Welcome to the iGROW Sonoma blog!
On a bimonthly basis, we, Sara McCamant and Wendy Krupnick, will be offering our garden observations and suggestions for Sonoma County gardeners. We hope to support new gardeners who could use a bit more advice and direction and to share our tips with experienced gardeners. Each month you might find what you should be planting directly in the garden or starting inside, maintenance to do around the garden, some how to tips, discussion of pests or diseases that might be of concern that time of year, and harvesting advice and thoughts for use in the kitchen. We hope to be helpful, inspirational, educational, and fun.
Feel free to post your comments as well! We are not committing to responding to all, but offer a forum for discussion amongst blog readers, and we will try to incorporate responses to questions in the next scheduled blog.
Sara and Wendy bring over 50 years of combined food gardening experience and love sharing our passion with others. Learn more about each of our backgrounds here.
Plants want to grow, and many different gardening techniques can be successful. Sara and Wendy have similar approaches to “best practices” so will be presenting the ways we feel will give the most reliable results – bountiful harvests, fertile soil, and happy gardeners. We hope you will join us often as we dig in to the 2010 gardening season together.
Comments
Slugs and Snails...HELP!
I have been battling these critters all season long, and they only seem to be getting worse as the end of the growing season nears. I have moved into a community with gardens in place, which were so loaded with slugs that I resorted to using sluggo just to be able to grow anything at all. That, and copper rings around the plants which work great, but this is not a small garden with 15 residents ( that don't want to come out at night to pick), and it's very impractical and rediculously time consuming to place rings around each little plant when hundreds go in at a time. We've spent a certain amount of time coming out at night to pick them, which made enough of a dent in the population to get the bulk of the garden up and plants large enough so that they didn't compromise their health as much. Though it was impossible to get all the tiny baby slugs. Now that the garden is full of huge plants, some of which will stay through the winter like the brassicas, peas, and spinach, the snails seem to be in full force again and nearly impossible to find on all the large leaves of kale and broccoli. I would say the sluggo works better than picking off at night, but for these large gardens it seems impractical and expensive, and I don't know about the long-term effects of the organic mineral in the soil. The copper strips around the beds are not very effective, though they do help a bit when new.
Do their eggs die along with them in the winter? Is there anything that can be done in the early spring to keep the numbers down? What do the larger gardens do? I'd like to get a handle on this problem, what with the gophers making it impossible to plant in the ground and the slugs and snails eating everything in sight, I'm starting to think Sonoma County is one of the more difficult places to grow a garden.
I'd love to hear some practical advice that could make next year not such an uphill battle. Anything to add to the soil in winter that repels them? They love green bean shoots so much I had to plant them 4 times, but... now I do have a late crop of green beans to be thankful for!
Shanna Rose
Why are my tomato leaves curled and dry?
Hi there Sara and Wendy, and fellow Sonoma gardeners,
I'm sure you will get lots of questions. Maybe you can gather them up and answer common issues. We just put big planter boxes on our front lawn 2 weeks ago and I love looking at them ! My question is this : Why do my TOMATO PLANTS have DRY looking CURLED UP LEAVES and not seem to be growing much? My blue lake POLE BEAN LEAVES look SIMILARlY anemic. ( see pics on igrow map at Fertileburb farms- i cant figure out how to upload them here). The plants appear to be bug free. The tomatoes are heirloom. They did sit in the starters for a couple of weeks before planting. One is already making tiny cherry tomatos. We got soil from grab n grow and i added about 3-4 tablespoons of John and Bobs Organic Soil Optimizer per whole planter box (mainly mixed in near the vegie plants). I watered deeply and have either watered daily or its been raining. ( well, there may have been 1 day when i was away they didnt get watered, but it was cool out. ) The pole beans that are still in the starter container indoors look healthy. The marigolds planted in the corners of the box look healthy but may not have the soil optimizer stuff in that area. Okay.... thats my question.
Did i overdo it on the fertilizer? Is it just leaf burn from sun/rain water on the plants? My neighbor thinks its best to add some of the original clay soil (?) into the grab-n-grow type planter mix to... " help the plants absorb the water better" ? does that makes sense? Is it fungus? Should i leave them in longer and see what happens? or Pull them and start over???
Confused in Sebastopol,
Julie of Fertile burb Farm (or not so Fertile so far!)
A Sonoma County gardeners site!
I am so happy to see iGrow up and working. I think that it will be great to have local information and support.
Kai
Wendy Krupnik
Is this the same wonderful Wendy Krupnik who taught and/or teaches organics at SRJC????
Peter Tscherneff, "Cactus Pete"....volunteering at the Santa Rosa Community Media Center so too
the SAY (Social Advocates for Youth)..........I'd appreciate some direction in helping these kids to familiarize themselves with gardening...especially utilizing dryscapes producing fruit bearing cacti.....how to offer and connect into IGrow........also to document via video the various gardens and their progress
all suggestions to leoroarbig@yahoo.com..........thank-you, peter
Glad you're here!
I'm looking forward to your suggestions for Sonoma County gardeners. Even gardening books for California don't necessarily address the local soil and environment here. Even within Sonoma County there is a tremendous range of conditions.
This website is a great idea.
This is great
Thanks for sharing your wealth of experience with us. I am a new gardener and look forward to benefiting from your many years of experience growing food.
looking for two individuals or family to share garden space
Have perfect location in sebastopol large plot. green house, drip irigation system, tools and equpiment.
The plot is more than the two of us can handle. looking for individules to share in the effort.
Must be serious and willing to share some minor expenses.
Please call Tryg at 707-823-5957 to discuss the details