That Man Smells Like Manure!

Does Someone Smell Cow?

Step back ladies -- and please try to control yourselves. The Don Juan of bovine meadow muffins is in the house -- and as the photo to the right will clearly attest -- the "defcon of reekness" level stands at four.

Thanks to a weekend of warm weather and bright sunshine in North Natomas -- I'm pleased to announce that the 2011 summer garden season is now "on." Oh sure -- it's mid April. I'm not forgetting the calendar. But when two straight wam weekend days fall into your lap - a gentleman "takes advantage."

Think about it for a minute. In a lot of ways? Gardening is like sex. "How so Bill Bird," you inquire? Let's look at the facts, shall we? A day of gardening leaves you hot -- sweaty -- dirty -- tired -- spent and in desperate need of an ice-cold beer.

What other activity leaves you feeling in such the same manner?

I rest my case.

"Work It" With a Wheelbarrow!

If you're seriously insane -- I mean -- serious about gardening -- you just can't "plant seed" and forget about it. Oh no -- there's a lot that comes before that magic moment. First and foremost? You need to prepare for it. You need to "work it" so to speak -- as in work the garden beds before planting.

There are six main 4X8 gardening beds in the main part of the Backyard of Bird. There -- you will find the now infamous "V for Venus" beds. I'll be honest. After a long and frustrating winter -- a lot of the beds were covered in weeds. Call it our winter of neglect.

Fortunately? These are raised beds filled with loose soil planter mix. No matter how big the weeds get? They're fairly easy to pull out -- roots and all. And if you don't get it every last part of each root? The Mantis Rototiller will take care of the rest.

The Mantis needed yet another tune-up before I got started this weekend. Despite my efforts to drain out the old gasoline from last season and replace it with something new -- it wouldn't fire up the way I wanted it. It would run for a minute or two and then die when I gave it the gas. Know what that means? It means another trip to Bill Knight and the Lawn and Mower Repair shop in Elverta.

Bill knows his two-cycle engines.

Mantis Rototiller in Action!

After a standard $25 tuneup? Ye olde Mantis was running like a top again -- ready to tear into those beds with abandon. Each bed received three bags of top quality manure -- and I say that in jest -- because when is the last time you ever heard anyone use the line "top quality manure?"

It's cow-poop folks. Plain and simple. It comes from the back end of -- well -- you know.

After a less than satisfactory experiment with other forms of compost last year -- I switched back to the simple one-buck-a-bag variety found at your local Home Depot. Why fiddle with something that works wonders? Some of my best summer vegetable gardens have resulted from the use of the cheapest form of steer manure compost -- so why fiddle with something that works?

Sure -- I've tried better forms of compost. I've tried the organic variety. I've shelled out $20 for a bag of the Fox Farm product. Guess what? In my short experience? The buck-a-bag Home Depot stuff just works better. And there's nothing like the feeling of ripping into a bag of smelly steer manure compost -- only to find that it's rich with earthworms. That's like hitting the garden jackpot.

Amended bed before rototilling

I managed to till up four different beds this weekend -- which is a record for productive output. The main 4X8 beds each received three bags of steer manure compost -- which also comes with an ample supply of potash (potassium). I also experimented some additional nutrients for the beds in the form of organic bone meal -- which is high in phosphorus. If you're as insane as I am about heirloom tomatoes -- you'll find that they need equal amounts of three nutrients to do well: Nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus.

If your garden is lacking in any one of the three? It can affect production. You can also work in far too much of a good thing -- which I discovered last year when I experimented with chicken manure compost. However -- I am returning to a nutrient recipe that has served me well in the past. My "method of gardening madness" is to till up each bed with the Mantis -- add manure, bone meal and other pelleted nutrients -- and use the Mantis a second time to mix it in with the existing soil.

After splashing each bed with a fine spray of water (this keeps the wind from blowing half the soil away -- which is a real problem in the windy riverbottom) -- the end result is a dark -- rich soil that is ready for planting. And so -- this is when the magic moment comes. It's time to plant.

Amended "V for Venus" planter bed

I'll be honest with you -- I jumped the gun a tad. The heirloom tomato starters that I have been babying in a back room through most of the winter months are now in their permanent location. Yes -- I'm taking a gamble here. Yes -- there's still the chance for another cold storm or two. Yes -- most serious growers wait until the END of April before they dare plant anything.

In my case -- however -- it was time. The long and lanky heirloom starters were seriously rootbound. Worse yet? A normal spring day of warm weather was enough to dry them out completely. My only options were to transplant the starters into larger containers -- or plant out now. I chose the latter. It's a gamble -- yes it is. But the long range forecasts look promising.

