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My Benicia Garden — Week 7

Rod Herman — Sat, 18 Jun 2011 16:15:21 +0000

A lot has happened in my Benicia garden since my last update. Now that the unseasonably cool and wet weather seems to at long last be behind us, all of my warm-weather loving plants are now really starting to take off.

The tomato plants have plenty of new growth and are all flowering. Most of the plants are now almost 2 feet tall. And some of the plants have stalks are a good inch in diameter. I haven’t yet found any little baby tomatoes, but I’m hoping they’ll start appearing in a matter of days. I did have two tomato casualties since my previous garden update. My Black Prince and Costoluto Genovese plants started wilting and I had to give them a proper burial (in the green-waste bin). Fortunately, I still had another seedling of each variety, so I replanted them about 3 weeks ago. So far the deceased plants’ siblings seem to be doing well.

My cucumber plants are flowering too, and I’ve seen about a dozen or so tiny cukes. I make my own homemade dill pickles (NY-style: no vinegar, just a brine with dill and spices), so if all goes well, I’ll be pickling by July.

As for the rest of my garden, my pepper plants are finally starting to take off, thanks to the warmer weather. Same is true with my Japanese eggplant, bunching onions and my all my herbs.

My Italian parsley, cilantro and basil plants have all gone on a real growth spurt the last 10 days or so. The cilantro is already starting to bolt; I started some slow-bolt variety cilantro seedlings a few weeks ago and hopefully they’ll be ready by the time I need to pull the original plants.

My only conundrum right now is my dill. Three or four years ago, I planted dill in a pot and it grew just fine. The next year, the same result. Then, two years ago, I put in a seedling I bought from the nursery and it was fine for about 3-4 days, then suddenly yellowed and wilted. I replaced it with a new seedling and the same thing happened. Last year, I tried again and the same result.

This year, I decided to grow my dill from seeds, thinking that maybe they were too tender to survive transplanting. Up until about 10 days ago, I had a pot full of beautiful 3-4″ dill ferns, which convinced me that seeding them directly in the planter was the answer.

But then, earlier this week, a lot of the ferns were suddenly yellowing, drooping and dying, just like the past two years.

I noticed that the soil was fairly wet and I’m thinking that because dill can grow wild and is almost like a weed, perhaps I was over-watering. If that’s the reason, that would explain why I had problems the past two years, because I kept the pot with the dill adjacent to the lawn, so it could get a daily dose over-spray from the lawn sprinklers.

Aside from my dill dilemma, all seems well with my garden. Check back soon for another update!

My Benicia Vegetable Garden – Day 18

Rod Herman — Mon, 16 May 2011 18:22:18 +0000

It’s been about 2-1/2 weeks since I planted my tomatoes, peppers and other summer garden veggies and so far, with one or two exceptions, things are going well.

If you read the earlier posts about my garden, you know that between myself, Richard Bortolazzo and a few other friends in Benicia, we nurtured and gave away over 400 tomato, pepper and cucumber plants, all of which we started from seeds earlier this spring.

We put our seeds in the starter kits on President’s Day back in February, transplanted them into individual peat pots in mid-March and started distributing them to friends and co-workers in late April.

I planted mine in Earthboxes on April 28 — 10 different varieties of tomatoes, five varieties of peppers, and a few straggly cucumber plants. I also planted some nursery-bought seedlngs: Japanese eggplant, bunching onions, a tomatilla plant and a backup 6-pack of pickling cukes. Plus I refreshed my herb garden with new basil, cilantro, Italian parsley, sage, fennel epazote, and dill.

So it’s now 18 days since I planted and most everything is going well. Nine of my 10 tomato plants are very robust and pushing skyward. The 10th one — a Costoluto Genovese — was one of the strongest looking plants when I transplanted it, but it’s turned into a real weakling.

One of my tomato plants — a Sungold (cherry tomato) already has its first flowers. Most of my tomato plants are now over a foot tall. My pepper plants, which were about 3″ tall when I planted them have about doubled in size. But I think they’re waiting for warmer weather before they really take off.

My straggly little Pineapple tomato, meanwhile, which looked like it was on life-support when I planted it and seemed destined to shrivel up and die within a few days, has taken off and is now stronger and larger than my Costoluto. I’m going to give my once-strong/now-feeble Costoluto a few more days and if it doesn’t perk up, I’ll yank it and replace it with a stronger plant.

So far, my lone casualty is my tomatilla plant. It was strong and healthy-looking when I planted it, but within 4-5 days, it just shriveled up. Not sure what went wrong with it, as it wa’s in the same Earthbox with a variety of herbs that are all doing well.

