O79 Growing and Breeding Tomatoes with Fred Hempel

...to an eight year old. We also talk about how to water tomatoes and prepare soil. During the podcast Fred mentions: Dumont #4 tweezers And two tomatoes bred by Fred that you can get seeds for: Blush Tomato Orange Jazz tomato I’ve had the pleasure of tasting these tomatoes at a lecture Fred does at the Heirloom Expo in Santa Rosa and they are really amazing. Fred’s website are: Artisan Seeds and Artisan Seeds in Facebook and Baia Nicchia Farm. If yo...

Read…

Weekend Links: We’ve Gone Crazy!

...tsimple) April 20, 2016 This car said “No”. RIP bike sign in #boyleheights. 04/18/16 – 04/19/16.@MCMHandles @GoHumanSoCal @josehuizar pic.twitter.com/z8AhthDAeZ — From Lot to Spot (@fromlottospot) April 19, 2016 Beautiful Japanese “minimalist survival kit” that fits in a tube you wear on your back https://t.co/Phke4nngrN — Root Simple (@rootsimple) April 20, 2016 A thought experiment: What would a world without Internet look like? https://t.co/Y6z...

Read…

Tomato Grafting Fail

...should have purchased or made a seed starting mix rather than the potting soil I used. I ended up with weak seedlings. Secondly, I did not manage the post-graft period well. Having a greenhouse within which to create a “healing chamber” for the grafted plants would have made the process much easier. Since I have no space or desire to build a greenhouse I’m, most likely, going to give up on attempting to graft my own tomatoes. I did this project o...

Read…

Bidens rebuttal

...aying something about the state of the garden. In permacultural terms, the soil calls the weeds it wants and needs. I’m not smart enough to know what the Bidens signifies yet, but I’m keeping my eyes open. What I could see, though, easily, was the busy cloud of insects buzzing around this mystery plant: honeybees, little native bees and flies and these tiny orange-ish moths that I’ve never seen before. Good pollinator plants remind me of space sta...

Read…