ForbesOnTech

My Never Ending Search for the Perfect Tomato-- a Love Affair with Big French Heirlooms Grown in Calcium Amended Soil

For inexplicable reasons, I am compelled to grow vegetables from soil I maintain personally. Gardening marks the seasons of my life, beinning with the first turn of a spade in February and rolling on through the final blast of the San Diego sun in mid-November.

I’ve come to enjoy my daily two shirtless sunny hours weeding, cultivating, and planting. Gardening forces me to use my stroke-lamed left hand, and leaves me with a feeling of pride and accomplishment.

Over the years my dedication and interest in organic gardening has been fueled by watching my plants thrive sans petrochemical enhancements of any kind and the enjoyment of pure, tasty produce.

Few crops have reinforced my belief in organic gardening more than gigantic heirloom, plump potatoes and fiery peppers.

75 days into the 2010 heirloom season and I’m excited: My Lebanese and French vines have flowered and set; and, my 90-day beefsteaks are now 32-inches tall and still climbing

My yearly Roma “sauce” crop is set and plumping up and should be ready at the end of June.

I get a lot of my inspiration fo growing tomatos from stalls at local farmers markets here in San Diego County. And if what I see there doesn’t inspire me,  I make a day-trip up to the Farmers Market at Third and Fairfax in downtown Los Angeles. I freely confess to being a provincial Californian, but to be bluntly honest, the best and most flavorful heirloom tomatoes I’ve ever sampled were from farmers markets in France.

I still smile at the thought of my last trip to France nearly a decade ago. The heirlooms I tasted there were sweet and not overly acidic and weighed nearly two kilograms each. The only comparable fruit I’ve ever seen here in Estados Unidos were display samples at Draeger’s markets on the San Francisco Peninsula.

I probably go a little overboard with tomatoes.

I  admit to coveting soil that yields great tomatoes and I’ve spent the last six years amending my garden soil for optimum production and taste. One of the suggestions I’ve implemented over the last three years is to amend by sandy clay soil with a calcium source. Calcium did three things that helped my quest for the “perfect” tomato: it reduced the slightly acidic Ph reading of my soil, it promotes blossom set (thus increasing yields) and I think it makes my tomatoes taste sweeter.

I haven’t yet obtained a brix (sugar) measurement value on tomatoes grown in soil that’s been amended with calcium but my adding about 10 pounds of crushed oyster shells to appx 36 sf of dedicated tomato garden space shifted the Ph readings .2 of a point towards neutral.

I like the technical part of gardening because it gives me a sense that I’m improving and husbanding arable soil.

And so ends love story about the not so common tomato. Now it’s time to skin off my shirt, slather on some SPF 45 sunscreen, and cage tomatoes--now spreading undirected throughout  my garden.—Jim “Farmer” Forbes on 04/16/2010.

Being Handicapped Means Learning to Adapt-- Even When It's a Technological Step Back in Time

One of the things I’ve learned since having a stroke is simple: some tasks require a step back, before you can go forward

And nothing illustrates this better than the simple act of my writing a personal check. When I try to fill out a check by hand, the result is often so illegible t the bank returns it uncashed, and that becomes so frustrating I sometimes get flustered.

I use m bank’s online bill payment capabilities for virtual all of my checking but the need to physically write a check comes up at least once a month. The simple solution appears to be to buy check stock I can run through my printer.

But that particular solution is costly and not particularly easy for someone whose handicap is an inability to write.

That’s why several months ago, I found myself on CraigsList, entering the words “portable typewriter.”

A typewriter in the age of computers? “How quaint!” you may think.

But it’s a practical solution to a problem that I and other Americans left handicapped by a stroke that robbed us of the ability to write legibly face.

So if life hands you a lemon, adapt, step back to a proven technology and if you can’t make lemonade, at least make some ugly tie dyes—even if you don’t have full use of your good hand and are partly color blind.

