Tall Clover Farm

Words to the Wise: Chip Away, Chip Away

Tomagrams

Tom

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August 29, 2009

I recoil at the thought of considering that which I love a burden or the things that feed me being a bother. But there are days, when a turn to the left or gaze to the right will add a parcel of things to my already hefty to-do list, and leave me pondering when will I get it all done?

As one friend’s frank father put it after visiting my home and hearing my plans and ideas for the place, “Tom, just how long do plan on living?” By his calculations, completion of my project list would exceed any date found on any actuary chart for any country (or planet). And this is why I never do the math.

When mentioning my dance card of to-dos to my friend and neighbor Dan, he offered up some elegantly simple advice, “Chip away Tom, just chip away.” As a man who could reroof his house, fell a couple firs, and fix a tractor before lunch, he knew of what he spoke. I embraced his words and sought to rethink my approach.

As an example of the effectiveness of Dan’s axiom, behold the wood pile. I have stared at and ignored two large (though oddly artful) stacks of log rounds in my meadow since April, knowing a day of log splitting fell somewhere on my enjoyment meter between tooth extraction and watching a PBS fund drive.

So last week, I promised myself that I would split four rounds into eighths each night after work. Because the ‘chip-away’ number was small, I would often split a few more. Ten days later, the logs are ready for the woodstove and my next chip-away task: stacking. I’d have to say doing a little something gets you farther than doing a little nothing. Yep Dan, you were right; chip away, indeed.

To bad it doesn’t stack itself

Setting the Table for Miss Olivia & Friends

Celebrations

Tom

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August 28, 2009

7

Setting the Table for Miss Olivia & Friends

Miss Olivia does not regret she’s able to lunch today, Madame.

Last Sunday, Miss Olivia came to Vashon for brunch,
Though our activities lead us to dine well past lunch.
There were gardens to explore,
Bulldogs to not ignore,
And raspberries to pick by the bunch.

Mom Leslie and Ms. Joan rounded out our party of four,
A truly welcomed sight at my door.
Laughter filled the air,
For we had stories to share
And a table of goodies galore!

Violette du Bordeaux Fig or Negronne: Two Names, Same Great Fig

Growing Fruit

Tom

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August 24, 2009

42

Violette du Bordeaux Fig

I have not quite exhausted my fig fest of love and wish to offer up one more in the August lineup: Violette du Bordeaux fig (or Negronne as it’s often called). I just picked this fig today, three days later than I picked it last year. (How’s that for consistent ripening.) If you’re thinking about growing one in cool coastal climate like the Pacific Northwest, you will likely be well-rewarded. Though only a three-year-old tree, mine has produced figs the last two years on a robust, problem-free tree.

Covering a succulent and sweet flesh, the fig’s skin is so richly dark that in some light it looks black and in others a dreamy dark violet. If I only had two fig trees to plant, I would to plant a Peter’s Honey and Violette du Bordeaux (Negronne). No matter what moniker is used, I call them all delicious.

My young Negronne Fig Tree is branching out nicely; more branches, more figs.

Dave Wilson Nursery describes Violette du Bordeaux as the following:

Small to medium size purple-black fruit with a very deep red strawberry pulp and distinctive, sweet, rich flavor. Brebas are pear-shaped with a thick, tapering neck, main crop figs are variable, often without neck. Medium eye. Excellent fresh or dried. Good for container culture or small spaces. Hardy. Self-Fruitful.

What I was blogging about a year ago (not surprisingly): Spotlight on Summer’s First Fig

Peter’s Honey Fig: My New Favorite

Growing Fruit

Tom

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August 18, 2009

45

Peter’s Honey Fig

Peter’s Honey Fig is thin-skinned and sweet as candy

Earlier in the week, I waxed on about a fig named Desert King; juicy, prolific, dependable and one of my favorites. This week I beg its pardon, and must swoon over my new best friend in the orchard: Peter’s Honey Fig. While I have no idea who Peter is, I’ll vouch for the sweet, syrupy honey-like quality of his namesake fig. And unlike the Desert King fig, which has a thicker green skin, Peter’s Honey is cloaked in a delicate gold membrane that melts in your mouth. This fig is basically one big sugar lump, but pick a day too early and you’re chewing on a cotton ball.

A fig that stands on it own and deserves no adulteration

Peter’s Honey fig is perfectly ripe when the skin is golden on the top half, translucent and very soft and showing a few wrinkles.

[Tip: learn other ways to tell when a fig is ripe]

Update: More Figs to Love in the Pacific Northwest

This post received some wonderful and enlightening comments, ones that share some juicy-like-a-fig insight to better varieties for growing in our maritime Northwest. Check out the comments from David and Ram below, and in the meantime let me share the links, photos and fig choices opined by David. Great info and cool pics!

Resource: Gene Hosey’s figs

Thanks David, for the delicious info and pics!

