The "Mother" of all Seed Stores

Former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein didn't do much for his own people, but at least he had the good faith to contribute to American slang, when he promised U.S. troops the "Mother" of all battles during the first Gulf War.

American language and slang hasn't been the same since he uttered that "Mother" statement, and we've since been treated to the "Mother" of all sales, or the "Mother" of all storms even the "Mother" of all tomatoes.

Add another "Mother" to that list -- as in the Mother of all Seed Stores -- and Lockhart Seed is just that and more.

Sacramento Bee "writer" (when are we going to add "Editor" to that title?) Debbie Arrington first tipped me to the existence of this wonderful store a couple of weeks ago in the Home and Garden section of the Bee. You can read the article here.

Now, I like to think my knowledge of valley towns and places is pretty darn good. I've only spent ALL of my 45 years here. I know Fresno, Madera and Tulare Counties like the back of my hand thanks to my days of zipping around in a clown car for KMPH NewsRadio. I can tell you where you can find the best dish of Chorizo and Eggs (La Cocina on McKinley Blvd. in Fresno), the best deep-fried Calzone (Dicicco's) and the best pizza known to mankind (Zelda's Deep Dish pizza in Sacramento).

But I had no IDEA and no CLUE that a place like Lockhart Seed even existed. There's no excuse for that. They've only been around, and in the same downtown Stockton location, for something like eight decades. They've served generations of San Joaquin Valley farmers and are now making a big dent in that backyard gardening effort.

To put it short and sweet: Lockhart Seed has it all -- everything under the sun -- when it comes to the subject of seeds. You want onions? How about ten varieties? Is that enough? Pumpkin seeds? Corn? White, yellow, purple or red? What about lettuce? Okra? Spinach? Cabbage? Carrots? Radishes? Lockhart Seed has row after row after row of packaged seeds (not pictured), or you can buy in bulk from these shelves behind the main counter.

If you don't have the kind of land required for large planting efforts, not a problem. Lockhart Seed offers row after endless row after endless row of small garden packets for the backyard gardener. It's the type of display that will bring tears of joy to the average gardener, and I guarantee a visit to Lockhart Seeds will leave the wallet just a tad lighter. Of course, if you're into large-scale gardening efforts, I imagine that that these packages of Jalapeno Pepper seeds will be more than enough to satisfy your demand for what has been sometimes described as the "Mother" of all hot peppers.

Lockhart Seed isn't your average store. It's not necessarily a nursery, although you can find things such as fertilizer and soil there. It's not a Home Depot or some other big box store offering row upon row of gardening tools and other gardening implements, although you will find those items there as well.

In short, Lockhart Seed is a SEED store. We don't have many of those left. As a matter of fact, there's just one left on the West Coast. And that is Lockhart Seed. And while they offer all types and varieties of seed for every vegetable and flower under the sun, they have a leg up on other seed outlets. Lockhart Seed carries varieties that grow extremely well in our South, Central and North Valley locations. That's important, because what grows well in places such as New England or Maine, doesn't necessarily translate into success in California.

And I must also stop short of calling Lockhart Seed just a "seed store." It's more than that. This place is a freaking museum. It is a reminder of generations past. From the creaking wood plank floors to the diplays on the wall and crammed into every corner it seems, Lockhart Seed is something special. After all, how many of you knew that tomato seeds were once sold in tin cans like this? I found these packed away in a corner of the store, covered with dust. I don't think they've been touched in a very long time, and despite my advanced years, I had no idea that seeds once came in a can.

Although some gardeners had predicted the "demise" of Lockhart Seed, it appears those predictions were a bit premature. Business is up thanks to the recent articles in the Sacramento and Modesto Bees, and up because the "backyard garden" is suddenly "in vogue" again. Venus and I were first time customers when we made the trip from Sacramento earlier in the week. And we just happened to run into another couple of first-time visitors, also from the Sacramento area.

In short, this may have been our first visit to Lockhart Seed, but it won't be our last.

