Organic Gardening Info from Peaceful Valley

Blossom end rot is caused by low calcium and/or inconsistent watering.

This link says it all:
http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/GARDEN/VEGES/ENVIRON/blossomendrot.html

Oystershell Lime is a common amendment for low calcium, as it contains 95% Calcium Carbonate.

Some years back I was in charge of a community Garden for a ministry that resided at 5400 ft. directly at the base of a 10,000 ft. Mt. Segal which has snow on it most of the summer in the Pinenut mountains outside of Gardnerville, NV. With 6 weeks between frost dates and 5 percent ambient moisture, (Snow doesn’t melt it evaporates and the rain rarely makes it to the ground) these were the harshest conditions I’d ever tried to grow things in, even worse than Minnesota. Many well meaning folks tried to encourage me to stick with root veggies and zucchini. If your land has the 10 ft. Giant Sage it’s the perfect conditions for root crops.

(You know why you can’t leave your car unlocked in Gardnerville in the summer? Because if you do it will be full of zucchini when you get back!)

So here are some of the things I learned that may help anyone with a gardening addiction like mine and a spot like that to grow things in.

Find similarly addicted successful gardeners and talk to the old timers especially who can tell you what people did before all of this galdern fancy stuff showed up. Then adapt their advice to all our fancy stuff to make it easier. I discovered that in the 1800’s when the area was being settled, that the Bask shepherds grew tomatoes quite successfully by starting seed indoors and setting them out in mid April/early May down in a hole that was about 2 ft. deep and set a window pane over it and covered the whole thing at night with straw and uncovered it during the day. Then they would fill the hole in with good soil as the plant grew upward reaching for the sun so that by mid June the tomato plants had this massive root system that could survive a bomb blast if need be which pretty much describes the scorching sun and cold nights they must endure. I’m sure the sheep manure played a big part in their success as well.

So armed with this folklore I set out to find a way to do this thing. Her are some of the things I found:

• BUILD A FENCE with rock along the border.
• I can have totally different conditions than you do however our soils may be similar. Alkaline, poor in organic matter, and drys out quickly.
• Have you gotten a soil test done yet? If not I would start there to see what you’re working with (or without) and amend accordingly. I use lots of compost, and mulch to keep the moisture levels up. If you live in the Carson Valley May I recommend Full Circle compost. They blend Your compost according to the soil conditions of the valley or they will blend it special for your soil test results. Otherwise buy bags of ours and amend just your planting site.
• Use raised beds with gopher wire bottoms and chicken wire tops to keep out ground squirrels, quail, rabbits, etc…. and only amend that soil. Why pay to amend the dirt you’re going to trample?
• A common problem with blossom drop is a lack of Magnesium which is easily corrected with a sprinkle of Epsom salts in the planting hole. Any nightshade will respond to this. A tablespoon is about right. NV soils are mineral rich but often lack the Mag. that releases them to your plants.
• Believe it or not tomatoes don’t appreciate extreme heat and will not produce fruit in super hot weather. Choose a cooler spot, light shade cloth, and mulch to keep the roots cooler in the heat and warmer in the cold. I found my micro-climates by planting daffodils. The colder the spot the longer it takes for them to bloom and the reading is accurate because those wretched gophers and ground squirrels won’t touch them.
• Hot wind can be hard on them so planting against a wind barrier like a fence line helps. Create a wind break with some rows of corn or pole beans.
• Sufficient water when the plant is first developing is very important so that the main trunk of the mature plant reaches a good diameter. This allows good uptake of water while the plant is producing fruit. Think of a fat straw vs. a skinny one and how freely you can suck liquid through it. I overhead water at 5am to keep the ambient moisture levels up while the plants are putting on growth and leaves.
• Don’t touch your plants in the heat of the day. Many plants stop exchanging water at somewhere around 95 degrees and can be permanently damaged. Early morning is the best time to tend them or pick fruit unless you have cooler evenings.
• Choose early producing varieties (70 days or less) so you can take advantage of the best part of your season. We have some varieties in seed that produce in 56 days. Start your tomatoes in Feb indoors and set them out in Walls O Water. They allow your plants to put down roots in the cold weather so they are ready to set fruit the minute the weather turns warm.
• Cover therm at night if you have extreme temp fluctuation. My days and nights can vary 35 or more degrees during the growing season – ie 100+ degree days, 65- degree nights. When it starts doing that I put a light frost blanket on them to lessen the severity of the change even though they don’t mind 65 degrees they hate all the up and down.
• Cover them with heavier frost blankets or sheet plastic at night when your weather turns cold to extend your season. Our catalog has a plethera of season extenders that are NOT OPTIONAL under these conditions.
• USE A WATERING SYSTEM so that your plants get enough water. No matter how long you stand and hand water you will not give them what they need. I use a combination of overhead and drip to insure sufficient water.

