Joan Swenson: Get the tomato beds ready, but planting? That can wait
| Friday, Mar 27 2009 04:12 PM
Last Updated Monday, Mar 30 2009 04:22 PM
My husband is an attorney during the week. Come the weekend, he’s a citrus and tomato grower — his backyard specialties.
When he picked the last of our winter crop of navel and blood oranges a couple of weeks ago, we mourned for a bit and savored the final glasses of sunset-red juice and the last orange slices at lunch. And then it was on to the tomatoes.
Last weekend he cleaned up the tomato bed on the western side of our house, worked in bags of mulch, leveled the soil and then constructed the trenches he uses to water the plants.
We often intend to grow tomatoes from seed, but don’t always get them started. This year was one of those years. So we went to the nursery and came home with more tomatoes than we need, 28 plants in multiple packs or single pots.
We bought Better Boy, Ace, Early Girl and Celebrity, tomatoes that have always produced well for us, as well as Lemon Boy (only lemony in color and tomato-like in flavor), Sweet 100 cherry tomatoes and two heirlooms: Black Krim and Cherokee Purple. We bought an early producing hybrid we’ve never grown before, First Lady. Nurseries have plenty more tomato varieties — read the labels and see what appeals to you.
Last Sunday’s typical March weather — pouring rain and wind overnight — proved to me we need not hurry to plant tomatoes, which will not set fruit when nighttime temperatures are below 55 degrees. You have several weeks more to plant tomatoes so they are established and producing fruit before it gets hot and fruit set is reduced. A farmer I met years ago at a children’s baseball game on a windy March day said planting early — at least for home growers — is overrated. Relax, he said. Plant around Easter. You’ll have plenty of tomatoes to harvest.
ORANGE TASTING
I saw Bill Heisey, a sales representative for Four Winds Growers, which grows dwarf citrus for nurseries, at White Forest Nursery a few weeks ago. Standing near his bright orange pickup truck and its trailer with the gigantic “orange,” Bill was handing out citrus samples and offering advice about growing citrus. He’ll be back at White Forest again (300 Morning Drive, between Breckenridge Road and Eucalyptus Drive) on April 4 and said two of his samples will be the mandarins W. Murcott, which ripens in March, and Gold Nugget, which ripens through the summer.
Spring is a good time to plant citrus; nurseries typically have fresh shipments of the trees in March and April.
SNAIL TRAIL
Folks told me about their snail solutions following a column several weeks ago. One friend’s dog eats them (could that dog be rented?) and someone recommended hurling them in the street. One reader said she has had great success with putting out saucers of beer for snails to drown in.
One reader suggested squirting bleach on them for a quick kill.