About 4-5 days ago, I gave the tomatilla its last rites and replaced it with my last remaining Costoluto Genovese, as a backup, just in case I have to play taps for the aforementioned feeble Costoluto in the other EarthBox.

All told, I think we probably supplied 3o or more Benicia households with tomato plants. Some even made their way to other parts of Northern California. So if you live in Benicia or know someone who does, don’t be surprised if one of us comes calling with free tomatoes in another month or so.

Keep checking back…and watch my Benicia garden grow!

My Benicia Vegetable Garden – Day 11

Rod Herman — Mon, 09 May 2011 17:20:41 +0000

It’s been 11 days since I planted this year’s tomato crop and so far all’s well on the veggie front. All 10 home-grown heirloom tomato seedlings seem to be doing well — they’ve each grown about 6-8 inches in about a week and a half. All but one variety are now about a foot tall.

More importantly, they’ve seen just about all nature can throw at them — a few blistering hot days last week followed by a little rain and cold, gusty winds.

So if they made it through those back-to-back-to-back climate changes, they should be able to withstand just about anything mother nature might have in store for them.

Along with my tomatoes, the rest of the crop seems to be doing fine, too. All five varieties of home-grown heirloom bell peppers are alive and well. They haven’t grown as fast as the tomatoes, but I think tomatoes are pretty much the thoroughbreds of the veggie world.

In addition to my tomatoes and peppers, I also purchased some pickling cucumber seedlings at the nursery. My own pickling cuke seedlings didn’t fare too well once I took them outdoors, so I bought some nursery-grown seedlings just in case mine didn’t survive the transplant. So far, my weak little pickling cukes are hanging in there, but they’re not nearly as robust as the ones I got at the nursery. I’ll give them a few more weeks and see if they take off. If not, I’ll replace them with something else — maybe green beans.

Rounding out my veggie garden, I also picked up some Japanese eggplant seedlings, a tomatilla plant, and refreshed some of my herb garden with new Italian parsley, basil, sage, fennel, cilantro and chive seedlings. I also started some dill directly from seed and those just sprouted in the last few days.

It’s Official…NOW Spring Has Arrived

Rod Herman — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 04:44:34 +0000

The calendar may say that spring arrived a month ago, but I say it’s not officially Spring until the Benicia Farmer’s Market opens.

And today was opening day for the 2011 market, which means that at long last, Spring is finally here. At least that’s the way I see it.

There’s something extra special about Opening Day — whether it’s a sporting event, a theatrical production or the Farmer’s Market. Everyone has a little extra bounce in their step and a little broader smile on their face. And that’s how it was today as farmers, merchants and shoppers all welcomed each other to the 2011 market season.

It’s still early in the growing season, so most of the produce still consisted of root and leafy vegetables — greens, carrots, beets, turnips, Brussels sprouts, and onions. On the fruit side, apples, oranges and strawberries were the order of the day.

I came home with onions, radishes, two bunches of cilantro, a 3-pack of strawberries and a huge bag of oranges.

The Benicia Farmer’s Market runs every Thursday from 4-8 pm at the foot of First St. and is sponsored by Benicia’s energetic Main Street Program.

If you haven’t been down there in recent years, it’s now much more than just a place to buy fruit and veggies. With prepared foods, entertainment and other specialty booths, it’s become a real gathering place for the people of Benicia.

My Benicia Vegetable Garden – Season II

Rod Herman — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 03:34:14 +0000

Want A Few Free Tomato Seedlings? Read On…

About a year ago, I posted pictures of my just-planted tomato garden and had every intention of posting periodic photos so you could watch my Benicia vegetable garden grow.

Well, the garden grew and grew and grew and we enjoyed tomatoes and peppers well into October.

But despite those “best laid plans,” aside from a few early-season posts, my garden’s progress never made it all the way to blog.

Well this year, I’m making the same pledge, only this time, I plan to post my garden photo updates with a lot more regularity.

This year’s garden just got off the “ground” today. Well I use “today” loosely.

If you really want to know the truth, it really got off the ground about 10 weeks ago, when I purchased about a dozen and half heirloom seed packets from a place called the Seed Bank in Petaluma.

A week later, on President’s Day, Richard Bortolazzo (who owns our Coldwell Banker franchise) & I spent the morning filling up three 72-cell seedling trays. We put 2-3 seeds in each cell, as the directions said, figuring that only a small portion of the seeds would “take.”

Well, boy were we wrong!

Just about every cell in each tray ended up with a seedling. And most of the cells ended up with 2-3 seedlings. Do the math…72 cells x 3 seeds/cell x 3 trays = a LOT of seedlings.

