Love Apple Farms

Workshop: Pickling

This class is designed for the beginner preserving student interested in pickling. We will cover all of the basics from fairly simple tricks and techniques to the more intimidating and involved preserving processes. 

Among the subjects we will cover in class are:

        - Food safety (your number one priority)
        - Causes of food spoilage and how to avoid them
        - The right ingredients for pickling
        - Tools of the trade
        - Water bath canning pickling method
        - Simple, fresh refrigerator pickles
        - Japanese-style pickles

Students will create and take home various jars of pickles. 

This is a hands-on workshop limited to six students only. Cynthia Sandberg will teach this class at Love Apple Farms, located at 2317 Vine Hill Road, Santa Cruz, CA

CLASSES ARE HELD RAIN OR SHINE
ALL CLASSES REQUIRE ADVANCE REGISTRATION
 

August 4, 2018 (Saturday) 10:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.  $119 plus materials fee of $30 SOLD OUT!

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Please review our cancellation policy in case you are not able to attend your scheduled class.

Sign up for our newsletter to receive updates on new classes, planting tips, free give-aways, and more exclusive content.

If the workshop dates don't work for you, if the class is full, or if you'd like to request that another class be added, please email us at loveapplefarm@gmail.com to let us know and we'll do our best to accommodate you.

Love Apple Farm gift certificates can be used toward classes, seedlings and merchandise and are available for purchase here.

Check out other classes at Love Apple Farm by clicking here.

Workshop: Canning Fruits and Vegetables

Canning can be intimidating, but it really isn't as hard as it looks. From the different jars, array of closure methods, fear of spoilage, and bizarre looking tools, it's easy to get overwhelmed with the idea of canning your summer bounty. We help you break through the confusion, and once you know how to can, it's really quite easy, fun and useful.

Since this is an introductory course, we won't be tackling the intricacies of a pressure cooker. There is plenty of canning to be done with everyday kitchen tools if you know what you're doing. This class is taught by Cynthia Sandberg at Love Apple Farms, located at 2317 Vine Hill Road, Santa Cruz, CA.

This hands-on workshop is limited to six students. Class participants will learn basic water bath canning and will take home several jars of canned goods. If you'd like to advance your skills, consider our Using a Pressure Cooker class.

CLASS HELD RAIN OR SHINE

ADVANCED REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED, EVEN FOR GIFT CERTIFICATE HOLDERS

August 18, 2018 (Saturday) 10:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m  $119 plus materials fee of $30 <<Click on date to register (Gift certificate holders register by emailing loveapplefarms@gmail.com)

Materials to bring to class: knife, apron. If you cannot bring these, we will provide them. For more information about how to prepare for class, CLICK HERE

Please review our cancellation policy in case you are not able to attend your scheduled class.

Sign up for our newsletter to receive updates on new classes, planting tips, free give-aways, and more exclusive content.

Love Apple Farms gift certificates can be used toward classes, seedlings and merchandise and are available for purchase here.

Check out other classes at Love Apple Farms by clicking here.

 

Workshop: Jam Making

Irma Rombauer, the author of Joy of Cooking, wrote in her chapter on Canning:  "It is a thrill to possess shelves well stocked with home-canned food.  In fact, you will find their inspection - often surreptitious - and the pleasure of serving the fruits of your labor comparable only to a clear conscience or a very becoming hat."

Unfortunately, the Canning and Preserves chapters of current editions of Joy of Cooking have been removed in favor of more modern culinary techniques and interests. We think that's a shame.  Gone are the neat line drawings of pressure cookers and Mason jars. One can't ogle a diagram of how to skin a squirrel or find a recipe of how to cook an armadillo (We are not making that up). These are definitely lost arts.

The art of jam making doesn't have to be lost on you, however. Here at Love Apple Farm you can learn this fun and satisfying craft. We will make several kinds of jam during the workshop, utilizing a couple of different methods. Students will take home a few jars of jam that we process in class.

This workshop is hands-on and limited to six students. Taught by Cynthia Sandberg in her home kitchen located at Love Apple Farms, 2317 Vine Hill Road, Santa Cruz, CA. Read a nice review of our canning type classes here and then here.

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ADVANCE REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED, EVEN FOR GIFT CERTIFICATE HOLDERS
AGES 13 AND UP ONLY PLEASE

June 23, 2018 (Saturday) 10:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.  $119 plus materials fee of $30 <<Click on date to register.

Materials to bring to class: knife, apron. If you cannot bring these, we will provide them. For more information about how to prepare for class, CLICK HERE.

If the workshop dates don’t work for you, if the class is full, or if you’d like to request that another class be added, please email us at loveapplefarms@gmail.com and we’ll do our best to accommodate you!

Please read our cancellation policy in case you are not able to attend your scheduled class. 

Subscribe to our newsletter to receive information about new classes, planting tips, free give-aways, and more exclusive content.  

Love Apple Farms gift certificates can be used towards classes, seedlings, and merchandise.  They are available for purchase here.  

Check out other classes at Love Apple Farms by clicking here.     

 

Workshop: Using a Pressure Cooker

This workshop will teach you the basics about using a pressure cooker. You can preserve low-acid foods such as tomatoes, potatoes, pasta sauces, green beans, even meats using a pressure cooker. 

Pressure cookers can also be used to quickly soften cuts of meat that would otherwise take hours to cook (you've seen them used on Iron Chef and Top Chef episodes to do this). 

Using a pressure cooker may seem mysterious and scary to some of you, but come to Love Apple Farms to learn how to use one safely and effectively. Class is limited to six students, taught by Cynthia Sandberg, owner of Love Apple Farms in her home kitchen located at 2317 Vine Hill Road, Santa Cruz, CA. 

This is a hands-on workshop where we will be pressure cooking tomatoes, another seasonal fruit or veggie, and a tough cut of meat to show you how tender it can be when pressure-cooked. We will dine on the meat and students will take home the pressure-canned goodies. If you'd like to first learn the basics of canning, you'd do well to take our Simple Canning & Preserving Class.

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ADVANCE REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED, EVEN FOR GIFT CERTIFICATE HOLDERS

June 16, 2018 (Saturday) 10:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m. $119 plus materials fee of $30 << Click date to register (gift certificate holders register by emailing loveapplefarm@gmail.com).

Materials to bring to class: knife, apron. If you cannot bring these, we will provide them. For more information about how to prepare for class, CLICK HERE.

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Please read our cancellation policy in case you are not able to attend your scheduled class.  If the workshop dates don’t work for you, if the class is full, or if you’d like to request that another class be added, please email us at loveapplefarms@gmail.com and we’ll do our best to accommodate you!

Subscribe to our newsletter to receive information about new classes, planting tips, free give-aways, and more exclusive content.  

Love Apple Farms gift certificates can be used towards classes, seedlings, and merchandise.  They are available for purchase here.  

Check out other classes at Love Apple Farms by clicking here.   

Workshop: The Fine Art of Dahlia Growing

We like to call dahlias, "the king of flowers," because of their awesomeness. If roses are the queen of flowers, then dahlias are certainly their equal. We'll learn the various shapes and sizes of dahlias, and their names, as well as how to propagate, plant, stake, prune, fertilize, and deal with their worst garden pests. Students will take home potted cuttings after we walk the garden, talking, discussing, and learning all about this wonderful flower family. 

This class is taught by Cynthia Sandberg, renowned gardening expert, founder of the World Tomato Society, and is held on-site at Love Apple Farms, located at 2317 Vine Hill Road, Santa Cruz, CA (please no visitors unless you are a registered student and only on class day). Read speaker and class reviews for Cynthia Sandberg, here. 

ALL CLASSES ARE HELD RAIN OR SHINE
AND REQUIRE ADVANCE REGISTRATION

June 3, 2018 (Sunday) 10:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.  CLASS CANCELED

 

Subscribe to our newsletter to receive information about new classes, planting tips, free give-aways, and more exclusive content.  

Love Apple Farms gift certificates can be used towards classes, seedlings, and merchandise.  They are available for purchase here.  

Check out other classes at Love Apple Farms by clicking here.     

Workshop: Tomato Masters

Learn how to master the art and science of the world's most popular fruit. Follow the growing techniques learned in this workshop to grow 7 foot tall plants that yield 100 pounds of fruit per plant! This is a hands-on seminar on backyard tomato growing. Get the latest techniques for fertilizing, pruning, and soil amending for maximum production, health and taste.  Yes, you CAN help your tomatoes taste better. Yes, you CAN achieve results to make even your most doubting relatives and neighbors envious.

We'll also talk staking, proper garden siting, mulching, watering, disease and pest control, harvesting, the heirloom vs. hybrid debate, and seed saving.

This Tomato Masters class is taught by farmer Cynthia Sandberg co-founder of the World Tomato Society, and is held at Love Apple Farms' spring plant sale, located at 5311 Scotts Valley Dr., Scotts Valley, CA. Read speaker and class reviews for Cynthia Sandberg here.

ALL CLASSES ARE HELD RAIN OR SHINE AND REQUIRE ADVANCE REGISTRATION
    

January 15, 2023 (Sunday) 10:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m.  SOLD OUT!

January 22, 2023 (Sunday) 10:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m. SOLD OUT!

February 4, 2023 (Saturday) 10:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m. SOLD OUT!

February 26, 2023 (Sunday) 10:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m. CANCELLED DUE TO WEATHER

March 19, 2023 (Sunday) 10:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m.  SOLD OUT!

April 9, 2023 (Easter Sunday) 10:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m. $69 << Click date to register (gift certificate holders register by emailing loveapplefarm@gmail.com).

April 29, 2023 (Saturday) 10:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m. $69 << Click date to register (gift certificate holders register by emailing loveapplefarm@gmail.com). 

May 21, 2023 (Sunday) 10:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m. $69 << Click date to register (gift certificate holders register by emailing loveapplefarm@gmail.com).

June 3, 2023 (Saturday) 10:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m. $69 << Click date to register (gift certificate holders register by emailing loveapplefarm@gmail.com).

Please read our cancellation policy in case you are not able to attend your scheduled class. 

Subscribe to our newsletter to receive information about new classes, planting tips, free give-aways, and more exclusive content.  

If the workshop dates don’t work for you, if the class is full, or if you’d like to request that another class be added, please email us and we’ll do our best to accommodate you!

Love Apple Farms gift certificates can be used towards classes, seedlings, and merchandise.  

Check out other classes at Love Apple Farms by clicking here.

Download the Introduction to Bee-Keeping Presentation

For students who have attended our Backyard Bee-Keeping workshop,  Download Intro to Beekeeping here.  You will need sufficient space on your computer and Adobe Acrobat Reader. Fab Photo above taken by our bee student, Kathleen Whitmer.

Workshop: Straw Bale Vegetable Gardening

  The reception and enthusiasm for straw bale gardening has proved revolutionary in vegetable growing. Why? Because the bold promises it makes are kept: grow vegetables anywhere, earlier in the year, with no weeding. Gardeners everywhere are excited. Straw bale gardening works! You can apply this method in just about any environment: on a city balcony, by a beachside retreat, in a rocky outpost, in a desert, and even in the tundra of Alaska.

This class contains all of the information that has set the gardening world on fire, including growing in a tight urban setting, making your straw bale garden completely organic, and using proper fertilizers and conditioning products.  

