Mark your calendars for Saturday, April 13, the UC Master Gardeners of Napa County annual tomato sale. The popular sale is as much a sign of spring as the first robin is. Seedlings will be available from 9 am until sold out, so arrive early to get the varieties you want. Bring cash or your checkbook, no credit cards, please. The address is 1710 Soscol Avenue in Napa, near the Central Valley Hardware.

All the seedlings have been grown organically by Napa County Master Gardeners. Some varieties were chosen because they were favorites from past sales. Other varieties are new to the sale this year. Review the options before you come so you can head straight for the varieties you want. You'll find the complete list here. Each tomato is photographed and described; you can almost taste them. I was introduced to ‘Kellogg's Breakfast' at last year's sale, and it became my new favorite.

The descriptions also indicate whether the variety is determinate or indeterminate. Determinate tomatoes stop growing at a certain height and then start producing fruit. Indeterminate types keep growing even after they start to bloom.

Tomatoes need support from a cage, trellis, or stake to keep the fruit off the ground. It's wise to put the support in place when you plant the tomato. I've grown some tomatoes so vigorously that I had to put a cage around a cage. Once they set fruit, tomato vines can get heavy, so be sure your supports are sturdy.

Even if you find the tomatoes of your dreams at the plant sale, don't rush home, and plant them. The soil is still too cold, and we could still get a frost. Wait to plant until the soil temperature reaches at least 60°F. I have a soil thermometer and I check the temperature at a depth of 3 to 4 inches. The soil is usually sufficiently warm by late April or early May.

By the time the soil is warm enough to plant, your tomatoes will have grown taller. Pinch off the lower leaves and plant the tomato so that only the top 3 to 4 inches is above ground. The seedling will form roots all along the buried stem. You can find detailed tomato planting instructions here, including directions on how to acclimate your seedlings to their new outdoor home.

Choose a sunny area for your tomatoes and do not plant them in the same spot you used last year. Tomatoes can carry soil-borne diseases like verticillium wilt. Rotating their location on a three-year cycle helps keep these diseases from getting established in your soil.

Once my tomatoes start to bloom, I walk around in the morning and evening and give the plants a shake. Tomato flowers have both male and female parts so they are self-pollinating but shaking them can help move the pollen from the stamen (the male part) to the stigma (the female part) of the plant. And thus, tomatoes are born. Bees will do this job for you, but I believe in using assisted reproduction to get more tomatoes to my table.

During the Master Gardener tomato sale, there will be several mini demonstrations: “Planting in Containers” at 9:30 am; “Companion Planting” at 10 am; “Tomato Problems” at 10:30 am; and “Dealing with Gophers” at 11 am. There will also be staffed booths focused on education, compost, soils, and Master Gardener recruitment.

One of the main tomato pests is the hornworm. When people first see this creature, they want to stomp on it or feed it to their chickens. I, however, encourage people to let these creatures survive. They don't eat that much.

When I see hornworms, I pick them off and put them in open garden soil with a large jug or container over them. Then I feed them a few tomato leaves every day. This is usually their last stage before digging themselves into the soil, pupating and emerging as a large sphinx moth. We don't often see these moths because they fly at night, but they are a pollinator.  And we need all the pollinators we can get.

So, make your tomato shopping list and bring it with you to the sale, where you'll find about 7,000 seedlings awaiting new homes.

Tomato Plant Sale: UC Master Gardeners of Napa County holds its annual tomato plant sale on Saturday, April 13, from 9 am until sold out, at 1710 Soscol Avenue, Napa. Choose from 25 varieties grown by Napa County Master Gardeners. Plants are $5 each, cash or check only. Workshop: Join UC Master Gardeners of Napa County for “Growing Tomatoes” on Sunday, April 14, from 2 pm to 3 pm, via Zoom. We'll discuss types of tomato plants and how to care for them, including soil and watering needs, staking, pest prevention and more. Register to receive the Zoom link. Help Desk: The Master Gardener Help Desk is available to answer your garden questions on Mondays and Fridays from 10 a.m. until 1 p.m. at the University of California Cooperative Extension Office, 1710 Soscol Avenue, Suite 4, Napa. Or send your questions to mastergardeners@countyofnapa.org. Include your name, address, phone number and a brief description.

I find great pleasure in planting and growing perennials. In contrast to annuals, perennials are the vines, bushes, trees, and other plants that come back year after year.

Planting in spring, the season of rebirth, is particularly gratifying. Your new plants are joining the perennials that are waking up from their winter nap and sprouting new growth.

Recently I planted four fruit trees. They won't produce any fruit for a few years, but the anticipation will hold my interest as they establish themselves. I also planted raspberry and boysenberry vines and am already envisioning the fresh fruit they will yield in a few years.

