The Fink Farm Dirt

I annually write the date for Tomatomania! in my calendar. Something always comes up that keeps me from going. But this year was different. Karen and I drove over to Tapia Brothers and checked out the riches. According to the website, Tomatomania! is what the New York Times calls "the tomato freaks' Woodstock." It started in the early 90s at Hortus, a trend-setting nursery in Pasadena, CA, which regretfully closed in 2001, with classes, sales, "tomato tasting and impromptu social gatherings at nurseries and garden destinations across the state." So instead of buying our usual pony pack of tomato plants from a standard chain nursery, we wandered the aisles looking at the wild and wonderful heirlooms -- Mortgage Lifters, Black Krims, Cherokee Purples, yellow ones, striped ones, deep purple nearly black ones.   We selected three indeterminate tomatoes and a couple of determinate ones. By the end of the weekend, we had the tomato trellis hung and the tomatoes plant...

It hasn't been easy during the coronavirus shut-down to know what is open and what is not. The Fink farmers were certain that nurseries were closed. We shook our heads and murmured about how it looked like it was going to be a fallow year for the garden. Then -- overhearing gossip -- we learned that nurseries were open to those who wear masks and keep appropriate social distancing. Farmer Karen leapt into action and bought pony packs of tomatoes (Romas and cherry), marigolds, Italian basil and assorted lettuces. We're overstocked with tomatoes for the space we have -- and understocked with marigolds to keep the tomatoes free of bugs. We've taken a cross-your-heart, pinky-wrap vow to prune the tomato vines as the summer unfolds and to keep the suckers plucked.   We're also experimenting with growing a tomato plant in a pot with a Rube Goldberg arrangement to climb on. (One day we'll get around to putting masonry screws on the cinder block wall that ...

My first gardening experiences were in northeastern Oklahoma. There, the gardening season ended when the tomatoes quit producing. By then, there was a nip in the air. The zinnias were stained brown and crispy. The nasturtiums were shriveled and starting to be hidden by falling leaves. Crisp, juicy apples were filling the bins at the local grocery and it wasn't pleasant to hang around outdoors unless you were moving -- fast. My parents not being natural gardeners, we never did much seasonal clean up either. My parents were great believers in letting the winter snows and spring rains do the work of beating down the dead stalks. Then in the spring, you could start digging and turning the old under to make room for the new. So now, living in California where winter is an abstract concept, I'm ignorant about winter planting. I've heard of winter wheat, but have no inclination to plant Fink Farm with wheat. Cleared for winter planting We got the garden cleared down ...

When you have three people working the same garden, you're bound to have a clash of styles. I like having a plan.  I have a yet-to-be-realized fantasy that I will one day have a visually pleasing garden with plants arranged to allow variations in scale and color. A delight with every step and change of perspective. Kate was more of a "I want to plant this, here now" type of gardener. A bunch of green onions at Ralphs could send her to Sego's for a flat of onion bulbs to plant. Turn your back on the garden for a weekend, and you'd come back to a salsa garden Kate planted in an organic patch of garden that I had imagined having a different destiny. One year I dusted off my copy of Square Foot Gardening . Kate was enthusiastic about the concept, but suggested that we could "just eyeball it" instead of laying out lines for each foot mark. And eyeball it, she did. None of the rest of us saw it quite the way she did -- and perhaps she didn't see it ...

Two years have gone by and we've scarcely stuck a trowel into dirt. I blame these fallow periods on California's lack of seasons. It's even worse with a four-year-old drought on. Planting time seems to begin earlier and earlier and there's always something else to grab our attention. The oregano, thyme and mint that we moved away from the main vegetable plot are still going. There are brown paper bags hanging from my balcony with drying herbs. They should be ready to put into jars tomorrow. The biggest challenge is harvesting before they go to flower. The mint died off and has now come back.  It's indestructible, it seems. It makes wonderful tea when added fresh to black tea.  We need to work harder on summer recipes that use mint with yogurt, quinoa or cucumbers.  Perhaps with the Fourth of July holiday coming up we can spotlight some dishes featuring mint. All that's left in the main vegetable patch is a tenacious yellow chard. We cleared away the k...

As summer ends, Fink Farm is covered in a mulch-like layer of used bunny straw, coffee grounds and heat-melted plants.  As we discuss fall plantings, a question looms unspoken: Do we dig holes for individual seedlings that we sprout outside the garden first or do we rip out the by-gone plants, prime the rototiller and grind, chop, rotate and mix it all into the soil. Once upon a time, my philosophy would have been: if you have earth-moving equipment, use it. But reading Amy Stewart's book, The Earth Moved; On the Remarkable Achievements of Earthworms , makes me unsure. For example, Stewart writes: "Add up the number of earthworms and other soil-dwelling creatures like mites, springtails, ants, and spiders, and there may well be more living things in one of my four-by-four vegetable beds than there are humans in all of rural Humboldt County where I live.  Include the nematodes, and the population of one of those vegetable beds starts to rival that of the state of Califo...