Lockhart Seed is located on 3 North Wilson Way in downtown Stockton, and its central, downtown location makes for easy access from either Highway 99 or Interstate 5. Unfortunately, it is not open on the weekends, which will mean a special trip if your work full-time like the wife and I do. But, I promise you this much: It's well worth the effort.

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...

Whither The Bees???

I was distressed to recently read an article in the Sacramento Bee about an Elk Grove Beekeeper, Ron Melluish, who was apparently taking lots of grief for the hive (several hives actually) that he was keeping in his backyard.

You can read the article, Elk Grove abuzz over regulating beekeepers, here. And it just sort of struck me as unfair I guess. See, like every other kid that's gone barefoot in the backyard or in a neighborhood park, I've been walloped by a bee. But, it happened just once. You learn, at a very young age, to give bees a wide berth. And, for the most part, if you don't bother them, they won't bother you.

I guess that doesn't work with some people. Because someone is complaining about the hives that Melluish is keeping in his Elk Grove backyard. Even more distressing than that, was the suggestion that "government should be involved." That really brought on another shudder of distress.

You see, I subscribe a lot to the Ronald Reagan way of thinking when it comes to government involvement. The former President once remarked that: "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.' Having worked in a government office for the past decade, I can tell you personally that there's a lot of truth to that statement.

As a "Weekend Warrior" and backyard gardener who has built numerous planter boxes and planted vast tracts of fruit trees, I really like what Melluish is doing. We don't have many bees in North Natomas. It's a brand new subdivision stacked on top of other new subdivisions. Trees are small, and there's little to any natural infrastructure around to support a colony or hive of bees.

And, if you're going to garden extensively, or grow fruit, the one thing you need is BEES. And I didn't have nearly enough of them last season. Oh sure, this being the Sacramento area, we did have hornets and lots of them. This is "hornet country" to be sure. And while hornets do get into the business of pollinating, they're not nearly successful as bees.

I first noticed my "bee" problem, or lack of them, last June when my Sweet Diane Watermelon vine failed to yield a single melon.

I was perplexed. The vine was healthy enough. It got plenty of water and fertilizer and grew like nobody's business. I could see the blooms. I could even see the small melons, that would then whither and die on the vine within the space of a day or two.

And I wondered; "what gives?"

It was then that I noticed my little problem. I hadn't seen a single bee in the backyard all spring or summer. We just don't have them yet. Like a lot of wildlife that you see in normal neighborhoods, North Natomas is simply too new and too young to support things like bees.

So, being the determined gardener that I am (you could also say lost cause), I set out to pollinate the melon vines by hand. And I was somewhat successful. I would say my pollination efforts, using a small paintbrush to scratch at the male flowers and then female flowers, was about 30% successful.

But I couldn't do the work of the modern-day honeybee. They're good. And when they started showing up in larger numbers when the sunflowers began to bloom, that translated into more watermelons on the watermelon vine. But, by this time, it was too late. Melons that germinate or appear on the vine in late July aren't going to make it. And these didn't make it.

So, when I read about the problems that Melluish was facing, I had to get my two-cents in and fired off the following letter to the Sacramento Bee. I was shocked to discover that they printed it, in full, three days later:

"Make room for bees

Re "Elk Grove abuzz over city's plan to regulate beekeeping" (Our Region, Jan. 30): I believe Ron Melluish deserves a medal, and I'd love to have him in my North Natomas neighborhood. If any regulation should be put into place, it should be one that encourages bee production, not stifle it.

Bee colonies are nearly nonexistent in the North Natomas area because there is little to no infrastructure and vegetation needed to support them. I had to hand-pollinate a large part of my garden last summer, simply because there weren't nearly enough bees around to do the job.

I have 10 fruit and citrus trees planted in my North Natomas backyard. Each and every single one of them needs the special magic that bees perform. No bees means no peaches, cherries, melons, etc.

Bees are a part of nature. If you stifle their production, you stifle the natural beauty of the Sacramento area.

– Bill Bird, Sacramento

You can access the letter here.

I had forgotten about the letter to be honest, until I received a phone call out of the blue from South Natomas gardener Nels Christenson, who congratulated me on the letter. And then I heard from Fred Hoffman, who hosts the popular KFBK and KSTE radio program "Get Growing with Farmer Fred." But they weren't the only two reading the letter on that day.

