2018 Tomato Growing 101 Class

Not much time left before the first class!

TOMATO GROWING 101-Season Long Course—starts Mar 25-Aug 5

Do you want to learn how to grow great heirloom tomatoes organically from start to finish? Think of the money you can save by learning to grow your own heirloom tomatoes from seed. Plus you can try new varieties that are not sold in the nurseries.

These hands-on classes will emphasis learning how to grow tomatoes successfully throughout the season. Participants will learn how to grow tomatoes from their seeds, what starting mix to use, what soil to transplant in, how to handle the delicate seedlings when transplanting up, how to produce sturdy plants. Lighting systems will be discussed and your seedlings will stay under lights at my farm under my care until time to plant outside when you will take your plants home to plant outside in your garden.

All planting materials, seeds, soil, amendments and pots supplied while growing them at the farm. Class participants will get a workbook with printed material added at each class to help them be successful throughout this growing season and as a reference for years to come. Students will get hands-on experience by planting to gain confidence and will come back to learn how to prune them, make compost tea, how to identify diseases and pests and how to control them.

Participants must sign up for all classes at once. Course payable at sign up for a total of $150. Class size is limited-10 students max. This takes a commitment. No partial classes.

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To register for the class is an easy two-step process:

1. Fill out the CONTACT FORM below and hit the submit button. Then to pay:

2. TO PAY: click the PAY PAL button (below the contact form). You don’t need to have a paypal account.  They will process credit cards too.

Step 1: Fill out this CONTACT FORM:

Name(required)
(required)
Phone(required)

Step 2: TO PAY: Purchase all 6 classes for $150 here

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HERE IS A PDF OF THE SCHEDULE BELOW. PUT THIS SCHEDULE IN YOUR CALENDAR AND PRINT IT SO YOUR DON’T FORGET!

2018_TOMATO GROWING 101 CLASS SCHEDULE

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Review the class schedule:

2018 TOMATO GROWING 101 CLASS SCHEDULE

Section 1
HANDS-ON LEARNING OF HOW TO START TOMATO SEEDS/CARING OF THE YOUNG SEEDLINGS AND TRANSPLANTING UP/PREPARING SOIL IN GARDEN

Class 1 
Sunday, March 25nd—10 am to 12 noon

Learn how and why to plant tomato seeds/how to pick your varieties, what soil medium to use, learn about germination troubles and how to avoid them/hands-on planting your seeds

Class 2
Sunday, April 15th—10 am to 12 noon

Transplanting up to 4” pots/changing the type of soil, adding amendments for great the sturdiest stems, how to deal with transplant shock and learning how to maintain your plants.

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Section 2
LEARN HOW TO TRANSPLANT THE TOMATO PLANTS OUTSIDE IN THE GARDEN /LEARNING ABOUT SOIL AMENDMENTS/TAKING YOUR PLANTS HOME

Class 3
Sunday, May 6th—10 am to 12 noon

Participants will learn how to transplant their tomato plants out in the garden, how to prepare planting hole and what amendments to add when planting for better growth of tomatoes. Discussion and demo of how to use wall-of-waters (WOW) and how to set them up properly. After learning how to do all this, students will take home their plants to be planted in their own garden.

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Section 3
THEY’RE IN THE GROUND, NOW WHAT?
THE NEXT STEPS FOR TOMATO GROWING SUCCESS

Class 4
Sunday, June 3th—10 am to 12 noon

HANDS-ON: Participants will learn how and when to remove wall of waters, how to control leafhoppers, learn about tomato cages-what works and doesn’t work, saving water by mulching and using a drip system, using organic fertilizers, using row cover as protection.

Class 5
Sunday, July 15—10 am to 12 noon

Removing row cover. Trimming and pruning your tomato plants, the pros and cons of sucker control and how to remove them. Learn to make compost tea. Identifying beginning problems, which organic fungicides and insecticides to use as the season goes on if needed.

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Section 4
MAINTAINING YOUR PLANTS-PRUNING TECHNIQUES, IDENTIFYING AND CONTROLLING DISEASES AND PESTS AND HARVESTING

Class 6
Sunday, August 5th—10 am to 12 noon

Participants will continue learning how to maintain their plants, more pruning techniques, harvest techniques, and identify tomato diseases and pests and how to control them organically.

Organic Pesticide and Disease Control Class Review

class pests picToday I taught the Organic Pesticide class and added Disease Control too as we are or will  be dealing with pests and disease soon in the middle of the gardening season. The class was great and we had good comments from some of the attendees. I talked about what’s going on the our gardens now and what insect and disease controls we can implement. Attached is the pdf from the class for anyone who wants to know what I do.

