eat it in her salad. I think she is going to like it :)

My versatile tomato cage

Last year, I'd purchased this redwood lattice duly spliced in three (two for me and one for Rachel) from Home Depot fully expecting that they'd see me through the next five years of pole beans and sweet peas. It turns out that San Diego's dense (not!) rainfall and perpetual humidity has over powered the resilient redwood and I expect to at best derive two growing seasons out of these immaculate works of carpentry. So, the new experiment for the year - grow pole beans on a tomato cage. I've transplanted four saplings to a cage - one for the cutworms (or whatever other magical creature that likes to eat the first four inches of a five foot tall vine), one for bad weather (or any other such natural misfortunes) and two to feed my family.

The cage is 54"H x 18" (diameter) of heavy duty galvanized steel wire, seems sufficiently sturdy to support my rigorous beans. Isn't that what I'd said about the lattice? I will report at the end of the season.
Some other time, I plan on letting sunflowers shoot some 8-10 feet into the sky and let my beans climb on them - wouldn't that be a visual delight? Hold that thought; I still don't have a way to harvest the beans regularly...
PS: Tomorrow will be a busy day - off the landfill for my square yard of mulch.

My navel orange tree costed $5 in the 1870's

Did you know that all the Washington Navel Trees in California came from two mother plants (of which only one survives to this date)?

In 1873, Eliza Tibbets has convinced William Saunders at The Department of Agriculture to give her the two navel trees that originated from Brazil’s Bahia Province. Saunders hoped the foreign trees would thrive in Riverside, and indeed they did. The oranges produced by the parent navel trees were not only sweet tasting, but were seedless as well. Rumors about the seedless oranges, later named “Riverside Navel,” spread like wildfire amongst local area residents. Demand was so robust that Eliza Tibbets selling budstock for $5 a bud, a fortune for that time in history.

I offer my humble obeissances to this mother plant as I get ready to pull out my own Washington Navel Oranges from my baby plant. My plant is about three and half feet tall, a foot taller than what it was when I brought it home some eighteen months ago. As you may know it takes a few months for an orange to mature on a plant, so it has been several months of graciously contained eagerness. Boy, doesn't gardening moderate that incessant pursuit of instant gratification in the world!

Thee inches tall and counting

I'm dreaming of grated radish in yoghurt. I can think of grated radish with falafels and humus. I can continue thinking many more yummy thoughts - but that's not what this is all about. This is about my radish saplings that have put out some real leaves and stand a majestic three inches above the ground. That dense brown mulch is caffeine (courtesy: Starbucks). I seem to think that they might be weed deterrents; I will let you know how true that hypothesis is at the end of the growing season. ps: In case you've noticed the green shoots behind the radish, those are onions. I hope the sulfur in the big bulbs would keep us fungus free this growing season.

The Quail Gardens Tomato Plant Sale

So I was at my desk at work this week when I received an email from my sister. Jenny, our neighbor had invited one of us to join her to a trip to the Quail Gardens Tomato Plant sale. The kicker - my sister's email mentioned, in line with her post on "no more tomato plants", that I was barred from bringing more tomato plants home.

Come Saturday morning, I walked over to Jenny's and she had another surprise for me - a coupon that allowed me 1 free tomato plant. Ah, now there's no way I'm going to return with no tomato plants.

For the exotic variety seeker, the annual tomato-mania event at Quail offers a plethora of choices. From the garden variety early girls and better boys, I found tomatoes with the word chocolate in their names - irresistable. That said, since there was no promise of cocoa blended tomatoes, I figured I would finally step out armed with 2 tomato plants - a pear tomato and a type with a name called "banana legs".

The pear tomato is a cherry, supposedly a profilic producer, but what drew me to it was the promise of vitamin C loaded tomatoes which look like christmas lights. Let's see how that pans out in the yard - will be rather cool to have Xmas in the summer, and mimic the southern hemisphere.

After this week's foul short tournament at work, and the term spaghetti arms that went with it, I was somehow attracted to the banana legs moniker. How does a tomato get associated with a banana? Apparently, this one is pasty and meaty. The shape tends to be longer than not, and a yellow color suddenly scream banana. All the 6" pots had plants with baby flower buds in them, and we promptly put them in the ground yesterday. After this morning's Starbuck's run for used coffee grounds, and the mild drizzles, I'm anxiously waiting for those first banana legs to get going

Keeping up with the Loffts

Conspicuous consumption they say occurs when "households care about their relative standard of living" in relation to their societal peers (J Gali, 1994). But what I did shouldn't concern the Loffts or the ivory tower researchers.

I'd built this outstanding trellis from pieces of wood that are about to be composted and earmarked it for my beans. Instead of the beans, I put in a bunch of Sweet Ann Snap Peas. It was me following Jenn's bright example of pretty flowers and nitrogen fixing with the last little "not-frying hot yet" weather we have. I'm unsure whether the April sun might roast these tender vines. Even if they're not roasted brown, I am unsure if it might be too warm to produce. If nothing, we will will assign it to being a curious character's nature-defying experiment. By late April, it will still not be too late to put more beans in the ground.

