ALL I KNOW ABOUT TOMATOES

I love tomatoes, especially the homemade kind. Here is how I grow tomatoes the easy way.
NOTE: I usually complete one step before moving onto the next.

1. I dig a hole in the ground with a shovel, the hole should be about 8" deep and 8" wide.
2. Then I put about three Tablespoons of garden fertilizer in the hole. NOTE: It is VERY IMPORTANT to water in the fertilizer, DO NOT put the fertilizer in the hole and plant the tomato on top of it, THE TOMATO WILL BURN, TURN YELLOW AND DIE !!!!!!! Just ask me, I killed several this year.
3. Next fill the hole with water.
4. After the water has disappeared, I plant the tomato.
5. Make sure you label the tomato, by inserting the name tag in the ground next to the plant.
6. I put a gallon can over the tomato, make sure both ends are removed.
7. Then place a tomato cage over the top, place the wires in the ground outside the can.
That is all there is to it. I fertilize about once a month, there is a fertilizer just for tomatoes and I usually use it. But you can use a regular garden fertilizer too.

I learned from my friend Joan that tomatoes are self pollinators. They don’t need other plants to pollinate with, they don’t need bees to spread the pollin either. You can help them pollinate by just shaking the tomato cage a little.
After the tomatoes begin to form, you can trim the vines or branches that do not have any tomatoes on them. They are just robbing the tomatoes of energy they need. I usually take scissors to cut them. It is a very easy job, and will make your tomatoes ripen faster and grow larger. Cut almost all of the branches that don’t have tomatoes on them. Don’t trim all of them though, leave some on the top and a few on the sides or the tomatoes will sunburn. Later in the season, you can trim the top of the tomato plant too. Most of the new blossoms will not make it to maturity anyway, so trim those branches too.

You can also save the seeds from tomatoes for planting next year. Here are my recommendations.
1. Make sure the tomato isn’t a hybrid, choose an heirloom, you may need to do some research to find out if your ‘favorite’ tomato is an heirloom..
2. Make your choice before you plant, so you can space the tomato at least five feet from others not of the same kind. This way it won’t mix with other types. I plan to plant them in a different area of my garden.
3. Choose a tomato that will be good for the area. Don’t chose one won’t ripen easily here.
4. As the plants are growing, pick the plant that looks healthy and is a great producer, watch it through the season.
5. Mark that plant and watch it, do not pick too many of the tomatoes, do taste tests.
6. Pick the tomato for saving when it is a little over ripe.
7. Open the tomato and put just the seeds into water, a paper cup is great.
8. Let the tomato ferment in the same water for about 5 days.
9. Wash the seeds in a strainer and dry on a paper towel. It works best if you put a few towels on the bottom and one on the top then pat dry.
10. Continue to dry the seeds on a paper plate, turning once or twice a day.
11. When the seeds are completely dry, (1 to 2 weeks), store in a zip loc bag. Put a few small holes in the bag, a fork works great.
12. Store them in a cool, dry, dark place, I use a tin container.
13. You can test a few of your seeds to see if they will sprout. Placing them on a wet paper towel and place them in a zip lock bag. Check every few days to see if they have sprouted. It is good to test about 10 seeds, if 8 or 9 sprout, that is a great. If you only have one or two, better luck next year.

NEW PLANTS AND NEW TECHNIQUES

Boy, I can't believe it has been over 5 weeks since I have written anything on my blogs !!!!!

No excuses, but I have been quite busy with work the last few weeks, I hope you have continued gardening without me.

I have planted my entire garden, except for my flower pots and replacing my tomatoes and peppers that I burned up and killed. I have planted 17 sixty foot rows of sweet corn, and 15 forty feet rows of sweet and Indian corn.

SO LITTLE TIME
Yesterday I started to panic. There is so much to do and so much to write about, and so little time. But I realized that I needed to do one thing at a time.