ORGANIC PEST and DISEASE CONTROLS

Also attached is the pdf with photos of certain insects that may be attacking our plants now as well. This is in color so it would be a great reference for you to keep when you need to identify a bug you may think is a pest.

CLass pests pics

I recommended the book, Good Bug, Bad Bug for everyone to get which is a great ID book that will show which ones are good beneficial bugs and which ones we consider pests and what crops they attack.  I got mine at Amazon.

Good Bug Bad Bug book

Then we walked around the community garden and looked for plants that are being attacked or are sick and I showed everyone the plants so hopefully it will help them go back to their gardens and look at their plants and see what is going on.

Other than the heat, I thought the class was great. Thanks to all 20 of you that attended!

Eldorado vegetable pest lecture

tomato hornworm revealed

Tomato Hornworm revealed-such a good camouflage artist!

Gave several garden lectures this week. The first lecture was on pests in the garden at this time of year out in the Eldorado Community Garden on Monday August 3. What a lovely garden! I hadn’t been out there for several years and it has expanded and is very beautiful right now (especially with all these rains).

There were lots of questions on gophers, squirrels, aphids, tomato hornworms, cabbage loopers, grasshoppers and other insect pests that are around now and organic control of them. We talked about all these pests and it’s amazing that any plants survive!

Attached are the handouts I gave out at the lecture:

CLass pests pics

ORGANIC INSECTICIDE CONTROLS

ORGANIC DISEASE CONTROLS

Here is some more info:

HOW TO CONTROL:

gopherstrap ’em. Sorry but it’s too hard to grow crops here anyways and to see an 18 yr old apple tree decimated from gophers is a travesty. Gophers are very territorial so you might not have as many as you think. Usually there are only between 2-4 gophers on a property.

squirrels-sprinkle fox urine granules around your garden (not coyote urine granules or human urine as one person asked)

aphidsAZAMAX-a new organic product available only at Newmans.  AzaMax is made from special Azadirachtin Technical extracted using patented extraction technology from the Neem tree but is not Neem oil.  The first week of Azamax applications will pretty much stop the reproduction of spider mites, aphids, or other pests.  You need to reapply Azamax to your plants every 7-14 days for a few times. Helps disrupt eating and mating.  You will then see dead aphids on your plants but they will not be eating them so you need to rinse off before eating your crops. Do not spray in middle of day when it’s hot as it can burn your plants. In fact, it’s good to spray this and Neem in the evening before dark. That way the plants won’t get burned and the bees have gone back to their hive (you don’t want a direct hit on bees) and by morning when it’s dry, it’s fine for bees to be around, just not when it’s wet. I can’t wait to try this on some kale that has them now. A landscaper friend who uses it in her gardens, showed me the dead aphids on her plum tree and it worked. Wish I had it back when the aphids were bad on the fruit trees earlier this year!

Tomato hornworms-handpick or if you have a heavy infestation, use Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis). Just call it Bt when you ask for it at the nurseries.  It wrecks havoc with their digestive system. Is harmless to all other animals but deadly for caterpillars.

Cabbage loopers-a caterpillar that eats greens, lettuce, cole crops, kale, etc. Use Bt for all caterpillar problems.

Grasshoppers-use NOLO Bait or Semaspore. Same thing, different manufacturers. The problem is most people wait till they are inundated with grasshoppers and then say NOLO bait doesn’t work. Not true. You just need to start much earlier in the season because it takes about 3 weeks+ for it to work and it is not as effective once the baby hopper grow up. Plus you need to refrigerate NOLO. If you have lots of adult grasshoppers now, put row cover over your crops to act as a physical barrier between the hopper and your plants. I noticed last year when I had hoppers that they were gone in 3 weeks and I heard they won’t be as bad the next year as they did not lay eggs and this must be true as I’ve only seen one or two this year. Not harmful to other animals, bees, mammals or birds.

How to use my gardening website

apricot blossoms

Many people have contacted me about what’s going on in their vegetable and fruit gardens in the high desert of Santa Fe, New Mexico or in Zone 6a throughout the seasons and have particular questions. Feel free to write me but I want to go over how to use this website to your greatest advantage. Every few days I post something about what’s going on in the garden, or garden stuff I want to share. One way is to just go backwards (scroll down) and read them. But let’s say you have a question about growing tomatoes. You could go backwards which would take you forever as I have over 650 posts on various subjects (so far) but another faster way would be go over to the right hand column of this blog. From there:

Go down to ‘GARDEN TOPICS’ and scroll down to whatever interests you (in this case tomatoes) from starting tomatoes from seed, to garden hints, or all the way down to tomatoes in the vegetable section. That way you can cut out subjects that aren’t interesting for you. (What?)

