Steaks in the Summer Garden

Heirloom Tomato Seedlings

We're planning to grow steaks in the Bird Back 40 summer garden this year. How about you? Can you spot the tiny steak starter plants in the photo to your right? They are right in front of your nose. They don't look all that special -- but come this summer -- hopefully the wife that is Venus will be digging into her favorite cut of prime rib.

How does one grow steaks in a garden you ask? Plant a moo-moo cow in the raised garden beds perchance? Set aside a portion of the Bird Back 40 for some moo-moo cows? They'd get along great with Lenny the Giant Maine Coon cat, wouldn't they? Probably not -- so perish the thought.

Steak House Hybrid Tomato Seed

No -- the steaks we're growing this year -- a first for us by the way -- are of the vegetable or fruit variety. It's called the Steak House Hybrid. It's the latest introduction from Burpee Seed, and I must warn you, it's ridiculously expensive. How expensive? Stupid expensive. As someone has to be as stupid as yours truly to lay down $7 for a packet of magic beans.

Yes -- I will admit -- I paid $7 for Burpee's latest creation. They promised a seed packet with 25 seeds. Yet -- someone has a serious math problem in that seed operation because when the package finally did arrive, it contained a total of six or seven seeds. That's right, a buck a seed. This better be worth it.

Tomato Seed Selections from Tomato Growers Supply

Burpee claims that it is. "Meet the biggest tomato ever bred," the advertising claims. "And it’s not just bigger but better. Tipping the scales at up to three lbs. plus, broad-shouldered tomato titan is bigger than Big Daddy, and loaded with true heirloom tomato flavor and head-spinning fragrance. Indeterminate plants produce gorgeous, humongous fruits."

With advertising like that, who can resist? The Steak House Hybrid is one of 40-50 varieties that we're growing from seed this year. Planted two weeks ago, most of everything has sprung to life. This includes numerous peppers, which should have been planted a month earlier, but, uh, I'm late. OK, so sue me.

Solar Flare Tomato Seed: Wild Boar Farms

Some of these varieties are new. Some are old favorites. Every tomato garden must now include a Pink Berkeley Tie Dye, the brainchild of Brad Gates of Wild Boar Farms. If that's not a gardening law, it should be.

Other old-time gardening varieties include the always amazing, but sometimes tempermental, Azochka (tastes like bacon!). Look closely and you will find a Druzba, Green Zebra, Caspian Pink and Brandywine.

Ah -- but the Steak House Hybrid isn't the only "meat" feature in this year's summer garden. And no summer garden is complete without other tasty summer vegetables. Nope -- you've got to have a patch of basil here and there. Peppers are a must. And who can forget about tasty eggplant?

Seed Starting Station

So -- it's not just steaks -- but meatballs as well. This is yet another Burpee selection -- an eggplant they like to call "Meatball." So -- what's so special about "Meatball?" I have absolutely no clue. This is the first time I've grown it.

But if you were to believe the fine folks at Burpee: "Meet the mightiest, meatiest eggplant ever. Imagine fresh, home-grown, vine-ripened MEAT! That's Meatball."

Do you believe them? Meh -- me too. We'll see what happens.

Our "seed rack" contains about 140 starter plants this year. That represents the most we've ever started from seed. Can we fit 140 starter plants into the Bird Back 40? Only if I knock down the neighbor's fence and take over his backyard -- something he probably wouldn't like.

But, starting too many plants is a tradition here. Besides, they always do find a home. If not in our garden, somewhere else. I mean, look, who can pass on a tomato named after a STEAK and even the hardiest eggplant hater would pause at something called a MEATBALL.

It's 2016 in the Bird Back 40. The carnivores are taking over.

2016 TOMATO VARIETIES (PARTIAL LIST):

Azoychka

Big Pink

Black

Black Krim

Campbell’s 1327

Carbon

Cascade Lava

Caspian Pink

Chapman

Genuine

Green Tie Dye

Green Zebra

Italian Sweet

Lemon Boy

Marisol Purple

Mint Julep

Oaxacan Jewel

Pink Berkeley Tie Dye

Pink Boar

Pork Chop

Rosalita

San Marzano

Siletz

Sky Reacher

Solar Flare

Sweet 100

2016 BASIL VARIETIES:

Dark Opal

Genovese

Large Leaf

Lemon

Siam Queen

What's in that Bucket?

