bare root team for 2010

you win some and you lose some. i had seven trees die this year. because they were purchased in january 2009 and i planted with ammend - fyn - guarantees them for failure. so here are the replacements i will be getting:

nectarine:
juneglo
heavenly white
arctic blaze
arctic queen
arctic star

spice-zee nectaplum
tri-lite peachplum

new players for the 2010 orchard team are:

nectarine - z-glow and goldmine
cherry - mimi royal, royal lee, stella, lambert, montmorency
asian pear - shinko, hosui
blueberry - oneil, misty, bluecrop, blueray, ozark, reveille

most of the holes are dug, but i have some topsoil to move out of the way - to dig others, i need to extend the drip to cover the new trees and blueberries and i also need to noodle on a solution that keeps the bluejays from eating my blueberries.

i have just about filled up the garden and i still have grapes and raspberries and blackberries that i need to have. so at the other end of the yard - a few years down the road, we will see another garden area to house these vines. now, if i could only have time AND money at the same time to get this done faster.

a new discovery results in a new tree...

i ordered my bare root plants from the front yard nursery a few weeks ago. while i ordered some replacement trees that died over the past year - i am particularly excited about 2 of my selections - an asian pear (my first) and the start of my blueberry patch (another post).

since i became aware of asian pears about 20 years ago - i was unimpressed with the texture and flavor. i dont know what varieties they were, but chances are they werent ripened nor picked at their peak. i continued to be unimpressed, that is until a few months ago.

the company i work for has started to offer free fruit to employees (in an effort to improve eating habits and health, and lets just say it hasnt helped my waist line any). this fall, an asian pear caught my eye - it was about the size of a pippin apple and had russetted skin. i thought i would give it a shot - worst case, it would end up in the trash. but much to my surprise, this fruit was fantastic and really changed my attitude toward asian pears - i was eating 2-3 a day, they were just freakin' awesome. it took me a few weeks to get ahold of a box they came in - but i found the name, it was hosui. they are juicy (very juicy - in fact hosui translates from japanses as 'with water'), with a nice crunchy texture and its flavor is very similar to bartlett. it was awesome - so awesome, that i will now have a hosui pear tree in my orchard. the hosui will be joined by a pollinator - shinko - both will be my first foray into espalier fruit trees.

the front yard through the years

although i work for a high tech company, i am a late adaptor for many things high tech at my house. for example, we just went high speed wireless at the house, up until now it was a 56k modem. also, i just havent gone full digital photography, the pictures posted to this blog entry actually span 4 years and i can post them here - not because i am supremely organized and have these digital photos stored on raid 5 protected disk arrays - i can do it because they are all on the same sd card that came with this camera when i bought it when my second son was born - in 2001.



in fact , for normal family snapshots, the wife and i still do the old school 35mm film and get it developed - with duplicates - at costco. we have boxes of pictures - and when i found out that costco no longer sells film (they will develop it) it made me wonder if we should go all digital. well, time will tell, but back to the point of this post.





picture #1: we go into the way-back machine to 2006 when i started building the front yard. as you can see we have piles of dirt and partially built keystone walls.













picture #2: late fall 2007 - the front yard is mostly in and we see the first fall for the october glory maples. i really worked to get 4 season color and i get a hint of what might be in the works.













picture #3: spring 2008 - the crab apples are in bloom and if you look real close, up the staircase, you can see hints of the crimson pointe flowering plums in bloom. these are great eating plums, fantastic spring color and a real space saving tree.













picture #4: christmas 2008 - not much to show for color here, but you can see how big the trees grew since fall 2007.














picture #5: fall 2009 - the maples have really exploded and their color continues to improve year over year. these trees are growing 18-24 inches a year, i planted them to also provide summer shade, as my house faces due west and just bakes during the summer.













these year over year photos, from the near same angle, really gives a good idea how the landscape as evolved, particularly, the maples and how fast they grow. only downside to the great fall color - is picking up that color when it hits the ground.

ordered my 2010 tomato seeds

2 weeks ago i was in newport beach (the oc) enjoying a nice week of vacation - with the family. one of the essentials i took on the trip was my 2009 tomato growers supply catalog. they are on my list of favorite catalogs every year and this year i was determined to purchase something from them.

as noted in my previous post, i have selected the varieties i was going to purchase. with the hard part done, i hit their website, selected the tomatoes of choice - paid via cc and was done in all about 10 minutes or so. 7 days later - my seeds were in my mailbox and now in the hot fist of my seed growing friend 'keith'.

last year, i purchased my seeds from totally tomatoes. i had no issues with my tt seeds - but contrasting the 2 companies; i find that tgs was a better overall experience.

tgs has a better interface for their website, web interaction seemed faster (perhaps a better server on the backend) and delivery from tgs was almost 10 days faster. seed varieties are comparable, so based upon web interaction - i gotta give the 2 thumbs up to tgs.

