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Baker Creek Seeds

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The problem with growing the same reliable plants that I have been growing for so long is that I rarely get to try something new. Seriously, my rhubarb was in the garden long before I was born, and will be around long after I am gone. I will probably never grow a different variety of rhubarb. The same goes for my lily-of-the-Nile, geraniums, many varieties of bearded iris, all nine apple varieties and all fourteen fig varieties! Sustainability can be such a bother. Only on rare occasion, I grow something from seed that I do not already have available. I do it in moderation; and I do not feel too guilty about it.

California is the best place in America for gardening, but ironically, we do not have as much variety of vegetable seed to choose from as other regions do. We can get all sorts of weird kale and heirloom tomatoes, including some that were recently developed to exploit the heirloom tomato craze; but if it is not a hip new fad, we might not have access to it. (Yes, ‘new’ ‘heirloom’ varieties) I still get my favorite simple and common vegetable seed from the local hardware store like I did when I was a little kid. There is not much in between. Most vegetable seed here is either very simple and common, or hip and trendy.

Baker Creek Seeds is one of my favorite seed suppliers, both for the formerly common varieties that I grew up with, as well as varieties that might be common in other regions, but not available here. I know it sounds silly, but we just do not have much variety of collards, okra, beets and turnip greens to choose from. The catalog of Baker Creek Seeds, which can be found at rareseeds.com, has it all. If you can not find it in their catalog, you probably do not need it. Although I cringe to say so, Baker Creek Seeds has more heirloom varieties than any other supplier I can think of.

I cringe at the term ‘heirloom’ because I do not like fads or crazes. Baker Creek Seeds does it differently though. Their heirlooms are legitimate and documentable, with nothing to prove, even if some of them look like the ordinary modern varieties. The tomatoes do not need to be blotched, striped, wrinkled, black, purple, ugly, or whatever it takes for them to be marketed as ‘heirloom’, although a few of them are. Some were developed by the Amish. Some were developed by Early American settlers. Some Baker Creek Seeds are heirloom in other cultures, but new introductions here. You just need to take a look at what they have.

All of Baker Creek Seeds are ‘pure’. This means that they are NOT genetically modified. This is their ‘Safe Seed Pledge’:

“Agriculture and seeds provide the basis upon which our lives depend.  We must protect this foundation as a safe and genetically stable source for future generations.  For the benefit of all farmers, gardeners and consumers who want an alternative, we pledge that we do not knowingly buy or sell genetically engineered seeds or plants.  The mechanical transfer of genetic material outside of natural methods and between genera, families or kingdoms, poses great biological risks as well as economicc, political, and cultural threats…”

This makes their work significantly more difficult. Any seed that fails to meet their strict standards can not be marketed. Sadly, some heirloom corn varieties are no longer available because they became contaminated by pollen from genetically modified corn. While so many unscrupulously exploit the ‘sustainability’ fad with products that are contrary to sustainability, Baker Creek Seeds is the real deal. They can be found at rareseeds.com.

Posted on by tonytomeo

Change Of Scenery

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Hollywood is the Capital City of the entertainment industry because there is such a variety of scenery within relatively minimal proximity to Southern California. Before Hollywood, silent movies were made mostly in Niles, located about halfway between San Jose and Oakland, for the same reason. Snowy mountains, foggy forests, arid deserts, idyllic beaches, open prairies, placid lakes, and wild rivers can all be found within only a few hundred miles. California really has it all. The Santa Clara Valley alone has more climate zones than the entire state of Kansas.

I have not moved around California much. I spent a few summers in San Bruno and Montara, went to school in San Luis Obispo, and sometimes work in the Los Angeles area, but otherwise lived in the two adjacent counties of Santa Clara and Santa Cruz, just a short distance from the homes of my ancestors. Los Gatos is actually in both counties. Technically, most of my gardening has been within Sunset Zones 15 and 16. However, my garden in the Santa Cruz Mountains gets more than two feet of rain, which is about twice what the western side of the Santa Clara Valley gets, even though it is in the same zone!

That is not the only difference. Instead of homogeneously rich alluvial Santa Clara Valley soil, I work with a variety of strange soils; sometimes filled with pulverized sandstone, sometimes sand under a thin layer of forest duff. I do not know what I will find until I start to dig. The Santa Cruz Mountains are such that I might have less flat area dispersed over nearly nine mountainside acres than friends in the Valley have on a single flat suburban lot. Much of it is shaded by tall coastal redwoods. The deer in the Mountains eat more than the gardeners in the Valley can steal.