The Homer All Purpose Bucket

Betcha can't guess what's in that bucket. You know -- THAT bucket. That Home Depot five gallon Homer bucket located to your immediate right. I have about ten of these things all over the house because, well, they're useful for holding, you know, "stuff."

In fact, the simple "Homer" bucket just might be the greatest invention ever. I know Home Depot didn't invent it, but they've put a nice patent on it with the Homer logo. They're cheap too, which is another plus. And, they hold stuff. Thing is -- this particular Homer bucket holds something quite special. Can you guess what it might be?

Venus and "The Bucket"

Home Depot stuff? No. My brother-in-law was using this particular bucket to store cat litter, but that's long since gone. Parts for PVC cages? Nope! Gardening tools? Guess again. And, keep in mind, this bucket is covered for a reason. The stuff in this bucket is highly volatile. Neighborhood cats are drawn to this bucket by an irresistible force.

Now that's the last hint that I'm going to provide for you before Venus pulls the top off this thing. Sara Stout knows what's in this bucket. She's the one that gave us this grand idea. She's the one who urged the wife that is Venus to drive all the way into South Sacramento (South Sac) and visit that "special place."

Finding Nemo

So, what's in that bucket? Well -- I'll tell you. What? You thought I was going to keep it a secret through this entire blog post? My friends, that would be cruel. Besides, I've got too big a mouth to keep anything a secret for very long. Do you remember the old joke about the three modern forms of communication? The three modern forms of communication are: telephone, telegraph and tell Bill.

There's some truth to that equation.

My friends, the stuff in this bucket is a bit of gardening gold. It's a treasure for tomato plants. It's plunder for peppers, a bonus for basil, opulence for eggplants and pure swag for squash. It is: fish guts. It is also fish heads. There are some fish tails down in that bucket. There's fish skins, fish entrails, just about every part of the fish that isn't sold at your local fish market.

Garden Gold

And it is this five gallon Homer bucket full of fish parts that is currently stinking up a storm in the Bird Back 40. We're going to let it "age" a day or two like a fine wine. When we finally take the top off this thing today, my neighbors are in for a rather putrid surprise.

I know what you're thinking. Why on God's Green Earth are we "roasting" a five gallon bucket full of fish parts? Finally gone off the deep end have we? Time for a little white jacket with straps, perhaps? A long rest and lots of medication?

Heirloom Tomato Starter Plants

Any heirloom tomato grower worth his or her salt knows exactly what this bucket is for. Those fish parts are going into the bottom of a hole that will soon hold an heirloom tomato starter plant. Every grower has his or her little secrets for soil supplements when it comes to growing great tomatoes, but the verdict on fish parts is darn near universal: this is the good stuff.

Cynthia Sandberg from Love Apple Farms in Santa Cruz raves about the use of fish heads in her tomato garden. In her words? "The fish head slowly decomposes, feeding both nitrogen and calcium to the tomato plant." Those who celebrate the day of April 20th also use this trick. Except, they're not growing tomatoes. Sara Stout claims the use of fish heads resulted in end-of-season tomato stems as thick as small trees -- and a bounty of a harvest to boot.

Bring on the Basil!

And so, my friends, I'm not too proud nor ashamed to try a little something new in the garden. If the gardening world says "add fish parts," I add fish parts. Some even suggest we add crushed eggshells. Others prefer worm castings. Adding nightcrawlers, like you find in you average bait and tackle shop, is also recommended.

Why not? It's tomato planting season, people. Bring on Nemo and his pals. It's time to get digging in the dirt.

Onion Ring King and Queen of North Natomas!

Homer Bucket of Onions: Partial Harvest

It's about that time of year when the wife that is Venus and I play this little game of "let's make dinner." That is -- we will tell one another that we want to make a particular dish, but need to purchase things such as "tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, onions, green onions, etc."

Of course -- this is our version of a ginormous joke -- since we have ginormous amounts of these things protruding from the summer garden beds. We've reached that Nirvana time of year when every carrot is at least a foot long and two inches thick, each tomato weighs at least a pound and is loaded with flavor and one green onion is larger than the bunches of five or six green onions sold at the local grocery store.

A Garden Whopper: The Candy Onion

In short? Gardening life is good. It's very good. Every meal features something fresh. And if it doesn't? Someone made a royally bad mistake. Even something a simple as a frozen pizza tastes better with extra toppings of chopped up bell peppers and green onions. And WHY are you eating frozen pizza when you can whip up a garden fresh soup featuring a hodge-podge of fresh this and that?