Sacramento City Councilman Ray Tretheway, who represents the vast new tracts of cookie-cutter subdivisions that are North Natomas weighed in with the following email, that I would like to share with you:

Hi Bill -

I read your letter to the editor and wanted you to know that the city allows up to 2 bee hives per residential property. I have had bees in the past and gave my wife a bee hive for her birthday last year. They are so important to the ecology of our neighborhoods and wealth of our gardens. I am also encouraging a fellow councilmember in the city of west sacramento to write an ordinance allowing bee hives and now I will call on my friends in the city of elk grove to do the same. - love your garden site - ray

Ray Tretheway

Councilmember, District One

City of Sacramento

(916) 808-7001

Nice guy that Ray. He even responds when the trash cans don't get emptied on that wonderful, once-a-week holiday known as "Trash Day." I appreciate the note, and appreciate even more that bees are more than welcome in our Sacramento backyards.

Here's hoping someone in Elk Grove gets the message.

Here's to the bees. Perhaps they'll take on a dual job and keep my four cats from digging around in the planter beds.

Hodge Podge Garden Soup!

I suppose I could also title this an "Ode to Working Families." And we all face the same dilemma from time to time. You're at ye olde work desk, working hard on a project for the boss, when it occurs to you that you haven't even thought about what to have for dinner that night.

Worse yet, you forgot to take something out of the freezer before you left home for work that morning?

Does that happen to you? Yeah, us too. I suppose it happens to the best of us. As a matter of fact, it seems to happen to Venus and I on a daily basis. Perhaps it's due to the over-consumption of cheap gin, but that's another blog posting for another day.

We were presented with not only that dilemma the other night -- but a daily occurrence at the household that has become far, far, far too irritating to overlook.


Every time we open up the freezer door, a bag of frozen bell peppers falls flat on the floor. It's a reminder to both of us. Venus and I managed to salvage a great deal of last summer's bell pepper garden before the weather turned, and the end result was four, one-gallon, ziplock bags of various-colored peppers.

What is a gardener-cook to do? Oh, sure, there are recipes here and there that call for particular types of peppers. But what happens if you've got a bag of all kinds of peppers? Hot peppers with the regular bells? Is that a Tequila pepper or a Black Purple pepper? And what's that slice of red pepper? An Anaheim pepper? Regular red bell pepper?

To put it short and sweet -- we just don't know.

And then, the other night, the skies parted and I was hit with the "let's pull something out of the hat and see what happens" idea. This can be dangerous. Gastronomical nightmares have resulted from previous "Frankenstein Kitchen" experiments. But, when inspiration calls, sometimes the stomach has to follow.

The Hodge Podge Garden Soup is one such inspiration -- and this one wasn't half bad. It's not going to win many awards mind you, and probably won't show up in any gourmet cooking magazine (unless they're really hurting for ideas), but it's a good way to chop down on that supply of frozen peppers from last year's garden.

This soup is actually a marriage of three recipes, including a Southwest Chicken soup recipe from the Betty Crocker recipe book. It also calls upon my recipe for Roasted Garlic and Heirloom Tomato Salsa and a sauce recipe that I ran across not all that long ago (when I was looking for a sauce recipe oddly enough).

I know, from experience, that the roasting process will bring out a glorious taste in most peppers. The Southwest Chicken Soup -- for example -- uses two or three red bell peppers that have been roasted and blended (as did the sauce recipe). I also know, from experience, that garlic will greatly enhance any pepper's flavor.


So -- one night last week I got ambitous and pulled out a gallon-bag of frozen peppers from the freezer, dumped them into a frying plan containing a bit of oil and started frying. Frozen peppers get quite limp after defrosting and frying them was no different. In a few minutes, they were as soft as soft can be.

Meanwhile, I had started heating a pot containing four cups of water, two chicken bullion cubes and also dropped in some dried onion flakes for "effect." Why dry onions? Why not use a REAL onion? Simple. We were all out of fresh onions. And I wasn't about to rush to the store to buy something for a "Frankenstein Kitchen" experiment. So -- dried onions it was.