I may have lost the use of my left hand in a stroke, but I didn’t lose my sense of humor.—Jim Forbes on 04/20/2010.

Eght Years later; Stroke Recovery-- It's What You Put Into It,

There’s nothing like a life changing stroke to alter your views on the world.

In an instant—or more honestly over a period of minutes—your life is forever changed.

I recently passed the 8^th anniversary of my stroke and came to realize—and somewhat celebrate some of the things that have happened to me since my stroke.

First off, life post stroke has not been a box of Mary See’s chocolates. I’m still very bitter that my stroke may have involved s bit of mirthful irony on the part of a Supreme Being. I was and am left hand dominant, so of course my stroke was in my lower right mid-brain, wiping out the fine motor skills needed to write legibly with my left hand. I’ve learned to live with left-side neglect and am reminded of it daily when I knock refrigerator magnets out of their celestial resting places in my kitchen, or when I trip—which happens about twice a week. Although a stroke changed my life and imparted very real physical handicaps, I feel fortunate to be above ground and to laugh at my condition.

Would I rather still be working? Bet your butt I would. I miss that a lot,

But today I get to write about things that were for most of my life off my assigned beats as a reporter. And that’s a good thing.

I miss not being able to ride a motorcycle, or cast a lure as far or as accurately as I once did. But then there’s bait barges and fishing.

I look at the chance to moor up at any of the three local bait barges here in San Diego as a chance to visit with an alien culture. Bait barge ecosystems—with their cast of marauding sea birds and mammals, which plunder bait stocks—make me smile.  Having a chance to observe bait barge worlds has become a part of my life post stroke. I like it.

I’ve worked very hard not to become a bitter old man, but instead to try and see life in new ways. Today I spend about two hours every day outside, using my left hand to weed my vegetable gardens. It’s only April, but I’m beginning to tan and freckle up in the San Diego Sun. I’ve also started a regular exercise program that I hope will improve my cardiovascular system. I’ve lost a lot of weight and I’m not as angry as I once was.

I also have taken the time to become an “informed” patient.

One result of this was a change in the meds I take daily. For much of the time since I had my stroke I was on a specific drug that left me very moody and forced me to take naps throughout the day.  I researched the drug, called a couple of doctor friends and told them of my reaction to the meds and was overjoyed when they suggested a much more common generic alternative. I brought the suggestions up with my primary care physician at Kaiser (my HMO) and he agreed.  Because of that I went off another mood altering drug, Paxil.

Today, I don’t need to take naps, I’m not as moody and my blood pressure is that of a somnolent snake. But the big change for me has been less anger in my life.

There have been real positive changes in my life since my stroke.

I don’t take myself as seriously as I once did and I’m not as judgmental either.

I now have a creative hobby I enjoy—tie dying.

And, I still am able to help my family.

Since my stroke, I’ve moved my 92 year old mother into a place here at my house—thus eliminating two 250 mile round-trip excursions every week.

 i'veFinancially helped my two children finish undergrad degrees;

And Brought a used, but highly amusing, formerly feral Chihuahua into my life.

And reconnected with friends and the life I thought I would have when I was young.

If you’re one of the readers who have stumbled on my stroke blog looking for answers to questions such as: “what kind of a gift do I give to a stroke patient?” I have a couple suggestions,

First give your time.  There’s a lot of isolation and fear involved in stroke recovery and spending time with a friend is an invaluable gift.

Second, a gift certificate to a local gym, or enrollment fees for an adaptive PE program at a local high school or community college.

For recovering stroke patients my advice is much more direct: No matter what, do not isolate. Get out, go to movies, get a scrip from your doc, be understanding of the fear others have of strokes, and don’t be afraid to engage in hot sweaty, screaming, primal monkey sex, with your beloved. There I said it.—Jim Forbes on 04/10/2010.