This all makes it very challenging to grow many of the plants that I enjoy so much and acquired from the Santa Clara Valley. Some adapt quite nicely; but many of the most important ones really want to be back in the Valley. The rhubarb from my great grandfather’s garden looks great, but seriously lacks flavor. I just want to keep it going long enough to find a sunnier and warmer spot with richer soil to relocate it to. The two quince trees that were grown from cutting from an old tree in western San Jose seem to be fine, but much of the fruit gets taken away by rodents before it develops.

Then there are the fig trees. There are fourteen of them! About half are copies of the first fig trees I ever met when I was a kid. Some are black figs. Some are white. I think that only one is a honey fig. They are all very important to me. I am very fortunate to be able to grow them. However, like the rhubarb, they need a sunnier and warmer spot. If they make any fruit at all, it is bland and pithy. My objective with them now is to grow them in the cool and partly shaded spot where they are presently located so that they can provide cuttings to plant when a better situations becomes available. In that regard, they are actually doing just fine!

I really wish I could do my gardening in the Santa Clara Valley; but if I had to do it the other way around, it would be just as difficult. I mean that if I had a big garden in the Santa Clara Valley, and had to give up gardening in the Santa Cruz Mountains, many of my favorite plants would not like the transition. The Mountain grown apples that I have always taken for granted would never be as happy in the Valley. Neither would Douglas firs or bigleaf maples. Redwoods are common in the Valley, but are not the same as they are in their natural range. There’s no place like home.

Posted on by tonytomeo · 16 Comments

My Philosophy On Garden Chemicals

70927lthumbspareI have very few reservations about using chemicals in my garden. I bet you did not expect to read that. It is the quick and easy explanation about my philosophy on garden chemicals. Almost all chemicals that are available to the general public are reasonably safe if handled and applied properly. I am actually more concerned about the larger volumes of chemicals used in the landscape industry, and applied by technicians who can not read the labels or write their use reports. Yes, it happens. Anyway, some of the sugars, salts, preservative and other components of some of the food I eat is more dangerous than chemicals I use in the garden.

That is because I use almost no synthetic chemicals. I have almost no use for them. I only occasionally use semi-synthetic fertilizers like fish emulsion. Just about every disease or insect problem I have encountered in my own garden was most efficiently controlled by cultural methods or simple home remedies that have been effective for centuries, or even thousands of years, long before the first and worst of the really nasty garden chemicals were invented less than two centuries ago.

That certainly does not mean that all home remedies are completely safe, or even any safer that some of what are considered to be ‘chemicals’. I mean, they are supposed to ‘kill’ things. Tobacco is unfortunately toxic, and kills many people quite regularly. That is precisely why a cigar butt or a few cigarette filters can be simmered into a tea to spray onto small potted plants, like fuchsias, to kill aphid. Adding a few drops of dish soap makes it even more effective (although in a different way). Is it toxic? Yes. Am I concerned about it? Not really. Although, it would be nice if no one used tobacco anymore.

Dish soap that so many of us use as a ‘natural’ remedy for aphid is almost as effective for immediate kill even without tobacco tea, but lacks residual toxicity. Because it is necessary to use a slight bit more soap if it is used alone, it is more likely to damage tender foliage. Also, most dish soap is actually less ‘natural’ than tobacco is! Homemade soap made from bacon fat may seem to be more natural, but the fat contains of all sorts of unnatural nitrates. It certainly does not bother me any; but those seeking totally natural remedies should know. (They probably should not eat bacon anyway.)

What do I do for peach leaf curl? Nothing. Well, nearly nothing while the disease is actively ruining foliage. However, while the trees are bare through winter, I prune them very aggressively. Pruning is done so that the trees do not overburden themselves with fruit, but it also stimulates vigorous vegetative growth the following spring and summer. After bloom, while peach leaf curl is busy ruining the first phase of foliage, vigorous vegetative (non-fruiting) stems are busy speeding beyond infection with reasonably healthy foliage. Inadequately pruned trees lack vigor, and are therefore more susceptible to the disease.

The worst of the damaged foliage lower in the canopy falls away as it gets replaced by healthier foliage. It should be raked and disposed of (not composted) because spores of the disease overwinter in the fallen foliage. I actually prefer to pluck much of the damaged foliage from the trees because, technically, it dispersed spores more efficiently while still viable and actively infected. Does this eliminate the disease? No; but neither does spraying chemicals.

