Spring 2022 - Volume 3, Issue 2
Hello Gardeners,
"A world without tomatoes is like a string quartet without violins"â Laurie Colwin
Spring is here and we are proud to announce the 11th Great Tomato Plant Sale, our biggest and most popular annual fundraiser! In this issue you can read all you need to know about this sale together with plenty of advice on how to grow tomatoes in the ground or in containers and the 10 Tomato Picks of 2022.
Unfortunately our winter rains were inadequate so we have to mind our water usage by following a few strategies that will reduce our water needs. You can also consider the use of Ollas, an ancient irrigation method.
Healthy soils keep our plants healthy. And earthworms are a gardener's best friend, as these "little farmers" are hard at work to keep our soils fertile.
Congratulations and welcome to our new UC Master Gardener Volunteers of Contra Costa County who just graduated our training program. Our outreach programs are in full swing for both in-person and online science-based educational programs, support and advice to create a more healthy and sustainable environment.
Happy Reading!
â Hedwig Van Den Broeck, Editor for News to Grow By
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Our 11th Annual
on Saturday, April 2 at Noon
ï»ż
Only online orders this year! You'll pay for your selected plants when you pick them up at Our Garden in Walnut Creek. This is our most popular fundraiser event of the year.
The UC Master Gardener volunteers of Contra Costa County selected these varieties because they thrive in our local gardens throughout the many microclimates of Contra Costa County. We are happy to offer you, once again, this carefully curated collection of tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, and other summer vegetables & herbs. Many of these varieties can only be found at our sale.
What you need to know:
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Our online order sale starts Saturday, April 2, at 12 pm. The link will be posted on our website Friday April 1, at 6 pm, but you can't place orders until noon April 2. If you are subscribed to our newsletters, you will receive an email with the link as well.
- All plants will be $4.
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Detailed descriptions of each vegetable variety and other helpful info are available on our website. Review this information to make your choices before the sale date. We have provided a shopping list to prepare for your online order.
- Youâll pay when you pick up your plants. We cannot accept credit cards. Our preferred payment is a check made out to: "UC Regents.â We also accept cash.
- You will receive an email when your order is ready for pickup.
- All plant pickups are at Our Garden, 111 N. Wiget Lane, Walnut Creek.
- We will sell plants until inventory is gone.
- Our âAsk A Master Gardenerâ team will be on hand at that time to answer your garden questions.
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Top 10 Hot Tomato Picks of 2022
by Liz Rottger
The UC Master Gardeners of Contra Costa County will hold their 11th Annual Great Tomato Plant Sale, opening for online orders only on April 2nd at Noon.
This year we have a total of 83 tomato varieties, including a whole host of unusual heirlooms as well as a wide selection of very special hybrids with the disease-resistance some gardeners value, but also with the great, old-fashioned taste we all treasure in the heirloom tomatoes. These arenât your store-bought, hard red rubber balls which are tomatoes in name only! As with our heirlooms, most of the hybrid tomatoes weâve chosen would be difficult to find locally.
Once again, weâve asked our Master Gardeners to tell us what their favorite tomato is. Since some Master Gardeners grow 10, 15, or more tomato varieties in their gardens, you can imagine what a tough question this was for them. Hereâs this yearâs list of âTop 10 Hot Tomato Picksâ
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Gardening in Small Spaces |
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The Best Container Tomatoes for You.
by David George
With the Great Tomato Plant Sale around the corner, we should review the best tomato varieties for your container garden. This yearâs varieties have been lined up, photographed, and documented online for your review. Small spaces gardening requires some specific best practices that you will find in the UC ANR article here: https://ucanr.edu/sites/Nutrition_BEST/files/191401.pdf. Weâll refresh your memory about those first, then finish with our choices for the best container-grown tomatoes.
Planters, pots, grow bags, and other plantable containers are quite a different environment than a standard raised veggie bed. With good planning, your containers can grow an amazing group of veggies, herbs, and ornamentals. The overall climate near your exterior walls will warm the patio or space up to 10° F higher than surrounding air temperatures depending on the amount of direct sunshine. Containers also lose water more quickly, from extra-heated outside walls and from more porous soil mixtures inside the container. Make sure your drip irrigation system has two emitters on each plant to compensate for a clogged line. Container plants donât need a lot of replacement water but need it applied more frequently.