Author’s note: thanks to my good friends in Rescue, CA—Dr.John C and his wife, Jody, The Youngs and Dr, Andre S. of San Mateo as well as S.R. Ricketts of Brighton, CO, for the tremendous help and faith in my recovery.--jmf

Peach Buds Pop: On Your Mark, Get Set, Garden!

It takes two simple things to kick start my gardening bug; the blossoming of my peach trees; and the successful starting of my two-cycle rototiller. And both happened last week, so my 2020 gardening season is underway in February.

The problem with beginning my garden his early in the year is that I spend a lot of time looking at the temperature and atmospheric pressure fervently hoping   gray clouds slinking towards my home from Mount Palomar won’t unleash a spring hail storm.

Although it rarely happens, Mother Nature has a way of teaching me she’s in charge; most recently in 2008 when a 15-minute freak hail storm. withered  five rows of two-foot tall tomatoes and several nice green leafy mounds of Yukon Gold potatoes in as well as nearly 100 Sequoia strawberry plants and two rows of Havana gold tobacco.

Gardening in Zone 9 is easy. There’s enough sunshine to set my plants early and to experiment with new cultivars every year. I start every year with a list of new plants I want to try in my garden. This year’s big experiment is burley tobacco and celery.  You might think growing celery is easy, since it’s little more than crispy, stringy, water. Turns out the common celery plant isn’t easy to grow. It has a 180-day growing cycle and it likes full sun and a regular watering. It also has specific soil requirements and because its seeds are tiny, it can be hard to germinate.

Aside from what I’ve read on Internet gardening sites, most of what I know about growing celery has been handed down to me from my Father’s people—hardy pioneers who were Eastern Utah and West slope Colorado farmers and ranchers. After looking at the soil in both those states in areas where the Forbes Family lived, I think I may have taken their vegetable success stories too literally. While I recognize that a lot of celery is grown in Utah, I’ve come to appreciate that it’s grown somewhere that has a vastly different soil chemistry than northern San Diego County. The harvested celery fields I saw in Utah had fine soil the color of Nestles Quick chocolate drink mix. The soil in Colorado is incredibly rich dark sandy loam. None of that remotely resembles the dirt in my garden but that’s not going to stop me.

“Well, isn’t that nice and Good Luck with the celery, Jim?” I thought churning through a 20-foot square patch of my garden with my seven-year-old Mantis tiller.  In sad acknowledgement of the need for improved drainage and sweeter soil required by celery, I’ve added about 40 pounds of sand and just less than 15 pounds of ground sea shells to the soil in this part of my garden. If I’m wrong the worse thing that can happen is I’ll continue to buy celery at the local farmers market or grocery store. And, If my experiment is completely off the mark, I’ll just plant heirloom tomatoes in this patch. And I know how to grow t hose in abundance. The increased calcium in this plot should yield to sweeter tomatoes. And that’s a good thing.

I fill, out my garden in stages.  The next vegetables I’ll plant will be Brussels sprouts, cabbages, lettuce and my yearly six to ten rows of Sequoia strawberries. The one new strawberry hybrid I’m trying his year is a strain called “Ozark” which yields firm sweet two-ounce fruits.  I’m planting the Ozarks in the lower of my two big gardens. With any luck, the local weasels will eat any voles or gophers that try to eat my strawberries.

I’ve gardened since I was a kid and I’ve always enjoyed my time coaxing good produce from the dirt in my yard. As an adult who had a stroke nearly eight years ago, I’ve found gardening to be incredibly therapeutic. It forces me to use my weak hand, to pay attention to my balance and it improves my remaining self-confidence.  Gardening is an activity I recommend for anyone who’s come through a debilitating stroke. It keeps me active and outside and it puts healthy vegetables and tasty fruit on my dinner table.

And speaking of fruit, the peach tree that serves as the starting signal for my yearly gardening is swamped in pink blossoms. I think I may have to shore up some branches again this year.—Jim “Farmer” Forbes on 02/21/2010.