2010 tomatoes

just placed the order at tomato growers supply - so here is the tomato first string for 2010:

gregoris altai
early girl
matina
big beef
cabernet
big raspberry
champion 2
costolto fiorentino
nyagous
sioux
super fantastic
black zebra
crnkovic
black from tula
chreokee purple
sun gold
sweet gold
mr. stripey
better boy
bella rosa

we will land 24 tomato plants in the garden, so a few varieties, will have multiple plants planted. there is a good mix of hybrid and heirloom.

i will be utilizing walls of water in 2010 (probably 6 plants), so hopefully i will see earlier tomatoes than in the past.

returning veterans this year are:

cherokee purple, super fantastic, early girl, champion, sun gold and a surprise performer from 2009 - black zebra.

it looks like 24 is going to be the magic number for tomato plants in the garden. there are a few varieties that i will always want in the garden - leaving quite a few slots for experimentation. i foresee, sometime in the future, that i will have 24 different varieties that i really like and that could put a crimp in my experiments on new tomatoes - but until then, i will try to balance production needs (dont want to be short of tomatoes) and trying new varieties.

rookies in 2010:

gregoris altai - an early variety, always looking for a good performing early variety.
matina - another early variety, i am testing out.
cabernet - described as a good mid size tomato - new in 2009 to TGS.
big raspberry - another new one from TGS.
costuloto fiorentino - an un-ribbed version of costoluto genovese, thought i would give it a shot.
nyagous - a purple variety keith wanted to try.
sioux - hierloom from 1944, described as very good flavored mid size.
crnkovic - another purple variety.
black from tula - another dark variety
sweet gold - farmer fred had good success with this one, sun sugar failed for me, so i am still looking for another cherry variety as good as sungold.
mr. stripey - a red zebra variety
bella rosa - heat tolerant new variety from TGS

this time next year, i will do an ' after action review' and let you all know what worked in 2010 and what did not.

2009 tomato ratings

the 2009 tomato list was:

1 parks whopper
2 stupice
3 jumbo hybrid
4 sungold
5 better boy
6 costolotto genovese
7 oregon spring
8 rutgers
9 dinner plate
10 black cherry
11 sungold
12 beef master
13 super fantastic
14 golden jubilee
15 better boy
16 sun sugar
17 sweet million
18 black zebra
19 celebrity
20 roma
21 german pink
22 cherokee purple
23 trophy
24 great white
25 pearson
26 early girl
27 better boy
28 celebrity
29 hungarian heart
30 better boy
31 heartland
32 early girl
33 cherokee purple
34 beef master
35 beef master
36 beef steak
37 black krim
38 sweet million
39 jet sonic
40 sungold
41 sunsugar

my comments will not cover every tomato. if there is not a variety called out (either good or bad), then it probably did all right, it just didnt stand out on either side of the bell curve, thus its worth replanting in the future.

parks whopper- was a freebee from front yard nursery. in 2008 it had issues with blossom end rot. this year, it didnt. it is a good tomato.

stupice - smallish early tomato, a decent producer - good one to replant.

sungold - still my favorite cherry. although, last year was my first year with it, the newness has worn off, but a prolific producer that is very sweet. a must have every year.

costolutto genovese - good producer, but stopped producing just past mid season, kind of a bushy plant, so its probably a determinant. worth planting again.

oregon spring - was the earliest producer, but not as early as i had hoped. didnt stand out.

dinner plate - big tomato.

black cherry - color intrigued me, vigorous plant, but flavor didnt do much for me. no plans of replanting.

super fantastic - hybrid, that really produced. on tap for 2010.

golden jubilee - meaty large yellow tomatoes. i dont like meaty tomatoes.

sun sugar - heard it was sweeter than sun gold. it was prolific, but didnt find it an improvement on sun gold. will not replant.

sweet million - another one that i had heard was very sweet. it was prolific, but it was not an improvement over sun gold.

black zebra - a bi-color. about 2-3 inches across and prolific. it was super awesome and will have a place in future gardens.

cherokee purple - a very prolific and great flavored heirloom. will plant again for sure!

hungarian heart - a meaty heirloom. i dont like meaty tomatoes. if all ox heart tomatoes are meaty, i will not plant them at all in the future.

early girl - it wasnt. one of my later producing tomatoes. will probably do it again as its a go-to for earliness.

black krim - also a good producing hierloom and worth planting in the future.

jet sonic - a freebee when we ordered from totally tomatoes. didnt produce well and have no plans to ever plant again.

2010 proposed garden layout

this is what i foresee as the 2010 garden. i keep track of the layout in an excel spreadsheet, so i can ensure crop rotation is done properly. i cant explain why some of the text is smudgy, but the text in 'red' is tomatoes and the dark blue at the top is butternut squash. the 2011 garden will reflect each side basically swapping over from left to right with nightshade plant family (tomatoes, pepper and potatoes) being followed by non-nightshade plants (corn, squash, etc). i am trying to avoid back to back plantings in the same beds in subsequent years - although we will see a slight overlap w/ peppers and potatoes.