Straw bale gardening solves every impediment today's home gardeners face: bad soil, weeds, a short growing season, watering problems, limited garden space, and even physical difficulty working at ground level. Straw bale gardens create their own growing medium and heat source so you can get an earlier start. It couldn't be simpler or more effective: all you need is a few bales of straw, some fertilizer, and some seeds or plants, and you can create a weedless vegetable garden anywhere-even in your driveway. Our step-by-step workshop demo and lecture offers all the information you need to make your own straw bale garden as soon as you get home!  Whether it's seedlings or seeds, veggies or flowers, there is practically no limit to the plant varieties that will prosper in a straw bale garden - and with our help - you can do it all yourself. 

This class is taught by farmer Cynthia Sandberg co-founder of the World Tomato Society, and is held at Love Apple Farms' spring plant sale, located at 5311 Scotts Valley Dr., Scotts Valley, CA. Read speaker and class reviews for Cynthia Sandberg, here. 

ALL CLASSES ARE HELD RAIN OR SHINE
AND REQUIRE ADVANCE REGISTRATION

April 7, 2019 (Sunday) 10:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.  $69 << Click on date to register (gift certificate holders register by emailing loveapplefarms@gmail.com).

If the class date doesn't work for you or if the class is full, email us at loveapplefarms@gmail.com to request another workshop date or to be notified if we add another such class. 

Please read our cancellation policy in case you are not able to attend your scheduled class.  

Subscribe to our newsletter to receive information about new classes, planting tips, free give-aways, and more exclusive content.  

Love Apple Farms gift certificates can be used towards classes, seedlings, and merchandise.  They are available for purchase here.  

Check out other classes at Love Apple Farms by clicking here.

Workshop: Fruit Trees Simplified

In our Fruit Tree class, you will learn how to select and care for most common fruit trees. Learn when and how to prune, fertilize, irrigate and harvest. Why not have something fruiting and ripe year round?  Which varieties of which type of fruit are best for our Bay Area climate? Do Blenheim apricots live up to the hype? What's a better persimmon - Fuyu or Hachiya? Can you prune in the summer, or will that hurt the tree?  We will be focusing on apples, peaches, pears, cherries, plums, pomegranates, persimmons, nectarines, apricots, figs, avocado, and citrus. 

Fruit trees are a joy in every yard and garden. Chances are that you have a perfect spot for one. Make an investment in your yard, your health, and your happiness by planting one this year! Or simply learn how to care for an existing orchard.

This class will be held at Love Apple Farms' nursery location, 5311 Scotts Valley Dr., Scotts Valley, CA.

ALL CLASSES ARE HELD RAIN OR SHINE AND REQUIRE ADVANCE REGISTRATION

February 18, 2023 (Saturday) 10:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m. $79 << Click date to register (gift certificate holders register by emailing loveapplefarm@gmail.com).

March 4, 2023 (Saturday) 10:00 a.m - 3:00 p.m. CANCELED DUE TO WEATHER

May 27, 2023 (Saturday) 10:00 a.m - 3:00 p.m. $79 << Click date to register (gift certificate holders register by emailing loveapplefarm@gmail.com).

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Please read our cancellation policy in case you are not able to attend your scheduled class. 


If the workshop dates don’t work for you, if the class is full, or if you’d like to request that another class be added, please email us and we’ll do our best to accommodate you!

Love Apple Farms gift certificates can be used towards classes, seedlings, and merchandise.  They are available for purchase here. 

Check out other classes at Love Apple Farms by clicking here.

Download the Winter Vegetable Gardening Powerpoint

For students who have taken our Winter Vegetable Gardening class, you may Download Winter Vegetable Gardening as a PDF. 

Workshop: Succulent Wreaths

Come learn all about these precious, living beauties. You'll each make a living wreath from dozens of available succulent cuttings. Learn how to create, care for, and properly display your treasure. Warning: learning about succulents is addictive and may lead to excessive crafting, gardening and succulent purchasing!

 

About your instructor:

 

Tamara Cucchiara has been nick-named "The Succulent Diva." She is considered the “go to expert” in the community for succulent designing, demonstrations, teaching, care and propagation. Her succulent knowledge was first recognized by the community when she began teaching hundreds of volunteers at the Homeless Garden Project in Santa Cruz. Her luscious designs have been sold at both HGP retail shops and other area art and garden shops.

 

Tamara collaborates with local Master Gardeners by teaching propagation and care of succulents to the community. Her clients have traveled from all over the Bay Area just to learn from this recognized expert. Her succulent designs have been recognized as real living art. We are proud to have Tamara as a visiting expert instructor!

ALL CLASSES ARE HELD RAIN OR SHINE
AND REQUIRE ADVANCE REGISTRATION

THIS WORKSHOP IS HELD AT 5311 SCOTTS VALLEY DRIVE
IN SCOTTS VALLEY, CA 

October 28, 2017 (Saturday) 1:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m. $99 plus materials fee of $20 <<Click on date to register (gift certificate holders register by emailing loveapplefarms@gmail.com)

Please read our cancellation policy in case you are not able to attend your scheduled class. Email us at loveapplefarms@gmail.com if you'd like to be notified when we add another such workshop.

If you'd like to be notified if we add another class date, please email us at loveapplefarms@gmail.com. Subscribe to our newsletter to receive information about new classes, planting tips, free give-aways, and more exclusive content.  

If the workshop dates don’t work for you, if the class is full, or if you’d like to request that another class be added, please email us and we’ll do our best to accommodate you!

Love Apple Farms gift certificates are available for purchase here.  

Check out other classes at Love Apple Farms by clicking here. 

 

Download the Growing Tomatoes, Peppers and Eggplants from Seed Powerpoint

For those students who have attended our Growing Tomatoes, Peppers and Eggplants from Seed class, you may Download Growing Tomatoes Peppers & Eggplants from Seed  Handout.
 

Download the Straw Bale Gardening Slides

For students who have attended our Straw Bale Vegetable Gardening workshop, you may Download Straw Bale Gardening 4.6.19 Powerpoint presentation as a PDF. You'll need enough space on your computer to accept the file and Adobe Acrobat installed (most computers have both the space and Adobe already).

Download the Garden Mosaics Slide-Show

For those students who attended our Garden Mosaics class,  Download Mosaic Slides as a pdf file (you must have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your computer plus enough space to accept the file).

Download Slideshow for Intro to Organic Gardening

For students who have attended Cynthia Sandberg's Intro to Organic Gardening talk, you may  Download Organic Gardening 101 slideshow as a PDF here.

Check out our other gardening and cooking classes here. 

Learn more about our annual tomato plant sale here. 

2013 Re-Post: How I Plant a Tomato

It's tradition for me to re-post this every year. Don't forget folks: Love Apple Farm's tomato plant sale is in full swing at 5311 Scotts Valley Drive in Scotts Valley (near Santa Cruz, CA).  For the first time, we carry all of the products that we advocate putting into the tomato plant hole!

How do we plant a tomato, you might ask?  With a ridiculous amount of stuff in the hole, is the answer.  When someone ropes me into telling them and I start the long answer, I eventually see their eyes glaze over.  That's the point where I say, "Then you throw in the kitchen sink and cover it all up."  To date, no one has laughed at that joke. I think they're just either too overwhelmed by the real stuff we put in there, or they actually believe we're throwing in a sink.

This is how we plant a tomato.  First off, let's take a look at our sexy specimen here on the left.

We started this beauty in our heated greenhouse in late January. We potted it up to a gallon container about 3 or 4 weeks ago.  It will go into one of our freshly prepared beds, shown to the right. 

 

The tomatoes are placed three feet apart. I've learned over the years that spacing them closer than that means less fruit.  We dig a nice deep hole to accommodate all the additions - the exact depth is dependent upon how tall the seedling is that you start with.  We want the plant to be almost completely submerged into the soil, and the fish head and amendments put into the hole need to be covered with a bit of soil, so we plan accordingly for the depth.  This particular hole ends up being almost two feet deep, and is ready for our first goody, these impressive fish heads.We get them from the restaurant we grow for, Manresa.  You might be able to get them free from a good butcher or fishmonger.  I even know of someone who called a few restaurants in their area and was quickly rewarded with a nice bounty of juicy fish heads.  Fish tails, spines, guts, as well as shrimp, crab, or lobster shells are all good as well.  Some of you may worry about critters digging these up later.  We've never had a problem with animals digging up my tomatoes, and we've got three dogs, two cats, and what seem like an endless supply of raccoons living on the property.  I stress the point that this is the first thing that goes into our very deep planting hole.  That may help keep it from getting dug up.  You can see the six inch long fish head staring up at us from the bottom of the hole here:
If you're reticent to put the fish head in the hole, or simply can't get your mitts on any, we recommend using fish meal as a substitute. Two handfuls is about right. We get ours from Gardner & Bloome.

The next thing that goes into the hole are a couple of aspirin tablets and some crushed chicken egg shells. The aspirin is to help jump start the plant's immune system.  You can read more about that science here.  We'll put three or four crushed egg shells into the hole as well. You can see our three colors of eggs from our fancy chickens - yes, those are green eggs in there. The eggs supply a nice calcium boost, which will help prevent blossom end rot, that nasty brown patch on the bottom of tomatoes that lack calcium (the fish head bones and bone meal also help with that).

Bone meal is the next to go into the hole.  We put in a heaping handful of bone meal.  This is a nice organic phosphorus source, which is essential for blossom production.  More blossoms, more fruit.  Bone meal also increases calcium availability for the tomato. This is also a Gardner & Bloome product. 

We then put in two handfuls of Gardner & Bloome's Tomato, Vegetable and Herb Fertilizer. It's an all-purpose  organic fertilizer that contains the essential macronutrients of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassiun. Their mix is a very nice 4-6-3 of those nutrients.

We also recommend putting a handful of pure worm castings in the bottom of the hole.  We amend our beds with worm castings and we also spray a worm casting tea on the plants while they grow.  Really great stuff.  Worm castings are available for sale at our tomato plant sale.

The hole is complete (sans kitchen sink) and we're now ready to pop in the tomato plant.  We trim off the lower leaves, be there one, two, three or more, leaving only the top-most leaves.

We put an inch or two of soil on top of the amendments in the hole.  The plant is eased out of the pot, and before it's placed in the hole, I sprinkle the rootball with a product called RootZone, which is a mycorrhizal fungi that attaches to the roots, growing as the root ball grows.  It protects the plant from some diseases, such as verticillium and fusarium wilts.  The product is sold under other names, such as Xtreme Gardening's Mykos. 

Once the tomato is in the hole, we double check the depth by judging how far out of the ground the plant will be sticking.  If it's going to be too far down, we'll remove the plant and add some more soil.  If it looks like it'll be up above the soil more than we want, that's too bad because we ain't gonna be fishing them fish parts and all that other stuff up out of that hole and digging it deeper.  No siree.  So we try our best to gauge the depth of the hole according to the height of the plant we're putting in.

We then back fill GENTLY - only one quasi-firm push settles the soil around the plant. Please do not man-handle the soil around the plant by stomping on it or pressing too hard.  That's not necessary and it expels all the air out of the soil.  Believe it or not, the roots need oxygen down there just as much as they need nutrients and water. 

A temporary well is then made around the plant base to catch the first watering.  The first watering is the most critical.  We do it multiple times.  Water it in once, twice, three times at least.  Wait a few minutes to allow the water to drain through.  If you have a deep hole, likely way more than 12 inches deep, you will be amazed at how much water it will take to wet the root ball a foot or more under the ground.  So don't be stingy with the water the first day. Thereafter, you can back off the watering.  Here's our finished bed.  You can see the tomatoes are spaced pretty far apart:

Drip irrigation will be repositioned on the bed, and staking and mulching has yet to be done.  You can find out more about those items here.  In the meantime, please feel free to email us or leave a comment below with any questions.

