Barry Frank runs Westside Nursery. He also gardens in a very big way, and sells his produce at both Farmers Markets here in Casper. He is always innovating and experimenting. I like to keep up on what he is learning.

March 20, 2010

I have been to visit Barry Franck at Westside Nursery. He gave me a bag of fresh lettuce he was growing in his basement under grow lights. He also had carrots and broccoli growing. Barry and my partners and I will be trialling some peppers this coming season and I will let you all know of the results. I have also visited recently with Bill Simpson. He and we will be trialling some new (to us) tomatoes. Again, I will let you all know of the results on these pages.

March 29, 2010

Barry Franck at Westside Nursery wanted me to give an explanation of Days to Maturity. This information is given as a number. The tricky thing is that there are two different kinds.

1. Days to Maturity for Direct Seeded:

When you direct seed carrots or lettuce, that is you put the seed into the soil where the plant is going to grow to maturity, the DTM (Days to Maturity) is usually given on the seed packet or in the catalog for that variety. There is usually a wide range of DTM even for one given variety. That is because the different catalog outfits all test the same seed in different places. Those seed companies that test in just one place will have a DTM that is consistent for the climate for the company's home office. Other seed companies test seed in a variety of climates and then average the DTM. Anyway, if the given DTM is 70 days, you should be able to start picking mature vegetables that many days after the seed is directly sown.

2. Days to Maturity for Set Out Plants:

The DTM for varieties that are commonly set out into the garden as partially mature plants, such as tomatoes and peppers, starts at set out time. The the real DTM for these varieties is a much bigger number than the one given by the seed company. It assumes that you, or you local greenhouse, will start the plant 6 to 10 weeks before the proper set-out-time. So, when the DTM starts for these varieties, they are already 42 to 70 days old.

There is, of course, a caveat. We, in Wyoming live in a harsh climate. Please go to my One Third Rule to see how that climate affects the DTM. Basically, what that rule says is that to get a realistic idea for the DTM for a variety here in Casper, you should:

• Add one third to the days to maturity. AND/OR
• Subtract one third from the fruit size.

June 22, 2010

I knew that plants did their growing at night. But Barry Franck of Westside Nursery tells me that his reading reveals that they do their growing mostly in the first four hours of the night. That would indicate that the best time to water would be just before nightfall.

August 20, 2010

On the 18th I visited the gardens of both Barry Franck and Bill Simpson. Barry showed me a phenomena. He has peppers planted in stacks of tires. The plant in the middle is taller than the plants that are in a circle around the edge. Barry thinks this is because the middle plant has access to deeper soil. That is something to think about.

September 7, 2010

Here is a note from a new reader. She expresses some of the same ideas I have had about the 'center of the tire' phenomena at Barry Franck's garden.

"Hi,

I noticed your comments about plants growing in tires. It was noted that the center plant was taller/better. Perhaps it is the temperature of the soil and not the depth of soil that is making the difference. The black tires would create 'hot' soil at the outside edge and cooler soil would be in the middle. Maybe the roots of the outside plants are getting too hot. Is there a way to check the soil temps across the growing space, both at the surface and a underneath at root levels? Is the water reaching all areas of the plants equally within the confined space? Are the outside plants so close to the edge that the roots can not develop and are, in essence, root bound? I would guess that there are more factors involved in the plant growth within the tires than just soil depth.

I have recently moved to this state and am learning first hand about it's zone 4 growing, cold, hot, short season, early frosts and wind. Your site is MOST helpful!

Thanks,

Vivian"

September 24, 2010

Here is a note from Barry Franck at Westside Nursery. Note that when he talks about growing things for the first time, he is refering to growing it for sale for the first time. Besides selling plants in the Spring, Barry also sells produce at the Farmer's Markets in Casper.

Year End Review

The garden didn't do as well this year. There was no heat until the end. Frost took most everthing on Aug. 5, two weeks early this year.

Tomatoes in the tires did well, tomatoes in pots did not. Cucumbers came on late and we only had 2 weeks of production before frost got them. Kolhrabi and cabbage did well, better than last year. This is only the second year of our trying grow it. I do note that we have to keep rabbits away from them. Broccoli was producing well until grasshoppers took to them. 2010 was our first year trying it. Peppers did well, and we got a few nice size ones, but most where medium to small in size. We didn't plant any squash or pumpkins this year.

