Tomato Pod and Cracus

We have been having more rain and overcast days than usual this year. It rained yesterday. It is May, and we are still having rain. This morning looked like another hot soup day. It was overcast with the potential to rain any second. Around 1 pm the sun finally came out and the sky became clear. I was so excited to open up both patio umbrellas that I rescued from the curbside. Cracus joined me in the yard as I worked on weed removal.

I wasn't planning on growing any tomato just because tomato isn't something I crave for usually. However, a friend of mine gave me a couple Miracle Gro cherry tomato seed pods a few days ago, so I had been looking forward to planting them. I cleared out all the weeds growing in my planter box before digging two holes for these pods.  To my surprise, I found some mint in the planter box.  I carefully pulled all the weeds around it.  After I was done, I sat down in the shade for a few minutes to pet Kelsey, who always likes to lay in full sun.   I turned around to gather all the garden tools, and that was when I noticed a hole where I just planted the pods. Cracus looked at me from a few steps away. Did he eat it? It had to be him. I ran inside and found dirt all over Kelsey's big bed. Cracus ran after me and lay right next to it proudly. I shook my head and started to clean up. I replanted the "pod" back into the hole but made it deeper. Hopefully he is not going to do it again.

Teach Kids Where Food Comes From

Zucchini on the left and beans and tomatoes on the right

In April 2012, I started working for a public charter elementary school as the manager. In February 2013, the school moved into a new site with an abandoned vegetable garden. Many parents volunteered to clear up all the weeds and prepared the vegetable beds for spring planting. We also took soil samples for testing to make sure it was safe for planting edibles.  

mint, sunflower, tomato, and other herbs

One of the grandparents spent hours everyday to plant seeds and seedlings of tomatoes, kale, green onion, strawberries, corn, zucchini, beans, peas, cape gooseberries, and various herbs. He even came to the school during spring break to water the plants. In the beginning, some naughty kids would pull out or stump on the seedlings. As a class project, the teachers instructed the kids to make sign of "Look But Don't Touch" signs to place all over the garden.   

Corn

We also got a compost bin to turn all the left over lunch items into rich nutrients for the edible plants. Last month the students released many ladybugs in the garden as a natural way to reduce aphids. In 3 short months, we have already harvested zucchini, strawberries, snow peas, green onion, and lots of cilantro (which is the only herb I fear). We have been handing out organic produce to all the staff, students, and parents.

Green onions

The demanding nature of my position in the school has greatly reduced the time I am able to spend on my own garden; however, I am now able to enjoy fresh produce from the school garden. There is barely any shade in the school garden, so everything seems to grow faster and bigger. Of course, the devoted grandpa is extremely knowledgeable in growing vegetables. Since he speaks no English, I often help him with English translation. I feel fortunate that my own experience in growing has helped me in translating and explaining the process of growing edibles to the kids and other parents. Even though I don't have much time to spend in growing, I can still educate others especially the young generation.

Strawberries

Harvest Time

Fresh from the farm - oyster mushrooms, mandarin oranges, fig, tomatoes, and green beans

I have been under the weather since October 2nd. I started out as a sore throat, then a fever, then a week of bed rest, then another week of constant coughing. Today is the first day that I woke up feeling all better. I went out to the farm to collect some fresh produce. I gathered a bunch of tomatoes, green beans, and oyster mushrooms! I also picked a couple Mandarin oranges and a fig that had not been chewed on by the squirrels.

The oyster mushrooms were doing extremely well for a few days when it rained. The temperature however got a lot warmer, and we seem to have an Indian summer after the few days of rain. The unusual warm temperature was good for the tomatoes but not so good for the mushrooms. A lot of the pins on the mushroom kits dried up, but I still managed to harvest many large plump mushrooms twice!

Self propagated dinosaur kale

The rain we had for a few days helped many vegetables on the farm especially since I was not able to go out there and check on them. There are many self propagated dinosaur kale and broccoli DeCicco. The potatoes are all green and lush.

Now that I am feeling a lot better, I'll be getting back on my healthy organic diet again with lots of exercise.

Potatoes

Red Tomatoes Finally!

The East Bay Area is experiencing another heatless summer.  On average we are having mid-60 temperatures. I have plenty of tomatoes on my 10+ tomato plants scattering all over the farm, but they are taking painfully long to ripe. I refuse to buy tomatoes from stores ever since I started growing my own 3 years ago. The tomatoes in the top photo are the first ones to turn red.

Historically, the squirrels also eat my tomatoes. Recently a neighbor adopted a very friendly outdoor cat, who's been patrolling Sand Village Farm. I haven't seen the cat chasing any squirrel yet, but Dusty has been quite upset at the sight of the cat. The cat seems mildly curious about Dusty but shows no aggression. Dusty on the other hand would thump his large hind feet and make a loud noise whenever he sees the cat. I saw the cat got startled and jumped up at the loud thumping sound. Hopefully I can get a video clip of that funny scene sometime soon.

Tomatoes and Passiflora

It finally felt like summer for the last two days. I spent 3 hours this morning clearing out some weeds and planting some strawberries. I checked on all of my tomato plants and finally spotted a few baby tomatoes!!! I planted all of my extra tomato seedlings that have been sitting on the propagation table for the past month. When it starts to get really hot, the tomatoes should start coming in rapidly. I hope.