If you're still not getting the results you want, then consider taking our Tomato Masters class.

You can also find more information all about tomatoes on the World Tomato Society website.

Good luck, folks!

Workshop: Wreaths from the Garden

 

The gorgeous wreath above was made last year by one of our students, Leslie Marshall, during this very hands-on wreath workshop. You will learn how to make holiday garden wreaths using landscape trimmings available in your own backyard! The wreath is a symbol of continuity and renewal, a leafy green reminder of summer that pulls our homes and spirits through the depths of winter. Once you master the art of making wreaths, you will be happy to add it to your list of holiday traditions.  

We will explore wreath construction in multiple phases:  base, body, and decorations. You will start with loose landscape prunings and end with holiday masterpieces!  Incorporating wreath-making into your yearly garden cycle also helps reduce your carbon footprint by replacing store-bought decorations with lovely, handmade ones. Woody herbs like rosemary, lavender, or bay laurel make especially fragrant and beautiful wreaths. You will never look at your landscape waste pile the same way again!

Click here for a photo display of last year's wreath class! This workshop will be held at Love Apple's retail nursery, located at 5311 Scotts Valley Dr., Scotts Valley, CA

ALL CLASSES ARE HELD RAIN OR SHINE AND REQUIRE ADVANCE REGISTRATION
WE HAVE INDIVIDUAL TABLES SPACED MORE THAN 6' APART

September 11, 2021 (Saturday) Noon - 4:00 p.m. $69  plus small materials fee of $10 <<<Click on date to register (gift cert holders register by emailing loveapplefarm@gmail.com)

Materials to bring to class: clippers or garden shears with a fine point (not a bypass pruner), wreath materials such as pine, fir, redwood, spruce boughs, dried flowers, fresh herb stalks, fall dried leaves, grape leaves and fines, etc. etc. If you cannot bring these, we will provide them. For more information about how to prepare for class, CLICK HERE.

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Please read our cancellation policy in case you are not able to attend your scheduled class.  

If the workshop dates don’t work for you, if the class is full, or if you’d like to request that another class be added, please email us and we’ll do our best to accommodate you!

Love Apple Farms gift certificates can be used towards classes, seedlings, and merchandise.  They are available for purchase here.  

Check out other classes at Love Apple Farms by clicking here.  

How We Plant a Tomato

Love Apple Farm's tomato plant sale will be held at 5311 Scotts Valley Drive in Scotts Valley (near Santa Cruz, CA) and will begin on Sunday, March 24, 2019, and continue every day until the first weekend in June. Click here for more info on our plant sale. 

How do we plant a tomato, you might ask?  With a ridiculous amount of stuff in the hole, is the answer.  When someone ropes me into telling them and I start the long answer, I eventually see their eyes glaze over.  That's the point where I say, "Then you throw in the kitchen sink and cover it all up."  To date, no one has laughed at that joke. I think they're just either too overwhelmed by the real stuff we put in there, or they actually believe we're throwing in a sink.

This is how we plant a tomato.  First off, let's take a look at our sexy specimen here on the left.

We started this beauty in our heated greenhouse in late January. We potted it up to a gallon container about 3 or 4 weeks ago.  It will go into one of our freshly prepared beds, shown to the right. 

 

The tomatoes are placed three feet apart. I've learned over the years that spacing them closer than that means less fruit.  We dig a nice deep hole to accommodate all the additions - the exact depth is dependent upon how tall the seedling is that you start with.  We want the plant to be almost completely submerged into the soil, and the fish head and amendments put into the hole need to be covered with a bit of soil, so we plan accordingly for the depth.  This particular hole ends up being almost two feet deep, and is ready for our first goody, these impressive fish heads.We get them from the restaurant we grow for, Manresa.  You might be able to get them free from a good butcher or fishmonger.  I even know of someone who called a few restaurants in their area and was quickly rewarded with a nice bounty of juicy fish heads.  Fish tails, spines, guts, as well as shrimp, crab, or lobster shells are all good as well.  Some of you may worry about critters digging these up later.  We've never had a problem with animals digging up my tomatoes, and we've got three dogs, two cats, and what seem like an endless supply of raccoons living on the property.  I stress the point that this is the first thing that goes into our very deep planting hole.  That may help keep it from getting dug up.  You can see the six inch long fish head staring up at us from the bottom of the hole here:
If you're reticent to put the fish head in the hole, or simply can't get your mitts on any, we recommend using fish meal as a substitute. Two handfuls is about right. We get ours from Gardner & Bloome.

The next thing that goes into the hole are a couple of aspirin tablets and some crushed chicken egg shells. The aspirin is to help jump start the plant's immune system.  You can read more about that science here.  We'll put three or four crushed egg shells into the hole as well. You can see our three colors of eggs from our fancy chickens - yes, those are green eggs in there. The eggs supply a nice calcium boost, which will help prevent blossom end rot, that nasty brown patch on the bottom of tomatoes that lack calcium (the fish head bones and bone meal also help with that).

Bone meal is the next to go into the hole.  We put in a heaping handful of bone meal.  This is a nice organic phosphorus source, which is essential for blossom production.  More blossoms, more fruit.  Bone meal also increases calcium availability for the tomato. This is also a Gardner & Bloome product. 

We then put in two handfuls of Gardner & Bloome's Tomato, Vegetable and Herb Fertilizer. It's an all-purpose  organic fertilizer that contains the essential macronutrients of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassiun. Their mix is a very nice 4-6-3 of those nutrients.

We also recommend putting a handful of pure worm castings in the bottom of the hole.  We amend our beds with worm castings and we also spray a worm casting tea on the plants while they grow.  Really great stuff.  Worm castings are available for sale at our tomato plant sale.

The hole is complete (sans kitchen sink) and we're now ready to pop in the tomato plant.  We trim off the lower leaves, be there one, two, three or more, leaving only the top-most leaves.

We put an inch or two of soil on top of the amendments in the hole.  The plant is eased out of the pot, and before it's placed in the hole, I sprinkle a third of a cup or more on the rootball with a product called Xtreme Gardening's Mykos, which is a mycorrhizal fungi that attaches to the roots, growing as the root ball grows.  It protects the plant from some diseases, such as verticillium and fusarium wilts.  If there are any "silver bullets" here, it is this healthy addition of mycorrhizal fungi.

Once the tomato is in the hole, we double check the depth by judging how far out of the ground the plant will be sticking.  If it's going to be too far down, we'll remove the plant and add some more soil.  If it looks like it'll be up above the soil more than we want, that's too bad because we ain't gonna be fishing them fish parts and all that other stuff up out of that hole and digging it deeper.  No siree.  So we try our best to gauge the depth of the hole according to the height of the plant we're putting in.

We then back fill GENTLY - only one quasi-firm push settles the soil around the plant. Please do not man-handle the soil around the plant by stomping on it or pressing too hard.  That's not necessary and it expels all the air out of the soil.  Believe it or not, the roots need oxygen down there just as much as they need nutrients and water. 

A temporary well is then made around the plant base to catch the first watering.  The first watering is the most critical.  We do it multiple times.  Water it in once, twice, three times at least.  Wait a few minutes to allow the water to drain through.  If you have a deep hole, likely way more than 12 inches deep, you will be amazed at how much water it will take to wet the root ball a foot or more under the ground.  So don't be stingy with the water the first day. Thereafter, you can back off the watering.  Here's our finished bed.  You can see the tomatoes are spaced pretty far apart:

Drip irrigation will be repositioned on the bed, and staking and mulching has yet to be done.  In the meantime, please feel free to email us or leave a comment below with any questions.

If you're still not getting the results you want, then consider taking our Tomato Masters class.

You can find more information all about tomatoes on the World Tomato Society website. 

Good luck, folks!

Gettin’ Piggy With It: Keeping Old Spot Pigs for Meat

Amidst all the classes, transplanting and preparations for our tomato plant sale, we’re also working with the newest members of our farm: 6 Gloucestershire Old Spot pigs, or simply Old Spots. We wanted to do our part in preserving a rare, heritage breed, and these pigs were a great place to start our meat animal program.

As you can see, these pigs are white with clearly defined black spots. Their calm disposition and foraging ability allowed us to incorporate them without too much discomfort to them (or us!).

The flatter land on our newly leased property would be the perfect place for these pigs, so we set to work prepping their new home. Below you’ll see one of our apprentices cleaning out the shed that provides them with shelter from the wind and rain. They get plenty of straw bedding as well.

Using a solar-powered electric fence system, we graze them outdoors and provide plenty of quality, meat-free food scraps along with organic, non-GMO feed from Modesto Milling. They seem to like it.

We’ll keep a couple gilts (females who have not yet reproduced) for breeding purposes and select the one with the best offspring for registration. The others we’ll finish on acorns before sending them off to their ultimate purpose of nourishing some happy and very grateful customers at Manresa restaurant.

Student Testimonial: Dan Cochran

Dan came to our Tomato and Pepper Transplants class last weekend.  He sent me his email as an update on his garden and seed starting set up.  We want to share it with you as we think it's inspiring!

Hi Cynthia,

Thanks to you and your staff (and the weather gods) for a great Saturday pair of classes.  Totally worth it and learned so much from all of you.

About a year ago I decided to cut back on my 60+ hour weeks and get some more balance back in my life.  One of the tasks I promised I'd take on was to thoroughly reboot our entire landscape with natives, ornamentals and raised beds.  Our back yard is now an ornamental oasis but doesn't receive enough sun to make it worthwhile for most edibles.  The side yard is all natives and blueberries (thanks to Alrie Middlebrook who's business is around the corner).  So the front yard had to go.  Well most of it.

I've got about 200 square feet of beds and did all the work myself including the design soil prep, conversion to drip, carpentry and bed irrigation.  The lawn between the beds will eventually get sub-surface Netafim drip.  I'm currently growing a cover crop of grasses and legumes that I'll compost and till in prior to spring planting.  By the way the cover crop pea and bean shoots are delicious.  I'm going to pair them tonight with some wild chanterelles to serve as a bed for some roasted halibut!

I probably would have skimped on the materials and design if this were going in my backyard.  But I think there's a certain amount of curb appeal required to convince people that a front lawn doesn't have to be just that. 

I've also built a seedling grow room and nursery in my basement. You can see the tomato and pepper/eggplant flats we sowed last Saturday awaiting germination.  I invested in a thermostat to control the four foot heat mat and for $5.50 I bought a 4' x 8' sheet of mylar coated styro-board and cut it into four 2' x 4' shelving pieces.  It certainly makes a difference in providing insulation for the heat mat rather than having it leach off onto the steel shelves.

During the process of tearing out the lawn, converting the existing irrigation, building the beds and watching the cover crop come up, I could not believe the number of people (most I didn't even know) that stopped by, asked questions and expressed a great deal of interest in doing the same things.  I'm convinced that home gardening is an incredible catalyst for community building.  And you and your staff have been a true inspiration.

I'll see you at a future class.  And if you're ever in San Jose feel free to drop by.  I'm out to evangelize our neighborhood one block at a time.  Might be a business opportunity for a semi-retired old geezer :-))

 

Best,

Dan Cochran

Student Testimonial: Jeff Hawkins

We love to hear from our students, and Jeff Hawkins seems to be taking the instruction he received at Love Apple to new heights. Here's his story:

Hi Cynthia,

Our back yard isn't all that big.  It's a typical tract house on a cul-de-sac.  A few years ago I decided to build seven 4' x 4'raised beds to attempt growing vegetables.  Our success was always modest.  Great tasting produce, but not too much yield.  Also, the plants never really seemed to thrive, if you know what I mean.