The frozen pizza can sit and wait in the freezer.

It is indeed harvest time on the Bird Ranch for Wayward Heirloom Tomatoes. The heirlooms are popping. The squash is prolific. Bell peppers make for a sweet and tasty treat. But one of the bigger successes just came out of the ground just last month: one of the largest and sweetest onion harvests we've ever had the pleasure of taking part it.

Bunches and Bunches of Candy Onions

No matter where you turn in the Bird GarageMahal, you're going to run into a Homer five gallon bucket of onions here -- or another five gallon bucket there. Or you just might run smack dab into onion monsters that are hanging and curing from an exposed set of rafters. Short and sweet? We got onions. Lots and lots of onions.

I would have to characterize this year's "onion experiment" with Dixondale Farms in (flat as a) Pancake, Texas a tremendous success. I have never grown onions this huge or this tasty before, and never before in the numbers that we experienced this year. Sure -- there were a few "duds in the bunch." But that's to be expected with just about anything when it comes to gardening (at least for yours truly). But as I began to pull mammoth whopper after mammoth whopper from the ground, I knew this was one of them rare experiments that had totally succeeded.

Onion Starters in February

Excuse me while I cry for a moment. This just doesn't happen often.

Unlike past years, when I would plants onion and garlic bulbs at about the same time of year (October), I waited to order my onion crop. It wouldn't arrive until early February. In the meantime, I educated myself on what I had done wrong in the past. I would come to discover that no onion is like the other. All of them are different. Some grow well in some areas. Others do not.

It was during this research that it dawned on me that purchasing that package of onion bulbs from my local nursery in September or October wasn't the wisest of decisions. Sometimes those packages contained onion bulbs that were not intended for, nor would grow to a large size, in the Sacramento Valley. Why would a nursery or Big Box store do that? Simple! It's the same question as, "why would they sell that Hass Avocado tree" when they know it will perish in our cold Sacramento climate?" Or, "why are they selling tomato plants in February when tomato planting season isn't for another two months?"

Red Candy Apple Onions

Simple! It's because people who don't know any better (see: Bill Bird) will happily fork over $20 for it. And if it dies? That's OK too! Because the people who sold you the wrong kind of onion bulbs or that avocado tree that kicked the bucket know all too well that you'll be back in another couple of months to fork over another $20 in a vain and wasted attempt to correct the problem.

It's called "marketing for dummies."

I finally got around to listening to the patient advice of a South Natomas vegetable gardener who has been at this game a little bit longer than I have, and gave into his suggestion of giving Dixondale Farms the old college try. After reading, and more importantly, understanding the different between "long-day, intermediate-day, short-day" and "Green Day" onions, I finally understood what I'd been doing wrong.

Green Day Onions. KIDDING!!! They're CANDY!

Note: To the uninitiated, there is no such thing as "Green Day" onions. If you ask for them at a nursery, you're likely to earn a howl of laughter or a blank stare. "Green Day" isn't an onion. "Green Day" is a rock-n-roll band.

Short and sweet? If you plant the right kind of onion bulb or onion start, fertilize, water and care for it properly, you will be rewarded with monster-sized onions. Monster sized onions mean monster sized onion rings -- made with a fresh beer batter.

Sure! You can use your onion crop for healthy things like salads and such! There's nothing wrong like that! But only I can tell you the wonderful taste behind taking a healthy thing like a freshly grown onion, dipping it into a batter and dropping it into a vat of hot oil!

Mix in rings procured from a home grown Super Star white onion, add in some beer, flour and salt, and you've got a meal fit for a King or Queen.

Simple Beer Batter Recipe

1 cup beer (the better the beer, the better the onion ring)

1 cup flour

1 egg

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon paprika

1 teaspoon onion or garlic powder

1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Vegetable oil for frying

Onion Rings in Waiting

Mix all items, minus the vegetable oil, together in a bowl until smooth. If the batter does not take on the consistency of a pancake batter, add more beer.

Cut off both ends of an onion (preferably home grown), and proceed to cut into slices anywhere from a half inch to an inch thick. Separate slices into individual rings.

Fill frying pan with raised edges with a half inch of oil and heat to medium-low. Proceed to dip each onion ring into the beer batter, using tongs to add directly to hot oil. Turn when edges turn light brown. Remove from heat when both sides are light brown and drain. Add additional salt, if needed, for taste, or a favorite dipping sauce!