Best vegetable garden ever!
Posted on 24 May 2009
I’ve been growing vegetable gardens for a lot of years, but this year all the stars seem aligned and my garden looks better than it ever has before. Of course, I’m saying that under the influence of an intoxicatingly pretty day, 75 degrees with a cool jasmine-scented breeze. My story may change midsummer when it’s 105 and the tomato hornworms seem to be winning.
The biggest change is that these two raised beds, which have been mostly shaded by the neighbor’s tree for the past few years, get a full day’s sun now that the tree has been removed.
My tomato plants are sturdy and lush and growing fast. Their bushiness, which might mean that I was neglecting their pruning in other climates, is a good thing here where it protects the fruits from sunburn.
Because I’ve had terrible luck with mislabeled plants from local nurseries, this year I finally ordered my tomato plants from The Natural Gardening Company, a mail order/web firm in Sonoma County. I used to drive to San Anselmo to buy tomato plants from them when they still had a retail outlet, but after this year I won’t hesitate to order from their catalog. The plants arrived in beautiful condition one day after they were shipped (they’re only 80 miles or so away), and they’re the healthiest plants I’ve ever seen. I have one each Sungold, Sun Sugar, Orange Strawberry, and Big Beef. And two of my favorite which I’ve never been able to find anywhere else, Carmello. That’s all I have room for. (I don’t have a good place inside or out to start plants from seed, so I just buy plants.)
I don’t grow a lot of different vegetables, just tomatoes, lots of green beans, lots of basil, a few bell peppers and some other odds and ends like leeks, shallots and this year a lemon cucumber. Frank build me a new bean fence this year to replace some rickety wooden tepees that never worked very well. I planted the beans on May 1, and the first one just touched the top of the seven-foot fence this morning. I have bush beans started in another box that doesn’t show in the photo.
My basil is also doing really well. I’m putting it on practically everything we eat (except breakfast cereal… hmm… how would that be?) and I’m going to have to top all the plants and make my first batch of pesto this week.
4 responses to Best vegetable garden ever!
I wonder if there is a perfect tomato growing climate somewhere. You’re worrying about nights too cold for the fruit to set, and I’m fretting because the daytime temps are going to the mid 90s today, which is hot enough to prevent the fruits from setting.
Somehow a homegrown tomato is always worth all the effort and worry, though!
George and I can’t remember exactly when we get tomatoes. Typically they start to ripen towards end of July and we start to have a real harvest around mid-August. We do get sungolds earlier. Our problem is the night temps. I don’t think the fruit will set if it drops below 50 degrees. We’re still getting down into the 40’s.
Momataro is a favorite of the garden writer for the now defunct Seattle PI newspaper. It is supposed to be a good producer. We tried it last year but it was such a crappy year. We have high hopes for it this year.
I noticed that Marsha is also growing it so it is available in SoCa. You might be able to find it next year. Your best luck may be a good farmers market with someone that grows heirloom varieties. If not in Sac – maybe Davis?
I’ll have to check out the Momataro. I just googled it and it sounds great — Japanese! I’ll watch for it at the farmers market this summer to see if anyone is growing it in this area.
When do you start to get ripe tomatoes, Marta? Usually, I get one or two ripe sungolds right at the first of June (you should see me carving a tiny cherry tomato in two so we can share it!), then I have to wait until late June before I have enough to really count.
All of my tomato plants except the “Orange Strawberry” are already setting fruit, and the Carmellos are bigger than walnuts now. Maybe the Orange Strawberry is just confused about what kind of fruit it should produce. It was my wild card this year, chosen on a whim because it sounded so pretty, orange with red shoulders.
It is looking very good. We barely barely have flower buds. We took the cloches off our tomatoes and they got a little bit of cold burn on them. Yep, temps got down into the mid 40’s and they didn’t really like it. We have grown Carmello before. Excellent tomato. A really popular one that we are growing this year is Momataro. We grew it last year and it was okay but the year was really bad for tomatoes in Seattle. We also have Sun Gold and a couple of early producers. Your beans also look great. We only have about 3-4 leaves. Forget about basil until maybe end of June.