How to Know When a Fig Is Ripe and Ready to Pick

Tom

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August 14, 2009

156

How to Know When a Fig Is Ripe and Ready to Pick

Knowing when a fig is ripe

fig is ripe: negronne and dessert king — These figs are both ripe; skin color matters little in determining if a fig is ripe.

There’s nothing like a fresh ripe fig and there’s nothing like a fresh unripe fig. Ripe delivers a juicy, succulent and melting gem to fawn over. Unripe tastes like a wasted opportunity: dry, starchy and flavorless. It’s good to know the difference.

Here’s my photo guide to knowing when to pick your homegrown figs. Figs can be green, brown, golden, striped or purple. Ripeness has less to do with color and more with how they’re hanging. (Behave.) Varieties above are Negronne (a.k.a. Violette du Bordeaux) and Dessert King and photos below show Peter’s Honey Fig.

How-To: Knowing the Right Time to Pick a Fig

Fig 1. (above) Not ripe: the fig is too firm and still perpendicular to the stem.

Figs 2. Getting riper: the fig gives a bit with touch, skin becomes more translucent, fruit starts to bend and plump up.

Fig 3. Not ready yet, but a heavier softer fruit moves closer to the stem, skin shows wrinkling

Fig 4. Gravity wins and the fig is ripe and ready, no longer able to support its weight. Note the dewy skin and slight tear in the fruit; it can barely hold its sugary contents at this point. (Time to grab the snips and go crazy!)

Fig 5. (Update) I spoke to too soon; this perfectly ripe fig cannot hold its nectar. If you don’t pick it now, the birds will not offer you a second chance.

Here’s my favorite fig recipe.

Tom’s Video: How to Tell If a Fig is Ripe and Ready to Pick

Desert King Fig: At Home in the Pacific Northwest

Growing Fruit

Tom

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August 12, 2009

55

Desert King Fig: At Home in the Pacific Northwest

Desert King Fig: It’s big, green, sweet and easy to grow.

There’s nothing like a fresh fig, especially if perfectly ripe and dripping with nectar (see blossom end of above photo). And of all the figs you can grow in the Pacific Northwest, Desert King (a name that belies its happy habit in a cool climate) is one of the earliest and least fussy varieties I know of. It ripens about the first week of August, but you have to act quickly as they all seem to ripen en masse within a week to ten days. If you wait too long to pick them, the birds will make an easy breakfast, lunch and dinner of them.

Desert King figs before their brief encounter with sweet cream and shortbread cookies

It’s most entertaining to feed a fresh fig to an unfamiliar diner. It’s a texture, consistency, and wallop of sweetness not duplicated in any fruit. Most fresh fig neophytes take pause before making some odd faces. One of my favorite recipes for fresh figs is the cheesy fig bomb. (What’s not to like: figs stuffed with goat cheese wrapped in bacon and broiled. Was that an angel I heard singing?) Whether you enlist these juicy gems for sweet, savory or fresh eating, the Desert King fig is a reliable choice for the home orchard. Saveur.com has some nice fig recipes, too, but chances are you’ll never look at fig newton the same way again.

Boz the Bulldog: Fine Art’s New Poster Boy

Tom

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August 10, 2009

8

Bullish on art, Boz strikes a pose for Rondi: pensive, yet playful

Vashon has a host of galleries and fine spaces to show art, and each first Friday of the month island artists and galleries host Gallery Cruise, an island-wide art opening to launch new shows and new artists. Last Friday, my friend Rondi Lightmark had a showing of her pooch-inspired photography at the Sound Food building. Boz held a prominent position on the front wall (and in the hearts of the insightful viewers).

Island art critics stewed over Boz’s enigmatic smile and natural pose, befuddled that such posture and presence could be both effortless and powerful at the same time. Boz was unavailable for comment, said to be at home guarding the sofas, chairs and ottomans from would-be interlopers and making sure dog hair was present on all surfaces. Camera-shy Gracie shared his mission, but not the spotlight.

With the state liquor board putting the kibosh on free wine at public art showings, attendance was down this week. (Apparently there’s a law about that.) The mood was not surprisingly somber and sober, but all the better to enjoy fine dog art with fine friends (as long a loophole is found by next month).

photo credit: Rondi Lightmark

What I was blogging about a year ago: Build a Wattle for Your Pole Beans.

Horse Manure: Crappy Soil Amendment for Your Garden?

Gardening

Tom

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August 5, 2009

26

Horse Manure: Crappy Soil Amendment for Your Garden?

UPDATE:
I wrote this post after an afternoon of major weeding. I would like to correct something. Horse, Cow and Chicken manures are awesome soil amendments, but should be properly composted to kill weed seeds and ready it for garden use.

Check out these links for the inside scoop and composting poop:

(original post below)

Horse Manure and Weeds Seeds Can Go Hand in Hand

Spring weeds found in my raspberry patch, courtesy of my friend Flicka

On the daily bus/ferry commute my friend Rud contends that someone will bring up the subject of manure well before we reach the West Seattle Fauntleroy dock. On an island where gardening trumps TV and horses outnumber bicycles, Rud is right; all roads lead to that which lines a stable. So when the subject arises (and it always does), Rud remains stoic, takes a side glance at his watch and simply states the time, “seven twenty-two.” We then laugh and he returns to his paper, book or conversation—a conversation which doesn’t include talking about you know what.