Don't spill your beans too soon

Gardening is a character building passion. Just when I expressed disappointment about lack of germination on Patch #1, I noticed some sprinkles of green buried in all that compost and mulch. In the spirit of not speaking ahead of my time, I am not ready to rejoice just yet. I'm giving this a couple of weeks to determine whether we've new weeds or if our seeds are indeed celebrating a new chapter life. My old man will be proud and I hope my daughters will learn.

On a different note, my daughter (Chili) will turn two this May. A heart-warming ritual in my gardening life is walking my little darling around the yard, narrating some stories, pointing to colors, smells, textures and sounds around us. We just walked back from our evening walk and she couldn't quite grasp how these pink flowers on the nectarine tree will turn into delicious fruits this summer.

I pointed to the neighboring nectarine - drenched in fruit set. I promised her delicious smoothies this summer. Coming to think of it, so many of these "natural" processes are miraculous and dramatic. Its a shame that we can be so consumed by our narrow pursuits and the microscopic events that punctuate them. In turn, we fail to notice the predictable, yet dramatic changes in life forms around us. I wonder if being more aware of one's surroundings will help us stay in tune with emotions of people around us - better relationships for an enriched life.

More sweat with very little to show for it

Don't things always take twice as long and turn out to be three times as hard? It takes muscles that I reconnect with every spring to break through clay, haul buckets of earth a few feet and fight that ongoing war against the weeds. I'm a proud owner of a gas-powered weeder now; mastery of this tool is right around the corner.
Patch #1 is complete now - tomatoes have been staked and caged, the marigolds are in and so are several seeds. The infant on the block are my carrot saplings that have their toothless smile on display all day. No alacrity or any signs of life from radish, basil and onions. That said, I've a secret patch of roots growing in the backyard - I'd sprinkled some of these left over seeds and gave it no more that in attention. This afternoon, I noticed several little green strips jutting out of the dirt. Some of them have pink heads - round and juicy beets in the making!

No more tomatoes please

I promised myself when I was harvesting last year that I would not plant so many tomatoes.

I promised myself when I was pulling them out at the end of the growing season that I would not plant so many tomatoes.

I promised myself when I ordered my 10 plants from Julie that I would not plant so many tomatoes.

What did I do when I had to pick up more plants for Stephanie? I decided to buy some more for myself. Allow me to explain myself:

(i) you recall that instead of Sungold Cherry, we brought home Snow White Cherry. It was an honest mistake and I needed Sungold after all. I even bought Jenny one. Come June, Liam should be able to down sweet cherrries right off the vine.

ii) I've never grown black tomatoes. Julie suggested that try one and so I must. We've the Black Zebra, an indeterminate that, 85 days, should offer us perfectly round 1½" to 2" fruits with tender, deep dark red to caramel colored skin beneath vertical dark green and mahogany streaks. I am to expect flavors of smoke and sweetness with this.

iii) I've never tasted a black cherry. So, we brought home a 65-day indeterminate that would grow into tall, strong vines and produce a rich complex of black flavors.

All said, my commitment to companion gardening is here to stay - more tomatoes, more marigolds.

It is all in soil

Step 1: Spread some gypsum over this clay and water it down. If I'd a wheel, I could be doling out some serious pottery with this chunky dirt (yikes!).

Step 2: Repeat that process a couple of days in a row.

Step 3: Dig up the entire area (at least a foot deep) and apply human traction to break the clay up (i.e., burn calories).

Step 4: Dump an enormous amount of compost (live compost is available free at the local landfill), manure and other such delightful soil amendments.

Step 5: Invoke the shovel Gods - mix this all up.

Results: Some 50 cu ft of compost / soil amendments have gone into a 220 sqft bed to make up these little hills. Go figure!

PS: In four years or so, I might have beautiful soil (I hope).
PPS: You get serious brownie points for guessing how many man hours of sweat these five steps represent.

Leaf curl woes

Our regal peach tree stands some nine long feet tall at 10AM to the backdoor. About a month ago, the tree burst out into this delightful pink blossom; we all cheered. But now, it is infested by the "leaf curl disease" that has spread throughout. It is so severely distressed that I had to pull out every leaf cluster out there leaving the tall barren plant with less than a handful of green specs. The hideous fungus has gone on to infect the shorter peach sibling that is to the left. At this point, I am hoping that it hasn't furthered into the nectarine to its left.

How did I get it this far? I noticed these strange leaf curls probably a week or so ago. Being a believer that in nature's self-correcting mechanisms, decided to take a wait and watch approach. While it is a shame that we've to grapple with such a severe fungal attack, take heart that there is not much that I can do once it is in the leaves. The traditional approach is to spray a copper-intensive fungicide once all the leaves drop.