Tomato plants can withstand a warm spring deluge. In fact -- I've found that they tend to enjoy it. I've seen plants knocked flat by warm spring downpours -- only to watch them spring back stronger than ever a few days later with nary a trace of disease. Warm spring rain doesn't bother me. A cold snap followed by cold rain and more cold weather? That's different. It should cause concern.



Raggedy heirloom tomato plant starters



If we're lucky? The wife that is Venus and I will be enjoying vine ripened tomatoes by the end of May or in early June. This is providing the weather cooperates. After experiencing a colder-than-normal summer last season -- I know that the weather rarely cooperates in these cases.

But -- every once in a great while -- a squirrel finds a nut. The heriloom tomatoes are in. The wife and I smell like we've been rolling around in meadow muffins all weekend long. There is no turning back now.

As for me? I need a beer -- and a shower.

Welcome to the Jungle!!!

2011 Heirloom Tomato Plant Starters

Like the song says -- "It gets worse here everyday."

Little did Guns N' Roses know that they would be singing about MY heirloom tomato plant starters!

Look at it and weep kids -- this is the SAD state of Bill & Venus Bird's heirloom seed starting effort later this year. The plants to your right have now shot past the shoplights. I can't set them any higher. Those lights are on the highest setting I have.

Never in my life did I think that I would grow three foot high heirloom tomato plant starters -- but the pictures do not lie. This is the sad state of a Bird bedroom at the moment. And with the rain pounding against a windowsill on a dreary and dark Saturday afternoon -- combined with gardening areas that are completely waterlogged -- I have come to the following conclusion:

There will be no "early spring planting" this year. Heck -- I'm still waiting for a day resembling spring to arrive. I haven't seen it. Nobody in Northern California has. And -- as bad as we have it down in the Natomas basin (that's the riverbottom folks) -- heirloom tomato growers further up the hill have it even worse than we do.

Welcome to the Tomato Jungle

Those gardens are buried under a couple of feet of fresh snowfall. Know what that means? Tomato season is still more than a few weeks off my friends.

It would not have been safe to plant out now anyway. April weather in these parts is rather "fickle." Still -- most of us gardening types would have at least liked a glimpse or two of spring sunshine. But there's been nothing like it around here for far too long.

My only hope? Next week's weather forecast. I must say, it does look rather promising. But that's next week. What am I supposed to do with these monsters in the meantime?

My attempts to encourage stronger and thicker stem growth have most been a failure. Three weeks ago the wonderful wife that is Venus and I staked each starter plant and started feeing them with fish emulsion fertilizer, which is nitrogen-rich.

Canopy of GREEN!

The end result? Oh, the starter plants flourished alright. You can tell that by the photos. But instead of encouraging stem growth, the staking and fertilizing resulted leggy plants that are now ten inches to a foot higher than they were three weeks ago. There's no doubt in my mind now that I will have to transplant these leggy starters into larger cups during the hardening off process -- that much is sure.

But the real danger is -- after transplanting -- is that Venus and I will lose the use of the shuttle trays that have made transportation such a snap. Each tray holds ten starter cups. Moving fifty starter plants from one place to another isn't all that difficult when you're dealing with five trays.

However -- moving fifty individual starter plants from one place to another does present a host of problems. The shuttle trays will not accommodate the larger sized transplant cups -- which means we will have to move each starter plant by hand, two to three at a time.  Although we could probably do this once or twice, it can't be a regular part of the hardening off process.



Leggy Starters: Still Leggy!



So, we'll hope and pray that next week's warm weather will at least stick around for awhile. While the plants will be placed under a covered patio that will guard them from rain and direct sun, it won't guard against another cold, howling rainstorm that lasts for days (or weeks) on end.

So, it is somewhat of a gamble.

But -- should the sunshine and warmer temperatures arrive next week as the forecasts promise -- and stick around -- the payoff will be bushy and vibrant heirloom tomato plant starters during plantout. The thought of a spring rain doesn't bother me much. In fact, the plants seem to like a warm drenching from time to time.

However, should another cold, gusty, gully-buster arrive in mid-April? That spells trouble with a capital T. I'd come home to the rather distressing sight of heirloom tomato plant starters tossed about the Back 40.

That's never a good sign. Keep your fingers crossed. Mine most certainly are.

She's Got Legs

2011 Heirloom Tomato Plant Starters

As you can plainly tell in the photo to your immediate right -- yes indeed -- it's true. My babies have "legs." In other words -- they're "leggy."

And you thought this post was going to be exciting. I am such a tease. No such luck here.

The 2011 heirloom tomato growin' season is now underway in a Bird bedroom -- tucked inside a home on our North Natomas Back 40. Despite the tough January -- followed by an excruciating February -- the wifey and I found time to do what we do best: plant tomato seed and grow "leggy" tomato starters.

