Growing a Greener World

(exciting music) - [Announcer] Growing a Greener World is made possible in part by... - [Subaru Announcer] The Subaru Crosstrek.

Designed with adventure in mind.

Built in a zero landfill plant, so you can roam the earth with a lighter footprint.

Subaru proud sponsor of Growing a Greener World.

- [Announcer] And the following Rain Bird.

Corona Tools.

And Milorganite.

- [Joe] I'm Joe Lamp'l.

When I created a Growing a Greener World I had one goal.

To tell stories of everyday people, innovators, entrepreneurs, forward-thinking leaders who were all in ways both big and small, dedicated to organic gardening and farming, lightening our footprint, conserving vital resources, protecting natural habitats, making a tangible difference for us all.

They're real.

They're passionate.

They're all around us.

They're the game changers who are literally growing a greener world and inspiring the rest of us to do the same.

Growing a Greener World.

It's more than a movement.

It's our mission.

(calming music) Depending on your age, you may remember a song from the seventies that said, love will keep us together.

But for many it's the tomato that brings us together.

And for tomato lovers near Raleigh, North Carolina, there's no better place to get together in late summer than Brie Arthur's house.

You know Brie is the design and food-scaping correspondent for us here at Growing a Greener World.

But you may not know her two other claims to fame.

One she throws an incredible garden party and two she's one of the premier tomato growers in the US.

Those two things culminate each August with a massive tomato tasting party and fundraiser.

Then there's Craig LeHoullier.

Also a Raleigh resident and one of the country's leading authorities on heirloom tomatoes.

He's been growing, breeding and studying tomatoes for over 30 years and is the author of the bestseller "Epic Tomatoes."

Craig and Brie put countless hours into their gardens each year.

But for one day, it's time to stop and toast another epic tomato growing season.

(crosstalk) - My tomatoes bring us together.

They bring all these people together it's amazing!

- As I was to someone before, if you were to have a parsnip party or a olive party you may get five or 10 really fanatical people about it but you throw a tomato party and you know.

- Everybody loves the gateway to gardening right?

And this is our responsibility as stewards of the gardening industry to encourage everyone.

- [Craig] These fruits or vegetables have chosen us.

- [Brie] That's right.

- To be part of their heritage and we're pretty happy to play that part I think.

- Oh also well, all that hard work and planting all becomes worthwhile.

When you see and hear these happy people enjoying this experience.

(crosstalk) (calming music) - [Joe] It's a part Craig LeHoullier was seemingly born to play.

From his youngest days in his grandfather's garden, then with his dad and ultimately with his wife Susan.

Through the process, Craig realizes his obsession with gardening and growing, especially heirloom tomatoes was more about the story behind the plants.

Their uniqueness, historical relevance, varietal characteristics and of course flavor.

Through the years, Craig has come to be known as the North Carolina tomato man.

But the truth is he's become known and loved around the world.

He's even the one who named the beloved and famous heirloom favorite Cherokee Purple in 1990.

And as a scientist, Craig doesn't miss a single detail about what makes heirloom tomatoes so special.

- The nuances makes them very much like wine or dark chocolate or other maybe foodie pursuits where you can taste real differences.

You've got the color it can use in different ways.

When you bite into it does your mouth just jump and get all excited and all your taste buds are tantalized.

There's a textural component.

Is it creamy?

Is it soft?

Is it crunchy?

Does it have give?

Does it just melt in your mouth?

All tomatoes have quite a bit of acidity but they vary all over the map in all of respects, whether it's flavor intensity, but mostly whether it's sugar.

And that's a major component of tomatoes.

And in fact that really tart tomato that you may have loved as a child just happened to have very, very little sugar.

It just didn't produce much.

And it's the tomatoes genes that dictated that.

Whereas if you taste a German Johnson, if you taste a Brandywine, there's just as much acidity, but there is so much sugar in there sometimes it levels out and you say, "Wow that tomato everything is in perfect balance."

Sometimes the sugar is so high that it's like eating a piece of fruit.

And you'll say "Well I had tomato tastes like a peach."

And then what happens is as you learn this and you learn the different personalized of tomatoes, acidity sweetness, you start using them in different ways.