As a first step, I've hand-removed infected leaves in the shorter peach. I plan on trying an oregano+thyme oil spray - will record how effective that effort is.

Beans are alive and kicking

As the mercury crawls back up, more of our beans are showing their crinkled new born heads now. Our trellis is up and ready to take 'em on. Growing plants in flats is rather onerous; give them a chance to put their first leaves out and the beans should be grounded.

One patch at a time

The journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step. So, I've started by preparing the first patch that is some 9ft wide and 12 ft long. Behind this concise phrase "preparing a patch" lie buckets of sweat, uprooting a forest of weeds, digging through a foot of disgustingly poor quality dirt (read: blue clay), straightening bent metal (tools) and tilling 20 cubic feet of soil amendments in. For the detail oriented, my amendments include - seaweed, free compost from the landfill, coffee grounds from Starbucks, vermicompost from my bin and some gypsum.

Next, I play "designer goddess" - sit there and intellectualize about the what plants play well with others, how quickly will each grow, what their whimsical watering requirements might be, how much room would each one like, what diseases will each likely harbor and what nutrient depletion patterns to expect.

That is the waking thought. Then comes the resting reflection - what colors would I like to see on the patch, how will I line it, how do I achieve visual symmetry, how will I attract bees and what can I cook garden fresh this summer.

Here is what that appears like in the physical world. The trellis (my art in carpentry) right in the middle is going to have pole beans around it - maybe some ten of them. These slender vines will hopefully fix enough nitrogen for the voracious feeders around them - eight tomatoes, carrots, radish, onion and some basil.

Carrots (Umbilliferae family) - to attract hoverflies, which go after many tomato pests.

Basil - to repel flies and mosquitoes, supposed to improve the growth and flavor of tomatoes. Some others say, basil is also able to ward off spider mites, aphids, and whiteflies.

Marigolds - to repel whiteflies and nematodes.

Onions (placed away from beans) - their sulfur is a natural fungicide.

A border of colorful flowers should hopefully invite the bees and we're off to the races!

Beta carotene

Late last fall when I pulled out the tomatillos, the notion of crop rotation was front and center. Between life and two little kids, all it amounted to was some some carrot seeds we sprinkled in the tomatillo patch. It received no attention other than the faithful drip irrigation over its head set at some predictable routine. A couple of weeks ago, admist my disgusting weed forest, I noticed this strange plant that I suspected might have fleshy roots. Much to Chili's delight, this is our proud display of orange taproot.

Spring 2009 - Take 2

Second time is a charm. It was a chain of non-stoppable events - Rachel emailed me on Friday that our tomato saplings were ready for pick up. Before you knew it, Erika, Rachel and I were in her "it keeps on going" van to Julie Rader's to pick up. It turned out that Erika was helping Rachel get an early start to her days by setting clocks on Utah time. So, we were back in an hour or so (second time is a charm) to greet our pretty little heirloom tomatoes.

According to our neighbor Julie Rader at Proven Winners, here's what we have signed up for:

i. Hawaiian Pineapple: In 90 days, this indeterminate heirloom will offer us beautiful large to extra large yellow beefsteaks. When they ripen, they will turn to a deep gold and develop red marbling on blossom ends that continue into the flesh. Voted #1 at the 2003 Tomatofest as the “Best tasting tomato – overall”, I've been promised a sweet and fruity treat.

ii. Limmony: In about 80 days, this indeterminate heirloom from Russia should yield 8 to 10 oz lemon yellow, smooth, blemish free beefsteak tomatoes. The high acid content is supposed to deliver a clean taste and a crisp flavor. Oh, and I've been instructed to cage them with heavy duty wire mesh - large fruits on large plants.

iii. Neves Azorean Red: This 75-day indeterminate red tomato was developed by Anthony Neves, who brought seeds from the Azores. I picked it because it was labeled disease resistant, long bearing and hopefully flavorful.

iv. Snow White: This was a mistake. We thought we were bringing the early cropper Sungold Cherry. Now that it is in the ground, let's describe it - 75 days, indeterminate ivory-colored cherry tomatoes that ripen to a pale yellow on productive vines.

It is not warm enough yet for His Japanese Majesty - Momotaro. Julie has offered to drop 'em off in two weeks or so.

Spring 2009 - Take 1

I live in Encinitas, CA some three miles inland from the majestic Pacific coastline. At 7am or so, Moonlight beach looks like this all year. So, by Valentine's day, encouraged by the bright Californian sun, I welcomed spring into 2009 and started pole beans in flats.

Some twenty four sprouted beans in pretty potting soil and two long weeks of assuring Jenny and Rachel that I will deliver bean saplings in short order - not a shade of green to save my life. Just when I about to blame the stale seeds or the seven months they spent in my freezer, one little bean popped his bald head pushing out a mound of peat moss. It was a reminder in "adaptation" for me.