The big surprise is the passion fruit flower! I got a few passion fruit cuttings more than a year ago from my friend's overgrown passion vines in Oakland.  His vines produced tons of passion fruits that year. It took months for my cuttings to start growing roots. I have much sentimental memories of eating fresh passion fruit in the tropics as a kid, so I was willing to do whatever I needed to nurse these cuttings. They stayed in the campus green house for months before I took them home and kept them in my green house. I even took them back to the school's green house when I was out of town.  Last November I decided they were big enough to be transplanted outside next to the new arbor. They grew very slowly in the cool temperature of El Cerrito. For a while they didn't seem to be getting any bigger at all. This morning I was shocked to see this one flower in full bloom (pictured below). There are several more flower buds.

Rain in June

It rained this morning. It rained so hard and loud that I had to look out of the window to make sure it was just the rain. However, the sun is out now at 2 P.M. I went out to check on the plants and see what I could pick for lunch.

All the tomatoes I planted are looking quite pathetic because of the unusual cool and wet weather except this one in the 5-gallon pot (pictured above). I planted a few in pots hoping to keep them alive during the winter months. This one is bigger and has more flowers than all the others even though I leave it outside just like the others. Perhaps it's the soil I put in the pot? I got it from my compost tumbler, the one without worms.

It looks like red white daikons and sweet peas are the fresh produce for today. I planted these daikons in March, and they are ready to become salad. I diced up the daikons and added them to my mayo-free tuna salad along with the peas. I don't have any tomatoes today.

The string beans I planted along the arbor a couple weeks ago are looking good. I hope they start growing fast. I am tired of peas and miss fresh green beans! This happens every year.

Green beans

Spring Planting!

Tomato seedlings

March 20, 2011, was Vernal Equinox, first day of spring. We had almost constant rain for the entire month of March; however, today looks and feels like spring. I figure that I need to get out there and start planting. I have some tomato seedlings that need to be separated. I always plant more just in case that some of them don't make it. I also like to give extra seedlings away. People are more likely to experiment with growing food if they can get their first few plants for free. Giving away seedlings is also good Karma building. More than 3 years ago I gave away a bunch of extra tomato seedlings to a bunch of co-workers. One of them is an experienced gardener. He had been propagating from my seedlings and sold over 300 of them at Merritt College's plant sale. Since we have no idea what variety this tomato is, it's been called "Lina's tomato." All I know is that I saved those seeds from some grocery store bought tomatoes. That was probably the last time I bought tomatoes from a store.  I got some of those Lina's tomato seedlings back yesterday because I gave them away years ago.

My barrel of compost

In order to separate the seedlings into individual cells, I need some soil. I have been using one of the wine barrels as a compost tub after the honeydew melons died off. I just kept dumping Dusty's litter box contents into the barrel and mix them all together every few weeks. Now the barrel is full of rich compost and earthworms! These tomato seedlings are still a bit too small, so I will keep them in the sun room for a few more weeks until the temperature stops fluctuate too much. The seedlings could die from frost easily if it gets cold again at night. I am also going to keep a few in 1-gallon pots this year, so I can bring them back into the sun room next winter. I want to see whether I can keep growing tomatoes all year round.

Separated tomato seedlings

I had three 6-cell packs of spinach sitting on the propagation table for the last 3 months. I decided it is time to plant them in one of the vegetable beds. I plant them along the irrigation tube so they can get water after I turn the system back on now that the rain seems to have stopped.

Spinach planted along the irrigation tube

Farm Fresh Gift Basket

Four varieties of tomatoes, apples, and a Japanese cucumber

My brother and his wife are coming over tomorrow morning, and they are going to take me to an Asian hot pot restaurant for lunch. It's an all-you-can-eat, grill-any-meat and make-your-own-soup place. It's certainly not a place I would go by myself. When I was younger, I used to over eat at this type restaurant and felt totally sick afterward.

My brother and his wife are both busy legal professionals. They live in a nice condo and travel whenever possible. In other words, they don't have a garden. Knowing that we will be eating a lot of grilled meat tomorrow, I wanted to put together an assortment of farm fresh produce for them to take home.

I collect clear plastic containers for the purposes of gifting. I don't want to put tomatoes or figs in a bag. They can get smashed. My tomatoes are picked when they are perfectly ripe and super sweet. Oh, I almost forgot about the Mandarin oranges. They will take some of those home, too.

Anyone who visits the farm shall take something home. That is the Sand Village Farm policy!

Late Summer, Late Tomatoes

Early Girls, Husky Cherry (the tiniest tomato), Yellow Grapes, and Green Beans

I planted 5 varieties of tomatoes on March 29, 2010.  They were Early Girl, Roma, Yellow Grape, Yellow Cherry, and Red Husky Cherry.   It's now August, and the Early Girls are just started to turn red. They are quite sweet, but did they take forever to grow!   Last year at this time, I had a huge yellow cherry tomato bush covered with orange little tomatoes.  They were so ripe that they turned orange!  I had so many little orange tomatoes, I was giving them away.

Early Girl

This year, I am just now started picking Early Girl tomatoes on a daily basis, but the plants are already drying up.  I have picked 2-4 Yellow Grape, Yellow Cherry, and Red Husky.   I have yet to pick any Roma tomatoes.  Last year I was able to make some tomato sauce with home grown tomatoes.  I hope that I'll have enough tomatoes to make it again.

Red Husky Cherry