Planet Veggie Garden

This was the weekend of field trips…

Yesterday, we took a day trip down to Ben Lomond, CA home of Love Apple Farm. Farmer Cynthia Sandberg gave us and 30 others an incredibly informative class on growing heirloom tomatoes.

I first heard of Love Apple Farm when my sister sent me the link to her page on “How to Grow Better Tomatoes”. It was already June when she sent it to me so I didn’t get a chance to try out her methods, though I have half heartedly done some extra fertilizing every so often. The tomatoes do perk up a few days after I have fertilized them so will get into better habits next season.

You may ask, why take a class when you can just read the guide on her website?
Wow, I have to say you will get so much more information from the class – the extra hints, important details, the latest new technique and answers to your specific tomato growing questions.

Plus, her garden is beautiful – not just full of over 100 varieties of 8 and 9 foot heirloom tomato plants but gorgeous zinnias of all hues, sunflowers and lots of other vegetables as she is the kitchen garden for the world renown Manresa restaurant.

Here are some pictures from our day:

The rare Litchi Tomato aka Morelle de Balbis

Large Heirloom on the Vine

Cynthia Showing us the Proper Way to Shade a Tomato Fruit and to Prune a Tomato Plant

Heirloom tomatoes tend to be indeterminant – that is, the size of the plant is not limited by it’s genes so they can can keep growing and growing under optimal conditions. To keep them healthy and off the ground she likes to make cages out of 7 foot concrete reinforcing wire. Whoa…and does she ever need all 7 feet of that cage.

Cynthia showed us a number of methods to prevent tomato sunburn, when to prune and the proper way to prune.

She also stressed there are 100’s of tomato diseases – not just limited to the few commonly talked about wilt diseases – which by the way she sees as too often misdiagnosed. She pointed out that many of the signs and symptoms of wilt may in fact be a specific mineral deficiency thus she recommended soil testing from a company called Timberleaf.

This point comes up time and time again from every gardener and farmer out there: Properly amending the soil will prevent nutrient deficiencies and thus many diseases (much like people) and will improve the quality of your vegetables.

There was just so much more information! We both came away from the class with a lot of practical information (and info we can apply to growing other vegetables) that we feel will make us so much better gardeners.Thanks Cynthia for a well organized and information packed class!

Now, it’s time to get the winter vegetables in…

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