The Fink Farm Dirt

Another spring, another hand-knit tomato trellis. It certainly is a California rainbow over the garden plot! Unlike past tomato trellises, this one is made of bulky acrylic yarn, knit on US 19 knitting needles. It's super easy to make. Cast on 82 stitches -- or more if you want and your needles are long enough. Knit it in stockinette stitch: knit the first row, purl the second, and repeat until the piece is as long as you like.  On the last row, bind off four stitches, then drop a stitch. Repeat this, keeping the first stitch that you bind off after a dropped stitch loose, until you come to the end of row. Thread yarn through the last stitch and weave in the end. Voilá, a tomato trellis. I experimented with dropping off more than a single stitch, but it seemed to make the trellis too loose.  I also stitched on fabric casings for the poles that support the trellis.  There are about four, evenly spaced casings. It makes it easier and more stable to string up the trellis. Th...

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...

Gardeners are always talking about heirloom plants: grown year after year by generation after generation from seeds taken from each year's harvest . I think heirloom recipes are just as important and just as much fun. The first bite of my mother's strawberry shortcake recipe, takes me back years to the lingering light of a summer day in northeastern Oklahoma with the family around the dining room table enjoying strawberries with whipped cream and flaky, barely sweet biscuits.  So, in that spirit, I'm offering some heirloom recipes. Some are made from plants we grow at Fink Farms, and some not.  Some are old recipes from friends and family. Some are simply good recipes enjoyed summer after summer.  Green Tomato Pie by Jo Ann (Floerke) Morrison (1931-1996) This recipe was contributed by my friend Cliff Morrison, whose mother made this pie. 1 cup brown sugar ¼ c white sugar 4 tablespoons flour 3 tablespoons butter 6 to 8 small green tomatoes, thinly sliced 1 lemon, quartered...

When Karen and I planted our 2020 garden, we made the one mistake you never want to make with tomatoes: we didn't check whether the plants we bought were determinant or indeterminate. Our assumption that the cherry tomato plants would be small (small tomatoes means small plant, right?) and the romas would be big, was 180 degrees wrong. The Great Green Goddess of Gardening was on our side, however. Karen has been able to stake up the indeterminate cherry tomatoes -- and the determinate romas have plenty of string fencing to grow on. I've been asked to write more about the differences between indeterminate and determinant tomato plants. Since I clearly needed to review, I'm glad to do so. In simple terms, determinate plants are like bushes or shrubs; indeterminate plants are like trees. Determinate plants are genetically set to grow to a certain size and stop. Indeterminate plants will keep producing stems, leaves and fruit as long as they get enough water, light and warmth. ...

Four years ago, we grew the Godzilla of tomato vines. We couldn’t stake it up high enough or fast enough to keep up with its growth. It was a productive plant and produced fabulous tomatoes. But its branches were so thick we could barely reach in to grab the ripe ones without destroying the green ones. And we won’t even discuss the ones that were out reach inside the dark maw of this behemoth. I swore after trying to tame that plant, I would learn to prune. And now, nearly two months after planting our pony packs of cherry and Roma tomatoes, we’ve done it! We’ve pruned! Probably not enough and probably too late, but at long last I think I understand what needs to be removed: the suckers, the sprouting leaves that grow in the crotches (axils, if you want to be technical) between the leaves and the main stem. I started pinching and clipping unsure if I was getting a sucker, a branch or a flower bud. But the more hands on time I spent with the plant, the clearer the suckers were to me. ...

The first time I ever saw a bug hotel was in the yard of my nephew's house.  His wife, Kay, is one of the best urban homesteaders I've ever met. Her bug hotel was about the size of a Victorian doll house, had a moss roof and was work of art. I was enchanted. A bug house (or hotel) provides winter habitat for beneficial insects who, in turn, swarm awake in the spring, lay eggs and sweep your organic garden clear of aphids and mites. That's the theory anyway. "I first learned about bug/pollinator houses when taking a hike at a preserve, " Kay said. "They had a huge bug house on display.  It was really like a functional piece of artwork." Although she always wanted to create one, it wasn't until some neighbors started complaining about carpenter bees and discussing sprays to kill them that she decided to get to work. Other neighbors, who were advocates for pollinators and native plants and had made their farm a pollinator haven, served as inspiration. W...