Container plants have different soil mixture requirements than in-ground beds. Containers require more frequent watering and fertilizing. Here is a UCANR article with great advice for successfully Growing Edibles in Containers: https://marinmg.ucanr.edu/EDIBLES/ContainerEdibles/. Tomatoes develop deeper root systems and will need planter pots at least 14â tall for best root development. Support taller-growing varieties with an in-container small trellis, or wire tomato cage.
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Mind your Water in the Garden |
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Save Water by Irrigating with Ancient Ollas
by Janice Winsby
Along with everyone else in California these past few years, I am looking for ways to use less water in my garden. As a School Garden Educator in Concord, I am also starting a new spring planting bed where I work. This bed is situated far away from an irrigation source. Running a hose from two buildings away to hand water every day just wasnât a feasible option for me. Then a fellow Master Gardener told me about ollas. I had not heard of them, but after a little research, I realized they might be a perfect solution! An olla (pronounced âoy-ahâ) is an unglazed clay pot which is buried in the garden bed and filled from the top with water. The neck of the pot is exposed to make filling easy and covered to prevent evaporation (as well as keep out dirt, mosquitos, and other bugs). Ollas have been in use as a watering tool for thousands of yearsâmostly in Africa and Asia. They came to âThe Americasâ via the Conquistadorsâhence their name, which is basically Spanish for pot. The way ollas work is simple. Water will only flow from the olla when the surrounding soil loses moisture. Learn more about this ancient method of Olla irigation
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Ahorre Agua Irrigando con las Ollas Antiguas
por Janice Winsby, traducido por Elicha Gastelmendi
Como todas las personas en California, estos dĂas, estoy viendo formas de usar menos agua en mi jardĂn. TambiĂ©n estoy preparando mis sembrĂos de primavera en la escuela en Concord donde ayudo como educadora del programa âSchool Garden."
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Mind Your Water in the Garden
by Lori Palmquist
ï»żDespite the deluges we experienced back in October and December of last year, we find ourselves slipping more deeply into a state of drought as spring begins. The Drought Monitor website https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/Maps/MapArchive.aspx informs us that 100% of California is already in moderate drought, 86% is in severe drought, and 13% is in extreme drought.
The water districts could be asking us to conserve even more this year. The whole state relies on a steady supply of snow and rain the first three months of the year. But very little of this liquid refreshment has fallen thus far. Since drought seems to have settled in, the onus is on us to bring on our best dry game.
Strategies for using less water in the garden
If we want to reduce water use in the garden, we can use three overarching principles and actions to achieve this.
- Lower the water needs of the landscape
- Leverage alternative water sources
- Ensure the irrigation is operating efficiently
Lower the water needs of the landscape
Removing lawns and replacing them with low-water plants is the low-hanging fruit of water conservation. This is why cities, water districts, and even the State of California have been offering generous lawn-removal rebates for the past decade. In Walnut Creek, for every 1,000 square feet of lawn thatâs removed and replaced with low-water plants, there is a savings of 17,000 gallons a year. Thatâs enough to supply drinking water for a family of three for three months (based on an average of 64 ounces a day per person).
But itâs currently not a good time of year to remove the lawn and plant new plants. Weâre headed into the dry, hot seasons. And getting plants established during our hot summers takes large amounts of water. Itâs best to delay the lawn removal and new planting until the fall, when the rainy season will hopefully provide the water to establish the new plants.
Here are some useful statistics to know about the amount of water your landscape may require. If you live in the east part of the county in Antioch, Brentwood, or Oakley, these numbers will be higher. If you live in the west, in Richmond, El Cerrito, San Pablo, or parts of El Sobrante, they will be lower.
In Walnut Creek:
- 1,000 square feet of high-water landscape requires 22,866 gallons per year
- 1,000 square feet of moderate-water landscape requires 14,291 gallons per year
- 1,000 square feet of low-water landscape requires 5,716 gallons per year
Read more advice from Lori Palmquist on leveraging alternative water sources and ensuring the irrigation is operating efficiently.
