- Author: Lori Plakos
Conducted by Master Gardener Volunteer, Lori Plakos.
I planted a 10'x10' test garden using different mulches to compare their effect on the production of bell peppers.
The test crop was bell peppers. Each plot was planted with three specimens each of red and yellow varieties which were purchased from a local nursery. These were planted on April 25, 2013. Unfortunately, the plants were subjected to a heat wave the following week, while I was out of town, and the housesitter had a difficult time keeping the plants moist, with the result that the control plot and the straw plot each lost a plant, and two died in the pine needle section, while those in the vermicompost all survived.
Variables to consider:
- Automatic sprinkler irrigation may have been inconsistent through the bed.
- Proximity to a fence may have influenced sun exposure. The straw and pine needle plants were furthest from the sun protection of the fence.
- Difficulty determining when to harvest. Waiting until peppers changed color appeared to be too late - they often rotted on the plant. I wasn't sure if I should consider all fruit, particularly toward end of season when fruit wasn't completely ripe. I included fruit of a particular size from all plants, even though I personally try to eat only colored peppers that are fully ripe. I know a lot of people eat green peppers.
Observations:
The non-mulched section (5 plants) grew weeds. The largest grasses were removed to prevent spread.
The straw mulch plants (5 plants) had problems with pests, mainly slugs. These were controlled using Sluggo 11. All of the plants had their share of pests, but the straw mulch was the worst. I've read that is a problem possibly due to the less dense nature of the straw harboring the pests. I have used a lot of straw mulch due to the fact it's readily available in my area and economical. I plan on running it through a shredder to make it more compactable and not using it where pests are a concern.
Those mulched with worm compost (6 plants) produced the strongest plants. The nutrients in the vermicompost helped the health of the plants. My preference would be to use that, but it is expensive to be able to use it over large areas. I do a lot of regular composting (mostly grass clippings and leaves), but I worry that working compost that isn't fully composted into the soil will compete with the plants. However, using it as a mulch will allow it to work in the soil over time when it is fully composted and giving the plants nutrients along the way.
The pine needle plants (4 plants) produced the largest crop per plant and overall in spite of the early plant losses and being furthest away from the fence's sun protection.
Results by Total Crop Weight rounding off to the nearest oz.
- Non-mulch: 52 oz.
- Straw mulch: 35 oz.
- Worm compost: 129 oz.
- Pine needles: 161 oz.
Conclusion:
The biggest thing I learned with this test is to MULCH. The most effective thing I learned about mulching during a drought is the resultant reduction in weeding and watering, which is very significant. The less attention you have to give to a particular plant, the more attention you can give to other parts of your garden.
The vermiculture mulch was the most expensive but those plants were the healthiest looking and best grown although they did not produce the heaviest crop. Those under pine needle mulch produced the best yield, far surpassing those grown either under straw or with no mulch at all.
/span>- Author: Carolyn Lynch
MARCH, 2015
“Sow seeds indoors 6 to 8 weeks before the last frost date.” Uh-oh… that's NOW.
March is the month for Owens Valley growers to start seeds for tomatoes (other seeds too, but they are topics for other days). I find I'm never quite ready when March 1 rolls around. Every year, the hardest part is deciding what to grow and what to leave out. Should I devote space to a variety that last year gave me some of the best tomatoes I ever ate… all 3 of them? Or one that cranked out hundreds of tomatoes that were, well, pretty good?
Knowing we were not alone in this dilemma, several Master Gardeners conducted tomato trials at the Sunrise Research Garden in downtown Bishop from 2011 through 2014. Our goal was to identify varieties we could recommend to local gardeners as both (1) likely to succeed and (2) worth growing. We also wanted to find answers to questions like “are heirlooms really better than hybrids?”, “are hybrids really better than heirlooms?” and “should I grow an early variety or just wait two more weeks for ripe tomatoes?”
Here's a brief summary of some of our findings and recommendations.
HYBRID VS OPEN POLLINATED (sometimes called “heirlooms,” though many are new varieties): A lot of gardeners have strong opinions about the virtues of one or the other. Conventional wisdom, in a nutshell, finds that hybrids are more reliable, and open-pollinated tomatoes taste better. At Sunrise, we found truth in this assessment… sometimes.