Does putting ‘Tanglefoot’ or axle grease around the trunk of a lemon tree infested with scale eliminate the scale? Of course not. It merely keeps out the ants that cultivated the scale. (Ants have a symbiotic relationship with the scale because the ants consume the honeydew excreted by the aphid. Ick!) Without the ants to herd them around and protect them from natural predators, the scale are not so prolific. You might not even know they are there. ‘Controlling’ them just might be better than ‘eliminating’ them with a chemical insecticide. Besides, it leaves something for their natural predators to consume so that they are there when we need them.

After centuries of breeding plants to do what we want them to do and behave very unnaturally, we really should consider how to get nature to do some of the work it really wants to do ‘naturally’.

Posted on by tonytomeo · 4 Comments

No Respect

IMG_0417Horticultural industries are full of them; those who changed their respective careers half way through to do something ‘green’. We hear it all the time. “I used to be a ______ (Fill in the blank.), but I got so tired of ______ (Fill in the blank again.) and decided to get into landscaping.” Really?!? That is what you think of the landscape industry? Anyone who flunks out in your industry can ‘easily’ make it in landscaping?

While driving the delivery truck (because we could not hire a frustrated brain surgeon to do it for us), I had to deliver truckloads of rhododendrons to a ‘landscaper’ who did several jobs in Alameda and Contra Costa Counties. This ‘landscaper’ would walk through the nursery and tag whatever looked good at the time, and then assemble the landscape when the selected material arrived on site. Of course, he selected material that was in full bloom at the time, so the flowers were deteriorating by the time they arrived. His ‘landscapes’ were atrocious! The material was just tossed together so randomly, with plants that needed shade out in full sun, and full sun plants in the shade of big trees that were not pruned before the landscape was installed.

I can distinctly remember a job in the Oakland Hills that had two big Canary Island date palms that had not been groomed for many years. Decaying fronds were sagging low enough to mingle with the carcasses of agave blooms that were still sort of standing (or not) around the perimeter of the yard. Below these two palms (and I mean ‘below’, and within only a few feet of the trunks), the ‘landscaper’ had installed a few Colorado blue spruces, even more saucer magnolias, and about as many Japanese maples. These poor trees were literally pressed up against each other, and the rhododendrons that were getting delivered still needed to be stuffed in with them! Well, I could go on about how bad the ‘landscape’ was, but you probably get the point. Really, agaves and rhododendrons.

While unloading, the ‘landscaper’ explained to me, using the classic line mentioned above, “I used to be a chiropractor, but I got tired of all the stress and decided to get into landscaping.” He then continued to explain to me what made his career so stressful. After unloading the truck, I explained how frustrating it is to not be able to hire anyone to drive the truck or do the hard work at the farm. I hate working the irrigation through the middle of the night when summer gets hot. I am tired of the mud and rain in winter. Perhaps I should become a chiropractor!

Well, he did not like that much. He said that the two industries are completely different. Okay, I get that. He had to go to school for many years to earn his degree. Okay, I get that too. He had to work long hard hours for his career. Okay, I am still following here. It is a very stressful job that is not for everyone. Okay, have you worked out in the summer heat and dust, or winter cold and mud, until the sun went down, and sometimes into the night? Can you drive a tired old tractor or operate a chain saw? Do you even know how a shovel works?

The more he tried to explain to me that a chiropractor can become a horticultural professional, but a horticultural professional can not become a chiropractor, the more I realized how qualified I was for his former job. Yet, the horticultural industries are crowded with those who should be in other industries, or who simply do not take their work as seriously as it should be.

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The Colors Of Karma

0407160708aThe statute of limitations allows me to discuss this now. It happened thirty years ago, in the spring of 1987. The famous landscape designer, Brent Green, was my roommate in the dorms at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. As the bearded iris started to bloom, Brent immediately noticed a bed of uniformly pink bearded iris off the edge of a lawn in the inner campus. He watched it bloom from beginning to end, and occasionally updated me on the progress. During the process, he convinced me that these iris were very rare. Neither of us had ever seen pink bearded iris before. We had no idea that they could easily be purchased from mail order catalogs or nurseries.

Late one warm spring night, Brent telephoned me from a landscape design lab where he had been working late. Back then, we answered a telephone when it rang. Before I could wake up enough to think about what I was doing, or just say “No.”, Brent convinced me to bring something that he needed from our room to the lab. Without thinking, I got dressed, grabbed his designated duffel bag and got on my way. I was sort of concerned that the duffel bag seemed to be empty. I figured that whatever was in it was very lightweight.