Sweet tomatoes are my cheeseburger tomato.

The tart tomatoes are my salad tomato because when that sugar's low and the acidity pops, you can use them in so many different ways that let the tomato shine through.

(calming music) - [Joe] One other thing you need to know about Craig besides the fact that he loves his tomatoes, he grows a ton of them each year.

No really 2,000 pounds plus of tomatoes.

And if that weren't shocking enough, what if I told you he grows them all in his driveway?

Literally his driveway.

- This will become my garden.

We get about six hours of direct sun.

We get the heat of the concrete.

The degree days are crankin' and at the end of the year, with about 250 plants split between tomatoes, eggplants and peppers.

We'll harvest about a ton of produce and it will be wonderful.

There are a lot of plants and what will happen the plan is many of these will end up in people's gardens.

Many will be donated, but essentially this is how I start things off.

Each year I embark on experiments and projects.

And what I plant is a combination of what we love to eat, what we love to save seed from, new things that people have sent me they want to explore and creating new things for gardeners.

So talk about an adventure.

And it's just so gratifying to be able to take control of the quality and the variety of the food we eat.

(relaxing music) - [Joe] Many people that come to gardening do so because of a special family member or friend.

For Craig, a childhood introduction to gardening and growing tomatoes was just the beginning of a vocation he seemed destined for.

In fact in Craig's words, he believes that heirloom tomatoes chose him to help participate in their continued relevance.

- I was very fortunate to have a grandfather Walter on my mother's side, and maybe every grandparent has a kid that they particularly like.

And for some reason I was Walter's favorite.

He had a great big wonderful garden at the back of his house.

And not many people I think in the family even knew about it.

But on nice days he would take me back there and walk me through.

And when you're a little kid, three, four years old, you're up close and personal with water spigots.

And you can be close to the ground and smell the strawberries, and you can come face to face with scary spiders but these things make an impression on you.

So about 15 to 20 years ago, my wife and I first moved in and we started embarking on this gardening and growing our food.

The first thing that we want to do is have a garden and we had these extra seedlings.

We'd bring them to the farmer's market.

And we'd set up and they'd be in Dixie cups.

And the vendors would look at us, walking in with our Dixie cups and be a little bit amused.

They were quite professional of course.

And so we were sitting there one beautiful Saturday, perfect weather just like this morning and this elderly man just kind of hobbled up with his cane.

And he's just looking through our plants and reading.

And had a thick Southern accent he goes, "Wenzel.

"Wenzel that's a variety that I thought was extinct.

"I haven't seen that tomato since my granddad grew it "and I was workin' on the farm with him "and I loved my granddad and "to be able to taste a Wenzel again "would just be wonderful."

So I said well sir "I'd like you to take these plants.

"Take them home and grow them."

So we didn't think much of that until the next year, the man came back any asked for Wenzel's and he insisted on paying for them.

And he said they were incredible.

"They reconnected me with memories of my granddad.

"And I'm just so thankful for you."

And he went away and I turned to Sue and I said, "That's why we do what we do it.

"It's all very clear to me now.

"And I'm not really sure where this is leading us.

"All I know it's a good place.

"And we're just gonna follow the road forward "and see where it takes us."

- [Joe] Where it's taken Craig every year is back to his driveway and basement starting in mid February.

That's where the annual ritual he loves so much begins with a planting of his current season's heirloom tomato seeds.

But like with everything Craig does, he's got a unique system for this too.

- When I plant my seed, I don't plant one seed per cell or two seeds per cell, I'll plant 20 or 30 or 50 seeds per cell.

- [Joe] in a little square cell.

- So one inch, one and a half inch square.

Now where that gets me is in a footprint of one by two feet, I can produce up to 2,000 seedlings.

- Then what?

- So when I plant them, I have found that by barely covering the seed, placing them on a constant temperature, very simple heat mat no temperature control, providing some bottom warmth.

And what I found is quite an important step is I loosely drape just a sheet of plastic.

Now a dome would work fine.

It's just I didn't have any domes.

And what I do each day is flip that.

Because overnight condensation will form, water will beads of water.