This year I had an epiphany; unless a stallion jumped my deer fence, horse manure had no place in my garden. After spending years adding horse manure as a soil amendment to my upper vegetable garden and raspberry patches, a simple observation showed me the error of my ways. Horse manure comes with millions of weed seeds.

I created a large vegetable garden on the sunny frontage of my property, a place once ruled by scotch broom, blackberry brambles and weeds—lots of weeds. After bushwhacking and mowing back the brush, I took the tractor to the area and tilled it several times over a period of a couple spring months.

It’s now August and the weeds are minimal, except one area, the spot where I added one load of ‘composted’ horse manure. Within a month, that corner of the garden was a consumed by weeds, just like the upper gardens and patches. The common denominator: horse manure.From that point on, compost became my soil amendment of choice. I have the pictures to prove it.

Weeds to the left, sunflowers to right

No horse manure added and thus; no weeds, or very few

Clean rows in the cornfield makes Tom happy

What I was blogging about a year ago: How to Build a Better Berry Basket (or Bucket)

Seattle: Just How Hot Was It?

Seasons

Tom

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July 31, 2009

9

Seattle Reaches Its Hottest Temperature Ever Recorded

A day when candles and people shared the same posture.

The leaves on my Kiwi vines were as dry as Doritos

Yesterday a record toppled; Seattle’s temperature reached 103 degrees – the hottest daytime temperature ever recorded in the Emerald City (this year a moniker better suited for October thru June). The rest of the nation may say what’s the big deal, but you really need to put this record in context to what’s normal.

The Pacific Northwest’s weather is one of gentle fluctuations. In the winter, the night and day temperatures vary by less than ten degrees, usually between 38 and 48 degrees. In the summers 80 is a rarity and we’ve seen summers where the Puget Sound region never experienced a day temperature over 90 degrees. In most summers, I won’t even pick a ripe tomato until early September.

So I thought I’d share some photos of just how hot it was.

It was so hot…high ceilings, open windows and doors and an infantry of fans could not keep this old house from becoming an oven. (Residential air conditioners are as rare as weak coffee and cheap parking in Seattle.)

It was so hot…my sun-loving pumpkin vines succumbed to the vapors.

It was so hot…Scotch broom seed pods cracked open like popcorn popping. The entire pasture was crackling with mini-explosions, producing sounds eerily similar to when kids pop bubble wrap.

It was so hot… neither man nor beast could work, play or sleep comfortably, but some were willing to exhaust all avenues for relief (Boz and myself included, though I’ll spare you any photos of me in the kiddie pool).

What I was blogging about a year ago: Love Set Sail for Vashon (Anna & Ryan’s Wedding)

Tomato Plants: Leave the Little Suckers Alone

Growing Vegetables

Tom

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July 12, 2009

104

Tomato Plants: Leave the Little Suckers Alone

Pinching tomato suckers: not on my garden to-do list

Step away from the tomato plant and no one gets hurt.

Garden myth: you should pinch tomatoes suckers (the growth between main stems and the leaf) for a better tomato crop.

I ‘ve been growing tomatoes since I could say spaghetti sauce, and I’ve found that pinching the suckers is something every garden resource seems to preach as the gospel–a dire must-do when growing tomatoes. But In my experience, it’s a big ol’ waste of time that diminishes your harvest. If you want just one big tomato at the end of the season, then I’d say go for it.

Healthy row of un-pinched heirloom tomatoes (one tomatillo in foreground)

A tomato plant is not a bonsai tree. You want it to grow and glean as much energy from the sun to produce sugars for the star feature of your next BLT or caprese salad. I liken it to removing sails from a sloop and wondering why it doesn’t move as fast. Leaves harness the sun’s power, sails the wind’s. Don’t short yourself on either.

One of the many suckers that became a robust tomato-producing branch

People who grow dahlias know to pinch the lead growth so as to produce more suckers and thus more flowers. I would not pinch the lead stem for a tomato plant, as the suckers automatically show up. Another thing I’ve observed is that if you leave the tomato plant’s side shoots alone, they mainly appear from the base of the plant, and not such much on new growth as the season continues. Why? Because they are concentrating their energy on producing fruit for your next Salad Nicoise.

I trellis my tomatoes; don’t get me started on cages.

Now that I’ve spared you one more thing to do on the chore list, take a break in shade (ice tea optional) before you get back to your weeding. (And as you can see from the photos, I surely need to attend to mine.)

Here are few links to other gardeners who agree with just leaving the poor little suckers–the tomato suckers–alone:

https://www.gardenmyths.com/should-you-prune-suckers-on-tomatoes/
https://laidbackgardener.blog/2017/07/08/the-truth-about-tomato-suckers/
https://joegardener.com/top-five-tomato-growing-myths/