By the time the water and bullion cubes had started to warm -- the peppers were ready for the food processor. In went out four or five cloves of garlic first, which I chopped into itty bitty (ie: real small) pieces. After dumping the cooked peppers into the processor, I proceeded to liquify the whole thing.

I was a bit surprised by the end result. I had thought this process would result in a bright rainbow of colors. What I got was something that turned very green, with bright red bits. That's great for Christmas cookies during the Christmas season. But it's not so good in late January. But, I was determined. The testing process continued.

I dumped the pepper mixture into the rapidly heating water and boullion cubes, added some raw chicken chunks and later some shrimp and frozen vegetables. Add a little salt and pepper to taste and VOILA! You have Hodge Podge Garden Soup.

And I must admit -- this wasn't half bad -- nor did it cause any gastronomical discomfort later that night (as some pepper dishes have been known to do). In short, I would make and serve this again.

If only I had written it down.

SEEDS, SEEDS AND MORE SEEDS!!!!

The first step in the gardening process is now arriving in bunches in the mailbox of Bill and Venus Bird. Yep -- I'm talking seeds, seeds and more seeds. And lots of them too. This batch pictured to your left came from Pine Tree Seeds, but we're also getting deliveries from other places around the country.

I like Pine Tree seeds. I've ordered from them before and they have a couple of things going for them. One, the seed packages are CHEAP (always a good sign), and secondly, I've found that they are very productive. Some of the best vegetables grown in the backyard last summer came via Pine Tree seeds, including the Sweet Diane Watermelon that I wrote about in this blog just last summer.

That was one delicious melon. I can only dream about that taste now, but I'll never forget it. There's nothing quite like pulling a vine-ripened melon -- any melon -- from the backyard. You haven't tasted sweet, until you've grown it by seed in your very own backyard.

The arrival of the seed orders doesn't mean "ready, set, PLANT!" I sure wish that were the case, but we're still a couple of months off. What it does allow Venus and I to do is lay out the garden. Since we rotate crops to ward off harmful bugs, we know the tomatoes will be in a different bed next spring, as will the bush beans, corn, lettuce, radishes, green onions, etc. Once the seeds packets are in hand, we can divide them between the six main beds and the 10-15 smaller planter beds.

Of course, it should come as no big surprise that my personal favorite are the tomato seeds. They're arriving in big numbers now. Some of the seeds, like Delicious for example, were gifts from other growers. Still others were ordered from TomatoFest, Pine Tree Seeds, Seeds of Change, Totally Tomatoes -- you name it. Some varieties are new to the garden. Some are old favorites.

For instance, I had to re-order a particular variety of seed from Seeds of Change. And I'm very hopeful that this package of Costaluto Genovese seed will produce a bumper crop of Genovese tomatoes, which was an absolute favorite out of the garden in 2007. Not only was it a favorite, it was the "outstanding producer" in our garden that year. The wife and I froze 15-20 bags of Genovese tomatoes and used them through the 2007-2008 winter on a variety of dishes.

Unfortunately, last year, I made a serious mistake. When volunteer Genovese plants began popping up in the garden beds last spring, I mistakingly believed I would not have to start from seed again. After all, why plant a seed when you've got a perfectly good starter plant that popped up out of nowhere, right?

Wrong. Bad idea. The tomatoes that came off those starter plants last summer were nothing like the tomatoes that came off the Genovese plant vine in 2007. The plant may have looked the same, or similar, but the production was not good and that fabulous Genovese taste just wasn't there.

In short, it was a major disappointment in the Bird garden last year. But, thanks to the new seed, that won't happen this year (I hope!).

And yes, there are some varieties I simply cannot do without. Campbell's 1327, for example, will have a home in the garden this summer. So will Kellogg's Breakfast. You can't count out Marianna's Peace, and never give up on the Brandywine. There are a few others that will also make a return trip.

And then there are still others to try. I've heard a lot about the variety called Cosmonaut Volkov, which is named after Vladislav Nikolayevich Volkov, who was a Soviet cosmonaut who flew on the Soyuz 7 and Soyuz 11 missions (he unfortunately died during the Soyuz 11 mission).