And if I flip it, the sun will then shine, dry that water off.

And I'm not at a risk for damping off disease.

And once the majority of the seeds germinate, they're actually pushing that light saran wrap up and it's fine.

I'll remove it then once I would say 40 out of my 50 seeds cells germinate.

Then they sit in front of the window.

They will exhibit phototropism.

They will go to the light.

They'll bend.

So each day I flip those 180 degrees.

So now we've got these seedlings and they're starting to bend to the light and I don't want them to get leggy.

So I will do something else that somewhat unusual.

If we have a nice calm, sunny day where it's in the mid-forties, maybe mid fifties, I may bring them out into filtered sun just for an hour.

And then they'll go under lights and I will lower those lights until the fluorescent tubes are maybe within an inch of the surface of the growing tip.

- [Joe] And by not having the dome over them, which you don't need anymore because they've germinated- - [Craig] Right.

- [Joe] You can get right down on on top.

- You get really close.

But then it takes about it's that month from the seeding.

So your about the month phase, your plants maybe have true leaves, which are not the little round cotyledon leaves, but the toothy leaves are startin' to come out.

Then you're ready to go.

And then I like to crank up the music, maybe open a beer and have a transplant party in my garage.

And it's very therapeutic.

And then I will sit them on my garage floor, water them well because they're separated from their friends now.

They're maybe there were 50 of them all huddled together, taking up water.

Now they're in this big three and a half inch pot.

"Wow I gotta figure this out.

"I gotta start taking up water again."

Water them well.

Sit 'em in the shade or the garage for a couple of days, because what you don't wanna do is those baby seedlings expose them to a stress condition, bright mid day sun.

Those roots haven't figured out how to really rapidly take up water yet.

Once they're kind of settled in, they come out here, they get sun all day.

It makes for very tough seedlings.

(scooping) - Over the years, Craig has been working to tweak his soil mix to come up with a perfect recipe.

And he's found it and now he uses it year after year.

And it's incredibly simple.

It's two parts soilless mix to one part composted cow manure in a garden center, it's one full bag of soilless mix to half a bag of composted manure.

You mix it together and it's that simple.

Then you add it to your growing environment.

Now in a normal garden, you would typically mix that into your native soil, but Craig's garden is anything but normal.

It's his driveway.

And he uses these growing bags.

They're five gallon plastic bags that he buys online in bulk.

They're pretty inexpensive.

About 75 cents a piece.

He fills the bag with a soilless mix up to about two inches from the top.

And then he makes room for the plant in the middle, tucks the plant in, backfills the soil.

And that's all you need.

The soil drains really well.

There's holes already cut into the bottom of the bag.

It sits flat on the surface.

And he's got about 200 of these in his driveway.

But if you're a space challenge as well, whether it's a deck or a driveway or a balcony, this could work perfectly for you too.

And if you want more tips on growing the perfect tomato, we have that on our website under the Show Notes for this episode, the website address, it's the same as our show name, it's growingagreenerworld.com.

Craig has one more clever trick, topping off his tomato plants with a free resource that most of us generate plenty of in the spring and summer.

- But I'm gonna come over here and get some untreated grass clippings.

- Okay.

- And I love to use these as mulch because they slowly break down and feed the soil.

There's no chemicals of any sort in them, but what they do is they provide warmth and they also prevent any of the planting medium from affecting the bottom foliage.

- Right.

- And even though you can barely see the plant in there with the black bag, absorbing the heat of the sun with the moisture being retained by that layer of mulch, and I will replace that each time I mow the lawn, this plant is gonna take off like a rocket ship.

- [Joe] Wow.

Once Craig has the plant safely tucked into the grow bags, he makes sure to keep them watered at least once every day, sometimes more.

The heat on a driveway, especially in the Carolinas in the summer can be brutal on plants.

Craig also gives his plants a week dilution of liquid fertilizer every week.

The frequency is because with so much watering the nutrients quickly leach out and need to be replaced.

A diluted formulation insures his plants, aren't overfed in the process.

And that routine leads to rapidly growing and very healthy, productive plants.

Just seven weeks later, we're back for our mid season visit and looking at a driveway full of tall thriving plants.

