Two Thumbs Up for the TEST BED!

This is a gardening experiment that -- quite frankly -- could have gone either way -- up or down.

I've tried growing vegetables in our Natomas Clay Muck before without much success. Artichokes did OK -- but just *OK.* The most outstanding results, of course, came in raised beds.

There's nothing wrong with this of course, because there are a lot of advantages to using raised beds. You can control what kind of soil goes inside, control drainage, they warm up faster -- the list of advantages goes on and on.

But, at the same time, raised beds take time to build. They can be expensive. They require room. You need walkways to reach all sides of a raised bed, which can be a waste of space. And, if you're limited on space....

You see, every inch in a normal North Natomas backyard counts. Some are no bigger than your average broom closet. I'm fortunate to have a large backyard, but I don't want an inch of it to go to waste.

And that's why I decided to put my handy-dandy Mantis Rototiller through a workout earlier this spring in an attempt to somehow, someway, improve the hard clay soil in our backyard. Growers in South Natomas, who moved in years before North Natomas was built, have done it.

And, if they've done it, so can I.

So far, it's working. With the exception of one tomato starter plant, everything planted in our "test bed" as I call it has either sprouted or is growing fairly well. As you can tell from the photo above -- the corn seems to like it. The squash seeds that the wife planted a couple of weeks ago have all sprouted. And, for the most part, the tomato starter plants are doing well.

They are not growing nearly as fast, mind you, as the tomato plants we have in raised beds. They're not nearly as lush. They're not nearly as productive -- yet. They still might be. One of the advantages of a raised bed is warmth -- it "warms up" faster than your average pile of dirt.

My hope is that by the time summer really hits -- and the temps warm up at night -- the test bed will get just as warm as the raised beds. My hope is that we can keep the slugs and other critters who can't reach the raised beds -- out of the test bed. My hope is the roots of these tender tomato plants don't curl up in horror when they reach 10-12 inches down and discover real Natomas clay soil.

That is my hope.

Cutting through the soil in the test bed was probably the hardest workout I have faced. The Mantis Rototiller has a lot of good things going for it, but it is not a heavy machine. When the tines of this tiller hit hard clay -- the tiller starts bouncing. It's hard to control. It takes a lot of muscle and a lot of pulling from behind to keep the tiller where it's supposed to be, and ensure that you're cutting as deep as possible.

I managed to do that over the space of an hour or two -- and then amended this concrete-like soild with as much compost as I could haul into the backyard. It swallowed every bit of it. Hopefully, the compost will stop the clay from turning into cement again.

That is my hope. Everything is working -- or seems to be working -- so far.

Then again -- it's only May. The garden season is just beginning.

Tomato Babies

The 2009 Summer Garden is now planted.

Yes, you heard me right. The 2009 Summer Garden is now planted -- and better yet -- it's growing.

If you're wondering if RIGHT NOW is the time to plant summertime favorites like tomatoes, cucumbers and corn in the backyard the answer is NO! WRONG! Not after a weekend of rain and cold weather like we had this past weekend in the Sacramento area.

Don't get me wrong -- we need the rain. We need the snow. We'll really need it later this summer when thirsty Southern California starts demanding a supply of Northern California's clean, fresh and tasty water supply. So, let it rain, let in pour. More importantly, LET IT SNOW!

But there are some things that gardeners can do INDOORS to start their OUTDOOR summer garden. And that is taking place in greenhouses, homes and even workplaces across the Sacramento Valley area. In short -- it's time to plant some tomato seeds.

Want to get an early start on tomato season? Do you desire a fresh-off-the-vine heirloom tomato in JUNE? Then, the time to plant is now -- and as you can tell by the photos -- the planting effort is already underway.

The greenhouse you see pictured belongs to none other than Master Gardener Extraordinaire, and "Fruit of the Heirloom" (FOHL) charter member Fred Hoffman, host of the highly popular "Get Growing with Farmer Fred" radio programme on NewsTalk 1530, KFBK and also Talk 650, KSTE.

And Fred has one big advantage that I don't have -- YET. It's called a greenhouse. And this is almost essential to getting plants started early. As I said, it's almost essential. I know one other grower (Nels Christenson) who starts his seeds in his work office. Venus and I start our seeds in a spare bedroom, using a converted wine rack.


BUT -- if you're going to do some large-scale growing of tomato plant starters -- well -- you can't lose with a greenhouse. There, you can easily control the elements of heat, light, moisture, fertilizer and other issues that are so important when it comes to starting tomato plants. And you don't have to deal with curious and sometimes BRATTY cats who think it's just enormous fun to whack plant-starter pods from one side of the room to another.

But, provided you plant NOW, and provide the cats with some new toys in hopes that they'll leave the starter pods be, you'll see your planting efforts germinate in less than a week. Tomato plants are like weeds. They germinate quickly and grow rapidly. In short, you can't possibly screw this one up, even if you're a beginner. To be honest, you don't even need grow lights. You can start seeds in a windowsill.


The seed cups you see pictured here were planted ten days ago, and they've already germinated. These cups, and a lot more like them, contain forty to fifty varieties of heirloom and hybrid tomato plants. Heirloom varieties with names like Brandywine, Azoychka, Opalka, Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red, Black Krim and many more have already sprouted and are growing like mad.

These starter plants will be kept inside for the next two to two-and-a-half months. By mid-April, the starter plants will be at least a foot high, and possibly a lot more. In short, planting in February gives you a tremendous head-start on the summer growing season, which can be very long in the Sacramento area. If Mother Nature cooperates (which isn't always the case), you can be rewarded with a six-month growing season. And that means multiple harvests.

It seems hard to believe that the small cups pictured in Farmer Fred's greenhouse will be growing tomatoes larger than grapefruit, but that's just one of the wonderful, wild and wacky things about growing heirloom tomatoes...