By the time I got to lab, Brent was in the lobby, and his associates were leaving. Brent did not seem to be interested in whatever was in the bag. He just thanked me for bringing it as we waked out as if to go back to the dorms. I was puzzled. As we walked, Brent explained that he only needed the bag, and confirmed that it really was as empty as I suspected. I was even more puzzled. I asked why he woke me up in the middle of the night to deliver an empty bag across campus. Well, in the few minutes it took for us to get this far into the conversation, we had arrived at the bed of pink iris. You can imagine what happened next.

Yes. Brent dropped the bag on the ground and began to stuff it full of all the bloomed-out iris rhizomes he could grab! Suddenly, I was very awake, and protested. He explained that now that the iris had finished blooming, they would be dug up and disposed of. What else could I do? I knew he was correct. I did not want to waste the iris. I also realized that panic would only draw attention, and that delaying the process would only increase the likelihood of getting busted. I pulled up as many rhizomes as I could hastily grab as well, and stuffed the bag until it was full. Brent was feeling rather satisfied as we walked back to the dorms. I was mortified.

The rhizomes got split and groomed, and eventually went into our mothers’ gardens. We each got about half. The following late winter and early spring, Brent would check in on his when he would go south for the weekend. I would check on mine when I would go north. They grew well, and fattened up to bloom. The stalks came up. The buds swelled. Then, finally, and with much anticipation, they bloomed! They were magnificent! They were glorious! They were spectacular! They were purple and yellow! WHAT?!?! Where was the pink? What happened? This is NOT FAIR! Wait a minute, . . . Could it be karma?

Thirty years later, we still grow these two bearded iris. They are known simply as ‘Karma Purple’ and ‘Karma Yellow’. We do not know their real names. A few years ago, they were joined by a nice tall ‘Karma White’, which was supposed to be a rusty red that I ‘borrowed’ from a neighbor. Neither Brent nor I have ever grown a pink iris.

Posted on by tonytomeo · 6 Comments

Goodbye To An Old Friend

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After decades of deteriorating structural integrity, Quercus lobata of Felton finally succumbed to a need to prioritize public safety, and passed away at home in Felton Fair on June 20, 2017. His age is unknown, but may have been about three centuries. He was born in Felton before Felton was, and lived his entire life here. In the idyllic alluvial meadow between Zayante Creek and the San Lorenzo River, he was a simple forest tree for most of his career, and only became a distinguished shade tree when Graham Hill Road was built. Instead of retiring later in life, he became the most prominent tree in the parking lot when Felton Fair was constructed. In his spare time, he enjoyed feeding neighborhood squirrels. A tree of few words, or really none at all, Quercus lobata never complained about anything, even when cars crashed into his bulky trunk, and stripped away large portions of bark where decayed cavities later developed. His remains will be scattered as mulch,and used to warm homes throughout the region. Ashes will be scattered as stoves and fireplaces are cleaned. Rings will be counted privately. Quercus lobata is survived by an unknown number of children, countless squirrels, and countless admirers of various specie throughout Felton.

The obituary above was serious business when it was written. What it does not mention is that the deceased did not fall down or die completely of natural causes. It was cut down after dropping a very large limb onto a roadway, demonstrating how dangerous it could be. It would have gotten more dangerous if it aged and deteriorated more. No one wanted it to be cut down. It was just too necessary.

This is the part of the job of arborists that non-arborists do not seem to understand. We arborists love our work, and we love trees. However, that does not mean that we object to the removal of each and every tree. The people who live with trees are more important. Any tree that blatantly endangers people or property must be removed or made safe.

Unfortunately, valley oaks deteriorate and fall apart for many decades before they finally die. This particular tree might have survived for quite a while if it had not been cut down. It also would have continued to drop limbs.

Distinguished old trees are always the most difficult to condemn. No one is old enough to remember when they were not here. They witnessed more changes to their little part of the world than anyone. Without going anywhere, some of them here in California visited three different countries; Spain, Mexico and the United States of America.

In the end though, death is perfectly natural. The tree had spent centuries doing what it was put here to do. It was time for it to go. Behind the stump in the picture, one of its babies is already becoming a nice young tree. Another one is just to the east, just beyond the left edge of the picture. They might shade the road and driveway for a few more centuries. What history will they see during that time?