All that changed after last spring, earlier this year.  I took your summer vegetable gardening class, and from the first few minutes to the very end of the class, I was learning.  I then took your tomato masters class a couple of weeks later with the same result.

Our vegetable garden is quite unbelievable now. With the seeds that we sowed in the summer vegetable class, I now have bush bean plants 3'-4' tall and loaded with beans; four huge and constantly producing zucchini plants, a 4' x 4' bed of lettuces that seem to be never-ending, a 4' x 4' bed of beautiful, tender dark green chard, and a constant supply of green onions and squash.

I also purchased 10 tomato plants from your store in Scotts Valley.  They are all now over 7' tall and are loaded with tomatoes.  Before this, I never had a tomato plant taller than 3' to 4'.

All of this success is due to the techniques of bed preparation, soil amending, tomato cage construction, tomato planting instructions, plant placement and garden design that I learned in your classes.

We also had great success with the potatoes in the 15 gallon pots that you taught us how to do.  Not only was each pot's harvest abundant, but they are the best tasting potatoes also.

Thanks again for all your help.  As always, couldn't have done it this well without you!

Workshop: Backyard Bee-Keeping

Did you know that you can keep bees in your backyard?  Most normal-sized yards can play host to a hive of honey bees, and the folks who tend them enjoy honey, beeswax, royal jelly, and of course, the bees themselves.  In fact, a healthy hive can produce several gallons of lovely, local honey every year. 

These pollinators can be marvelously helpful by making fruits and vegetables more productive.  Here on the farm, we keep bees not just because they help produce richer crops, but also because they are tremendously beneficial insects that are good for our neighbors and surrounding environment. 

Come learn what it takes to keep a busy, productive hive of bees happy!  Learn where to get your bees, how to set up and maintain the hive, and how to protect it from pests and disease.  This is a beginner’s course, so you won’t need to bring any special equipment or supplies. THIS CLASS IS HELD AT LOVE APPLE FARMS' nursery location: 5311 Scotts Valley Dr., Scotts Valley, CA.  

ALL CLASSES ARE HELD RAIN OR SHINE AND ADVANCE REGISTRATION
 

February 12, 2023 (Sunday) 10:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m.  SOLD OUT

March 18, 2023 (Saturday) 10:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m. $99 << Click to register (gift certificate holders register by emailing loveapplefarm@gmail.com)

April 2, 2023 (Sunday) 10:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m. $99  << Click to register (gift certificate holders register by emailing loveapplefarm@gmail.com)

If we are able to open a hive during class, please be prepared: wear white or light-colored clothing, long sleeves and long pants. No open-toed shoes or sandals (think covering as much skin as possible). Please do not wear cologne or perfume. For more information about how to prepare for class, CLICK HERE. NOTE: WE MAY NOT BE ABLE TO OPEN A HIVE DUE TO WEATHER ON ANY GIVEN DAY. BUT YOU STILL LEARN EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO START YOUR OWN HIVE.

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Please read our cancellation policy in case you are not able to attend your scheduled class. 

Subscribe to our newsletter to receive information about new classes, planting tips, free give-aways, and more exclusive content. 

If the workshop dates don’t work for you, if the class is full, or if you’d like to request that another class be added, please email us and we’ll do our best to accommodate you!

Love Apple Farms gift certificates can be used towards classes, seedlings, and merchandise.  They are available for purchase here. 

Check out other classes at Love Apple Farms by clicking here.

Student Testimonial: Steve Gehre

We often receive nice feedback from our gardening students about how well they're doing.  When those testimonials are heartfelt, well-written, and come packed with beautiful photos, then we just can't resist sharing!  Here's one we just received last week:

Dear Cynthia:

    It is surreal as in something out of science fiction.  Abundant growth, spaghetti squash and zucchini tentacles (runners) out of control, escaping the elevated garden, reaching through the wire fence, and descending on the cement patio and continuing to reach and stretch with fruit everywhere (35 "visible" spaghetti squash and 18 zucchinis) all from two zucchini plants and one spaghetti squash!!!!!  Unbelievable!

    I planted the same amount with exactly the same space considerations I have always done for the last 40 years here in San Mateo and the results this year are in another category due to your advice.  I believe, even in this lousy year of weather, that your suggestions were solely responsible, i.e., Sun Land compost and 4-6-4- Sustane.  I rototilled both in and have never experienced anything like this.  The enclosed photos do not do justice to what has taken over my backyard, and this despite overcast fog till 11:00 a.m., no good sun, no wind until 5:00 and then the fog rolls back in.  This has meant the tomato plants are growing and are at 6 feet tall now, and finally all the fruit has sent on them but they will be a little late and maybe a little smaller than normal.

    I want to thank you for this prolific (understatement) of a crop.  My neighbors are astonished.  You are the best.  Do you think it was the compost or the Sustane or a combination of both?  Thanks for all your help and your responsiveness in dealing with my periodic queries in a very timely fashion.  This was truly a gardening breakthrough for me!

Steve Gehre, San Mateo

Dear Steve:  Thanks so much for the kind words.  To answer your question, I do think it was the fertility.  And your excellent care!  Cynthia

Order and Chaos

The following post was written by Sara Barbour and originally posted on her new blog, girlfarmkitchen.com:

It was 6:15 on a foggy Friday morning and there I was, crouched over an orange bucket with my hand plunged up to the elbow in icy water mixed with ground quartz.  Next to me Zach and Ross knelt hand-stirring the mixture in their buckets, and eight other apprentices stood silently around us waiting their turn, Cynthia holding the cow horn in which the quartz had been buried for six months.  We were completing the final stage of biodynamic prep 501, a soil preparation used in the biodynamic system of farming that Love Apple is committed to following.  The preparation is stirred and applied at dawn, when the light filtering through the morning clouds can illuminate the quartz mixture as it is sprayed above the plants in the garden.

Biodynamics is the agricultural practice developed by philosopher Rudolf Steiner, and while creating preparations for soil health out of stuffed cow horns and intestines may seem strange to some, when Cynthia told us the quartz prep had to be stirred clockwise and counter-clockwise for an hour to combine order and chaos, it made sense.  In the past two months I’ve been on the farm I’ve acutely felt the balance of order and chaos in my life—the order of milking the goats each morning, eight-hour farm days, and sitting around the kitchen table each night, and the chaos of being thrown into a new place and life where you live, work, eat, and drink with an ever-shifting group of people.  At 6:45 that morning as we stirred, Ellen—the baby of our group at 19, the greenhouse pro from Maine who’s been here seven months—quietly went round and said her goodbyes, and we were still stirring as she left the garden for the last time.  That afternoon we saw off Tory, a two-week volunteer from Manresa who made us breakfast sandwiches and seemed to always have been here, and this week we say goodbye to Phillip, our constant source of new music (listen to this) and amazing grilled food.  There’s order and chaos in all relationships, and in life, Cynthia said softly as we continued to stir, and it made me realize that letting go of people who’ve become such good friends—both on the farm and off it—is a chaos that's never easy to be prepared for.

Part of spraying the soil prep is investing it with energy and positive thought, so as I misted our quartz mixture over the garden beds I decided I would do just that.  I thought of the night before, when Tory made Manresa’s famous garden beignets for farm dinner while we laughed as everyone at the table had to put on their best foreign accent.  I thought of Ellen and Tory and Phillip, the things they’ll go on to do in college and culinary school and landscape architecture, and then I thought of all my other apprentice friends, the people they are now and the people they’ll be after they leave.  I thought of people I love outside the farm, friendships I’ve let lapse as I’ve become more rooted here. Did I feel a little bit corny? You bet. But when I was done I felt as though a bit more order had been restored to the chaos that always comes with saying goodbye.

Goodbye Ellen, Phillip, and Tory!

 

Learning About Biodynamic Farming

Most people have a general idea of what it means to practice organic farming, but here at Love Apple Farms we often field questions related to another agricultural practice: biodynamic farming. Created by the philosopher and educator Rudolf Steiner, biodynamics can seem intimidating at first, but with a few basic concepts under your belt it's easy to understand why we choose to farm not just organically, but biodynamically as well. To this end, we've recently started holding scheduled meetings with farm staff and apprentices to continue our education in biodynamic farming.

We began with a good working definition:  biodynamic farming is a regenerative farming system focused on soil health and the integration of plants and animals (the key difference between a certified organic and a certified biodynamic farm is that the latter must have animals). As a farmer, the principle biodynamic tenets you must adhere to are as follows: you should make your own compost (with the manure from your animals), use the biodynamic homeopathic soil and compost preps, follow the biodynamic planting calendar (a new one is released each year), and save your own seeds. The goal for a biodynamic farm is to become a “closed-loop farm organism,” and each of these tenets helps you move closer to achieving this. (For example, ideally you will feed your animals with food you have grown, and in turn their manure will provide natural fertilizer for your crops.)

Making compost is a key component of biodynamics, and it means that nothing on the farm is wasted—food scraps, animal manure, and even paper products all contribute to healthy compost piles. The homeopathic soil preps are applied to your compost and soil, and as laid out by Steiner, maximize farm fertility (an example is a cow horn stuffed with fresh manure and buried in the ground for six months, after which it is dug up, mixed with water, and sprinkled on the soil). The biodynamic planting calendar uses the phases of the moon to predict when it is best to plant and harvest each of your four plant types: fruit, root, leaf, or flower. Finally, saving your own seeds enables your farm to function as an entirely closed loop and encourages crop adaptation to microclimates.

Here at Love Apple we follow the biodynamic tenets as closely as we can, for although farming biodynamically can be challenging, it is immensely rewarding and leads to optimum soil health. For more information on biodynamics please see our recommended reading list, and you can access Rudolf Steiner’s lectures on the subject here.

Home Brewing On the Farm

At the beginning of this summer, the buzz among the Love Apple Farms staff and apprentices was that in July the farm would be hosting its first beer making class. Needless to say there was great anticipation leading up to this past Sunday, when most of us farmers assembled in the gardening classroom with 22 other students to learn how to brew at home.

We weren’t disappointed. Our teacher and expert home brewer Dave Bossie knew his beers inside and out, and his setup alone was impressive—a large keg he’d customized for brewing mounted on an enormous camping stove. He guided us through a brief history of beer making and microbrewing, then gave us a rundown of the basic equipment and ingredients (malted barley, hops, yeast, and water) needed to make our own ale and lager. Of course, we didn’t just learn the difference between these two primary beer styles—we tasted it as well.

While Dave set about brewing an ale in class—a demonstration that began with boiling six gallons of water in the converted keg—we sampled and discussed a variety of styles of beers. Dave and his wife both brew at their home in Ben Lomond, and the beers we tried included their delicious Smash IPA and smoked porter. As he boiled caramel malted barley and added three different types of hops, Dave told us about the many styles of beer he’s made over the years—and the close community of Santa Cruz home brewers who get together to share their latest creations. At the opening of class he’d warned us that beer making can easily turn into an all-consuming hobby, and by the end of the day, full of tasty homemade beer and breathing in the warm aroma of malted barley, we definitely believed him.

Thank you, Dave, for showing us how, and a big shout-out to Seven Bridges Cooperative.  This Santa Cruz home brewing store is a real treasure for us locals!

Learning How to Shape a Bed

When it comes to adding a new bed to your garden (or in our case, on our ever-expanding terraces), shaping is the final step before planting can begin. As we learned the other day, the process can take time and patience, but the steps are simple to follow and the end result is immensely gratifying: a beautiful, raised bed, no wooden box necessary.