The first few years, our hybrids didn't perform significantly better than the open-pollinated (OP) varieties we grew. In each category we had some winners and some duds. This changed when our soil became infested with root-knot nematodes. In our fourth year, almost across the board, our nematode-resistant hybrids succeeded and our OPs failed. It seems reasonable to conclude that where there's a known disease or pest issue in a garden, a grower is much more likely to succeed with plants with known resistance to that disease or pest. While there are a few OPs (for example, Rutgers) with demonstrated resistance to one or more diseases, most resistant varieties are hybrids.
On the topic of flavor… it's subjective. Several of our hybrids did very well in our yearly “taste tests,” conducted by subjective humans, and some of the OPs fared poorly. Overall, though, good OPs were more likely to thrill us with intense flavors and lush textures, while good hybrids often tasted more juicy, fresh and bright. Our all-time taste test winner? A hybrid: Sun Gold.
One big advantage of OP tomatoes is that you can save their seed and grow them again. Hybrid seed will grow, but the tomatoes won't be like the ones the seed came from.
EARLY AND HEAT TOLERANT VARIETIES: Owens Valley has great tomato-growing weather but a relatively short growing season. Also, it sometimes gets really hot. We avoided growing tomatoes with days from transplant to harvest greater than 80. (Days to harvest is a figure attached to varieties by seed producers/suppliers: a ballpark estimate useful when comparing varieties, but not a promise. We have had our first ripe fruit weeks earlier or weeks later than predicted.) We have tried numerous early (fewer than 70 days) and very early (fewer than 60 days) varieties in an effort to identify good prospects for higher-elevation gardens with their even shorter seasons. We also tried several “heat set” varieties said to be less likely to suffer from blossom drop at high temperatures.
Most of the early varieties did produce fruit earlier than the others and several heat sets produced well through some very hot weather. However, several of these varieties produced tomatoes that none of us wanted to eat. Most people probably don't have the space or the inclination to grow plants that will produce tomatoes that they won't want once the good ones start to ripen. There were a few, though, that were good enough to recommend in their own right.
RECOMMENDATIONS: These varieties grew and produced well for us and tasted good, too. They are listed in general order of fruit size and earliness. HY=hybrid, OP=open-pollinated. Numbers are days to harvest given by seed suppliers/our average days to harvest at Sunrise. These varied a lot from year to year. Results from one year when a June freeze made all our tomatoes ripen unusually late skewed the overall results for the varieties grown that year; these are marked*. Disease resistance codes: V=Verticillium, F=Fusarium race 1, FF=Fusarium races 1 and 2, N=nematodes, T=Tobacco mosaic virus, A=Alternaria.
Sun Gold (HY, 57/71*, VF): Absolutely great orange cherry tomato with very sweet, fruity flavor on large, productive plants. Its only fault is the fruit cracks a lot. A lot of Sun Golds don't make it out of the garden before being devoured, however. Even some of the biggest “heirloom snobs” love this one. Why would you NOT grow it? Seeds and plants are available almost everywhere.
Super Sweet 100 (HY, 65/68, VF): Popular red cherry tomato, widely available as seeds and plants. Very productive with good sweet flavor and little cracking, the best red cherry we tried.
Bloody Butcher (OP, 55/47) and Matina (OP, 58/63): Two very early, small-fruited (1-2 oz) tomatoes with better than average flavor. Bloody Butcher was earlier and more productive but Matina won the taste test between the two. If you want really early fruit that's (a little) bigger than cherry-size or if your garden is at high altitude, these are worth growing. Seeds are available in catalogs and online.
Early Girl (HY, 60/77*, VFF): This is one of the most popular tomatoes in America for good reason. Even though it has never been all that “early” for us, once it started to bear it usually didn't stop until the plant froze. It isn't labeled a heat set, but in hot weather it out-performed several that were. Every tasting panel that has tried Early Girl gave the juicy, medium size fruit high marks for delicious flavor with well-balanced sweetness and acidity. Seeds and plants are available almost everywhere.
Jetsetter (HY, 64/77*, VFFNTA): As early in our trials as Early Girl, the medium to large fruit had really good, sweet but well balanced flavor. The combination of earliness, large fruit size, good flavor and disease resistance is the best we have seen in our trials. Seed for Jetsetter is becoming hard to find, though there are still several sources, mostly online. One problem with growing hybrids is since you can't save seed, if the seed companies stop offering it, you can't grow it.