Another interesting addition to the garden this year is Dr. Wyche's Yellow, which was was developed by the late Dr. John Wyche who owned the Cole Brothers Circus. Rumor has it that the good Dr. Wyche, as a Circus owner, had access to lots of different "fertilizers."

And that's the really interesting thing about growing heirloom tomatoes and other heirloom vegetables. You're not just growing a tomato. You're not just growing a watermelon, or a radish, or ordinary cauliflower.

You're growing a piece of history. It's got a name behind it. There's a reason why it survived all these years. Sometimes the story is just as good as the crop.

Seeds are in -- time to start planning!

A followup to this posting -- as I forgot to mention a very important seed source that has served us well in the past. How could I?

Don't roll your eyes or put your nose up at seedracks located in Dollar Stores or other bargain stores in your town. Those can be a great deal in some cases. Some of the best basil I have ever grown came right out of the Dollar Tree store located near Elkhorn and Watt in North Highlands.

We already had more than enough seed for the garden as I remember, but were immediately drawn to the rack that offered a deal too good to pass up: TEN PACKS OF SEED FOR $1!

Who can pass up a deal like that? We couldn't. We didn't. And those ten packets of spinach, basil, carrots, radishes and green onions kept producing all summer long.

It just goes to show that good gardening bargains can be found just about anywhere you look.

The TOP TEN from TomatoFest!

Gary Ibsen of TomatoFest fame recently sent this news release to Farmer Fred Hoffman, and I wanted to make sure you were informed of the growing popularity of certain types of Heirloom Tomatoes:
Bill

Announcing "Top 10" Heirloom Tomatoes for 2009

"Black" Tomatoes Still Reign with the Best of the Reds and Pinks

Bi-Colored and Cherry Tomatoes Also Growing In Popularity

Carmel, Calif. – January 25, 2009 – TomatoFest® Garden Seeds today announced that "black" tomatoes again rank high in the "Top 10" list of favorite heirloom tomatoes going into 2009. The "Top 10" favorite heirloom tomatoes are:

Brandywine (pink)
Paul Robeson (purple/black)
Aussie (red)
Julia Child (pink)
Cherokee Purple (purple/black)
Black Cherry (purple/black)
Kellogg's Breakfast (orange)
Gold Medal (yellow/red striped)
Aunt Ginny's Purple (purple/black)
Carmello (red)

"Black" tomatoes were more popular in 2008 than in any prior year," said Gary Ibsen, grower of 600 varieties of certified organic, heirloom tomatoes in California, and founder of TomatoFest® Garden Seeds, the most prominent internet retailer of organic heirloom tomato seeds.

"The purple/black colored heirloom tomatoes continue to rise in popularity at produce markets, with restaurant chefs, and with home gardeners for the 6th year in a row," "Black" tomatoes are fast becoming as popular as many of the best tasting pink and red tomatoes."

"Black" tomatoes are not really black," remarked Ibsen. "They cover a range of dark colors, including deep purple, dusky deep brown, smoky mahogany with dark green shoulders, and bluish-brown. The depth of colors seems to be encouraged by a higher acid and mineral content in the soil."

"Black" tomatoes are native to Southern Ukraine during the early 19th century. They originally existed in only a small region of the Crimean Peninsula. Soon they were showing up as new varieties in many shapes and sizes and began to appear throughout the territories of the former Soviet Union. Then they began turning up in the former Yugoslavia, Germany and the United States.

"A survey of our tomato seed sales to home gardeners and commercial tomato farmers, along with a review of our sales of fresh heirloom tomatoes to retailers and restaurants, demonstrate soundly that consumers have discovered the superior and complex flavors of the "black" heirloom tomatoes, and are selecting these bold colors along with their mix of favorite red, pink, orange and bi-colored tomatoes," said Ibsen.

Also showing a rise in popularity in 2008 with a greater presence in produce markets, are sweeter tasting bi-colored tomatoes, and a wider selection of different colored cherry tomatoes.