The bed you begin with should look something like this: staked, twined, and recently amended. Before you start make sure to have all the tools you'll need handy--a shovel, spade fork, hard rake, and sledge hammer--and if your soil happens to be very dry take out your hose and give it a water.

Step one: hammer in your stakes so they create nice right angles in your bed, firmly rooted in each corner with no wiggle room. Since you'll be wanting the soil in your bed to eventually touch the twine strung around the bed, making sure your stakes are secure and upright is very important.

 

Next re-string your twine around the bed, ensuring each edge is taught and straight. Make a secure knot on the final stake so there will be no loosening during the raking and digging. At this point you can also break up any large clods on the surface of the bed.

Now take your hard rake and sweep across the top of the bed in long strokes, leveling the surface and pushing the soil that gathers on the front of the rake off the edge of the bed. This is the first step of a three-part process you will continue until the soil in your bed touches the twine.

The second step is to take your rake or shovel and firmly pat the side of the bed, packing the soil in and ensuring that your bed will have nice straight sides. It's okay to push hard here--you want the soil to be fluffy on top but nice and solid on the bottom and sides so there will be no caving in.

The third step is to take your shovel and scrape up any soil that did not get packed in on the sides and put it back on the top of the bed. Continue to break up any clods, and repeat the three part process--rake top, pack sides, and scrape up bottom--until your bed is nicely evened out, with firm sides, a smooth top, and the soil as close to touching the twine as you can get. Lastly, give your newly-shaped bed a good water--and prepare your seeds or seedlings for planting!

The Wonderful World of Dahlias

Often on tours of our farm someone will ask, "What's that for?" referring to our dahlias. We respond, "Because they're beautiful." Although we don't eat dahlias (although the tubers are edible and were probably once used for sustinence), we love their addition to our garden. We sometimes don't get to spend as much time as we'd like planting and caring for our beloved dahlias, because it just so happens that dahlia season is the same time as tomato season. Lucky for us, we had a little help from our friend, Millie, or as we like to call her, the "Dahlia Queen."

Millie was gracious enough to donate some of her and her friends' prized bulbs for us to plant on our hillside outside our pasture fence. Once you get into the dahlia world it is truly fascinating, as there are thousands of varieties (just like the tomato). 

To plant a dahlia, we start by digging a shallow hole, about 4 inches deep. Then we drive a 5 foot, half-inch piece of rebar 2 feet into the ground and add a handful of Sustane (our all-purpose dry, organic fertilizer) into the hole, like so: 

 
Next we mix the Sustane into the soil at the bottom of the hole with our hands. Then we identify the sprout on the tuber and lay the tuber in the hole so the sprout is pointing up and placed right next to the rebar.

(Can you believe that this spud-looking thing is going to turn into the most fabulous flower you've ever laid your eyes on?!)

We add a little soil on top so the sprout is just peeking out of the soil, and water in. Heads up: if you are planting tubers that haven't sprouted yet, don't water them in until they sprout (to avoid rotting) unless you are in a very hot climate, and then you should water lightly.

And voila! With a little sun, a little water, and a little love, this is what becomes of that unassuming tuber:

 

 

Learn more about propagating dahlias and many other wonderful flowers and shrubs at our brand new Perennial Propagation Workshop.

 

 

How to Make a Strong Tomato Cage

Small, conical tomato cages don't work for most heirloom tomato plants. The cages typically seen at most nurseries simply don't do the trick. A healthy tomato plant can achieve heights of 10 and 12 feet or more. Those ineffectual store-bought cages end up falling over, laden with fruit, and creating a big mess in the garden. We make our cages out of concrete reinforcing wire, also known as concrete mesh. Purchased from good lumber yards, our local source is Central Home Supply in Scotts Valley (they'll even cut the mesh for you). We like the 7 foot tall wire, seen here:

Next we cut the wire with heavy bolt cutters on the 12th square.  Since each opening, or "square" is 6 inches, that gives us about a two foot diameter cage when finished.  We also use a cinderblock (more easily moved around via rope) to hold down one edge while we work.  Be careful when unrolling and cutting this wire - it ain't for sissies!

The cut panels are then rolled into a cylinder and affixed to the other side by simply bending the cut wire over the other.

We are then ready to pop the cage over our tomato plant.  If you're growing directly in the ground, you can remove the lower ring of the cage so that you have 6 inch pokes going into the soil and stabilizing it.  But leave the lower ring on if you are growing in pots on top of hard surfaces such as asphalt or concrete.  Whichever way you go, you'll need to then use a beefy piece of rebar pounded next to the cage and secured with twine.  Note that the cage will NOT hold up on its own after it's laden with fruit and foliage.  We pound a 5 foot long piece of rebar two feet in the ground, allowing three feet above ground to attach to the wire cages.  We do this every three or four cages, then twine all the cages together in a superstructure of strength! 

As the plant grows, we push in the growing branches, so that it grows UP rather than OUT of the cage.  Go ahead and leave out the leaves - something's gotta hold it up inside the cage.  But branches, YES, push those babies in there!

If you'd like someone else to make your tomato cages for you (and deliver them to you), get in touch with Zach Geske. He makes and sells "our" style tomato cages. Text is best for Zach: 831-278-1048

If you'd like to see our tomato plants growing at the nursery, and how we stake them up close and personal, consider coming to one of our Tomato Masters classes, where you'll also learn how to properly plant, fertilize, prune, mulch, seed save and more. 

Now go forth and cage that soon-to-be tomato monster of yours!

How do I Water a Tomato Plant?

How often do I water my tomato plants?  That's probably the most often asked question I get.  The answer is:  it depends.  It depends on several things: the age of your plant, the weather, your climate, your soil type, and container growing.  I know people would love me to tell them: "Water it three times a week," or some other schedule that suits them.  But that would be a disservice to you and your garden.  We don't have our garden on a schedule.  We make an assessment, bed to bed, and day to day.  If we find we need watering, then we water.

 

1.  Age of plant:  newly-planted tomatoes need more frequent watering than older, more established ones do.  It's not only because the root ball hasn't had a chance to explore the great outdoors yet, but it's also because root balls closer to the surface obviously dry out faster than those further down.    

 

2.   The weather:  How can you put your garden on a timer, when you can't predict the weather?  If the days are cooler, then less watering is required.  If you've got a foggy environment, then less water is required.  If it's been blazing hot, then yes, of course, the garden needs more water.  Ag statistics show that 75% of plant deaths are a result of improper watering.

 

3.  Your micro-climate:  Not only do coastal areas need less water, but if your garden is shadier than your neighbor's, it'll need less water as well.  There are 6 or 7 micro-climates in Santa Cruz County, and each requires a bit of skewing of water needs.  Then individual gardens vary, too.  Some of our garden beds that get afternoon shade need less water than the ones that get all day sun.

 

4.  Your soil type:  If you've got a clay pan below your top soil, then you may be watering too much.  I planted tomatoes in a clay-type field one year and found I only had to water them once a month.  In my sandy-loam soil in Ben Lomond, we had to water more often.  Added organic matter and humic acid to both clay and sandy soils help water retention and drainage.  We always add lots of compost to our beds before planting. 

 

5.  Container growing:  Plants in containers are completely dependent upon you for their moisture and fertility.  Don't drop the ball and stress the plant by allowing it to dry out too much between waterings.  Water stressed plants will have reduced vigor and reduced fruit yields, even if you only blow it a couple of times.

 

My best advice on watering is to check the soil.  The very first time we transplant a plant, we ensure that we have wetted the soil at root ball level thoroughly.  That may mean standing there with the hose for half an hour.  It may mean wetting the planting hole before watering too.  You may need to water for five minutes, walk away for a few minutes, and then come back and repeat.  Different soil types accept water at different rates.  This scholarly article discusses actual retention rates and is a fine primer for people interested in watering properly.  

 

After your initial day's watering, your plant may not need watering for a while.  If the soil surface is dry, dig down a little and check.  I don't water my young tomatoes until the subsoil is dry to a depth of about an inch.  With older, more established tomatoes, I will check and if it is dry several inches below, then I water.

 

When you do decide to water, try to do it in the morning, as plants that are watered just before dark are more susceptible to fungal diseases.  We also don't get the foliage wet, as that increases disease as well.  Lightly spraying the soil isn't desirable at all, as you're only wetting the top few centimeters, not deep watering, which is recommended.   

 

So my best tips:  back off the watering, don't use timers, check check and double check!  Then water deeply.  If you're interested in installing a simple, yet effective, drip irrigation system for your vegetable garden, consider coming to our Drip Irrigation Workshop. 

How I Plant a Tomato

Love Apple Farm's spring plant sale will be held at 5311 Scotts Valley Drive in Scotts Valley (near Santa Cruz, CA) and will begin on Saturday, March 26, 2022 (unless you want to pick up pre-ordered plants earlier). Our sale in 2022 will be held Thursdays through Mondays (we are closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays) and continue every day until the first weekend in June.  Click here  to access the pre-sale site.

How do we plant a tomato, you might ask?  With a ridiculous amount of stuff in the hole, is the answer. When someone ropes me into telling them and I start the long answer, I eventually see their eyes glaze over. That's the point where I say, "Then you throw in the kitchen sink and cover it all up."  To date, no one has laughed at that joke. I think they're just either too overwhelmed by the real stuff we put in there, or they actually believe we're throwing in a sink.

This is how we plant a tomato. First off, let's take a look at our sexy specimen here on the left.

We started this beauty in our heated greenhouse in late January. We potted it up to a gallon container about 3 or 4 weeks ago. It will go into one of our freshly prepared beds, shown to the right. 

The tomatoes are placed three feet apart. I've learned over the years that spacing them closer than that means less fruit.  We dig a nice deep hole to accommodate all the additions - the exact depth is dependent upon how tall the seedling is that you start with. We want the plant to be almost completely submerged into the soil, and the fish head and amendments put into the hole need to be covered with a bit of soil, so we plan accordingly for the depth. This particular hole ends up being almost two feet deep, and is ready for our first goody, these impressive fish heads.
You might be able to get them free from a good butcher or fishmonger. I even know of someone who called a few restaurants in their area and was quickly rewarded with a nice bounty of juicy fish heads. Fish tails, spines, guts, as well as shrimp, crab, or lobster shells are all good as well. Some of you may worry about critters digging these up later. We've never had a problem with animals digging up my tomatoes, and we've got two dogs, six cats, coyotes, and what seem like an endless supply of raccoons living on the property. I stress the point that this is the first thing that goes into our very deep planting hole.  That may help keep it from getting dug up. You can see the six inch long fish head staring up at us from the bottom of the hole here:
If you're reticent to put the fish head in the hole, or simply can't get your mitts on any, we recommend using fish meal as a substitute. Half a cup is about right. We get ours from G&B.

The next thing that goes into the hole are a couple of aspirin tablets and some crushed chicken egg shells. The aspirin is to help jump start the plant's immune system. You can read more about that science here. We'll put three or four crushed egg shells into the hole as well. You can see our three colors of eggs from our fancy chickens - yes, those are green eggs in there. The eggs supply a nice calcium boost, which will help prevent blossom end rot, that nasty brown patch on the bottom of tomatoes that lack calcium (the fish head bones and bone meal also help with that).

Bone meal is the next to go into the hole. We put in a half cup of bone meal.  This is a nice organic phosphorus source, which is essential for blossom production.  More blossoms, more fruit. Bone meal also increases calcium availability for the tomato. This is also a G&B product. 