Big Beef (HY, 73/69, VFFNTA): A superior hybrid tomato with large, delicious fruit and great disease resistance; a midseason variety, it came in early for us. We grew Big Beef for the first time last year after trying the very popular Better Boy three times. Based on our experience it is hard to imagine why anyone given a choice between the two wouldn't choose Big Beef. This variety is widely available as nursery plants and seed.
Cherokee Chocolate (OP, 75/71): This is the popular heirloom Cherokee Purple with a skin color mutation. Like Cherokee Purple, the flavor was superb, very sweet but complex. The gorgeous chocolate-brown fruit were often somewhat lobed; they suffered more catfacing or blossom-end cracking than the hybrids we grew but overall quality was more than acceptable. This is the one we fought over at the tasting table. Seed is listed in a few catalogs and online; Cherokee Purple plants can often be found in nurseries.
Prudens Purple (OP, 75/81*) and Virginia Sweets (OP, 80/71): Gigantic fruit (10 to 12 oz average; routinely 2 pounds or bigger) on monster plants. Prudens Purple is an early, very good pink (not purple) beefsteak. Virginia Sweets is bright yellow marbled with red inside and out, a beautiful tomato. Both had good flavor and wonderfully sumptuous, smooth texture. Don't try these if you don't have a lot of space. Prudens Purple seed can often be found at retail outlets (I got ours at Kmart); both are available from catalogs and online.
Other worthy varieties include Park's Whopper CR Improved (HY, 65/70, VFFNT), a reliable producer of medium (not “whopper”) size fruit, crack-resistant and with good flavor, maybe not quite as good as Jetsetter. Ball's Beefsteak (HY, 76/70, VFFT) wasn't really a beefsteak but a meaty, medium to large, round tomato with very good, full-bodied flavor. It was very productive one year but a flop the next. Some OP varieties we liked but that had issues include Gregori's Altai (OP, 67/66), a very early, tasty pink beefsteak and the similar German Johnson (OP, 80/66) which was just as early for us. Both produced fairly well but the fruit were often misshapen or ripened unevenly. One of our favorites was Sioux (OP, 70/73), a delicious medium size tomato with good heat tolerance; but we found that our Sioux seed gave inconsistent results with several plants producing fruit with very different shapes, color, and (inferior) flavor. Arkansas Traveler (OP, 85/64) is a heat set variety that gave beautiful, flawless pink fruit all season without a break; but unlike the others listed here, it didn't taste very good.
A couple of notable disappointments were the aforementioned Better Boy and Celebrity, two widely grown hybrids that didn't impress us in several tries. Most of the very early varieties we tried left us cold, including the widely praised Stupice, Sasha's Altai and Galina's.
IN CONCLUSION: Our premise has been that if a tomato does well at Sunrise, it will do well in Owens Valley. The Sunrise garden is a lot like a home garden; we try things (shade cloth, different ways to support our plants) that home gardeners might try, nothing too fancy, because we're looking for the kind of results a home gardener would get.
I know that a bad result at Sunrise is no guarantee the same variety won't succeed in another garden nearby. Celebrity has always done well for me. And Master Gardeners who have grown some of our recommended varieties at home have reported less than stellar results. But if you're trying to decide what to grow, you could do worse than to try some of the tomatoes recommended here. I have most of them growing in my kitchen right now.
- Author: Alison Collin
2014 Onion Trial Results
Conducted by Pat West, Master Gardener Volunteer
In an attempt to show which of the three types of onions are best suited to growing conditions in the Eastern Sierra a small-scale trial was performed by one of our Master Gardeners. The plants were grown in as similar conditions as possible and included 9 different varieties, three each of short day, intermediate and long day.
Location: West Bishop, full sun.
Soil: Raised bed, garden soil heavily amended with compost and some chicken manure. Pre-treated with 10-20-10 feed and weed mixed into the top three inches of soil. Mulched with grass clippings.
Irrigation: Drip, with lined buried 1” under the surface. Watered as necessary.
Varieties:
- Short day: Red Creole (red), Texas Early White, Texas Super Sweet (yellow)
- Intermediate day: Red Candy Apple, Super Star (white), Candy (yellow)
- Long day: Red Zeppelin, Ringmaster (white), Walla Walla (yellow).
Planting date: March 29, 2014 (all varieties), plants spaced at 4”
Fertilizing:
- 3/29 Side dressing at time of planting.
- 4/28 Side dressing
- 6/21 Spray of Fish Emulsion Mix
- 7/21 Spray of Fish Emulsion Mix.
Pests: The plants were affected by thrips later in the summer.