Another thing I like in the right column is the ‘ARCHIVES’  section where you can read my posts for a particular month and even for a particular year. I use this a lot for myself as I look up when I planted something in previous years, or other info I want to review again for a particular month.

Another section is called, ‘PAGES’ which you can access from the right column or on the top menus on the blog. I think this is a great resource as you can look up the page for catalogs I like to get, my garden plans for each year, my seed lists of what I’m planting that year, classes I may offer,  films I’ve made from my Youtube channel-giantveggiegardener, Santa Fe Extension Master Gardener’s radio show, ‘The Garden Journal’ where I talk about what to do in the vegetable garden each month. and even the about me page with info about me and this website (if you care to know!)

So next time it’s snowing or cold and windy outside this winter, take some time to catch up on what’s going on. I know I do!

Artisan Farm Tour-2014

It’s been a very busy summer for me. I’ve been preparing for my tour here on the property since spring. Nothing like having people over to get things done. I’ve had a punch list that I’ve chipped away at and finally got almost all of them done before last weekend when I had an educational tour for the Santa Fe Master Gardeners of my little Artisan Farm here in Santa Fe. Between the Home Grown Kitchen Garden & Coop Tour (different tour the week before) and my tour last weekend, I’ve pretty much been headless all summer. Now it’s all over and I can get back to a more normal pace. But wait, I’m getting ready to go to the SF Farmer’s Market! Always something. I guess I can rest in the winter! Here are some pictures of my Artisan Farm tour last weekend. The garden looks the best ever…

2 exciting classes this weekend!

I’m involved with teaching 2 classes this weekend that should be terrific! Read on!

If you’d like to come to either or both,  please RSVP  at 505-983-9706 so I know how many ingredients to buy for the Jam class and number of handouts to run out for both classes. We won’t be confirming your RSVP– just know you’re in! Come to one or both!

FIRST CLASS

rain-barrelSaturday, July 19
Creating a Rain Barrel and Learn About Rain Catchment
Learn how to make your own rain barrel and learn all about rain catchment
Time: 10 am-1 pm
Instructor: Amanda Bramble/Jannine Cabossel
Location: Milagro Community Garden (Rodeo Road and Legacy behind church)
Presented with Milagro Community Garden at milagrogarden@yahoo.com
RSVP to 505-983-9706 or email: homegrownnewmexico1@gmail.com

Learn how to make your own rain barrel with this hands-on workshop. Amanda will cover the basic elements of rain collection systems including sizing and sitting your tank as well as keeping the water clean. We will also discuss accessories like tank gauges, first flush systems, and filters for DIY systems. Jannine will demonstrate making a rain barrel out of a 55 gallon drum. Amanda Bramble is the director of Ampersand Sustainable Learning Center in Cerrillos, NM (www.ampersandproject.org).

Class is free but we have a suggested $10 donation or become a 2014 Member for $35 and the following free: classes, potlucks and one ticket to the big tour on July 27th.

 

THE SECOND CLASS

jam photoSunday, July 20
‘Jamming Jam Class’
Jam Making Class
Time: 10am-1pm
Instructors: Jannine Cabossel/Duskin Jasper
Location: Whole Food’s Community Room (St. Francis location)
RSVP to 505-983-9706 or email: homegrownnewmexico1@gmail.com
(You will not be contacted back, we just need to know how many are coming for printing handouts and how much ingredients/jars to bring.)

In this preservation class, you will learn how to make and process jams with available seasonal fruit. The twist on this jam session is our emphasis will be on adding unusual ingredients to make unique artisan jams. We will hand out recipes. We will also go over basic canning processes. You’ll get a jar of jam to take home! Come jam with us!

Class is free but we have a suggested $10 donation or become a 2014 Member for $35 and the following free: classes, potlucks and one ticket to the big tour on July 27th.

Cold Weather Protection for Vegetable Gardens Class-this Saturday

Here’s the flyer info for my class this Saturday April 5th-Hope many of you can come-it should be good!

 

WOW pic for blog

 

Saturday, April 5
Cold Weather Protection for Vegetable Gardens
Protecting your crops in spring
Time: 10 am-12 pm
Instructor: Jannine Cabossel
Location: Whole Food’s Community Room (St. Francis location)
Please RSVP to 505-983-9706 or email: homegrownnewmexico1@gmail.com

Jannine Cabossel, a Master Gardener and ‘The Tomato Lady’ at the Santa Fe Farmers Market will teach a class about how to use row cover, cloches, hoop houses, wall of waters, and other items to get your garden in earlier with protection.