Feb. 27, 2011 - seedlings have sprouted

Within a few weeks, we had over 400 little seedlings – 300+ tomatoes (10 varieties) and almost 100 bell peppers (5 varieties).

In mid-March we transplanted them into 4″ peat pots. But since the tender little seedlings weren’t yet ready for the harsh outdoors, most of them took up residence in my living room and dining room.

Everyday, I checked to see if they needed a little more water and rotated them, since they like to bend towards the window.

Mar. 29, 2011 -- seedlings hanging out in the dining room

By mid-April, some of the plants were 8″-12″ tall and definitely ready for planting. But along my seedling journey I discovered that you can’t just take them from indoors to the garden. You first must “harden” them, which I discovered is the official gardener’s term for acclimating the seedlings to the outdoors.

So the first day, they got a few hours outside and then it was back inside to the comfy 70-degree living room. The next day, they got a few more hours and so on.

Today, I planted the tomatoes in my yard (not directly in the ground, but rather in EarthBoxes, which I have in my side yard). The red covers on them which you can see in the photo are supposed to increase the tomato yield by about 20%, according to some university study).

April 28, 2011 -- Planted 10 tomato plants today

My peppers aren’t quite ready to plant just yet. They’re still in the midst of that “hardening” process right now and I hope to get them in my EarthBoxes either this weekend or early next week.

When I started this seedling project, I only wanted to end up with 10 tomato plants and 10 pepper plants. I knew I’d end up with some extras, but I sure wasn’t expecting to end up with 400 little seedlings.

April 28, 2011 -- Over 125 tomato seedlings looking for a good home

After Richard & I selected our “picks of the litter” and discarded about 30-40 weaklings, we still had well over 250 plants that were looking for a good home. So over the past 4-5 days, I’ve been in serious giveaway mode, doling out tomato plants to just about everyone I know.

But even after giving out seedlings to family, friends and neighbors, we still have around 125 tomato seedlings that are looking for a good home. If you’d like a few, let me know and unless there’s a sudden seedling stampede, I’m sure I can accommodate you.

All the seedlings I planted are heirloom varieties: San Marzano, Green Doctors (cherry), Riesentraube (grape), Black Prince, Costoluto Genovese, Pink Brandywine, Mortgage Lifter, Paul Robeson, Sungold (cherry) and Pineapple. I’m about out of the last three, but have around 15-20 of all the others right now.

If you don’t want to grow your own, keep checking beck and watch my garden grow. Or, better yet, subscribe to my blog and receive email updates whenever there’s a new post. For, come summer, I’ll probably be looking to give away plenty of tomatoes.

Gazpacho soup anyone?

A GIANT Celebration Tuesday In Vallejo

Rod Herman — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 14:41:45 +0000

Spring Training has already started in Arizona, but if you’re like me and are still basking in the afterglow of the San Francisco Giants’ World Series title, you’ll have one last opportunity to soak up some of last year’s magical mojo this coming Tuesday (Feb. 22) in Vallejo.

Throughout the past month, the Giants have taken the World Series Trophy all over Northern California. Tuesday afternoon, it comes to Vallejo — its only stop in Solano County — where local Giants fans can see the trophy up close and personal and even have their picture taken with it.

The particulars:

Tuesday, Feb. 22
2:30 to 4:30 pm.
Dan Foley Cultural Center, 1461 N. Camino Alto, Vallejo

Take Tuolumne to North Camino Alto and keep going — it’s at the back of the park, just across the water from Six Flags.

I actually saw the trophy a few weeks ago, when it was in Walnut Creek. We got there about 30-45 minutes before the doors were supposed to open and ended up waiting in line for well over an hour. They ushered everyone through at a pretty good pace, so our “visit” with the trophy (actually more like a grin-n-go) only lasted a matter of seconds.

At the Walnut Creek trophy stop, we weren’t allowed to take our own photos — the Giants had their own photographer there and they gave you a card with a gallery number, so you could check out your photos on the Giants’ web site (and order a 5×7 for about $15…yes, even once-in-a-lifetime celebrations come with a price tag these days).

I’ve been an avid Giants’ fan since about 1963 or ‘64, and seeing as this was their first WS title in my lifetime, it was worth waiting in line, even though I only got a brief look at the trophy.

It was a nice sunny day and I got to visit and hang out with a bunch of like-minded Giants’ fans for an hour, which gave me an opportunity to share and relive some of the wonderful memories from the magical 2010 season.

Benicia Going Green…But Not For Much Longer

Rod Herman — Sat, 08 May 2010 18:43:02 +0000

Benicia is very green these days, but that’s all about to change…and probably well before the end of May.

