Grow Better Veggies

Farm Animal of the Week: Poopers!

I asked my foreman, Christopher Donovan, to write this post.  These are his words:

When Cynthia first suggested that the initial blog in this series ("Farm Animal of the Week") should be about my dog, Poopers, I became very excited.  She also had some
suggestions about how I should focus on various personality and behavioral issues relevant to farm life that Poopers purportedly manifests, and I suppose I have to honor her wishes, as this is her blogsite, and she is my boss/mentor, etc. 

But the truth of the being of Poopers is so much more than any sundry, or even tawdry, laundry-list of daily misdeeds. To begin with, there is the story of how Poops and I were  brought together...  I was driving down a highway in Oklahoma, and she darted out in front of me -- chasing after an old beat-up van, which was speeding away.  I executed a fast turn-and-brake procedure, and called the little pooch to me.  She cowered on the pavement.  And from that point on, she was mine. 

Poops is an absolutely intelligent being, as is apparent to anyone of even moderate intelligence.  Everyone adores her, whether because of her winning disposition or enthusiasm or intelligence I am not certain.  There is a song I sing to her almost daily, which sums it up nicely: 

You're . . . Patient, obedient, and kind.
Loving, forgiving and joyful . . .
You're Poopers, you're furry, you're mine . . .
Poopers, I love you some more, each day.

Okay -- now that's the good stuff, but the truth is all of the other farm animals (dogs, cats, pig, chickens, birds, etc.) have had to learn to adapt to the addition of another boistrous presence here at Love Apple Farm.  Poopers has a penchant for chewing any leather glove we accidentally leave lying around, apricots, and unripe watermelons.  She especially relishes a mouthful of chicken feathers, which, unfortunately can only be gotten from the source.  She has, like her owner, resisted learning a great many things (though different things than her owner) -- like not chasing cats, not terrorizing the chickens, and not jumping in or through vegetable beds. 

Right now Poopers is in the midst of an intensive training period, one guided by the book "How to Become Your Dog's Best Friend, a Training Manual for Dog Owners."  It's by the Monks of New Skete, and I recommend it heartily.  So she's learning how to pay attention to her master -- a master who may have loved her too much, at first, and taught her too little.  So now when Poops takes off after the neighbor's cat, I get to chase after her, and perform what is called the "alpha-male roll-over" (rolling her onto her back, and saying "no! no!," while maintaining eye contact).  She actually seems grateful for having clear expectations and being communicated to in a way that is meaningful to her. 

Thanks, Cynthia, for making a place for Poops and her master on your farm!

Introducing my Tomato Photo Album

In the left column you'll see the latest addition to my website: My Tomato Varieties Photo Album.  Here is a  sample: 

There are 87 different tomato cultivar photos there, all taken by me.  I'm a poor photographer and even poorer Photoshopper, so the pics are basically for informational purposes.  You'll also notice that over the years I've displayed the tomatoes on many different backgrounds and chosen to label them various ways.  That's only because from year to year I can't seem to remember what I put the tomatoes on to take their pictures.  You'll also notice my funky fancy way of  labeling them within the photo - sometimes I've written down the variety on a piece of paper I stick next to the tomato; sometimes I write it down on a piece of cardboard.  Now that I've got a fancier camera,  I bet if I looked at the instruction encyclopedia booklet that came with it, I might be able to figure out how to label the photo as I take it.  But since I struggle every day to figure out this blogging thing, I fear that the technology-holding part of my brain is nearing a dangerous melt-down level.  So perhaps the funky rustic cardboard labels will have to suffice for now.

Two of my favorites:

I also try to take photos of the tomatoes I bring to the Carmel TomatoFest.  Those are easily identified by the plate that Gary Ibsen displays them on; he'll put a whole exemplar tomato on a little pedestal in the center of the place and surround it with cut tasting samples of that variety.  It's always a thrill to see my tomatoes on the massive tasting tables:

By no means is my photo album complete. I've neglected to take photos of probably another hundred, at least, of varieties I've grown over the years.  I promise to be better, and make sure that each cultivar gets its out of focus shot in the album.

I welcome you to look at the album and let me know which are your favorites, either by a comment or via an email.  Your feedback is instrumental when I choose which varieties to grow for our spring tomato plant sale.  Don't see your favorites?  Let me know anyway.  I also invite you to send me your pic of a variety not in the album.  If it's the tomato off a plant I've sold you, it'll make the album and get credited to you.