 

Mixing Dyes, getting Ready for my 2010 Tie-dyed Shirt Projects

Back from Colorado, unpacked and just finished mixing 12 quarts of Procion MX dyes for my first batch of tie-dyed tshirts in 2010. Ive decided to focus on basic patterns such as swirls, hearts and maybe a Mandela or two in my first batch of shirts, but depending on my luck off the San Diego Coast this comings week, i may also attempt a fish patterned shirt to record a halibut catch.

Tie Dying is a hobby I can recommend heartily by waving two dye-stained hands over my head. I like it because it's something I can do despite being handicapped by the loss of my left hand as the permanent effect of a stroke several years ago, and because it extremely creative and relatively inexpensive.

My cost for dyes, plastic activity boxes-- which I use as catch basins when I apply dyes, and misc supplies was about $75 last year. High quality white t-shirts ( I prefer AllStyle heavyweight t-shirts) added another $100 to last year's budget.

$175 for a hobby that takes up a couple of hours each week throughout the year seems inexpensive, given the enjoyment get from wearing shirts I created and designed.

Although i've made tie dyes for more than a year, I still have a long way to go. For example, through trial and numerous brown spotted errors, i've learned that when you're using the color purple, it needs to be the last color you apply. Pinks are also twitchy to apply, although I like the contrast of hot pink and caribbean blue when used to create a two-color swirl patterned shirt.

My tie dyed hobby came upon me quite suddenly and i was incredibly surprised to find out that many left-handed people who have had  mid right brain strokes can become artistically creative out of the blue.

that's exactly how my hands came to be stained on weekends. One year into the hobby I have a nice collection of hand crafter tie dyed shirts and a new found appreciation of the need to buy and use good gloves that can withstand multiple exposures to caustic dyes. Even when I goof up making a shirt i never forget that with tie dyes you proudly wear your mistakes.

ten years ago, if someone would have told me i'd be making tie dyes  and curing the shirts in aluminum roasting pans sitting on bricks on my frot porch that had beenheated in my kitchen stove to 200 degrees, I would have said "Shut up, no way!"

But here I am, on the first Saturday night of the new year waiting for three shirts to hit 150 degrees before they go into my washing machine for two cycles and from there into my closet.

Way dude! the path to unlocking my creativity came to me after a devastating stroke that left me embarrassed about being handicapped.

that's my story and Im sticking to it!  Dude--jim Forbes, with Procion dye stained hands in Escondido, CA on 01/02/2010.

Mid Season Garden Replenishment, Gardening for Stroke Patients-- Plus Bonus Graph on Pellet Rifles and Rodent Control,

Halfway through the 2009 gardening season, and I’ve cleared about one-third of my vegetable garden.

That’s the sad news. Most, but not all of my potatoes are now in cool dry storage out in a closet in my garage where they’re safe from most insects and all rodents that might flee the sun by running through my open garage door on hot days.

The bare spots in the garden will be filled the end of this weekend, which explains the young vegetables in six-inch tubs I moved from my shaded potting table to the edge of my garden early Saturday morning.

Through experience, I’ve learned replanting my garden mid way thorough the growing season here in rural San Diego County is the perfect way to monitor soil conditions (mineral content, ph levels and the like) before setting hybrids I like to grow. Gradually, I’ve come to appreciate that little things—notably the presence and content of trace minerals and nutrients in the soil as well care in replanting vegetables such as fast growing beefsteak tomatoes, cantaloupes and honeydew melons and pumpkins (all of which transpire in the morning) make a huge difference in my garden.

Mid-season replanting always leaves me with the rhetorical question “Can you really grow too many tomatoes).

But what the hell, no one in my family has ever once turned down a basket of big vine ripened beefsteak tomatoes or six ears of fresh yellow corn and a couple of sweet melons.

So the remaining hours gardening hours this Saturday will be spent with a shovel turning earth, buckets of rich compost, my mighty Mantis tiller and vegetables I’ve started from seed. All of which is a good thing.