Jannine has extensive experience in growing vegetables on her 3000 square foot garden using all organic methods. Follow her blog at giantveggiegardener.com. Suggested $10 donation. Become a 2014 Member for $35 with $250 value-includes all classes, potlucks and tour.

Seed Starting For Early Spring Crops-Class handouts

The Seed Starting For Early Spring Crops class that I taught today was sponsored by one of the organizations I’m a member of called Home Grown New Mexico. Home Grown New Mexico puts on many classes about growing, raising, making and preserving your food throughout the year. They are about sustainability, urban farming and growing organically which is right up my alley and the classes are open to the public. If you’d like to see what other classes/workshop Home Grown New Mexico is putting on, check out their website homegrownnewmexico.org.

Now, here are the handouts if you weren’t able to make the class or if you didn’t get them as we ran out of them during the class today-it was definitely a full house with about 35 people attending. It was a good mix of Master Gardeners, Interns and the public that attended. I really like to teach when you all show up! Hope you learned something and enjoyed it!

Starting Cold Hardy Plants in Early Spring Inside-2014

seed germination chart

PRESPOUTING SEEDS

Cold hardy crops for early spring in March-April

COOL-WARM SEASON CROPS

Pickle class a success!

pickle class

Duskin with picklesPickle making class went well today. We processed 15 lbs of cucumbers into about 15 pint jars. Pictured above are some of the finished pickles. Duskin, who co-taught the class with me brought his giant pressure cooker. We didn’t use it as a pressure cooker this time but instead filled the big pot with water to sterilize the jars and to use for processing the pickles using the water bath method. I brought my camp stove to make the brine and syrup. It was a beautiful day for making pickles outside instead of over a hot stove. After a short talk on the how to process food safely, everybody got involved—Duskin sterilized the jars, while the students cut up the cucumbers and garlic, mixed up the brine and syrup, added all the ingredients and cucumbers into the hot sterilized jars as they came out of the pot, poured the brine and syrup, wiped the lips of the jars and put the lids/caps on them. Then we put them back into the hot water and brought the water back to boiling and adjusted the processing time for our high altitude. While we were waiting for them to finish processing, Duskin showed them around Milagro Community Garden. When the pickles were done, we pulled them out of the hot water and let them cool enough and then the students took home a jar of each type of pickle. Good job folks!

Here is the one handout that wasn’t available today that I told the students would be available tonight:

Preparing and Canning Fermented and Pickled Foods

Here are the handouts that were given out in class:

General Canning Information

Duskin’s Favorite Pickle Recipes

Lastly, here is the Lemon Dill Refrigerator Pickle recipe that Randy asked for:

Fresh-Packed Refrigerator Lemon Dill Pickles

Seed Starting Class

tomatoes 4_17_11

Today I taught a Seed Starting Class at the Rail Yard classroom here in Santa Fe. We ran out of the handouts because so many people showed up. It was a great class with lots of ideas shared by both me and the participants. I promised to put the all the handouts on my blog for those of you who didn’t get them.

HERE ARE THE HANDOUTS FROM CLASS:

COOL-WARM SEASON CROPS/JOHNNY’S SEEDSTARTING CHART

DIRECT SEEDING:TRANSPLANTING

PRESPOUTING SEEDS

STARTING SEEDS INSIDE

LIGHT TABLES:SEED STARTING

ALSO! Here are some of my posts that might be helpful on things we talked about today:

BUILDING A LIGHT BOX –   https://giantveggiegardener.com/category/gardening-tips/building-a-light-box-gardening-tips/

SEED STARTING TIPS –  https://giantveggiegardener.com/category/gardening-tips/starting-seeds-tips/

GOPHERS PROBLEMS/TRAPS –  https://giantveggiegardener.com/2011/01/20/gopher-problems/

DETERRING SQUIRRELS –  https://giantveggiegardener.com/2011/08/16/deterring-squirrels-from-eating-your-garden/

TOMATO SEEDS PLANTING INSIDE – https://giantveggiegardener.com/2011/03/22/tomato-seeds-planted-inside-march-21/

Finally, there is a ton of information on this site. All you have to do is look at the right hand column and go down to ‘Garden Topics’ and go to the subject that interests you. That way you will only get my posts on that subject and you don’t have to scroll through 4 years of posts.