We then put in half cup of G&B's Tomato, Vegetable and Herb Fertilizer. It's an all-purpose  organic fertilizer that contains the essential macronutrients of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. Their mix is a very nice 4-6-3 of those nutrients.

We also recommend putting a third cup of pure worm castings in the bottom of the hole. We amend our beds with worm castings and we also spray a worm casting tea on the plants while they grow.  Really great stuff. Worm castings, as well as the G&B products, are available for sale at our tomato plant sale.

 

The hole is complete (sans kitchen sink) and we're now ready to pop in the tomato plant. We trim off the lower leaves, be there one, two, three or more, leaving only the top-most leaves.

We put an inch or two of soil on top of the amendments in the hole. The plant is eased out of the pot, and before it's placed in the hole, I sprinkle about 1/4 to 1/3 cup of a product called Mykos on the rootball. This is a mycorrhizal fungi that attaches to the roots, growing as the roots grow. It protects the plant from some diseases, such as verticillium and fusarium wilts. This fungus also reaches out into the soil, grabs food for your tomato, and literally "feeds" it to the tomato root. If there are any "silver bullets" here, it is this healthy addition of mycorrhizal fungi. Mykos also creates a sponge-like mass around the roots that help them grab on to the water as it passes through the soil, helping save water.

Once the tomato is in the hole, we double check the depth by judging how far out of the ground the plant will be sticking.

If it's going to be too far down, we'll remove the plant and add some more soil.  If it looks like it'll be up above the soil more than we want, that's too bad because we ain't gonna be fishing them fish parts and all that other stuff up out of that hole and digging it deeper. No siree. So we try our best to gauge the depth of the hole according to the height of the plant we're putting in.

We then back fill GENTLY - only one quasi-firm push settles the soil around the plant.

Please do not man-handle the soil around the plant by stomping on it or pressing too hard. That's not necessary and it expels all the air out of the soil. Believe it or not, the roots need oxygen down there just as much as they need nutrients and water. 

A temporary well is then made around the plant base to catch the first watering. 

The first watering is the most critical. We do it multiple times. Water it in once, twice, three times at least.  Wait a few minutes to allow the water to drain through. If you have a deep hole, likely way more than 12 inches deep, you will be amazed at how much water it will take to wet the root ball a foot or more under the ground.  So don't be stingy with the water the first day. Thereafter, you can back off the watering.  It's our experience that most people water their tomatoes growing in raised beds or in the ground way too much. Here's our finished bed. You can see the tomatoes are spaced pretty far apart:

Drip irrigation will be repositioned on the bed, and staking and mulching has yet to be done. You can find out more about those items here.  In the meantime, please feel free to email us or leave a comment below with any questions.

If you're still not getting the results you want, then consider taking our Tomato Masters class.

Good luck, folks!

Transplanting Tomatoes

Spring has sprung! Birds are chirping, bees are buzzing, and Love Apple Farms' Tomato Plant Sale is always just around the corner. So we wanted to share a great tip with you to help you get bigger tomato plants this year: tomato plants benefit from being transplanted into a gallon container before they are planted in the ground or larger container, especially if you transplant them deeper than they were in their small pot. That's because all the small, fuzzy hairs on the stem of the tomato plant become roots when they contact the soil. Bigger root structure = bigger plant = more fruit. Hey, I like that math!

Here's how you do it: Once your tomato plant is 6" - 8" tall, take it out of its small pot and sit the root ball at the bottom of a 1 gallon pot. (If you are re-using a pot, make sure you sterilize it with a bleach solution, as tomatoes are more susceptible to diseases than other plants.) Then pinch off any lower leaves that are below the lip of the 1 gallon pot.

Next, fill the pot up to the top with good organic potting mix (we use G&B Potting Soil), burying the part of the tomato stem that is inside the pot.

 

Water the tomato plant well, and don't forget to transfer the label with the variety name to the gallon pot. When we plant our tomatoes out in the garden or in a bigger container (15 gallons minimum), we plant them deep again, up to the top leaves, with two-thirds of the stem underground.

Sounds a little weird, no? Don't just take our word for it: Sunset Magazine did a study a few years back growing two tomato plants--one that had been planted deep and one that was planted without burying the stem at all. And the deeper one was twice as big! If it's too early and too cold to plant a tomato in your area (it is in ours!), you will still benefit from acquiring your plants now and transplanting them to gallons. They should be put out in the sunlight in the morning and brought into a heated structure, like your house, at night. The earlier you start your tomatoes, the earlier you will get fruit. So come on down to the sale and get growing!

Want to learn more about the wonderful world of tomato growing?  Sign up for one of our Tomato Masters Classes.

 You can find more information all about tomatoes on the World Tomato Society website.

Late Winter Update from the Farm

Winter, a time of reflection, seed ordering, planning, reading great books with a steaming cup of tea in your favorite breakfast nook, and finally doing those undesirable chores you put off all year.  But here at Love Apple Farm, winter is also a time of growth. Throughout the winter, thanks to the Mediterranean influence of our climate, out gardens are still bountiful, though low to the ground.  Sturdier plants, such as these Rainbow Chard, Red Russian Kale, and Broccolis above, do quite well in the winter.

We also have great winter production thanks to our hoophouse, which regulates the temperature and provides a good environment for plants during these trying months. Growing in our hoophouse is a variety of Cabbages, Radishes, Turnips, Fennel, Salad Greens, and Spinach. There is definitely a difference between hoophouse winter veggies, and open aired ones.

Cold rains not only bring wet clothes, smelly dogs, and upset kittens, but a lot of useful water.
Here is water falling into a precisely placed bucket to brew Stinging Nettle Tea (which delays bolting of Cabbage), giving us free water and keeping our hard earned bucks out of the City's pocket. Rain barrels are also an ideal item to have in the rainy season.

Your chickens like the rain less than you do; they’re tropical birds, loving the sun and dry air.  So on these wet days we give them a fresh layer of straw.  The straw not only dries them a little, but also keeps them occupied on these “in-coop” days.  In addition, to keep them more comfortable on our really chilly nights, we install a heat lamp that warms their little bums.

Another great way to spent this time is by propagating plants from cuttings. We take cuttings of Lavender, Rosemary, Geraniums, anything with a woody stem.  At a node in the woody part, we use clippers to make a diagonal cut across the node, this allows for more surface area for sprouting roots.  About five inches or so up, we sever the stem right at the top of a node, leave a few leaves, and plunge the transplant into a pot. Put the bottom of the stem about two thirds the way down the pot, keeping the leaves above the soil. These pots need to be wet all day. After a couple months, they are ready to transplant out into your garden.

As our garden transitions from winter to spring, our time is spent preparing for the bounty of summer.  We clear used beds, till in winter cover crops, and disinfect last year's pots. There's nothing worse than having your plants succumb to a disease you could have prevented by a quick washing of your tools and pots.

Your seed propagation for those summer-loving veggies should be in full swing now.  Tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, beans and squashes should be cooking along in order to plant out here in central coastal California next month or in May.  Haven't done it yet?  No worries, come to our spring tomato plant sale starting on March 26 and you'll be in tomato heaven in no time.  But until then, enjoy the rest of this chilly, yet useful season.

Another Chicken-Keeping Student Testimonial

When we received an email from a student about her blog, we just couldn't resist sharing! Rebecca, from Mountain View, attended our Backyard Chicken-Keeping Class this past September and has been posting great pictures of her flock's development on her gardening blog. If you'd like to add a few of these cute critters to your garden this spring, sign up for this Sunday's class! In it we share with you all the info you need to care for the 3 baby chicks and brooder kit you take home at the end of the day. How could you resist these plush babies?

Here's another picture of them at 2 weeks old, discovering the sun after a few weeks of brooding under heat lamps:

They are starting to develop their feathers! Below is a picture of an Araucana breed. Those are the ones that lay the green eggs (Dr. Seuss was right!):

And here is a Cochin breed. Notice the furry feet (we sometimes refer to them as Hobbit chickens):

Rebecca and our students know that fresh eggs are unlike anything you could buy at the grocery store. Don't take our word for it, find out for yourselves!

Can't make it to this Sunday's class? We are also offering the class in May, July, and October. Find out more info here.

Battling Pests with Beer, Diatomaceous Earth and Sluggo

This winter in the garden we have been battling slugs, earwigs, and sow bugs (also known as pill bugs or the childhood name, rolly pollies). They have been eating their way through cabbages, chard, beets, and many other crops. To save our plants from these crawling critters, we've had to pull out all the organic weapons in our arsenal.

First, we bought beer. No, the slugs did not drive us to drink. By burying small dishes at soil level in our garden beds and filling them almost to the brim with beer, we were able to lure the slugs and pill bugs.  They seemed enticed by the yeast smell.  After their beer fest, they then fell into the vat and drowned. 
Don't laugh! The first week we set 10 traps and caught 84 slugs. To keep the rainwater from diluting the beer, we made a simple cover with plastic and a stick. We've been replenishing our beer levels and continuing to get results. Recycled containers can be used to fashion the dish and lean-to, and the cheapest beer you can find will do the trick.

 
We also spread diatomaceous earth on the soil surface around plants. Diatomaceous earth, or DE, is a naturally-occurring soft sedimentary rock consisting of fossilized remains of diatoms, a type of hard-shelled algae. It acts as a dessicant that dries out insects when they crawl across it. It can be purchased at Amazon.com or at most, good, garden centers.  It need to be replenished after a rain or frequent watering.

 
If that's not enough, we also on occasion sprinkle Monterey Sluggo, an insect and slug bait that has recently been OMRI certified for organic gardening. Heads up--a little goes a long way with this stuff. We use about a half cup on a 50 square foot bed. And this organic pesticide is now available at Costco!

Finally, no Integrated Pest Mangagement (IPM) at Love Apple would be complete without hand-picking. With the help of some dedicated volunteers, we scour the beds and plants for these pesky pests.

While we will never completely eradicate the pests, with constant efforts, we can control them to a level that we, and our plants, can live with.

Patience is a Virtue When it Comes to Celery

Homegrown celery is extremely rewarding, not just because it is so much more flavorful than the selection at the supermarket, but because it requires a bit of patience from the gardener. We've been harvesting from our celery patch for Manresa since January, from plants that were sown back in July.

We selected a new variety to try this time, D'Elne from GourmetSeed.com, an Italian company. Once the seeds were sown, then we started to play the waiting game......Two months later our sprouts were finally big enough to prick out into 3 inch pots!

 

Next, a little more waiting, until the celery starts were 4 inches tall.  

 

 

 

 

Then we planted them in a raised bed that we amended with our regular recipe, 8 inches apart in an offset, or checkerboard, pattern. This spacing allows us to fit more plants in than with straight rows. Once the celery was planted, more patience, sunshine, and a good amount of water were required to get to the wonderful day when we could harvest our first mature celery ribs.

Instead of harvesting the whole head, single ribs can be cut as needed, to extend the celery season we've waited 6 months for. And is it worth it! Celery from the store cannot prepare you for this deep flavor. With almost zero calories and tons of fiber and calcium, this vegetable is a great addition to soups, stuffing, and Bloody Marys! Patience is a virtue and so is backyard celery, so start your celery seeds now to plant after the last frost. For more information on growing your own celery and other vegetables, consider taking our Summer Vegetable Gardening Class.

Perennial Pruning Time

Not sure what to do in your garden this time of year? Late Winter is the perfect time of year in Northern and Central California to prune your perennials--when the plants are dormant, before the new growth of spring.  Pruning maintains the health of the plant, regulates its size, keeps it from becoming etiolated (streched out), and will increase new growth and blossom production.  We just finished pruning the perennials at Love Apple, which was about a week-long process.