These are all general things that can be done to improve all your veggies or any annuals in desert conditions in general and in the Pinenut Mountains of NV in particular. Your local Ag extension office will be very helpful in more specific problem solving.

I’m a 6th generation California organic grower. My Great Great Great Grandfather Addison J. Bump, planted one of the very first orange groves in Calif. in the mid 1800s.

Here’s something I learned from his great granddaughter my great grama Maggie. Don’t throw out the vines that still have tomatoes. Instead hang them on the rafters of the barn (garage) in a place that they won’t freeze and they will keep ripening. They can be eaten, dried, or canned as you have enough for a batch.

I learned about ten years ago that you can also store them in bins or buckets off the vine. Clip the stem leaving the stepal (the little green star at the attachment on the tomato) but not any stem (it will poke holes as the tomatoes ripen) and put them all together in the bucket. Black plastic tree pots work great because of the holes in the bottom that allows some circulation.

Be sure to go through them often and see how they are doing. Pick out and keep the ripening ones toward the top so they don’t get squished. These aren’t good for fresh eating but make great sauce or pickle relish which I will talk about next week.

Grama Maggie had a method to her madness as well as a great green tomato relish recipe. To be continued next week …

I was just taking a break in our break room here at PV and Linda, our nursery manager, brought in a basket of beautiful tomatoes for everyone to share. I have to say, they were… heavenly. My favorite summer snack!

Share your harvest pictures with us on flickr. Click here to go to our group page…

I’m an apartment dweller. I never saw myself as an apartment dweller per se, but where I live, it’s an affordable way to do things. The only thing I miss is a mess of a garden somewhere where in the evenings I can dig around.

A while ago, probably 5 or so years, I wondered why I couldn’t take a 5 gallon bucket, fill it with dirt and get some plants going. “It’s too small!” most people said. But I am too stubborn, it turns out. And so, when I was living in the city, you could walk by my apartment building on a busy boulevard and see a row of three or four tomato plants doing their best to put out some fruit out front.

To my delight, there is nothing wrong (in my experience) with using containers to grow tomatoes. I am easy to please, and nothing makes me more happy in the summer than home made salsa and hot sauce. So, along with a few tomatoes, I put some peppers, some basil, some chives and whatever else I can keep alive in the buckets I have re-used for a few seasons now. I call the tiny garden “Sub-Plot”.

I’m not going to give a whole lot of advice here, there are a lot of people who know a lot more than I do about growing, but the lessons I’ve learned in regards to growing a salsa garden have made me a happy guy.

Basically: get some big containers. I found some 12 gallon utility baskets at a store, they were made to be used for laundry I believe (no holes though, just some rope handles on either side). I drilled a fair amount of holes into four sides and the bottom for drainage and air, set them up on a couple of bricks, and filled them with a mixture of dirt, potting soil, compost and ashes as the finishing touch. Unfortunately for the earth the containers are made of plastic, but fortunately for me this allows me to move them around depending on the light and the changing season, and to store them easily after the plants stop producing.

I have been able to use little 3 gallon planters for my basil and even some of my peppers seem to be thriving in them.

Watering is very easy, I am able to soak them very well, and, since I can kind of move the containers where I please, I have been able to set up a near neolithic drainage system that recycles the water coming out of the bottom of the larger containers into the smaller containers.

The best part, and the crucial point of all this is that I have been able to have a healthy, good lookin’ salsa garden for a few years now basically growing wherever I can fit it. Right now, I have a couple of feet on a rock wall near my apartment, and a few precious flat spots on the hilly walkway down to my dwelling.

Working here makes it fun to get some unique flavors from my salsa… tomatillos, heirlooms, gourmet garlic, chives and varied basils (yes I like basil in my salsa) have made their way into the mix. Even better, now that I tracked down a very simple method of making home-made hot sauce (which stores for a real long time), I can enjoy my salsa garden year round!

So if you’re limited on space, or even if you would like to try having a garden right outside your door say, I say, give it a go!