Over 200 in fact, all growing in about three gallons of soil yet still projected to yield over a ton of fruit before the season is over.

While that's a lot of tomatoes no matter how you slice it, Craig's goal is not to maximize his yield.

Rather it's to produce several good tomato specimens from each plant that can be further studied and the seeds saved for future generations.

So keeping plants to a productive, but manageable size is extra important to Craig.

- For me success is a few clusters of ripe fruit.

So I'm limiting the plants by pruning away all but two or three suckers early on to give me no more than three sometimes four growing.

- [Joe] Okay so back to the suckers for a second.

- [Craig] Sure.

- [Joe] Those are kind of the thugs.

That's what really gives us more volume in this case- - [Craig] Yes.

- [Joe] Than we really want.

- [Craig] Yep.

- [Joe] So if we're trying to control that size out and up one of the things we wanna do is take the suckers out.

- Right.

- They're neither bad nor good.

They just they're there.

- They provide shade for the fruit so doesn't get sun scallop, but every time that a stem meets leave, you're going to shoot out a sucker or a flower stem.

What you wanna do is not remove the flower stems of course, but you wanna limit the number of suckers.

This plant has three growing stems.

That's all it needs.

So this stem for example, I'm going to just snap off that sucker and that plant is now controlled.

- [Joe] But when you get to the height, as indeterminate tomatoes are famous for doing, they just keep going.

- [Craig] Yes.

- [Joe] And we don't want that.

- [Craig] Right.

- [Joe] You have a trick for controlling the height.

- I do and it really is just looking at the last flower cluster that you think will ripen, keeping the two leaves, hands above and then just making a cut right above.

If you're at three feet that stem will get no taller than three feet.

You remove any suckers that form below, but that gives you a way of controlling the height and keeping everything in bounds.

- And leaving the leaves above is just really to help shade off the fruit.

- That's exactly right.

(calming music) - [Joe] As you walk around Craig's driveway garden, you can't help but notice some of his unorthodox techniques at work.

Here's one of my favorites and it's a trick I can't wait to use back at the garden farm.

Some of those plants that started in tiny containers are now growing out of bales of straw.

There are several benefits from growing in straw bales.

To start anytime you would normally plant something in a traditional way is the perfect time to plant in a straw bale.

And anywhere you can put a straw bale is a place you can grow your plants.

So no digging or prepping into impossible soil.

Even a driveway or balcony will work.

If it can support the weight.

Plants are also less susceptible to soil-borne diseases in straw bales, because there isn't any soil!

And of course simply based on their size and shape, you have an instant raised bed garden.

So no need to bend over as much as you would if planting directly into the ground.

And at the end of the season, you have plenty of organic material to add to your compost pile or spread is mulch around other parts of your garden.

(calming music) One of the primary ways tomatoes have always been classified is by their growth habit.

And how and when they produce fruit.

The two classic types are determinant and indeterminate.

- So typical indeterminate, very tall growing, suckers at each junction between a leaf and the main stem.

And it will set fruit about every six to 12 inches up the stem.

So your yield over the course of a season is gonna be gradual but consistent.

Determinate, which is a type that didn't even exist until the 1920s has a very unusual structure.

And anyone who has purchased or grown Roma will know what a determinant does.

The plant wants to be a ball of tomatoes.

It grows to a certain height, and then it starts blossoming on the leaf stem.

It will set a boatload of tomatoes.

They'll ripen very quickly together.

And then the plant will go down.

So Roma's a perfect example because you want a lot of sauce.

You want to harvest a lotta Roma's, then you make your sauce.

And then the plant's done.

- And now there's a third type of tomato to work into the mix.

It's perhaps the best of all worlds, especially for people wanting the smaller size but with the continuous fruit set and flavor options of the larger indeterminate tomatoes.

These are not determinant.

- Right.

- These are truly dwarves so this is new to a lot of people, but I think it's the future of gardening.

Tell me about these.

- They're wonderfully attractive varieties.

You can see that the foliage has a blueish cast to them.

The it's crinkly it's vigorous.

The stems are nice and straight.

A short cage or short steak is perfectly for them.