Planting is a relatively easy process if you pay attention to a few factors, like site selection. If you plant a sun lover in a shady spot or situate a plant that needs good drainage in a low spot, you'll probably be replanting next year.

The area where I wanted to plant my fruit trees is the lowest spot on our property. After digging a hole, I saw ground water accumulating. This wasn't a game-ending discovery but rather a warning sign that I had better do something. My solution was to create a 15-inch berm as a planting site. The elevation would keep the roots out of harm's way.

Just because you've planted something doesn't mean you're done. Getting plants to grow is much more of a challenge. Perennial plants, bushes and trees require attention every year, such as pruning and fertilizing. You also need to watch for pests and diseases that could prevent your new plants from performing at their best.

In 2000 my wife and I planted a small Syrah vineyard that produced great fruit. However, a few years ago, the vineyard became infected with Pierce's disease, a bacterial malady spread by leafhoppers. We had to tear out the vines and either replant or find another use for the land.

With the vineyard gone, we had a large open field that was good only for growing weeds. In the warmer months, it required constant mowing. However, to quote Alexander Graham Bell, when one door closes another one opens.

Today, where Syrah vines once thrived, we now have 13 goats. This development is thanks to a chance meeting with a local family that had the goats but no home for them. I miss the Syrah made from our grapes, but going through a birthing season with the goats has given me a new appreciation for anyone raising livestock.

After grapevines, olive trees have been my biggest challenge. They aren't difficult to grow, but they do have some issues. I have 22 mature trees that, fortunately, don't require fertilization. I apply a few inches of compost, which doesn't cost much, and the trees are happy.

However, olive trees are susceptible to the olive fruit fly and require application of GF-120 NF Naturalyte Fruit Fly Bait to protect them. According to Napa County's agriculture commissioner, this product is the most popular and effective pesticide registered for olive fruit fly control.

A few years ago, we lost our entire olive crop to this little pest, so we are diligent about protecting our trees. Purchasing GF-120 is painful. For 22 trees I need at least two gallons, which  costs about $700. That's a giant “ouch” in my book. You need a back sprayer for application so that's yet more expense.

In 2023 we had some good news and some bad news. The good news was that we had a record olive crop and very little fruit-fly damage. The bad news was that we didn't realize the actual size of the crop until after we had picked the olives and were starting to prune the trees. That's when we saw, hidden high up in the trees, even more olives than we had already harvested. It has been painful to harvest overripe olives that immediately went into the yard-waste can.

How did that happen? For various reasons, we couldn't prune our olive trees for two years. They had become overgrown, and by overgrown, I mean way too tall and too thick with branches. There's an old saying that a sparrow should be able to fly through an olive tree. There was no chance of that with our trees. Today, thanks to a few professional pruners, almost any size bird can fly through our olive trees.

We took our olives to a local olive mill on “community day.” They were crushed for oil along with all the other olives delivered that day. We paid 85 cents a pound to mill the olives plus the cost of plastic containers, so it cost us about $300 for 3-1/2 gallons of olive oil.

Add the fruit-fly spray to that and you have some of the most expensive olive oil in existence. If we wanted to save money, we could drive to Corning and purchase a few gallons of olive oil from a local mill, then stop for a nice dinner at Buckhorn Steakhouse in Winters.

A stroll around the garden shows our perennials are waking up and ready for another year. Plants are blooming, vines are growing, and our olive trees are ready to bloom. All in all, a good spring in the garden.

Workshop:  Join UC Master Gardeners of Napa County for a “Worm or Backyard Composting Workshop” on Saturday, April 27, from noon to 2 pm, at City of Napa Senior Center, 1500 Jefferson Street, Napa. Learn about composting in your own backyard, hot composting, cool composting, or worm composting—choose your own adventure. For those taking the backyard portion, after concluding the workshop, you may purchase a discounted compost bin for $20 (one bin per household). Worm class attendees will receive a free worm compost tool kit, including the worms that you will set up with the UC Master Gardeners to take home. Register here.

Workshop: Join UC Master Gardeners of Napa County for “Irrigation for Low-Water Gardens” on Saturday, April 27, from 10 am to noon, at Las Flores Learning Garden, 4300 Linda Vista Avenue, Napa. Get instruction on how to create an efficient system for your garden. Presenters will also show how the drip system at the Las Flores Learning Garden was created. Register here.

Help Desk: The Master Gardener Help Desk is available to answer your garden questions on Mondays and Fridays from 10 am until 1 pm at the University of California Cooperative Extension Office, 1710 Soscol Avenue, Suite 4, Napa. Or send your questions to mastergardeners@countyofnapa.org. Include your name, address, phone number and a brief description.