Photos and descriptions of all the above listed tomato varieties can be found at TomatoFest.

Bill's Note: Venus and I have grown four of the varieties listed in Ibsen's TOP TEN, and loved each and every one of them. Some heirloom afficianados go so far as to claim that Kellogg's Breakfast is the best tasting heirloom tomato, bar none, and they have a pretty good argument.

I ordered several different varieties from TomatoFest this year, and I have high hopes for a unique variety called "Clint Eastwood's Rowdy Red." Time will tell with this new heirloom tomato entry into our backyard North Natomas garden. Some growers have reported amazing success with it, others have not.

And that's the trial and tribulation, so to speak, of growing heirloom tomatoes.

ICK! YUCK! BLECH!

There goes our false spring. Wave bye-bye. So long. See ya. Mother Nature took it back, and took it back with a vengeance. This is what the ye olde Bird backyard looks like now after a solid night of steady rain. We won't be able to access the planter beds for another year I think.

I did have hopes you know. A week or two of nice weather will do that to gardening guys and gals. At first, we remind ourselves, that this can't possibly last. After all, it's January. And, January in Sacramento is normally cold, wet and miserable.

But then the nice weather continues for more than a day or two and stretches into a week, the thinking changes. "Well now," a gardener thinks. "What kind of damage can I do now?" Summer garden planting is out of the question, of course, but it's never too early to get a start on the ol' spring garden, right?

Wrong.

And I have pictures.

It seems hard to believe that just a few days I was digging around and recharging the planter beds shown above. I was planting a new fruit tree -- a Royal Ranier Cherry to go with the Self-Fruiting Bing or Lapice Cherry. I was spraying the weeds, preparing the ground, even fertilizing the lawn.

And now? I have a mud-pit again. My own personal backyard lake -- with several small ponds to boot. I'm frustrated. The wife is frustrated. And the cats are really upset. Do you think they enjoy rolling around in that mud?

Of course, cats don't really understand Mother Nature. They know, almost by instinct, that we provide them with food and water. Therefore, they also believe that we also control the wind and rain, and the looks they've been shooting us show an outright contempt and displeasure.

In short, they want us to turn the water "off" and the sun "on."

Cats are so dumb.

Don't dare make the mistake of stepping into a yard like this one following an all-night rainstorm. That's clay muck out there. In the summer time it's as hard as a ROCK. But in the winter? It's muck-sand. Step in that stuff and you'll sink into the center of the earth. Well, not quite, but you will sink.

And you will also destroy a pair of shoes in the process. It doesn't matter how nice or how cruddy they might be. Step in that muck after a rainstorm and the shoes you are wearing get caked with the stickiest mud known to mankind.

It's back to dreaming about next year's garden again. Our "false spring" just blew out of town.

Re-Charging Raised Planter Beds

How the best plans can sometimes change....

I had intended to post up photos of heavily frost covered planter beds, with a "winter is here -- woe is me" blog message but Mothern Nature isn't cooperating.

A day after I took photos of my frost-covered beds, the weather changed, and changed rather dramatically. Those frost covered mornings? Gone. Replaced with bright sunshine, cool morning temperatures and real spring warmth in the afternoon.

Spring warmth? The high sixties? Low 70's? In JANUARY? Exsqueeze me? Did Old Man Winter take a break? Keel over? Last year at this time we were getting hit with rain and windstorms that blew fences down and cars off the road. And this year Mother Nature brings us April in January?

Weird

But, if there's one thing I've learned it's this: there's no arguing with Mother Nature. You just take what she gives you -- grin and bear it so to speak -- and if that grand old dame wants to give us a false spring, then so be it. Use your time wisely.

And that's just what I did this past weekend. The wife shoved a planting guide into my face, promptly produced thirty packets of seed, pointed to a nearby raised bed and ordered the now famous line: "get to work." That means, time to get digging.

Now myself, as a very romantic man, did inform the wife last Friday night that I had brought her a gift from the heart: three bags of composted steer manure. Not every man is this romantic, I'll give you that. But Bill Bird's heart just oozes with romance. And in some cases, romance smells.