This year I am trying lots of new vegetables. I may only do this one year because some of these may not be successful. I feel that I need to find out what crops do well in this area and from now on, try to plant only things that do well here in Eastern Idaho.

A few weeks ago I promised to tell you the 30 new items I was going to try and 20 new techniques. So here they are:
1. Romanesco Broccoli
2. Red Hmong Cucumber
3. 6" Radiand Green Radish (red on the inside)
4. 2"-4" white radish (red on the inside)
5. Bitter Gourd
6. Red Bean Horto Semi Bush
7. Yard Long Bean
8. Asparagus Bean
9. Garden Bean Royal Bugundy (Purple in color)
10. Lincoln Pea (Heirloom, I will save this seed)
11. Italian Tree Tomato (Will grow up to 25' tall)
12. Red Sweet Corn (Red sweet corn to eat)
13. Blue Indian Corn (Hopi Blue Flour Corn also a sweet corn)
14. Black Indian Corn (Black Aztec Sweet Corn)
15. Blue (small Indian Corn)
16. Peaches and Cream (Sweet corn)
17. Carnival Carrot (Red, purple, yellow, orange and white)
18. Lemon Cucumber (round yellow cucumber)
19. Mini Bell Mix Pepper ( mini purple, red, yellow peppers)
20. Regular Bell Mix Pepper (purple, red, yellow peppers)
21. Pepper Habinero ( very hot pepper)
22. Yellow watermelon (Yellow on the outside, red on the inside)
23. 7" rose red radish (salad giant)
24. Small Circular carrots (look like round radishes)
25. Stallions white cucumber
26. Radicchio leaf chicory
27. Russian Red carrots
28. Bright lights swiss chard
29. Cow peas
30. Peanuts

NEW PLANTING TECHNIQUES OR EXPERIMENTS
Here is a list of some of the techniques I am trying this year. I will go into more detail later as these techniques unfold.

1. Saving pea seed, (Green Arrow & Lincoln, I will grow these on a trellis, that way they will dry faster and better.).
2. Saving bean seed, (Blue Lake Pole Bean & Blue Lake I saved from seed last year)
3. Trellis planting (cucumbers, cantalope)
4. Trellis planting (peas and beans)
5. Tree tomatoes on a overhead trellis (this tree tomato should grow 15 to 25 feet tall).
6. Sack planting ( I plan to plant some peppers in a quart ziplock bag, I will dig a hole for the bag and put a can over the pepper as usual. Then in the fall, I can move them into the green house, for a longer season.
7. Saving radish seed
8. Saving carrot seed
9. Saving beet seed
10. Saving onion seed
11. Greenhouse early winter crop
12. Greenhouse early spring crop
13. saving tomato seed
14. Planting beans with corn
15. Planting sweet Indian corn to eat
16. Planting beans and peas with corn
17.Upside down tomatoes and peppers (both comercial method and homemade in a 5 gallon bucket)
18. Planting delicata plants from the nursery, my starts and soaked seeds. To test which will do better.
19. Growing a giant pumpkin, by trimming all extra vines and pumpkins. I have planted about twenty plants and will choose about 5 plants to experiment with.
20. Planting annual flowers to transplant into planter pots.

TEACHING CHILDREN GARDENING

A child is never too young to take out in the garden. They can help you plant and weed and they can even have their own garden space in your garden or in another part of the yard. If they want to try growing something new, let them !!! They may even be able to teach you something you haven't thought about.

It is best to work as a family when planning, planting, weeding and harvesting the garden. Work together, and make sure you make it fun for your family. Learn from each other and enjoy the time you spend together in the garden.
My parents always encouraged us to help in the garden, I’m sure it would have been easier if they just did it themselves. I’m sure greatful that they spent the extra time to teach me what they did.

I can remember my nephew helping me plant potatoes when he was only about 2 1/2 years old. He would crawl down the rows and put the potato sets in the hole I made with a shovel. I doubt he remembers that day, but I sure do. Thanks Chris !!!

