Pablito .... 

MARCH MADNESS
Means something different at Terra Firma.  Over the years , I have several times given the blow-by-blow of our first tomato planting.  By planting our first tomatoes each year in March, we are choosing a time of year that can bring anything from freezing cold to baking heat – sometimes on the same day.  We are planning on dry weather in a month that frequently brings non-stop rain.  And why?  So we can have vine ripe tomatoes a few weeks early.

 There are a few key elements to the equation.  The first is the plants.  Last year, we struggled to get tomato plants big enough to transplant in March, and planted them three weeks late – despite perfect weather for planting.  This year, the situation flipflopped.  The tomato plants were big and beautiful by March 1st, and by planting day were already getting too big.  While it’s better to put out big plants than small ones, the overgrown tomatoes tend to break while we’re planting them and then get abused by the wind.

 Then there is the weather prior to planting.  This year a warm, dry February gave us the optimal conditions to prepare the field.  Other years, we have struggled to work the soil just ahead of the planter.  The beds end up cloddy and uneven, making it far more difficult to set out the plants properly.
 So on March 1st, we had a beautiful field, beautiful tomatoes, and non-stop rain.  By March 9th, we had plants that needed planting.  A few days of dry weather and steady wind had dried the ground out to the point where we would just barely be able to plant by the next day.  Time to check the third element:  the post-planting weather forecast.

 Bad news.  A cold, wet storm was headed our way.  The rain would start Friday night, then more rain Sunday and Monday night.  After Monday, things were fuzzier, but the long-term outlook was for more rain.  Seven days of off- and on- rain might push us back 10 days or more.  The plants in the greenhouse would keep getting bigger.  On the plus side, recently planted tomatoes actually prefer rainy and cool to dry and windy.  It seemed clear that this was our window of opportunity.  Except.

 Forecasters were calling this “the coldest storm we’ve ever seen in March”, and were calling for record low temperatures, snow on the hills, and the possibility of large hail and funnel clouds.  Tomatoes don’t much like ice, snow, or hail, and they really don’t like tornadoes.

 We made a quick judgement call.  We would split the difference, planting just a third or so of the tomatoes out – as much as we would be able to protect from frost with sprinkler pipe.  If it got really, really cold, we would lose those tomatoes.  But we would still have plenty in the greenhouse.  And if it didn’t rain much, we’d plant the rest on Monday after the cold weather moved out.  If we were able to keep the plants in the field alive and it rained for two weeks, we would sure be happy we had gotten them out.  And if the worst case scenario happened – hard freeze followed by weeks of rain – at least we could say we had given it our best shot.

 Friday morning started out sunny and warm.  We wasted an hour or so deciding which varieties to plant and which to leave in the greenhouse, and another hour adjusting the transplant for the overgrown plants.  By the time we had planted just a few rows, black clouds were piling up over the Coast Range, and a cold wind was chilling us to the bone.  The ground was barely dry enough to plant, so we had to go slowly.  When the rain started around 5, we were just a few beds short of our goal.  Cars passing by the field on the highway may have been wondering why we were setting up irrigation pipe in the rain.

 Most years, the frost that falls in March is patchy, settling in protected areas and low spots near hills, on clear nights.  The farm where we grow our early tomatoes has historically avoided these frosts, and we have only had to run the sprinklers a few times.  Well water runs about 60 degrees, and as long as it is falling on the plants, it can keep them from freezing – even if ice forms on the plants themselves.

But if it stays too cold for too long, the plants will be damaged.  The Friday we planted the tomatoes, it was cloudy and wet, but by two in the morning it was already down to 33.  When I turned on the sprinklers at 2:30, the rain drops on the weeds outside the field had already frozen.  I don’t know how cold it got that night in that field, but it was probably in the high twenties.  Luckily, the sun comes up early in March, and there were no clouds to block it from melting the frost.  When I turned off the sprinklers at 7:30, the ice was gone.

After another close call on Sunday, the plants are fine -- not happy, but still alive.  And no hail or funnel clouds.  Not yet, anyway.  But it’s still raining.

IN YOUR BOXES
The cold weather isn’t doing us any favors in the harvest department, either.  We have a beautiful new field of spinach, for example, that was “almost ready” to pick last week.  Seven days later, it is still “almost ready”.  Most years, the longer days of March push our new spring crops and the last of our overwintering ones into high gear, but this year they are stuck in neutral.  Thus, you are getting a bag of pistachios this week instead of a bag of spinach.

I mentioned asparagus last week.  The good news is that the frost that almost killed our tomatoes seems to have left the hundreds of just-emerging asparagus spears undamaged.  The bad news is that asparagus needs average temperatures of 55 degrees to actually grow.  On Sunday, the high temperature was 53 degrees, and the average was, uh, lower.  No surprise, then, that those just-emerging spears are exactly the same size today that they were last Thurday – about an inch tall.

Every year it takes me a month or so to get into the groove of cooking with leeks.  Last night, I made a stir-fry with lots of leeks cut lengthwise in very thin slices.  To do this, I cut the leeks in half along their length, then put the cut side down and sliced into them.  Separated into individual strands, the leeks cook more quickly and absorbed all the other flavors in the stir fry – chile, ginger, soy sauce, and citrus.  Green garlic can be sliced the same way, and used on its own or together with the leeks.

 Minneola tangelos have finally reached their peak of flavor, equally sweet and acidic.  Some folks might even find them too sweet, but I’m sure they’ll get over it.  If you find them too messy to eat out of hand, try juicing them.  I think they make the best juice of any citrus – and lots of it.  Meanwhile, we are beginning harvest of our red grapefruit, which are right at the cusp of sweetness..
 

Thanks,
  Pablito

Recipes............................

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Produce 101: preparation & storage   TFF WALNUTS come to you untoasted and unfumigated.  To keep their oils from turning rancid and prevent mold and other disappointments, always, always store your nuts in the fridge or freezer. # --- ASIAN PEARS in the boxes are from our transitional orchard, which has been farmed without synthetic pesticides or  fertilizers since September 2004.   They are not yet certified organic. % --- The YUKON GOLD POTATOES in your boxes today are again from T. D. Willeys, located near Fresno.   They  are certified CCOF organically grown.

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Terra Firma Farms, Inc
P.O. Box 836
Winters, CA 95694
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