So what you've got is a tomato that a patio gardener, a driveway gardener like me can put in a pot, can put in a straw bale.

If you compare them to the traditional indeterminate types, which are about four feet tall, the dwarfs that were planted on the very same date are two feet tall and they will maintain that growth differential throughout the season.

- [Joe] Wow.

- So you get plants that can produce big colorful delicious tomatoes on plants that don't need to be pruned at all.

Easy to maintain.

I'll be able to pick these eye level.

This is as tall as they'll get and we've been able to recreate the colors and the flavors and the varieties of heirlooms.

In these varieties, they're open pollinated meaning you save seed, they'll come exactly the same.

So in 50 or a hundred years, we're hoping many of these will become heirlooms themselves and really help bring gardening to more and more people.

- [Joe] Seven weeks later.

And we're back for our third and final visit of the tomato growing season.

It's mid August and most of the plants had been harvested.

For most tomato growers around here the season is over.

Except for the celebration.

It's the perfect time to gather with friends and family to share the highs, lows and challenges of another year.

Nothing says summer better than the taste of homegrown tomatoes and Brie's party is the perfect place to celebrate the eagerly anticipated harvest.

- Nine months of planning and the tomato tasting has finally arrived.

And we have a great show of friends and family that are here celebrating the ultimate taste of summer.

- This right here is a Cherokee Purple, which of course I get to name this, the JD Green chose me to send this to.

And there's lots of them over there.

They're absolutely delicious.

So it's an honor to see my namesake tomato here but really you could taste 15, 20, 30 different types of tomatoes get all kinds of different impressions, but you need to mix in people.

You need to mix in great food and with tomatoes, you can actually have a party.

- [Joe] But the end of the season celebration of what worked so deliciously means it's also time to look back at what maybe didn't go quite as well or could be improved for next season.

All part of the constant evaluation and re-evaluation of every garden.

Even ones that happened in plastic bags in the driveway.

- And as always at this time of the year, I'm quite ready for things to wind down.

So I can take some time in cooler weather and really give a hard think about what worked well and what I need to do differently.

Cause that's a really important part of a gardener's planning is not only doing it upfront, but then taking a good time to sit down at the end of it and just evaluate so you can do it even better next year.

So I think it's an important, important for the gardener at the end of the year, where it's easy to feel, you're depressed, you're tired, you've done a lot of sweating.

You're seeing disease in your plants.

You're missing the tomatoes that you were harvesting a week earlier, but then you look at the seed that you've saved and the pictures you've taken and the memories you've had, and the results.

When I see my box of saved seed, that really is the confirmation that I've had a successful season.

Because I can now carry all of those varieties on, share them with other gardeners and feel like I can be the living link to make sure these varieties stay forever.

- The tomato.

Easy to grow yet anything but simple when you look at how many people are so passionate about this perfect little fruit.

And if you're like the Craig's of the world, literally growing a ton of them in your driveway and documenting every detail about those organic heirlooms to pass them on for future generations or you're one of those people that just likes to have a few bees steaks on hand for that perfect BLT, there's a lot more to know than just growing a few tomatoes.

Like Brie says tomatoes are the gateway to gardening.

And I think she might just be right.

In fact, I think this little guy right here just might be the key to growing a greener world.

I'm Joe Lamp'l.

Thanks for joining us everybody.

And we'll see you back here next time for more Growing a Greener World.

- [Announcer] Growing a Greener World is made possible in part by... - [Subaru Announcer] The Subaru Crosstrek.

Designed with adventure in mind.

Built in a zero landfill plant, so you can roam the earth with a lighter footprint.

Subaru proud sponsor of Growing a Greener World.

- [Announcer] And the following, Rain Bird, Corona Tools, and Milorganite.

(calming inspiring music) - [Additional Announcer] Continue the garden learning from Growing a Greener World.

Joe Lamp'l's online Gardening Academy offers classes designed to teach gardeners of all levels.

From the fundamentals to master skills.

You can take each class on your own schedule from anywhere.

Plus opportunities to ask Joe questions about your specific garden in real time.

Courses are available online.

To enroll go to growingagreenerworld.com/learn.

(exciting electronic music) (cheerful outro)