ALL I KNOW ABOUT PEAS

I love peas, they are about my favorite vegetable. I plant lots of peas, most for eating right out of the garden, and some to freeze. Little Marvel Peas and Green Arrow Peas are some of my favorites. I plant them in a wide row. About 12" to 18" wide, this year I am trying a new method. I planted two 12" rows on each side of a ‘net wire’ fence. I’ll keep you posted on how this works.

Peas can be hard to come up through a hard crust. So here is a solution, my Mother told me about ten years ago. At that time I told her I couldn’t get my peas to come up, some years they were fine and some years they wouldn’t come up. So this is what she said. Dig a furrow for the peas, (I dig one anywhere from 4" to 18" wide), then flood the row with water. After the water sinks, plant a generous amount of peas. (We used to say ‘plant them thick’). Then cover the peas with 1" to 2" of dirt that is on one side of the row. (Here comes the biggest hint !!) Do not water or sprinkle peas after you have planted them. No matter what !!!! As my Mother told me "Do not water them, you’ll want to. But don’t water them and they will come up on their own." Even if you check them a week or ten days later and they seem to be lying in dry dirt - they have soaked up enough moisture from the water in the furrow for them to sprout. Give them a few more days and they will begin to come up — honest.

You can also soak them first, but I never have soaked my peas. Peas can rot easily if they have too much moisture. If you soak them first, then water the furrow, then it rains you will have a good chance to have rotting peas. I recommend watering the row first and waiting.

Do not water your peas during the heat of the day, or late evening. If you water peas during a hot day, the will scald and die. They are very sensitive to water when they are hot. If you water them during the evening they will have a greater chance of having fungus or mold problems. I water my peas during the morning, that way they are cool and will have all day for the leaves to dry off.

Did you know that peas have nodules full of nitrogen on their roots? The plant produces nodules on the roots and much of their energy is used to build these nodules. So they have their own built in fertilizer. When the pods are filling, the plant reduces the building and filling of nodules and spends its energy filling pods. Because the peas have built in nitrogen doesn’t mean they do not need fertilizer, they can become low in nitrogen. If the colors of your peas are yellow that may mean, they need a fertilizer supplement.

You can plant them thick and replant a second crop in the same place. But watch for nitrogen diffencency. I have replanted a second crop in the same place around July 24th or August 1st for a few years now, and have had good results.

PLANTS ARE PEOPLE TOO !!

A few weeks ago I stopped to visit with Della at the Willard Bay Gardens in Willard Bay, Utah. I always enjoy talking to her. She is so full of information, and so willing to share her expertise. I asked her questions about trellising, compost, soil for planter pots and several other things.

She told me about a great organic product called coconut fiber. It is ground up coconut shells. It is used to mix with your potting soil to soak up the moisture in your garden or flower pots. She recommended I mix it 50/50 with the potting soil I will use in my pots this year. It makes the soil so light and fluffy. I love the idea of having something in my pots that will soak up and keep the moisture more constant.

She told me about Hen and Chickens and how they grow. I wanted to transplant some of the small chicks that were around the outside of the plant into different areas of my garden. She said that was not such a good idea. She told me the center plant is the Hen and she has several chicks around her. As they get older, the Hen will grow a stem and a blossom and then after a few weeks the Hen dies. This allows more room for other Chicks to grow and fill in the large area where the Hen once lived. So they really aren’t meant to be divided, but grow in one area.

As we visited, we realized that each plant has its own story. We just need to learn what that story is. As we learn more about gardening, we will learn more about the plants we grow and how to learn to be more successful with each plant. We will try new techniques that may or may not work. The trick is to find out what works, what doesn’t and learn all we can about the plant’s story.

It is always a good idea to keep a garden journal to write down ideas, techniques and dates. So try to remember what works and what doesn’t to improve your garden’s story book.

Once again, thanks Della for the visit and the advise !!! Barney and Della Barnett are located at Willard Bay Gardens, 7095 S. Hwy. 89, Willard Bay, Utah. www.willardbaygardens.com