Today's Harvest

We grow a lot of things for Manresa Restaurant, and Tuesdays is one of our regular harvest days.  I won't bore you with what we harvest for the restaurant all the time, but I might make it a weekly event on Tuesdays

I've read blogs and comments from people on other sites who opine that Manresa cannot possibly get any produce from its garden in winter, because, well, it's cold in winter and nothing grows.  Wrong they are.  Well, they ARE right that it's cold in winter, and although we do have an advantage being in California, let me tell you that the low temperatures here in the garden have been all below 32 degrees every night for the last 7 nights.  We even hit 22 a few nights ago.

We know how to handle our frosts and freezes here, and I'll get into that more later.  But for now, here's our harvest list for today.  We have other things growing right now, which will be harvested as we go along this winter:

Mizuna                           
New Zealand Spinach
Ficoide Glaciale
Italian Parsley
Red Mustard Greens
Rapini (Broccoli Raab)
Carrots
    White Satin
    Purple Haze   
    Nelson
    Thumbelina
Sorrel
Radishes
Turnips
Kale
    Red Russian
    Toscano
Cauliflower
    Cheddar Cheese
    White
    Purple
Orach
Violas
Tatsoi
Lettuce
Pea Shoots (Usui)
Sprouts
    Mustard
    Mizuna
Leeks
Celeriac
Chard
Cardoons

I hate Tomato Fruitworms

Check out the chutzpa of this guy who hatched inside my kitchen last week and got some good chompin' in before I noticed him. 

These tomatoes were brought into the house to ripen up.  Since the nights were getting colder, there was no hope that the tomatoes would finish ripening on the vines.  So as we were taking them down, we stripped off most of the green fruits.  We then brought the trays inside to ripen.

The trays were just hangin' out on my kitchen counter, and I must have passed them by a hundred times a day.  I don't know why I didn't notice this guy sooner, but all of a sudden, I caught sight of him, and Gack!  Where the heck did you come from?

If this were earlier in the season, and the tomato fruitworms were starting to attack my tomatoes, I'd have to move pretty quickly to protect them.  One year, I lost about a third of my crop because I didn't do anything to stop them.  It was the first time they had ever been a problem in my garden, and so I kept thinking that they'd just go away.  Not a good idea!  Now, when I see the first signs of an infestation, I immediately go on-line and purchase eggs of the predatory insect, the Trichogramma wasp.

The Trichogramma wasp's favorite food source are caterpillars like this voracious fruitworm.  But don't freak out, the wasps are so tiny, you cannot even see them.  I prefer using predatory insects rather than spraying or dusting, because it's much safer and quicker.  I don't have to take up valuable time mixing and applying an organic pesticide.

Fortunately, I don't have to do anything right now, though.  It's the end of the tomato season, and this little guy is the last of the tomato fruitworms.  For this year, at least.

Preparing a Bed for Replanting

Feeding the soil is probably the single most important thing you can do to grow better vegetables.  I do it every single time I change crops in a bed, even if it's a quick crop, like radishes. On the odd occasion when I've forgotten for some strange reason (or been too lazy) to amend the bed before planting something, it's always immediately evident to me: slow growth, yellowing and stunted plants.  Now I never "forget" to amend the planting bed between crops. 

The above is a shot of the bed I'm going to prepare for planting.  You'll see that it still has the residue of the old crop: celeriac, (also known as celery root).  The harvest debris is still on the bed.  It will have to be removed.

Once the harvest debris is removed, I then remove the irrigation lines from the bed and place them temporarily in the mulched path:

We prep beds in various ways, depending upon the crop, but for this bed we will use what's become known on the farm as the 'standard amendments'.  I always use humic acid on my garden beds first.  Not too much, just a sprinkling of it.  I use about one cup for a 4 x 12 foot bed, or about two cups for 100 square feet.  Here's a shot of the humic acid I buy from my local organic feed and farm store:

And this is how the humic acid looks in the bucket.  It has a fine dark brown pebbly appearance:

Humic acid is an organic soil amendment that can (1) increase microbial and mycorrizal activity,, (2) promote nutrient uptake, (3) accelerate seed germination, (4) increase crop yields, and (5) aid in reducing frost damage.  Sounds great, doesn't it?  Betcha you guys haven't been putting this great stuff in your soil, have you?  Well, now you can, there's no reason not to, particularly since it's not very expensive.  A bag goes a long way.

Now that the humic acid has been sprinkled on the bed, I then put on a goodly amount of crab meal.