Every time I go to Fink Farms, I pause at the lavender bush by the garden gate. First, I take a deep breath to inhale the scent. Then I take a good look at all the activity in and around the bush. The scent pushes the world back six feet, sets me back on my feet, centered and ready to go again.  The sights – gold and black bees hovering over purple blossoms, the winking of white butterfly wings in the sage branches, and even humming birds pausing overhead -- remind me this isn’t just a plant, it’s a universe. A good match California’s climate matches lavender’s native Mediterranean roots. The bright sun and dry summers make lavender a natural for California gardens. There are more than 45 species of lavender with more than 450 varieties, so it’s easy to find one that suits your garden’s specific characteristics. Colors range from white to pink to all variations of purple. The scent and the flowers draw in bees and butterflies. But it repels many pests such as fleas, mosquitos and...

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 ...

After years of DIY and hand-me-down composters, we've splurged and purchased a rotating composter. The idea was inspired by Tom, an Oklahoma friend who posted a photo of his on Facebook.  When I commented on it, he told me it came from Tractor Supply . I ignorantly said that Tractor Supply outlets were hard to find in urban L.A. He proved me wrong! Now, I had been poking through Amazon's offerings with appalling results. I found one that cost $300 and reviewers reported that it took hours to assemble. Not for me! The Good Ideas Compost Wizard Jr. was about half the cost, easy to bring home and took no more assembly than dropping it into place and cutting the bands holding its two parts together for transportation.  American-made, it has a seven-cubic foot capacity divided into two chambers. With curbside service at the Santa Clarita store, we had a rotating composter in about an hour. An unexpected consequence of the coronavirus pandemic has been that when you ...

An August garden is pregnant with expectations. The garden I share with my friends Karen and Kate has a tomato jungle.  The three plants have over run three concentric layers of “cages.” They’re now trying to colonize the carrots. Unrelenting weeks of sun and heat have battered our 10 by 14 foot plot in Karen’s backyard. LA’s water rationing has taken its toll as well.  No matter. The tomatoes seem to ripen from pearl green to bloody red as you watch. The vines are heavy with fruit. We know that soon – very soon – we’ll be overrun with ripe tomatoes. We wait. We watch. We talk about canning, tomato sauce and ratatouille.

We’ve been taking a three-part “California Native Garden Design” class with Orchid Black at the Theodore Payne Foundation . The intention is to figure out what to do with all of the rest of Farmer Karen’s land that surrounds the vegetable garden. That is a big swatch of space. (We know: we measured it and drew a scale plot plan of it.) It’s a corner lot, so it has “yard” on the south side instead of that useless skinny strip that separates houses. Between the labor and the cash, Farmer Karen is envisioning this as a phased project to be achieved over an undefined span of time. But even if your first step is the parkway, you have to look at the global stuff first. That includes: What native area is your land located in — woodlands, desert, chaparral, river wetlands? What space do you have? What kind of sun do you get? What kind of soil do you have? What kind of slope(s) do you have? And, oh yes, what is your goal? If you have a speaking relationship with Mother Nature, yo...

In every garden, there are two types of plants: the ones you planted and the ones that just jump out of the dirt and yell, “Surprise!” The latter leave you wondering, “What IS that?” It might be a weed, a tree seedling, or something that fell into the dirt from last season’s plantings and germinated. It might have been dropped in via wild bird poop, carried on the fur of a rabbit, a possum, a cat or a mouse — or blown in on the wind.