Tools you'll need for pruning include: a good pair of loppers, garden clippers, a garden cart or wheelbarrow, and a few pairs of helping hands.

Here, our farm apprentice, Ellen, is using loppers to cut back one of our perennial grasses to a mound at the base of the plant.

 

 

And here is the result:

 

With woody perennials, you start by identifying and removing the dead branches. Those are the ones that break when you try to bend them, and they can be cut off at the base. Next you usually want to cut back the perennial to a third of its original size, cutting above the node. 
This method can be used for salvias, hydrangeas, lavender, and many other woody perennials. Rosemary left alone will grow out of control, and its branches will become very thick.

 

Although it looks now like you are hurting the plant, come spring you will find yourself with a healthy, well-growing perennial garden.

 

Here are "before" and "after" shots of pruning one of our Penstemon plants.

Not only do the plants benefit, but our goats are really enjoying this project!

Here is a longshot of our driveway at completion. Although it looks bare now, we will soon be rewarded for performing this important garden task with healthy growth and beautifully blooming plants.

Attend a gardening or cooking class this spring at our new location in Santa Cruz and see the results for yourself!

 

 

 

 

Another Student Testimonial - Keeping Backyard Chickens

One of my Chicken-Keeping students, Celeste Stanik, sent me this lovely email about her new found passion for raising chickens in her backyard.  Here is her testimonial:

Hi Cynthia-

I am writing to continue sharing with you my chicken experience. (I took your class Sept 18, 2010.)

Below you see a photo of my chickens (taken Christmas Eve) in their run, and more recently a couple photos of them out of their run. You will also recognize their (Cool) coop.  

You can see I have put manzanita branches around the insides of their "giant cage"  They like climbing and roosting on it.

The "giant cage" is a 12x18 foot run, using 1x2 inch, 6 foot welded wire tied to metal stakes. The welded wire wraps around the sides and across the top.  I did trench 18" deep around the entire thing and put in poultry wire and drain rock.  I reckon it best to demoralize any potential predators right from the get go.

I am having so much fun raising these birds!  Your workshop provided me with a great foundation for bringing chickens into my world, thank you.  It gave me the confidence I needed to start.  I wouldn't have gotten chickens without it, I'm afraid, and I would have missed out.  I am thrilled with your selection of breeds; they all have remarkably different personalities and are beautiful.  I love the production of fertilizer, the pest-and-weed eating, and I had no idea I'd get such continuous entertainment.  They make me laugh!  I am so glad to have them around, and they haven't even laid an egg yet.

The excitement lately is I have finally begun letting them out and hanging out with them.  Ok, guarding them, guiding them, and yesterday I sort of took them on a walk.  I can see possibilities here.  They are ecstatic to be out, "nosing around", expanding and exploring their world. 

I know you don't recommend scratch, but I have found it to be a great training aid.  Since I can't leave them out without guarding them, I need to be able to get them back into the run on my schedule, not theirs.  Scratch works well for this.  So far, so good.  And, again, I can see possibilities.... "will do tricks for scratch!"

I look forward to another of your workshops one of these days.

Celeste

.

Helping out a fellow farmer and having fun doing it!

When we heard that the ewes at Rebecca King's farm were seemingly all kidding at the same time, we sent some apprentices down to her beautiful farm to help out.  As you can see, it wasn't all bad.  Lisette is teaching one kid how to suck from a bottle, while another is nibbling her hair.  Although she did come home pretty much covered in poo, urine, and milk, I'm not sure there's anything cuter than being surrounded by 100 newly born lambs.  The upside for us, over and above all of that fluffiness, is that Rebecca sent Lisette back with her award-winning Garden Variety Sheep Cheese.  Holy cow!  Er, I mean...lamb?

Mice in the Vegetable Garden: How to Deal with Pest Control

Mice have ravaged our otherwise-beautiful looking pea plants.  Those pests are pretty crafty, but our minds over here at Love Apple Farm are even craftier.  Those little buggers are so smart, they expertly incise the edges of the pods and extract the developing peas.

When I first saw this damage a couple of weeks ago, I thought it was one of a few of our winter evils: slugs, pill bugs, or earwigs.  Sprinkling diatomaceous earth around the plants came to no avail in abetting the damage.  However, yesterday I looked a little closer.  The first key to controlling a pest situation organically is close observation.  Sit there, and really look at what's going on.

After some contemplation, I noticed tiny teeth marks serrating the edges.  Voila!  Those teeth marks were not made by insects.  They were definitely the work of our large resident population of mice.  We thought we had a handle on the mice situation earlier this year, but apparently not.  Now it's back to square one in dealing with these vermin.

Immediate action was needed.  I remember someone once had told me how fond mice are of tomato seeds, and someone else had given me advice on using peanut butter.  So with my motto of more being more, I decided to use both in our traps.  We mixed up a batch of old tomato seeds together with some peanut butter (it happened to be crunchy, organic peanut butter, and I don't know if that makes a difference, but it's what we have on hand).

 
We then baited our old standby, Victor Mouse Traps, with the gooey mixture.  We had to be super careful in trying not to snap the traps on our fingers.  That would've hurt, but not for long.  Many people criticize our use of snap traps, thinking that their cats or dogs are going to get hurt by them.  Yes, your cat or dog might yelp if they get caught in the trap, but it will only be once (they'll learn quickly!), it'll hurt for a few minutes, then they'll go back to either wagging their tail or ignoring you--depending on the species.  We put about 15 traps, nicely baited, around various parts of the pea bed.  Now we'll see who's smarter--us or those varmints!

 

 

We'll keep you posted.

What have been some of your solutions for mice in your garden?

Important Instructions for AllLove Apple Farms Students

EVEN IF YOU HAVE BEEN TO A PREVIOUS CLASS, THESE INSTRUCTIONS CHANGE FREQUENTLY, SO PLEASE REVIEW THEM.

The following are important for ALL Love Apple Farms gardening classes (our gardening classes are held at 5311 Scotts Valley Dr., Scotts Valley, CA:

1. Wear warm layered clothing. It WILL be cold in our classroom early in the day and possibly HOT later. On rainy and cold days, you will want an umbrella or rain jacket as well as even a blanket or throw to keep you more comfortable. Also it's best to wear closed toe, non-slip shoes. You will be walking on uneven, slippery surfaces.
2. Wear a gardening hat, sunscreen and sunglasses. It can get bright and hot outside if you are coming to a gardening class. You may even want to bring a seat cushion since our chairs are hard and you'll be sitting for long periods.
3. Bring a snack or lunch for longer classes. Also bring a water bottle or something to drink. 
4. Bring a notepad and something to write with.
5. Realize there could be significant traffic on Highway 17 on some sunny or stormy days. Please plan your commute accordingly, as we do start our classes on time.

You may park directly across the street from our back-lot metal parking gate, in the two-story office building parking lot and walk across the little street to our back lot. Note you are not walking across Scotts Valley Drive, you are walking across a side street called Willis Road. We are located behind Ivy's Porch, on the corner of Scotts Valley Drive and Willis Road. Download a parking schematic here , so that you don't accidentally park way down the street or across busy Scotts Valley Drive, as some of our students have accidentally done.

Browse the following information on this page regarding specific classes. If your class isn't mentioned below, then you only need worry about the first 5 items above.

If you are attending our Compost class:

This class is held at Love Apple Farms' spring plant sale, located at 5311 Scotts Valley Dr., Scotts Valley, CA. There is always a chance at a last minute location change, so please check your reminder email to ensure the correct address. In addition to the list at the top of this page, we ask our students, if possible, to bring any compostable items to the class for our demo compost pile we will be building. We would greatly appreciate if you could hold on to the following items you would be otherwise throwing away or recycling and bring them to class: food scraps from this week's meals (no meat or bones), eggshells, newspapers, shredded paper, waste from vegetarian animals (rabbits, goats, horses--not dogs or cats), lawn clippings (not treated with chemicals), dry leaves, coffee grounds and filters, tea bags, yard trimmings, cardboard, fireplace ashes, hair, fur, or sawdust.

If you are attending our Bee-Keeping Class:

This class is held at Love Apple Farms' spring plant sale, located at 5311 Scotts Valley Dr., Scotts Valley, CA. There is always a chance at a last minute location change, so please check your reminder email to ensure the correct address. In addition to the list at the top of this page, please wear a long sleeved, high collared, WHITE shirt and white or light colored neutral long pants (like khakis or light blue jeans). It's best not to wear any perfumes or colognes. Bees perceive bright or dark colors as threats and are attracted to perfumes and colognes. Please do NOT wear short sleeves, short pants, skirts, or open toed-shoes. Also bring some gardening gloves. Think covering up as much of your exposed skin as possible. Bees are also attracted to sunglasses, so you may want to bring a light colored hat rather than watch the class with sunglasses on.

If you are attending our Garden Mosaics class:

This class is held at Love Apple Farms' spring plant sale, located at 5311 Scotts Valley Dr., Scotts Valley, CA. Materials to bring: dinnerware plates, tile, mirror, opaque (not clear)  glass, pebbles, half-marbles, or ceramic pieces you may have. Good, cheap sources are Dollar Stores, yard sales, the flea market, thrift stores, etc. We do have a stash of them for students to use, but it's more fun to source some items if you have the bandwidth to do so. Also try to bring a tile nipper and safety goggles.  These items are available at your local good hardware store also. Note you'll need a good tile nipper if you want to continue this craft after the class. If you cannot bring them, we will provide them.

If you are attending our Cheese Making class:

This particular class is held at New Leaf Community Market's classroom, located at 1101 Fair Avenue, Santa Cruz. Please wear closed-toe shoes in the classroom, as you would in a restaurant kitchen environment, and be prepared to tie up long hair in a pony tail or bun as a courtesy to other students.

If your class isn't specifically mentioned above, then you only need worry about the first 5 items at the very top of this page. If you are attending any other type of gardening class, those are all held at our retail greenhouse, located at 5311 Scotts Valley Dr., Scotts Valley, CA. There is always a chance at a last minute location change, so please check your reminder email to ensure the correct address.

--------------------------------------

If you are traveling from out of town for the class and are unable to bring materials, please contact us at loveapplefarms@gmail.com to discuss options (which are usually possible).

If you have any other questions, don't hesitate to ask us at loveapplefarms@gmail.com

We look forward to having you as a student!

Morelle de Balbis, also known as the Litchi Tomato

Beautiful flower, isn't it?  Somewhat familiar, you say?  For you veteran gardeners, you'll recognize that it's probably a member of the nightshade family, and you're absolutely right.  For those of you whom I talked into buying a seedling of this plant this past spring, you'll also recognize it, as you should have it handsomely growing in your gardens by now.

For those of you who have grown tomatillos before, you'll find its husk-covered fruits somewhat familiar (without those thorns, of course).

This plant is an interesting sister of the tomato and of the tomatillo.  It's called Morelle de Balbis, or less elegantly, the Litchi Tomato.  A member of the Solanacea family, its proper name is Solanum Sisymbriifolium.

I received the seeds of this beautiful plant from Sylvain, Alan Passard's head gardener, when I was fortunate enough to visit the chef's farm outside of Le Mans, France.  Out of all the plants Sylvain was cultivating for Passard's world-famous restaurant, L'Arpege, he wanted me to have these seeds.  Sylvain doesn't speak English, and I don't speak French, but I could tell just by looking at the seed that it was a nightshade plant.  The seed looks like an exact cross between a tomato and a pepper.  He told me through an interpreter that the fruit tasted like a cherry. I was in.