I’ve successfully stopped the burrowing rodents from invading my garden so far tghnis year, but I have my scoped Beeman pellet rifle and a small tub of jacketed long range pellets within  arms reach in case a furry brown head pops up anywhere near my garden.

Gardening is something I’ recommend for stroke patients. It’s near impossible for me to be angry at anything when I garden and I love growing the ingredients for my own salads and the dinner table.

Oh and channeling your anger through the scope of a good pellet rifle as its cross hairs come to rest unwaveringly on a voles head near your garden is a very good way to deal with stroke related anger born of frustration or a simple twist of fate. Besides, your local hawks will scream their thanks at the protein you contribute to their diet.

 I recommend gardening to other stroke patients. It gets us out into the sun, reddens our necks, builds mobility and agility by making us use both hands and forcing us to get up and down from a kneeling position and it creates satisfaction and commitment that you just don’t get from walking the aisles at a local farmers’ market.  And, as you walk the displays it gives you the rare opportunity to make snarky comments about someone else’s’ tomatoes.

I’m far from perfect, some of my beefsteaks may be bursting from their skins and my neck is definitely red, from another day working in my vegetable garden. Jim Farmer Forbes 07/11/2008.

I was Right; Stupidity Should Hurt--My Murderous ATV

I’m limping proof of the axiom: “stupidity should be painful.”

Last week I started to take my trash containers down to the street. Seated on my ATV, I reached over to pick up the plastic yard trash container with my left hand. Whereupon, forgetting that I have serious left side weakness, I fell off my Kawasaki quad, which promptly returned the love and excellent care I provide it by running me over in low gear.

Lying on the ground I distinctly remember thinking “Uh Oh, this is going to hurt” as the quad’s rear wheel chugged up my left leg, starting at my foot. It hen motored over my left ankle, continuing past my knee and finally coming off my body after it ran over my groin.

At 6 am in the morning no one was awake here at Rancho Bizarro to hear my plaintive bleating “Help, help!”

So I crawled slug-like over to my quad, pulled myself up, used my right leg to mount the quad, sidesaddle and complete my morning chores.

I drove my murderous ATV up on my porch and hobbled through the door to my home office.

I thought “hell, I have pretty good motion in my ankle and knee so nothing’s broken, I’ll just man up and deal with the pain of two strained joints. Besides. I have some Vicodin left from my last injury,”

By last Thursday the pain in my watermelon-sized left foot convinced me to go see my Doc.

My self-diagnosis was wrong; a slender bone on the top of my foot had a hairline crack.

And guess what? There’s not much they can do for such stupidity induced injuries, so a nurse showed me how to use a compression wrapper to girth my foot and told me to put an ice pack on it several times a day.

Oh they also refilled my seriously depleted bottle of Vicodin.

So for the last several days I’ve spent my days watching bad comedies, sniveling, and hobbling around my house with a cane.

The one upside to all this was the bad color combinations on the tie-dyed t-shirts I made yesterday and the fact that a high wheel; Caterpillar DH-5 was mysteriously left on a nearby vacant lot two days ago.

Damn the warning on the side of the bottle ”Do not operate heavy machinery while taking this drug!”

Well duh.

Like I said stupidity should be painful.—Jim Forbes 06/28/2009

Lordy, I Love my garden and Potato Tubs.

My garden is really taking off. All of my tomatoes-- including my french heirloom beefsteaks have set fruit, my potatoes are weeks away froom harvest, and i've been puting beats, cabbages and green onions for the last month.
Gardening in San Diego is fun and  I replant almost as fast as i harvest.

Disregarding the gardening implements and plant containers, here's my garden so far.

If you've never grown potatoes, try putting four  or five seed chunks on top of about 4 inches of potting soil or hay in a 15 gallon bucket. Water and feed regularly.Add more compost or hay as vines appear and keep adding more until the vines produce flowers. you may also want to consider feeding sparingly wih bone meal.