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Earthworms: Natureâs Little Farmers
by Soubarna Mishra
When I was a kid, I loved digging soil in my backyard to play. Low and behold I would come across these long, squiggly, boneless, slimy things that first evoked fear and then disgust. My grandfather helped me understand that these mysterious, fear-evoking creatures under the soil are a gardener's best friends and completely harmless. They are responsible for building healthy soils which grow healthy plants that provide us food.
Since then, I have looked at earthworms with a sense of gratitude. I feel happy when I see them in my garden, because it tells me that the soil is in good care.
Earthworms are invisible, hardworking, free garden helpers who eat broken bits of leaves, grass, food scraps and things that plants canât use. They turn them into nutrient-rich, finer organic matter, called worm castings, that is a valuable natural fertilizer, by simply passing them through their digestive systems.
Therefore, Aristotle referred to them as âthe intestines of the Earth,â and Charles Darwin called them ânatureâs little farmers,â while describing their beneficial effects on soil structure and fertility.
Benefits for humans
Earthworms are animal decomposers that extract food energy from dead and decaying plants and animals. They take in nutrients from small bits of decaying organic matter and microorganisms as they ingest the soil with their mouth, in front of their tubular segmented bodies, in an action to move forward within the soil. In this way they break down the organic matter into even finer parts, help to loosen the soil, increase air circulation and water penetration, and thereby support plant root growth. Their excreted waste deposits, known as worm castings, are rich in nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, essential for plant growth.
Earthworms "turn" the soil, which means they bring down organic matter from the top and mix it with the soil below.
They need moist environments to survive and function. If the soil dries out, they either dig deeper in search for moisture, or have trouble burrowing to move forward within the soil and eventually die.
Natural fertilizer-producing factories
For instance, if there are 500,000 worms living in an acre of soil, they could make 50 tons of castings. These same 500,000 worms burrowing into an acre of soil can create a drainage system equal to 2,000 feet of 6-inch pipe. This is an amazing feat for just a little worm.
Wormy facts
Earthworms are neither an insect nor an arthropod. However, they do live underground like many of these creatures do. They are invertebrates that lack an exoskeleton and instead have soft bodies.
There are more than 5,500 named species of earthworms known around the world.
They exist almost everywhere except for polar and arid climates. They range in size from 2 cm to more than 3 m.
Earthworms have no eyes or legs. Read on
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Thank You Note from Mission to Mars Class
from Megan Leich, Computational Thinking and Computer Science Teacher at The Athenian School
âHello Master Gardeners,
Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge yesterday! Your presentations, answers to questions, and informal discussions all had a big impact on our group. The students created this thank you note for you this morning. Itâs important to note that the design and content are 100% their own. They worked together to imagine, sketch on the whiteboard and then finally create this. (There were many votes â from design to the different colors!) The only input we had as their teachers was to offer a variety of materials. I hope you can see that each of you left a positive impression on them and taught them something. As they worked on this, they kept bringing up different parts of the visit and discussing what they remembered.
From a teacherâs standpoint, the visit was more than I could have hoped â and especially on such short notice. They learned about far more than compost, and have a new appreciation for plants, compost, gardens, and some additional complexities of space travel. It far exceeded what we had hoped to get out of the original field trip to Republic Services, too. Thank you all so much for your generosity, enthusiasm, and patience!
With gratitude,
Megan Leich"ï»ż
Artwork is courtesy of Megan Leich and her students
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Due to the lack of sufficient winter rains, it is also important to pay attention to what, where, how much you plant, and are able to maintain in order to create a healthy and sustainable landscape.
Artwork by Soubarna Mishra,
Co-Lead for our School Gardens Project
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Thank you! Contra Costa County residents!
âKnowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad.ââ Brian O'Driscoll
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Images in this issue are courtesy of UC ANR, UC Statewide, and fellow UC Master Gardeners of Contra Costa County. Artwork is courtesy of Soubarna Mishra and the Athenian School
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