The explosive appearance of peach blossoms on my Avalon peach tree down in my yard is all it takes to launch me into full blown gardening frenzy. For me, that means a trip to my favorite nursery with a couple of rolls of coins to buy organic seeds and a couple of bags of steer manure. Going to the nursery for my first seed and fertilizer run has become a right of passage over the last five years. It's how I kick off eight or nine months of serious full contact gardening in the San Diego sun and how I mark the coming and going of seasons here on my little mountaintop in rural San Diego County.
Because of the on-going remodel of my house I'm gardening this year in a patch that's never been exposed to my favorite power tool, a two-cycle engine powered Mantis tiller. The 27-foot long construction debris box brought in by the contractors sits mockingly on the large patch of rich earth that's been the site of my primary garden over the last four years. Normally,I start my garden with up to 10 25-foot long rows of Sequoia strawberries, two rows of deadly peppers, several potato mounds, broccoli, lettuce and radishes.
Previously, I've been able to set my garden in a single day. That didn't happen this year, because the initial garden for 2008 is the site of my "Pioneer" patch and everything has to be done by hand. Prepping the 20-foot stretch of dirt took all day Saturday and half of Sunday. I suppose I could have done it much quicker, but it takes time to break up rich soil by hand.
I think the birds like my method of garden preparation. After a couple of hours sifting through the dirt, I end up with a 30 ounce coffee can half-filled with various species of grubs that have been hiding in the soil. Earth worms, however, get a free pass. When I find them I carefully put them back in the dark sifted soil. I empty the can of grubs into the bird feeder several times a day. I'm pretty sure the scrub jays have figured out my schedule. As soon as I walk up to the feeder with the coffee can full of delicious insect protein, the jays swoop in, yelling at me to quickly fill the coffee can again.Most of yesterday afternoon the birds had began watching me from the roof of MaForbes' new digs. The jays are very impatient; but their soaring and screaming is one of the things I enjoy about full contact gardening.
After 13 hours of prepping my garden this weekend I was pretty stinky. My jeans needed to be soaked before being washed and my t-shirt is almost black from me lying in the garden, playing in the dirt.
Th good news is that I have four rows of early sweet corn, fifteen broccoli plants I started in my kitchen window from seed and three rows of tobacco seedlings I started indoors as well. All of that is in addition to the two big potato mounds (one of which is seeded with Yukon Gold and the other with big russets).
I've grown tobacco for two years now, but this year I switched to a seed supplier in Tennessee that was recommended to me by an organic Gardener who reads my blog and lives in the south-- he's in Zone 8 and I'm in Zone 9. The seed supplier is the New Hope Seed Company. To see their website click here. I like this supplier's commitment to open pollinated, heritage seed, stock and I'm anxious to see how this company's Havana tobacco and other nicotine plant seeds do in the 2008 gardening season.
I grow tobacco because I've found it makes a great insect barrier. It's value was proven last year by the absence of white flies, which plague most tomato growers. Growing tobacco is pretty easy, the plants don't take much maintenance, although they are subject to frost damage. The trick to growing nicotine is to make sure you wash your hands thoroughly after handling a tobacco plant and before you begin working on a tomato patch. Most of last year's Havana plants topped out at just under six feet and I had fun making my own cigars from tobacco I grew next to my garden and let cure in my garage. One word of warning: unless it's cured correctly, tobacco is mildly psychoactive. I learned this last summer, while enjoying my home made cigar on my patio and noticing that I could write my name sparkler-like in the sky with the cigar ember. Wow, man, trails. It was like trippy.
Totally.
I was surprised by the soil chemistry in the pioneer garden. I live about 12 miles from the beach and after testing the dirt I learned it was pretty deficient in calcium and basic trace minerals. I added an organic calcium/trace mineral amendment I used in my upper garden last year and I want to see whether the amendment will help my tomatoes set their buds and what effect the amendment may have on my potato crop.
I wish I could have used my freakishly rich, but smelly compost in my new garden. Alas, my compost heap was a victim of the Witch Creek Fire (which wiped out six houses on my street last October). The one bright shiny benefit of the fire was the serious ash dusting my yard and garden got during the fire storm. Pot ash is a good thing for a garden. A singed concrete pad where a house once stood, however, is a very bad thing.
One of the best things that has ever happened to me, came about as a recommendation from a doctor following my stroke in 2002. His advice to me was that I get a hobby that would occupy me and let me work outside. Fishing is an avocation, Gardening has become a way of life for me.
Can I get an "Amen," my stroke afflicted brothers and sisters?"
Who knows, in about six weeks I'll get my upper garden back just in time to plant some enormous heritage beefsteak tomatoes, more yellow corn and to continue my maddening quest to grow a decent watermelon. So for more adventures defending my crops from rapacious burrowing rodents and hungry field mice, come back here. Same bat channel, same bat time.--Jim Forbes 02/17/2008
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