No, I’m not talking about the city’s environmental efforts. I’m talking about Benicia’s gorgeous green hills.

Every year the hills in and around Benicia turn green in January and we get to enjoy their emerald beauty for about four or five months. But once the warmer spring weather arrives, it usually takes only a few warm days before the hills turn a golden brown. So by the end of May, the green is always gone.

I snapped these photos a few days ago, when the hills were at their greenest. Enjoy the scenery, because according to the calendar, it’s only a matter of days before the green turns to brown.

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Watch My Benicia Vegetable Garden Grow: Week 2 Update

Rod Herman — Thu, 06 May 2010 21:19:05 +0000

It’s been a little over two weeks since I planted my Benicia vegetable garden. In the past week, some of the tomato plants have grown another 8-10 inches. The little yellow flowers are already starting to appear on some of the plants.

The other veggies — green peppers, pickling cucumbers, green beans, beets, and green onions — also are continuing to grow quite nicely.

So far, no casualties…everything seems to have survived the transplant shock and all the plants seem well on their way to producing what looks to be a bumper crop.

Be sure to check back every week and watch my Benicia vegetable garden grow.

Here’s what I planted: 10 varieties of tomatoes, three kind of bell peppers (2 plants each), green onions, pickling cucumbers, green beans, chioggia beets, and strawberries. And the following herbs: tarragon, sage, oregano, thyme, cilantro, dill, mint, basil and Italian parsley.

MY BENICIA VEGETABLE GARDEN

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Benicia Open Studios This Weekend

Rod Herman — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 08:02:25 +0000

A big part of Benicia’s charm has always been its thriving art community. And once a year, on the first weekend in May, many of these local artists open their studios to the general public.

Open Studios takes place this Saturday and Sunday, May 1 & 2 throughout Benicia. The event is sponsored by Arts Benicia, a non-profit organization that helps promote and further the arts in town.

This year, over 60 Benicia artists plan to participate and open their studios to the public.

In conjunction with Open Studios event, Arts Benicia’s own gallery (991 Tyler St. #114) will also present a preview exhibit of some of the artists who are participating in the Open Studios event. That’s where you can also pick up a map to the various participating artists’ studios.

For additional information or a list of the artists who will be participating, contact Arts Benicia at 707-747-0131 or visit the Arts Benicia web site.

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Spring FINALLY Arrived In Benicia Today

Rod Herman — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 04:44:20 +0000

In my book, Spring doesn’t really officially begin in Benicia until the Farmer’s Market opens. So that means today was the first day of Spring, at least here in Benicia that is.

And it wouldn’t be opening day of the Benicia’s Farmer’s Market without a few April showers.

So right on cue, about 10 minutes before the market was scheduled to open for the season, the skies suddenly darkened and rain started to fall.

Fortunately, though, it was just a brief shower and by the time I got down there around 4:30, there were just scattered clouds.

For me, opening day at the Farmer’s Market is always a special day.

It’s great to see all those familiar faces again — farmers and food purveyors who have become household fixtures on First Street after all these years.

And what a delight to feast your eyes and tastebuds on all those, colorful, mouthwatering fruits and vegetables.

There’s really nothing like that great Thursday afternoon downtown Benicia vibe when the market is here. It’s a vibe that’s been sorely missed since the market closed down last October.

It was great to see the rotisserie chicken truck back this year, too. It was here three years ago, but skipped the Benicia market in ‘08 and ‘09.

The purveyors said they’re going to see how it goes for the next few weeks. Hopefully, they’ll get plenty of business and remain a Thursday afternoon mainstay all season long.

I already had plans for this evening, but next Thursday I already know what’s for dinner: a freshly roasted juicy Roli Roti chicken.

I also heard that another former long-time market regular — the folks at All-Star Tamales — may be returning again this year, too.

Hopefully that’s more than just a rumor, as they always made the best tamales around in my book.

They weren’t at the market this week, but I’m hoping they make a return appearance real soon. I’m having chicken next week, but I sure wouldn’t mind tamales the following week!

Today, I picked up some beautiful red onions, freshly hulled organic English peas, a 3-pack of luscious strawberries, a big bag of juicy oranges, ripe red tomatoes from my favorite farmers. And a bag of freshly-popped kettle corn for my grandson.

I try to make it to the Farmer’s Market every week. It’s become a Thursday afternoon tradition.

Not to mention the official beginning of springtime in Benicia.

The Benicia Farmer’s Market is organized by the Benicia Main Street Program and takes place every Thursday from 4-8 pm through the end of October.

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