Last summer’s tumbling tower of tomatoes has made me rethink the standard tomato cage.  They are great for determinate tomatoes that grow like shrubs. They are useless for indeterminant tomatoes that spread out like a thoroughbred on the home stretch. A search for alternatives led me to discover these ideas: Los Angeles landscape architect Rhett Beavers takes standard tomato cages and stacks them wide-end to wide-end with a central bamboo support. He then plants the seedlings deep in a layer of compost so they develop deep roots along the stem to support the plant.   Ivette Soler, author of The Edible Front Yard and blogger at thegerminatrix.com , makes her own tomato cages out of rebar and concrete reinforcing mesh. For those not so willing to do creative construction, she recommends tomato ladders from Gardener’s Supply. These are three upright stakes connected at seven points with a rounded, v-shaped horizontal form that protects the plant’s main stem. Each ladde...

Nothing spells summer to me like f-l-o-w-e-r-s. Next to sprouting carrot tops and growing sweet potatoes in a jar of water, few garden plants are as rewarding as zinnias, marigolds and cosmos. They don't have many requirements to thrive and they produce such glorious blossoms.

Swiss chard are the only vegetables that have the same color P-O-W as flowers. I just love the brilliance of red chard. Our chard was a slow starter. While the cauliflowers and Brussels sprouts jumped up from the ground, the chard barely grew for the longest time.  Now we're nearing harvest and the question is what can we do with it? I get stymied about how to fix it. I just found a wonderful sounding "New York Times Cooking" recipe for Swiss Chard Slab Pie. Essentially, it's two layers of dough with a chard, onion, white wine and sour cream layer between.  The edges are crimped, the top slitted and washed with egg whites, then baked for 50 to 55 minutes.

We're city girls.  We'll admit it. We've progressed beyond bagging our Brussels sprouts from the bin at the local chain grocery store. We've been to the local farmers market. We know Brussels sprouts grow on a long stalk. And that's what we expected when we planted them last November.

We've had a couple of glorious weeks of sunshine that caused the cauliflowers to race right into the bolting stage. They've all been harvested and eaten.  We're just waiting for some spare time to take out the leaves and stems to make room for something new in the garden. Karen and I have slightly different perspectives on what to plant: she likes novelty -- rainbow or watermelon radishes or purple or gold cauliflower; I'm more of a traditionalist; the novelty varieties never seem to turn out as well as the originals.

We have purple and gold cauliflower blossoming in our garden this week. (We got the color pack when we planted in November.) Nearly a week of sunshine has made everything grow big. Besides the cauliflower, the lettuces are thriving along with the spinach.  The brussels sprout plants keep getting larger and larger -- keeping pace with the cauliflower plants -- but there's no signs of sprout stems. The red Swiss chard is coming along.  It's still small and slow, but seems healthy. There's not much work to be done at this point. Mother Nature has kept a nice pace of rain so there's no watering to be done. The break in the rain and the arrival of sun means that weeds are starting to thrive, but not so much that we can't easily keep them under control.  There are bug holes in the lower leaves of our lettuces, but not so severe that we're inclined to break out the organic bug spray. The basil plants are no longer thriving.  We've had temperature...

We've been so starved for rain these past five or six years, I was starting to forget what it was like. The past two months, we've had a series of nice, durable, gentle rains.  Heavy enough to soak but not to wash out. Frequent enough to foster growth, but not so often as to drown the seedlings.  For us farmers, it's like having a self-gardening plot: we just have to go out every week or so and "ooh" and "ahh" over how fast everything is getting big. Of all the gardens we've ever planted, I think this one has been the most rewarding.  The conditions -- timing, moisture, sun and season -- have come together perfectly.  We have plenty of mulch down so the weeds aren't even raising their heads. We grew cabbage one summer (probably not the best season for that) and it seemed to take forever to see anything cabbage like. It's too early to see any embryonic cauliflowers, but the transformation from one week to the next is dramatic. ...

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 ...