Can you really have too  many tomato plants? I don't think so.

Photos taken on 05/12/22009.

Retirement; It's What You Make it-- Growing Vegetables, Fruits or Pretending You're a Big Old Otte, Anchored in the Kelp

This may be the prettiest Spring since I retired.  My rose garden fully blooming, my vegetable garden is in and set and all of my stone fruits have blossomed and are laden with tiny peaches and apricots.

How good is life when your most pressing problems are: a line of voles advancing abreast on your new avocado trees; or, your beloved peach tree has a slight case of residual peach leaf curl that’s proven resistant to dormant season treatment with a copper sulfide solution?

In retirement you don’t obsess about minor things, you work on them gradually. That’s part of the reason, My tack-drilling hyper accurate pellet rifle is out on my porch,  just in case  I see one or two voles pop up for afternoon sightings of their objectives—my three new Reed avocado trees down in the front yard. If they pop their furry little brown heads up, then one set of problems abruptly ends and their carcasses become hawk protein.

Life is tough on the down hill side of the food chain, but I really don’t want to waste $150 worth of prime orchard stock as burrowing rodent victuals.

Treating peach curl requires more faith and much greater patience. I’ll continue to spray my Avalon peach with throughout this season, paying close attention to its root ball and the lower 2/3’s of the tree. But this fall, I’m going to buy two new freestones, and make sure they’re resistant to peach leaf curl.

The best part of my life is my view of retirement and how I’ve used it pursue things that I’d only dreamed of in my first life.

Today,  I fish whenever the mood strikes or  feel there’s sufficient evidence that species people in my household prefer—halibut, yellowtail, tuna and much under fished perch are finning around down in San Diego Bay or off the La Jolla Coast kelp forests. I seldom stay out for much more than two or three hours at a time because I don’t like towing my boat through bumper to bumper traffic on the San Diego Freeway. And when I come home I’m sunburned, salt crusted and happy I’ve had another opportunity to be on the water.

Another great change in my life that’s happened in retirement is moving my aged mother out of the house she lived in for almost 60 years and into my home here in Escondido. Before MaForbes came down here, I made the 200-mile, round trip trek to my ancestral home sometimes twice a week. Today, the commute is  about 60 feet and we have dinne together most nights.

In retirement I’ve started to feel like I’ve finally “come home.” (a sensation I never experienced in the 30-plus years I liv0ed and worked in Silicon Valley).

Continuing education is also something that’s become important to me in my new life.  My one wish is that California state colleges offered junior and senior level distance learning-based classes in California history and its associated economic and sociological systems. They don’t, so about once every two or three months I go up to LA or the SF Bay Area to attend lectures that interest me.

Post retirement education is a hot topic among many of my friends from high school, college and military service.  Several buddies have planned their retirement based on proximity to universities or state colleges.

My continued interest in computer technologies is also a big part of my retirement as well. Because I’m now partially handicapped, I try to stay abreast of interface and user experience technologies and trends, which I occasionally use as the basis of blog material.

Computing in general has become a huge part of my retired life. A stroke several years ago left me unable to write legibly with my left hand (I am left-handed) so I use notebook computers everyday to do things others do with a pencil and paper. My anger over my condition has subsided at last because I’ve accepted not just where I am and but have become quite thankful to be above ground, able to still write, smile and fish by myself off the Southern California coast as the mood arises and the fish appear.

Today I sometimes find myself anchored on the edge of calm kelp beds, like an old contented otter, tanning in the sun and waiting for a tug on my fishing  line.—Jim Forbes 03/29/2008.

Spent four Days Tie Dying-- here are some results

Six of the 16 shirts and dresses I tie dyed last week battling writers' block. First Roses of 2009  coming up in background

here's a sun dress I dyed. blank sun dresses suck up a lot of dye.  This one took about 3 quarts in three colors. I buy my dyes and sundress blanks from www.Dharmatrading.com. i recommend them highly.