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Pepper seedlings in our #petalumademogarden nursery. We usually plant tomatoes in all of our clients' gardens first, then go around and plant peppers, chiles, eggplants, cucumbers, squash, and melons. Tomatoes can handle our cold spring nights better than all the other summer vegetables. Peppers, chiles, and other summer vegetables languish in the cold. They just sit there and hardly grow at all. If planted too early, snails or slugs eat the new growth, deforming the plants. This doesn't happen with tomatoes. Once the nights are warmer, peppers and chiles grow faster than the pests can eat and it isn't a problem anymore. So we start our peppers and chiles later, and leave them in the nursery longer. These will be ready to plant in a week or two. • • • To find out how we start our tomato, pepper, and eggplant seedlings, click the link in my bio, then this photo to go to http://www.grow-it-organically.com/starting-tomatoes-from-seed.html.

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Our 'Bonanza' miniature peach has leafed out nicely. There are even a few tiny peaches hidden under the foliage.

'Marathon' broccoli heading up at our #petalumademogarden. This head is still tight as a drum so it can run a few more days till harvest--and get even bigger!

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'Marathon' broccoli heading up at our #petalumademogarden. This head is large but still tight as a drum, so it can run a couple more days before harvest.

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A soldier beetle on patrol for aphids. Also known commonly as leatherwing beetles due to the soft, leathery appearance of the folded wings. By far the most effective aphid predator I've seen. The adults are about 1/2" long. They fly in from grassy fields in the spring and strip the garden of aphids every year, leaving only the wispy white mouthparts where the aphids were attached to the leaves. The females are particularly voracious, since they're feeding eggs in the swollen abdomens. They take up residence for a week or two. They eat, mate, and lay eggs near mature grasses or perennial flowers, where the larvae feed on the eggs and larvae of grasshoppers, beetles, moths, and other insects. They overwinter as pupae, then emerge as beetles the next spring. Soldier beetles take care of that mid spring surge in the aphid population, knocking their numbers back so the ladybugs, lacewings, and syrphid flies can control them for the rest of the summer.

Tomato seedlings so much happier in their new home at TJ Garden, Palo Alto, California. We've been working the soil in this small side yard garden for 5 years now, and everything we plant seems to thrive here.

Giant tomato chia-monster at our #petalumademogarden. Yikes! This is what 400 tomato plants look like after a month in 4" pots--err, 300, at this point. We've been busting our butts wrapping up berry planting and planting tomato beds the last 2 weeks, but as soon as we create a gap in the tomato chia-monster, the plants grow and fill the space in. We've got over a hundred in so far, so we're a little over a quarter done on tomato planting. We've even tucked in a few peppers and eggplants in our smaller, warmer gardens. So we're ahead of where we were last year at this time, but it sure doesn't feel like it. We're waiting for cauliflowers to head up in several gardens before planting tomatoes, I wish they'd hurry up!

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The garlic is going bonkers at our #petalumademogarden. This is the largest it's been at the beginning of April since we started growing it 30 years ago. With fall-planted garlic, strong top growth in spring usually translates into large bulb size in mid-May, when it's time to harvest. Still no sign of garlic rust, so we'll keep our fingers crossed.

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Green lightening. Gotta love 'Beira' kale--aka 'Tronchuda' kale or Portuguese sea kale. This stuff just explodes in the spring. We steam these leaves until they soften a bit--usually 3-4 minutes when we harvest straight from the garden right before cooking--then use them as wraps for larb or other ground turkey dishes.

Pat planting a 'Meeker' raspberry at LX Garden, Woodside, California. Woodside truly has some of the most miserable soil I have ever seen. Heavy, wet, dense, clay that sticks to tools like taffy and is full of crumby rocks. • • • People make the mistake of planting blueberries, blackberries , and raspberries directly in this crap. They may survive, but they'll never thrive. They need better drainage and more organic matter than our California clay provides, and a lower pH than clay. So we have to blend a better berry soil. We dig a deep hole, then mix in a wheelbarrow potting soil, high quality compost, fir bark, peat moss, and native clay soil together in roughly equal proportions (a bit less peat and fir bark, a bit more native clay) before backfilling the hole. We also throw in some elemental sulfur to help acidity the soil. We end up replacing most of the soil. Why even bother with the native clay? So there isn't a distinct boundary layer between the potting mix and surrounding soil. This facilitates root penetration outside of the planting hole. • • Sounds like a lot of work. It is. But it's the best way to grow berries in our alkaline clay soils. Fortunately, blueberries, blackberries, and raspberries planted this way can produce for 15 or more years, and the plants thrive in this mix.

Another tomato bed in at PM Garden, Hillsborough, California. This is one of our cooler, shadier gardens, so this year we're planting tomatoes at the back of 3 beds, instead of massing them together in one, and we're leaving more space between them for better air circulation. We'llplant shorter plants in front, so all the tomatoes will get full sun. So we should see a better yield, and (hopefully) we'll avoid late summer powdery mildew.

'Spigariello liscia' (Italian leaf broccoli) in flower at JD Garden, Hillsborough, California. This is one of our favorite leafy greens, right up there with 'Lacinato' kale. Use it as you would kale. The flowers are edible and great scattered over a salad.

Potato Towers and blueberries and raspberries in big pots today, but we were so busy I didn't get any shots of the berries. We're trying go get the last of the "extracurricular " activities--like potato towers and berries--done before the spring digging wave of summer gardens starts. Fell a couple weeks behind with all the rain, and have been scrambling to catch up in gaps between storms. • • • What's a potato tower? It's a cylinder of welded wire fencing lined with straw and filled with good compost and potting soil, then planted with potatoes. As the potatoes sprout and grow, you add more Straw and soil around the stems. After the tops die back in summer, you undo the wire twists holding the cylinder together, remove the cylinder, then push the stack over and fish through it with your hands to pick out the potatoes. • • • Flip left to see multiple photos. We're growing 3 varieties here--'Rose Finn Apple', 'Russian Banana', and 'Red Thumb'.

Yay! The first tomato bed of 2017 is planted at MC Garden, Portola Valley. This was the last garden we got in in 2016, since the client's came to us at peak season and the beds took time to build. Their tomatoes went in late and their yield wasn't what it should be, although they were delighted with it. So it's only fitting that this year we get their tomatoes in first. • • • We planted 22 plants in this bed, so they should have plenty of tomatoes for a family of 6. This is one of our cooler, shadier gardens, and the yield won't be as high as our sunnier gardens, so we planted more plants. If the yield is high and they're swimming in tomatoes in late summer--well, neighbors won't mind baskets of fresh tomatoes, whatever escapes the sauce pot. • • • I think we planted 16 varieties here--mostly salad tomatoes but also a few beefsteaks and cherry tomatoes. A mix of heirloom and hybrid varieties to see what works best in this location and which ones are client favorites.

Tomato seedlings hardened off and ready to go in the ground tomorrow! It's supposed to rain all night but we covered the bed with plastic, so as soon as the rain stops in the morning we can get our first tomato bed of 2017 in!

'Rudolph' sprouting broccoli at KG Garden, Portola Valley, California. If you harvest the small central head early, side shoots branch out like this. This is standard procedure for any sprouting broccoli variety. Cut them and cook as you would broccolini or asparagus.

Lettuce bed runneth over at PM Garden, Hillsborough. This time of year is lettuce heaven in the Bay Area. Not too hot, not too cold, plenty of sun, lettuce grows explosively this time of year, and the leaves are succulent, crisp, and delicious!

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