Put these elements together: the weather is warm, I've got three bags of composted steer manure from Home Depot and the wife has thirty packets of various lettuce, swiss chard, spinach, bok choi, peas and other seeds. Plus, she's got the always reliable Farmer Fred Hoffman planting guide. And who can argue with that?

If there's one thing I've learned about raised beds, it's this? Yes, they are wonderful to garden in. The soil is surrounded by redwood, which conducts heat into the soil, warming it MUCH faster that ordinary dirt in ordinary ground. When you've got sunshine and highs in the sixties, you've got dirt with temps in the 70's.

Another thing I've learned is raised beds are USELESS unless they are "re-charged" so to speak with every season. The plants suck up all the good nutrients during the growing season. You might still have soft, loamy soil. But without a bag or four of compost, you've got a soil without nutrients. And without nutrients, you've got a garden that will not grow.

Since I have yet to inheirit a two-cycle, gas powered, Mantis Rototiller, I recharge my beds the old fashioned way. Yep. See that green-handled hoe in the bed? That's mine. And it digs pretty darn good if you're using two hands to dig up the dirt and mix in compost. With a raised bed, you must ensure that you pull ALL soil away from the redwood boards and ensure that old soil mixes in with the compost you're adding to the bed. Why? Because root systems grow towards HEAT. And those boards get pretty hot in the summer. I find that roots tend to grow right to the edges and, in some cases, stick right to them.

I also discovered that lots of little critters, such as BLACK WIDOWS, also enjoy raised beds. I manged to rudely intrude on a few of them. You would have thought that frosty cold days and nights would have done them in by now, but no such luck. By hiding in the soil, and near one of the redwood boards that retains warmth, just about any critter can withstand the onslaught of winter cold.

So, dig carefully and wear gloves!

The bed pictured here contains three bags of composted steer manure, worked into every corner. It also contains several cups of bone meal and other pelleted fertilzers that will ensure that vegetables will get the three important nutrients that ALL vegetables and fruit need: Nitrogen, Potassium (also called Potash) and Phosphorus.

It didn't take the wife long to start planting after I had finished -- perhaps thirty seconds or less. That entire 4X8 bed contains all sorts of good seed now, and if the weather holds, we'll see germination happen before the start of the weekend. If the cold weather sets in again, some seeds will germinate, while others will not.

It's still way, way, way, way too early to tell if spring has arrived two months early. Knowing our wacky weather, we could get another two months of wind, rain and more wind. But, when Mother Nature rewards you with a patch of spring in January, if you like to garden, you'd better take advantage of it.

Garden Porn

It's that time of year in the Sacramento Valley where a thick layer of frost covers the backyard. You can see the white stuff on the ground, on the grass, covering the planter boxes and most of all: you can clearly see the look and dismay on the faces of our cats who meow plaintively to "turn the warm weather on."

Sorry, no such luck. Old man winter is here. The last of the summer garden has been ripped out. Those colorful rose bushes have been pruned back. The peach, cherry and other fruit producing trees are happily slumbering away. Winter is here.

What is a gardener to do then?

By this time, if you're seriously into the gardening movement, seed catalogs should be arriving in your mailbox by the armful. I'm talking names like Territorial Seed Company, Tomato Growers Supply, Totally Tomatoes, Pinetree Seeds, RH Shumway, Vermont Bean Seed Company, Johnny's Seeds, Seeds of Change and hundreds of others.

In short, it's time to order next year's summer garden. The weather is deathly cold now, but you know that first hint of spring is right around the corner, and if you're not prepared, tsk...tsk....tsk!

If you're anything like Venus and I -- you've got seed catalogs lying all over the house by now. You can find them on the coffee table, on the side tables, in the bedroom and, much to my wife's chagrin, sometimes in the bathroom (hey, sometimes reading material IS a necessity!). These catalogs come with brightly colored pictures of harvests that you can only dream of at this point in the gardening process, and all sorts of interesting possibilities for next summer's garden.