I must admit -- there's nothing special about our seed starting efforts this year. We simply did not have the time to "build" our own soil from parts of this and that. We didn't have the time or energy to plant row after row of scrumptious tomato starters. Nope -- what you see is what you get. The first 30 cups were planted on Super Bowl Sunday -- about three days before Venus' father took his last breath.

We finally got around to planting the last 20 cups a few days ago. They haven't germinated like the others yet. But -- give them time. They will eventually spring to life.

This wasn't part of my "master plan." The so-called master plan was to build a seed starting rack this year -- a rack big enough to holding 80-to-100 cups. But I never did get around to building that rack. The man who used to help me with these woodworking projects has since passed. This means I'm on my own for next year.

I won't lie. That thought is just a tad scary for me. But, life goes on right? The old man would have demanded as much. So we march on and persevere.

Sacramento gardener extraordinaire Angela (Angie) Lyons -- who gifted us last year with the most beautiful tomato starter we received (a Dr. Wyche's Yellow) -- tipped me on a mail order place that sold the coveted green azalea starter cups in whatever number I wanted. The soil we're using came from a bag of normal Miracle Gro planter mix that I purchased for the wife last year and she never got around to using.

I had my doubts at first. A six month old bag of Miracle Gro planter mix that has been through its share of early rain activity tends to have a fine growth of moss on it. But -- any worries I had about germination problems have been put to rest. The first to spring to life was the Kelloggs Breakfast. Others soon followed and I'm happy to report that we achieved 100% germination success this year.

That's a first. Perhaps that moss wasn't such a bad thing after all. I'll make a mental note of that.

The seeds that I planted have all developed their first true leafsets -- and are intent into growing right into the light systems propped up under a seed starting contraption composed of nothing but bits and pieces of old PVC pipe  and pipe fittings that I had lying around the backyard. They're not glued together -- which means I can take this contraption apart in the late spring and store it in an ordinatry shoebox.



PVC "Contraption" complete with Gro Lights



The 4.5 inch azalea cups I'm using are stacked into what are called "shuttle trays." I quickly learned that the term "shuttle" is an English term. While these things were easy to find and order through any British manufacturer -- I couldn't find anything comparable closer to home. That's when I discovered that the term "shuttle" didn't exactly make it across the pond. These trays -- which hold ten of the 4.5 inch azalea cups -- are referred to as "gardening" or "display" trays in the States.

Aren't you glad that you asked?

These trays will come in handy when it comes time to move the starter babies inside and out during the warmer spring months. Instead of attempting to move 50-60 individual cups, the wonderful wife that is Venus and I will only be required to hoist a tray or five outside.

Tre' Easy.

When will we move the starter plants to the outside world? That's a tricky question. If it's a normal year -- with normal conditions -- we will start giving our starter plants a taste of the outside world around the beginning of April. But -- since no year is "normal" -- this is a trick question. When the weather warms to suitable temperatures -- and night-time temperatures no longer sink to bone-chilling levels -- then "it's time."

Until then? We'll keep the babies safe. We'll keep them warm. We'll keep them watered. We'll keep them fed.

And we'll watch those legs develop.

As for what we're growing this year? A "partial list" is below:

TOMATOES (not in alphabetical order, I'm too tired):

Jubilee

Tigerella

Black Krim

Eva Purple Ball

Kelloggs Breakfast

Virginia Sweets

Marianna's Peace

Lemon Boy

Mortgage Lifter

Yellow Brandywine

Brandywine

Beefsteak (a Gale Stromberg favorite)

Bradley

Evil Seed

Pineapple

Amish Paste

Super Sioux

1884

Royal Hillbilly

Hendersons Winsall

Cherokee Purple

Omar's Lebanese

Celebrity

Mortgage Lifter

Campbell's 1327

Druzba

Thessaloniki

PEPPERS:

Jalapeno

Purple Jalapeno

Mucho Nacho Jalapeno

Big Bertha (purple Bell)

Green Bell Pepper

Golden Cal Wonder (Yellow Bell)

Purple Beauty Bell Pepper (Red Bell)

BASIL:

Thai

Genovese

One final note: Many people have asked me, "why grow your own? It seems like a lot of work. Why not just buy your starters at the nursery?" Each and every question is a good one. The answer is simple: We're INSANE!!!

Actually -- that's not quite the truth. The real truth is that most nurseries do not offer nearly the kind of selection that we've planted. You're simply not going to find a Lemon Boy or a Marianna's Peace at your local nursery. You will find a few of these -- to be sure. But if you want the best that heirloom tomatoes have to offer -- the answer is simple.

You grow your own.