Results
Short day:
- Bulbed up June 1
- Tops tipped over July 1
- Stems browned by July 12
- Harvested July 16 and set to cure for 2 weeks.
Yield:
- 3 Red = 8oz.
- 35 White = 6lbs 9oz.
- 12 Yellow = 2lbs 9oz.
- Total: 50 plants yielded 8lbs 9 oz., averaging 2.1oz. each and 2¼ inches in diameter.
Intermediate:
- Bulbed up June 14
- Red tipped July 14, foliage dried, harvested July 22,
- White tipped Aug 1, foliage dried, harvested by Aug 10
- Yellow tipped Aug 8, foliage dried, harvested by Aug 1
Yield:
- 15 red = 1lb 14oz., aver. diameter 1¾”
- 26 white = 12lb 3oz., aver. diam. 2½”
- 80 yellow = 11lb 9oz., aver. diam. 2¼”
- Total: 71 plants yielded 25lbs 10 oz., averaging 5.8oz each.
Long Day:
- Bulbed up: Red Aug 1, White July 16, Yellow July 9
- Red tipped over Aug 15, foliage dried and harvested Aug 20
- White had thick necks which did not tip over and did not dry. Harvest Sept 6.
- Yellow tipped Aug 10, foliage dried and harvested Aug 15
Yield:
- 24 red =6lb, average diameter 1½”
- 19 white = 7lbs 5oz., average diam. 2½”
- 23 yellow = 11lb, average diam 2½”
- Total: 66 plants yielded 24lbs 5oz., averaging 5.2oz. each.
Curing: All onions were stored on racks for a couple of weeks until the outer skins were well dried.
Comments
In all cases the red varieties were considerably smaller than either the white or yellow varieties.
The short day varieties performed poorly with the tops tipping over and drying up before the bulbs had developed any appreciable size.
The intermediate or day neutral varieties performed best all round. They bulbed up well, were a nice size, were firm and round and cured well with a nice dry skin and neck. Candy also stored very well.
The long day ones grew and bulbed up well but the Ringmaster had very thick necks which refused to tip over and dry. They remained moist even after harvest and curing, so had to be used quickly. Interestingly, another Master Gardener had the same problem with Long day yellow onions (Golden Grande) grown in very similar conditions, although the same variety grown the previous year did not have the thick necks and had dried and stored well. The only obvious difference being that 2014 was a very hot summer, that crop had been mulched, and was much affected by thrips.
Conclusion: From this small study it would appear that the intermediate or day neutral varieties perform reliably in the Eastern Sierra high desert.
/h3>/h3>/h2>
- Author: Alison Collin
As you pore over seed catalogs and dream about what is possible in your 2014 garden, have a look at the bounty that Master Gardener Alison Collin received from her garden last summer. Thanks, Alison, for the detailed records and for the notes on what worked and what didn't. All this for $80 in supplies, plus - I suspect - a few hours of labor!
Yields from 17 x 30 veggie plot in Bishop, CA
Green Pole Beans, Fasold. (6) 11.6lbs
Onion Sets (12) 9.48 lbs
Onion Seed, Golden Grandee (17) 17.84 lb
Summer Squash, Magda (2) 74.83lb
Summer Squash, Golden Egg (2) 31lbs
Summer Squash, Zephyr (2) 8lbs
Winter squash, Sunshine (1) 22lbs
Winter Squash, Early Butternut (2) 9.64lbs
Slicing Cucumber, Tanja (2), Burpless(1) 42lbs
Tomato, Pineapple Cordon (1) 6lbs
Tomato, Pineapple unpruned (1) 14.78lb
Tomato, Juliet (1) 29lbs
Tomato, Golden Gem (1) 12lbs
Ground Cherry, Pineapple (4) 5.8lbs
Snap Peas, Oregon (8ft) 3lbs
Sugar Peas, Sugar Bon (8ft) 2.3lbs.