I hid the precious seeds in a side pocket of my suitcase, and forgot to declare them when I came back through Customs in the States (this is actually true, I ignorantly declared all of the other seeds I had carefully selected and purchased while traveling through Europe; and watched in horror as the Customs agent wordlessly grabbed the hefty stack and threw it into the trash).

When I was ready to germinate the seeds, I couldn't find any information about them on-line, but their care must be just like a tomato, I surmised.  And indeed they were.  They grew and flourished exactly like one. Except for the thorns.  Take a look at these thorns!  They're on just about every surface of this plant: the stems, both upper and lower sides of the leaves, even the fruit husks!

I also realized that they need staking, just like most well-tended tomatoes do.  We put them in our standard 7 foot tall by 2 foot wide concrete-reinforcing wire cages.  The other thing I learned about the Litchi Tomato is that they need a pollinator.  That is, you must grow at least two plants together, not just one.  If you only grow one, you won't get any of the blossoms pollinated.  You need those blossoms pollinated in order to have it turn into a fruit.

Somewhat like a tomatillo, the ripening fruit will burst the husk, revealing that it's ready to pick (with heavily gloved hands). I wait for the red fruit to start to soften, which is what you should do for a tomatillo or a tomato to ensure maximum sweetness.

 

These seeds are hard to find, but I think you can do so through the Seed Savers Exchange if you are a member. 

Meet our Favorite Supplier of Mulch Products:Vision Recycling

I probably get asked a hundred times a year how we deal with muddy paths and weeds.  A long time ago I had the good fortune of finding a local company that produces a premium recycled mulch: Vision Recycling.  I love the fact that they take wood, brush, and organic lumber scraps and make something wonderful out of it.  At Love Apple Farm, we have been mulching our paths with Vision Recycling mulch now for about 10 years.  We absolutely love it.  I like the uniformity of it, the versatility of it, and I have always appreciated their pricing. It's beautiful stuff, take a look:

Vision Recycling works with Bay Area dumps to take wood waste and do something positive with it.  I've been to their site and watched their gigantic grinder working on old fence boards, pallets, and lumber bits.  From trash to treasure...truly.

They're really good about removing any rocks, nails, hardware, and never use painted or pressure-treated lumber.

I use their wood chips on all of our farm and garden paths.  The wonder of it (to me) is that it levels out uneven surfaces, supresses weeds, adds an organic, homey feel to the garden, is less "hot" in the summer than gravel, and I don't have to worry about my gravel getting messed up by leaf drop or wind-borne schmutz.  The mulch perfectly blends with anything dropped on it.  I've used it to hide old cracked, uneven sidewalks by just mulching over them.

We don't tend to use wood chip mulch like this in our garden beds, but I have used it with great success in ornamental landscaping.  It hides drip irrigation lines really well and gives a crisp, professional look to perennial plantings.  They have a few different colors and sizes as well.  I always get the premium wood chips.

You can go to Vision Recycling and pick up as little or as much mulch as your vehicle can carry, or they'll deliver to you as well.  You'll need to figure out the quantity you need in square yards.  A "yard" is a unit of measure that is three feet by three feet square.  If you want to install a two-inch covering over a garden path that is four feet wide and 50 feet long, you'll need about about one and a quarter yards of mulch.  Here is a great landscape calculator to use to estimate your needs.  If you click on that calculator to double-check my math, you'll notice that 1.23 cubic yards of mulch equals almost 17 big store-bought bags of mulch.  Buying mulch in bags is a bad deal.  At about $3 per bag, a 2 cubic foot bag of wood chip mulch would cost you about $51 plus tax.  But the same amount at Vision Recycling would be half that. 

These types of tips and more are discussed in detail during Love Apple Farm's "Designing the Perfect Vegetable Garden" workshop.  I've got a great aerial shot of my original farm on that class page.  Just check out all of those paths.  Each one covered with mulch.  No mud, virtually no weeds, gorgeous!  Love Apple Farm's new location will continue the theme of beds and mulched paths, thanks to Vision Recycling. 

Sunrise, Sunset

Everybody in the California Bay Area today seems to be tweeting and facebooking about the sunrise and sunset today.  That's interesting to me, as I have never in my life taken a picture of both those events in the same day.  Yet today I did.  I'm not even close to being a good photographer, and I'm only using my cellphone, but the beginning and end of today was, indeed fantastic.  I've never seen a more gorgeous day, bar none, in California.  And on a November 4, that's unusual indeed.

Turkeys at Love Apple Farm

Took this through my office window this morning.  Don't they know it's November????

Winter Squash Doesn't Grow in the Winter

During my Winter Vegetable Gardening workshops, I often surprise some of my students when I tell them that winter squash is not grown in the winter.   It's grown in the summer, just like summer squashes (Zucchini, Patty Pans, Crooknecks being the ones folks are most familiar with).

Winter squashes are grown in the summer and then are stored for the winter.  They all have a tougher, harder rind than summer squashes, making them able to be kept unrefrigerated for long periods of time.  Back in the day, people would keep them in their cool, dry root cellars, along with carrots, beets, rutabagas, potatoes and turnips.  All of which are able to be kept for quite a while without going bad.

The key for such long-term storage is coolness and dryness.  There's no requirement that you need to keep winter squashes in the dark. It just so happens that most root cellars are dark.  

No doubt the most widely known winter squash is the pumpkin.  You all know that you can keep an uncut pumpkin on your front porch from Halloween to after New Year, as long as you don't get it nicked or too frost-bit.  Once that skin has been compromised, then it doesn't take too long for the pumpkin to decompose.

There are hundreds of types of winter squashes.  We've been loving these beautiful oblong, striped green and light yellow Delicata squash.  Once winter squashes are ripe, which is evident when they've turned their mature color, or when the first tendril closest to the fruit dries up, they are picked and put in the shade to cure.  Here are some pretty little potimarrons, Chef's favorite, also known as orange kabocha or kuri. This summer we also grew black kabocha, spaghetti squash, and these huge, gorgeous beauties, Blue Hubbard:

First photo in this post (the prettiest one) was taken by Greg Silva.

Workshop: Beginning Cheese-Making

Among all of the projects that brave home cooks take on in the privacy of their own kitchens, cheese-making seems to be one of the more intimidating and avoided.  There are cultures, temperatures and butterfat percentages to consider... right? Don't worry, if you've ever baked a cake, you can master cheese-making.  It's a great skill to add to your repertoire, and homemade cheeses are versatile and easily customized to your particular liking. Add lemon zest to goat cheese, or herbs to your hand-crafted mozzarella...it's all good!

This workshop will focus on three basic soft cheeses which are easy to recreate at home - chévre, feta and mozzarella. It's hard to believe that such delicious cheeses can be made so simply, but after you taste your first batch of fresh cheese, you'll never feel the same way about the store-bought stuff.

Students will leave with basic cheese-making knowledge and skills as well as resources for finding fresh, local milk and cheese-making tools. This is a hands-on class! 

ALL CLASSES ARE HELD RAIN OR SHINE
AND REQUIRE ADVANCE REGISTRATION

SUITABLE ONLY FOR THOSE 12 YEARS OF AGE AND OLDER

THIS WORKSHOP IS HELD AT 1101 FAIR AVE., SANTA CRUZ, CA 

March 21, 2020 (Saturday) 10:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m. $99  CLASS CANCELLED

May 17, 2020 (Sunday) 10:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m. $99  << Click the date to register (gift certificate holders register by emailing loveapplefarms@gmail.com)

MORE CHEESE WORKSHOPS COMING SOON - EMAIL US AT LOVEAPPLEFARM@GMAIL.COM TO GET A NOTICE OF FUTURE CLASS DATES.

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Please read our cancellation policy in case you are not able to attend your scheduled class.  If the workshop dates don’t work for you, if the class is full, or if you’d like to request that another class be added, please email us at loveapplefarms@gmail.com and we’ll do our best to accommodate you! 

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Love Apple Farms gift certificates can be used towards classes, seedlings, and merchandise.  They are available for purchase here.  

Check out other classes hosted by Love Apple Farms by clicking here.  

 

Delivering TopSoil Goodness, Sun Land Style!

Meet Bill, Sun Land soil mover extraordinaire.  Bill's my new hero, and Sun Land continues to amaze me as the fabulous, local company that they are.

If you're one of my students or a reader of my blog, you already know that I am an advocate of Sun Land products: potting soils, organic compost and fertilizers.

When we needed to purchase topsoil to fill our under-constructed garden beds at the new farm, I did what Sun Land recommended to me a long time ago: I had them custom blend our soil pursuant to a soil test.

So I took a sample and sent it over to be analyzed by Perry Labs in Watsonville.  Perry then sent the results over to Sun Land to have our top soil created.  It perfectly "matches" the deficiencies revealed by the test.

Now before you cry "eliticism," consider that when you are purchasing 30 or more yards of top soil (which will fill a lot of garden beds), and you have no room for dilly dallying or error, this just makes good business sense to get something perfect for your growing conditions.

The problem today, however, was that Sun Land's truck could not fit down our narrow, long, tree-lined driveway. Bill was not to be deterred, however.  True to his claim that he's "never had to return a load," he patiently and with lots of joking to break the tension, removed the tall exhaust stacks on his truck.  I don't know if it was cursing or laughing under his breath that I overhead, but after a lot of jostling and muscling in 90 degree heat, he got those stacks off.

Carefully inching down the driveway and around our classroom and barn, he barely paused at the view of the Monterey Bay before he wise-cracked that if we wanted, he could "take off the edge of our roof-line if we needed him to."

It's a good thing that Bill has delivered to us at our old location before.  He understands how much we appreciate him and his good work. And it's a very good thing that he has been driving trucks and dealing with tree limbs, low-hanging roof-lines, and customers oblivious to their impassable driveways for a couple of decades. 

We needed a guy with mad pro skills on this job.  We got it, and we got our top soil blend.  Ain't it grand?

 

Student Testimonial

I just heard from one of my students, Mike Hogan, who took my Early Spring Vegetable Gardening class on February 13, plus paid careful attention when I talked about my method for planting tomatoes.  Mike was kind enough to send me the above picture of what his garden looks like now, in the summertime. His daughter, Fiona, is posing delightfully in the center of it. 

Here is what Mike put in his tomato planting holes, my recommended fish heads, shell bodies, and eggshells, among other things:

Mike also sent me a photo of how his garden changed from taking the class on February 13 to May 2, the results of that specific class:

 

I like the straw mulch, that bountiful Mizuna and Red Frizzle Mustard. I see the peppers and eggplants in the bed behind waiting for some warmer weather.  Looks like it all worked out brilliantly for Mike.  Glad he came to my class and shared his success story!  By the way, here's what his garden looked like when he started:

Melon update and monsters in the garden

Remember our melon-dilemma? Well, have I got news for you!

 

These puppies have been growing like crazy for the last couple of months, and we actually have some fruit - it's a miracle!

 

This variety, called 'moon and stars' is from Baker Creek Seed Company - check out their awesome storefront in Petaluma next time you are there (it's in an old bank, super cool).  The plants are really healthy and loving their plastic-lined home, thanks Sara!

It's not just the melon beds that are going crazy right now - as you home gardeners know, you just can't pickle enough green beans. Here they are looking gorgeous on the vine...

Three hours later, these babies were pickles!

We also have some pretty ridiculous squash happening in the garden right now.  This Blue Hubbard is massive...

Here are some more glamour shots for your perusal:

    

  

Speaking of huge things at the farm...

Th-th-th-th-that's all, folks!