I planted some heirloom tomato seed varieties that I bought from you this spring in a bed in which I had plant the Soil Builder mix over the winter season. The soil is rich and has good drainage. I have drip irrigation. The bed gets 4-6 hours of direct sunlight every day, and I live in L.A. so it is warm here.

Thanks,
Pamela

Hi Pamela,

Hope that helps! Thank you for growing organically!
Amber

Right about now, folks all over the country are enjoying their first homegrown tomato of the season.  I’ll bet most folks would like to have that magical first date be a little earlier next year too… How do you do it?

In 2007, my first tomato date was July 15th, which is absolutely pitiful for my Northern California climate (I received my seeds from a mail order company, before I knew of PV, a little late, oh, in about MARCH!).  This year we had a ripe tomato on June 4th, and next year I hope to break the June barrier by having a ripe tomato over Memorial Day weekend.  I’ll push it a little further by saying I hope to have salsa over Memorial Day weekend!

How did I shave off a month from my tomatoes?  Simple really.

First, I started my tomatoes inside from seed in late January, eight weeks before my last frost date.  I prefer to start my tomatoes from seed rather than buy transplants because there is so much more variety this way, and you’re not forced to choose from the 6 or so types that are usually offered in nurseries.

Second, about four weeks later, I moved them outside into Wall O’Waters.  Peaceful Valley carries a whole line of season extenders, including the fabulous Wall O’Waters.  I will never grow tomatoes without using these again!

Third, I removed the Wall O’Waters when it was warm enough outside overnight that I wouldn’t have to worry about scrambling to cover my tomatoes in case of a late frost (which we indeed had this year!)

If everyone followed this recipe, we could all have wonderful ripe tomatoes earlier each year!

Maybe instead of salsa, I’ll settle for the ultimate grilled cheese sandwich, with local cheddar, and my homegrown onions and tomatoes.  Mmmmmm.

I have been waiting very patiently to finally be able to harden off most of my seedlings and put them outside.

Although out historical last frost date was nearly a month ago, I’ve been leery to plant seedlings outside because I lost a few seedlings back when we had a cold spell around our last frost date (not even a frost).

Last weekend, it reached into the 90s here in my neck of the woods, and the nighttime temperatures of high 40s and low 50s have made me salivate in anticipation of being able to put out seedlings and start warm weather seeds like beans and nicotiana outside. I had all but called it quits with the lettuce and other greens because they were really unhappy with the warm weather. But when the 10 day weather forecast had a hint of a cold weather spell this weekend, I waited to see if the forecast would change.

And boy, am I glad I waited – the forecast got even colder!

While my house likely will not get frost, a few miles up the road will. Tonight’s temperatures in the mid 30s, perhaps high 30s can still wreak havoc on my tomatoes.

My tomatoes have been living outside in wall of waters since March 8 (they were started inside in late January). They particularly enjoyed the warm weather of last weekend coupled with their thermal hot water blankets, and have now made an appearance over the tops of the wall of waters!

So today I will top off the wall of waters with more water so it can warm during the day, and I will pull out my trusty rowcover to ensure the tomatoes come through this bought of cold weather unscathed.

Although my lettuce and other greens will likely show their happiness at the spat of cold weather, I’m really ready for the season’s first tomato.

Now that the days are sunnier and the weeks are drier, folks are starting to consider their irrigation needs. I installed my drip system last year about this time (okay, it was more like right before I planted tomatoes in May, but I could’ve saved myself a lot of effort hand watering if I’d done it earlier). The experience was more fun than I thought it would be, it’s kind of like playing with Legos!

The first step, if you haven’t done it already, is to draw a diagram of your garden area with measurements. Be sure to indicate where the water sources are. Next, figure out what you are going to plant and where it will live. A really good idea if you are intercropping or incorporating perennials into the plan, is to put plants with like water-use and fertilizing needs together.

After those important steps, you can decide on what kinds of supplies you need! Check out the Irrigation section of the catalog, each piece has really a good description about what it does, how it connects to the system, etc. When deciding on Poly Tubing verses T-Tape versus Soaker Hose and the accompanying parts, it depends on what you are watering. Beds with crops that are planted close together, like greens and carrots, like either the T-Tape or the Soaker hose. Beds with more space between plants, like Tomatoes or Peppers, do well with Poly Tubing and emitters.

Remember that drip irrigation is a good investment in the long run, and it takes some trial and error to create a system that works for your needs. Believe it or not, after figuring it all out and piecing it all together, the satisfaction of your accomplishment will be sweet!