I wish I could take credit for this comparison, but I can't. It actually came from a grower in Oklahoma of all places, when she compared seed catalogs to pornography magazines. And, after thinking about it, she's right. We leave these things lying about the house for months at a time. You can even find last year's seed catalogs on the coffee table, right underneath the catalogs that arrived in the mail this year.

And, much like porn magazines, there is also the strong desire to read every catalog from cover to cover. The pictures excite you! What's new here? What about this? Oh my goodness, this would look nice in the garden, wouldn't it? And, don't overlook this or that or the other thing!

To put it short and sweet, like porn magazines, garden seed catalogs are terribly addictive. You are compelled to order this new bush bean, or perhaps the latest in cherry tomatoes, or even that funky looking all-blue potato that retains its color, even after cooking!

Unlike regular porn however, I think that garden magazine porn is a bit more healthy for the soul -- not to mention the stomach.

In Praise of Rosemary

One of the absolute worst things that can happen to you during the process of cooking that "special" meal is to reach into the spice rack and suddenly discover that you're out of that crucial ingredient that will transform your truly special dish to extraordinary from just plain ordinary.

What to do? I can remember many times where I've set the burners on low and rushed out to the nearest Safeway, Raley's or Bel-Air to get that crucial spice replacement. The wife and I always keep a good supply of spices on hand, and even some backups of spices that are heavily used. But, every once in a great while, BINGO, we run out of something that we really need.

One heavily used spice in the Bird household is Rosemary. We love it. We lather it on nearly every chicken dish served in the house. Some meat dishes, like the one you see in this photo, are also stuffed with Rosemary. That delectable piece of ribeye roast served as our Christmas dinner this year. It fed 15 people. And yes, if you're wondering, those are fresh pieces of Rosemary stuck into the top of that roast. It sort of looks like, well, a set of tiny Christmas trees doesn't it?

I write this post because it took me a few years, and a few lost dollars I might add, to discover that Rosemary is quite common in the Sacramento area. More than common actually. IT GROWS LIKE A WEED. I discovered this very important point by checking out new housing developments in the North Natomas area -- the fastest growing area of Sacramento.

As you know, most new housing comes complete with a fully landscaped backyard. This means you get a bit of grass, one tree, a few bushes, a scattering of bark, and the builder calls this $10,000 OF FREE LANDSCAPING!!! Yeah, right. More like $100 worth. What landscapers do is look for the cheapest available option when it comes to landscaping, especially in the cookie cutter subdivisions like I call home.

Now, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. One of the cheapest things to plant in Sacramento is ROSEMARY. What's that? You mean that stuff I have in the spice rack is growing right outside in my front yard? Chances are, that answer is yes. Rosemary absolutely THRIVES in the Sacramento area. A small bush will turn into a monster in less than a year. And yes, it's the same stuff that you're paying cash money for at your nearby grocery store. Actually, to be brutally honest, what is growing out front is probably a lot better. But that's just my opinion.

Once you know what you're looking for, Rosemary is easy to spot. It is an herb in the mint family. It is a small evergreen shrub, Rosmarinus officinalis, whose 1inch leaves resemble curved pine needles.

Rosemary's name is rooted in legend. The story goes that during her flight from Egypt, the Virgin Mary draped her blue cloak on a Rosemary bush. She then laid a white flower on top of the cloak. That night, the flower turned blue and the bush was thereafter known as the "rose of Mary." Greeks, who wove Rosemary wreaths into their hair, believed Rosemary strengthened the brain and enhanced memory. It was also known as a symbol of fidelity. In the Middle Ages, Rosemary was used medicinally and as a condiment for salted meats. In Europe, wedding parties burned Rosemary as incense. Judges burned it to protect against illness brought in by prisoners.

Today, Rosemary is used for landscaping homes and businesses by the thousands. You can find fields of it, for example, in front of the California Farm Bureau Federation building in the Natomas area. And, if you spot a bush sporting lots of pretty blue or purple flowers during the spring, chances are, you've stumbled upon a Rosemary bush.

Rosemary can be used both fresh, and dried. Drying is a simple process. Just hang a bun or two in your garage for about a month, strip the bark of needles and process for a few minutes in a food processor. You'll have a enough dried Rosemary to last a season or more.