Early Potatoes, Victoria (5) 8.6lbs
Early Potatoes, purple (2) 3.5lbs
Early Potatoes, Red la Soda (5) 4.21lbs
Early Potatoes, Cal White (5) 10lbs
Carrot, Tendersweet (8ft) 4.5lbs
Carrot, Danvers Half Long* (8ft) 10.37lb
Parsnip, Gladiator, Albion* (17ft) 12.9lbs
Leeks, American Flag* (12ft) 3lbs (trimmed)
Cabbage, Wakefield* (1) 2.34lb
Pepper, California Wonder.(3) .75lb
Melon, Amy (3) 12.56lb
Produce from rest of garden
Raspberries 1.8lbs
Strawberries, Chandler (12) 4.34lbs
Strawberries, Sparkle (12) 6lbs
Rhubarb (2) 2.59lbs
Black Currant, Crandall (2) 0.9 lbs
Peach, early (1) 149.4lbs
Peach, late (1) 109.72lbs
Pear, Bartlett (1) 82.76lbs
Grape, Thompson’s Seedless 26.62lbs
Raspberry (12) 2lbs
TOTAL WEIGHED PRODUCE: 759lbs!
() denotes number of plants or length of row.
- *Denotes that there are still several plants to be harvested over winter.
- Although I tried to weigh everything, occasionally produce was given away prior to weighing, and grandchildren (and I) snacked on a good deal of produce out of hand which has not been included!
- Weights were after trimming such things as carrot tops.
- There was some waste which has not been included e.g. many of the carrots did not get harvested early enough and became split so were unusable and thus not included. Many peaches could not be reached, or were damaged.
- Crop failures included beetroot, spinach, apples, Contender and scarlet runner beans. (some produce but very small total).
- Potatoes were harvested as “new”potatoes, and yields would have been considerably higher if they had been left to mature.
- $80 spent on seed (have enough for more plantings).
- 1 pouch of Miracle Grow used during season, using up “left overs”. Otherwise, only compost was used.
- Author: Dustin Blakey
To me December represents the nadir of garden activity. It's cold, the days are short, and frankly I'm too worried about surviving Christmas with the kids to think about plants. As far as gardening is concerned, January is a huge improvement over the preceding month.
Maybe you get them sooner, but the companies I buy seeds from send me their propaganda in January. I can't think of anything that instills more of a sense of optimism and confidence in one's ability to raise a garden than a seed catalogue. Thankfully my lousy soil and uncooperative weather conspire to ensure I am fully humble by August when I'm left with not much more than some basil, cherry tomatoes, and maybe some sunburned peppers.
But today I'm excited! August is a long way off.
This weekend I'll probably put in my order for seeds for 2014 if I don't have to put in too much time toward child supervision.
This is the time of year you need to start thinking about what you want to grow and where you'll get the seeds or transplants. I usually just use what ever tomatoes and peppers I can find transplants for locally, but when I want a specific cultivar, then I will need enough lead time to grow the transplants in order to have them ready in time for spring. The time to sow vegetable transplants is getting close. If your seed order is still a to-do item, you may miss your chance to grow your own transplants. Don't delay! Operators are standing by.
You probably need to sow about 6 to 8 weeks before transplants are set out in the garden. If you grow cole crops from seed instead of buying transplants that means you need to be sowing soon!
Be sure when you make your seed order that you get enough for your fall crops. It is hard to find seeds or transplants in late summer and the seed companies may be sold out of the kind you want.
Remember that seed companies' writers always describe their offerings as amazingly super-awesome, but clearly not all can be. I recommend experimenting a little because that's fun, but don't be afraid to grow tried-and-true cultivars that worked for you in the past. Likewise when you can't find your favorite, don't worry about it. They usually drop poor sellers that either perform poorly compared to their other cultivars, or are just too hard to produce. In other words, there's usually a good reason you can't find it.
You can always ask a Master Gardener or a friend what they grow, as well. In some cases it just doesn't matter at the small scale of a home garden what you pick. I've always been impressed with eloquent descriptions of items like radishes. Is there really a radish worthy of a J. Peterman treatment?
Most seed companies buy many of their seeds in bulk from suppliers and repackage them. If you see the same cultivar available elsewhere–and it's packed for the current year–don't be afraid to go with the cheaper option. Sometimes you're just paying for a fancy seed envelope, shiny catalogue, or great story. (Ask me about kiwanos some time.)
Finally, plant what you like to use. If you don't like turnips, they don't need to be in your garden. Plant more of what you like instead! I find myself planting radishes, eggplant and squash each year because that's what you grow in a garden, but I really don't like them. Every spring I think that this will finally be the year I like squash, but it has yet come to pass. As I'm fighting squash bugs in July I annually conclude that I would have been happier with that space planted in bell peppers.
Maybe this will be the year I only buy seeds for what I like and will grow, and do it early enough to plant on time. But don't bet on it.
I'm sure you'll do better than me.