I liked tomatoes before but not feverishly. Since your Martha Stewart segment last year, I joined Tomato Mania and heirloom gardening Yahoo groups. I was very successful germinating tomatoes last year using a soilless mix. So the task wasn’t so daunting as purported to be. I had more tomato seedlings than I had room for.
Your book is inspiring and I wanted to let you know that it has made an effect. I’m part of a garden renovation project to raise $35k. Your book helped me to develop a campaign to include good health and nutrition for the “One Seed at a Time” fundraiser. Back in January, I contacted Irish Eyes Garden Seed Co. in Washington and requested a seed donation. I didn’t expect a large box of over 1000 seeds. When I received your book, I knew tomatoes had to be a big part of the campaign. Everything clicked.
Between another garden parent and I we’ve planted over 500 6 packs of seeds. With the cold spell and rain for 1 week in San Jose our seedlings are several weeks behind schedule so I contacted Kawahara’s Nursery, a major distributor in the NorCal area. They were excited about our project and delighted to help us out. Several of us will be convoying down to Morgan Hill to pick up tomato, vegetable and flower flats in the next few days. I specifically requested heirloom tomatoes.
This past Friday, Ms Miller brought her class of 1st and 2nd graders to their plot. We performed speed gardening! We dug out some soil from the compost bin used a rotating screen drum to sift out the soil then wheel barrowed it to the transplant station and mixed the compost soil with the potting soil where the children potted Bibb lettuce in 6packs which will be sold at the March 20th Farmer’s Market. From there, we stopped to measure how much rain was collected in the rain gauge and admired the wooden monarch butterfly hanging from the reading room Tee-Pee.
Final stop was to pick the peas, lettuce, spinach, and fennel for the fresh salad. We sowed basil, candy stripe beets and scallion seeds and thinned out the carrots. We planted gold coin onions and ended the garden experience by fertilizing the plot with Starbucks coffee. Umm it smelled good! The spent coffee grounds help bring nitrogen and potassium into the soil.
All this work in just 30 minutes!
Their teacher pointed out their vegetables and using a clever chart to locate the vitamins and minerals they contain http://www.greenleafy.org/ . She also showed my Mosasaurus jaw fossil to illustrate that you need calcium from spinach to have strong healthy teeth. Its rewarding to see the connection they make.
I’ll send you some pictures.
Thank you again!
Mary
San Jose, CA