 

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Roots

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In the lower right corner of this picture, next to the fenced garden gate, and just beyond the mown grass and what appears to be a walkway, there is a small clump of bearded iris foliage. No one knows where these iris came from, or for how long they had been there when this picture was taken in the summer of 1969. They were growing in the garden of my great grandmother, in Hoot Owl Creek, just south of Red Oak in Latimer County of Oklahoma. It is unlikely that my great grandmother purchased such non-utilitarian plant from a nursery. It was probably acquired from a friend or neighbor sometime during the half century that she tended the garden prior to 1969. It could have been around even earlier, since my great grandfather’s family first developed the farm as Oklahoma became a territory.

The flowers are an alluringly soft lavender blue, on elegantly tall and lean stems. They are relatively small for bearded iris, and lack any fancy frills or ruffles. In fact, they are quite neatly tailored, with a simple sweet and fruity fragrance that resembles that of grape pop. This iris is probably one of the prehistoric specie of iris that was used to breed modern cultivars. Some of these sorts of iris were known affectionately as ‘grape pop’ iris, but it is impossible to know if or how this particular iris is related.

Many years ago, probably in the early 1980s, my grandmother brought some of these iris back to her home garden in Santa Clara in California. They proliferated enough to share with friends and neighbors. A few went to my mother’s garden, where they also proliferated and were shared with friends and neighbors. Now, my mother’s great granddaughters play in a garden where these same iris will bloom next spring; only a few months from now, but at least six generations from that well outfitted homestead garden in Hoot Owl Creek.

Where will these iris go from here? It is impossible to say. Younger generations are not very interested in horticulture. However, I really doubt that my great grandmother could have imagined that they would have gotten this far. What is funny is that these iris are probably more interesting now to current generations than they were to my great grandmother when she planted them.

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Never Forget the Valley of Heart’s Delight

 

The Santa Clara Valley really was as idyllic as the natives say it was. It was excellent for us kids, as well as for our parents who raised us here. That is why it is also know as the Valley of Heart’s Delight.

Every autumn, the orchards would turn soft yellow. Cherry orchards got a bit more orange. Apple and pear stayed greener later. The foliage still smelled sort of fruity. Leaves would start to fall with the first breezes and cool autumn rain. There was still mud here back then. It was real orchard mud; not the sort that happens because a gardener waters the lawn way too much.

By winter, the foliage on the ground smelled earthy. . . very earthy. It might have been slippery to walk on. The upper stems of the bare trees reached upward as if they were not expecting to be slowed down by the change in the weather. The trees seemed to watch each other getting pruned, and then point and laugh at each other when it was all done. Debris piled on the edges of the orchards burned fast, and then smoldered for a few days, with a narrow wisp of almost sweet smelling smoke.

Spring made you think the whole world was in bloom! It was billowy white bloom. Apricot was the best, but cherry ad almond were brighter white. Prune seemed to be very slightly blushed. It was all white, but different flavors of white. It was so soft and fragile. The fragrance was surprisingly simple, sort of fruity, and . . . perfect. Apple and pear bloomed later, giving the illusion that bloom lasted a long time. However, each type of orchard bloomed only for a short time. Let’s be honest; apple and pear did not smell quite as good as the rest; and some described them less graciously than those of us who were kids back then. Walnut and fig, well, they were always the odd ones anyway.

Summer smelled like fruit. It was everywhere. It smelled sort of grassy at first while the fruit was developing. By the end, it smelled way too ripe. Finally, it smelled like wine and toasted soil. The soil here really was great. It was grey and heavy. Summer was warm but only rarely hot. Mustard grew under the trees, and then wilted down just before getting cut.

We were all raised with horticulture, whether we realized it or not, or whether we liked it or not. We all got peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in our lunchboxes because our mothers had to get rid of the apricots somehow. Fudge at Christmas was overloaded with walnuts. Mom’s apple pie was not revered here like everywhere else in America. It was our culture. It was everywhere.

Even though almost all of us were natives, and most of our parents were natives, and some of our families had been here for several generations, the horticulture was imported from all over the place. Apricots, cherries, prunes, peaches, almonds, walnuts, figs, pears, apples; there was just about every fruit tree imaginable. They came from Turkey, France, Italy, Spain, Greece, England, Persia . . . really anywhere and everywhere. Our ancestors brought their horticultural expertise from Italy, Spain, Japan, Oklahoma, Portugal, Mexico and who knows where else. It all came here and somehow got mixed together to make the Valley of Heart’s Delight, our own distinct culture within the Santa Clara Valley.