Tomatoes:

Applause: I got them from Fred. The two in the self watering pots ripened first but only produced 5 tomatoes to a plant. Of the two in the tires, one did well and other did very well. (Fred said they were big for Applause plants) It was our first year trying Applause. I will try it again next year.

Beefy Boy: I started it myself. Plants were small to start out, but got to 3 to 3 1/2 feet, good fruit but didn't have many ripen.

Beefmaster: bought the plants. big starts, got to about 4 1/2 feet, good fruit, didnt ripen.

Early Girl: bought the plants, good starts, got to about 4 feet, lots of fruit, about 1/2 of them ripened.

Better Boy: bought the plants, big starts, got to about 2 feet, lots of fruit, first to ripen and most of them ripened.

Big Girl: started myself, small starts, got to about 3 feet, little to no fruit, didn't ripen.

Sweet 100: plants started by me in the greenhouse did great and started ripening by July 5th and are still going. Plants that I bought did well, lots of fruit, most of them ripened.

Roma: started myself, did ok, only a few ripened.

Peppers (all of them I bought)

Carmen (Itlalian) got nice plants that produced well, like always.

Parks Whopper: got a few some huge sized peppers out of these (right Fred), but most where medium to small.

Rainbow: failed, 5 small peppers off of 40 plants.

Thai Hot: heavy producer is an under statement for these plants, these plants produce like crazy! 50 days for green fruit and 70 for red fruit.

Cucmbers

Marketmore 76: production good for the little amount plants I had, but they came on too late this year.

Bush Pickles: failed, very few came up.

Parks Burpless: failed, very few came up.

Cabbage: small to nothing

Kolhrabi: did well, nice size fruit, but I have to keep rabbits away from them, they loved them this year.

Broccoli: did well until grasshoppers ate it down so don't know if it would have produced better or not, it came on late when heat started coming on.

Wait for next year! Tomatoes will be in new raised beds, peppers will be in tires and everything else will be in new raised beds and covered. My production should be a lot better.

Here are some photos that Barry sent along.

Aug. 11, 2010 Looking East, Tomatoes in Containers		Aug. 11, 2010 Looking West, Tomatoes in Containers
Aug. 11, 2010 Looking East, Barry's Cucumber Beds		Aug. 11, 2010 Looking East, Barry's Brassica Bed
Aug. 11, 2010, Barry's Tomatoes in Tires		Aug. 11, 2010 Barry's Peppers in Tires
Aug. 11, 2010, Barry's New Beds		Barry is expanding his growing capacity for the 2011 season. Here are some of his new beds under construction.

July 19, 2009

I have heard from Barry at WestSide Nursery. He sent me photos of his 'jungle' of tomatoes he has planted at his place. My wife and I went out there last week and indeed, he has hundreds of tomatoes planted. He sent photos which I will display when he sends more of the adult plants fully grown.

September 13, 2009

On September 1, I journeyed out to see Barry Franck at Westside Nursery. He garden is doing well. His Whopper Tomato plants are six feet tall now. He had just finished harvesting 300 pounds of cucumbers for the Farmer's Market. He sells his produce there every Tuesday. His cucumber patch is about 14 feet by 200. Here are some photos he sent me earlier. I have also added some new photos he just sent me. Those new photos include some of one of his cucumbers that grew really big.

May 28, 2009 Barry's Double Tire Tomatoes		August 2, 2009 Barry's Double Tire Tomatoes
By August 2, Barry's Tomato plants were already 4 1/2 feet tall.		August 2, 2009 Barry's Double Tire Tomatoes
Looking Northwest at Barry's Double Tire Tomatoes		August 2, 2009 Barry's Double Tire Tomatoes
May 28, 2009 Looking East at the Double Tire Tomatoes		August 2, 2009 Looking East at the Double Tire Tomatoes
May 28, 2009 Barry's Tomato Flats in May		August 2, 2009 Barry's Cucumbers, early August
August 2, 2009 Barry's Pumpkin plants		August 2, 2009 Barry's favorite: Park's Whopper
September 3, 2009 Barry's Six Foot Tomatoes		September 3, 2009 Barry's Tomatoes, looking East
September 3, 2009 Closer Up shot of Tomatoes		September 3, 2009 Barry's Cucumber Patch
September 11, 2009 Barry grew a big Cucumber		September 11, 2009 It weighed 2 pounds, 11.5 ounces

September 28, 2009

Barry Franck writes this end of the season review of his garden.

"The total weights are in. Now that the season has come to a end, the total pounds of produce to come out of my garden was way more then expected this year. The tomatoes did well in the tires, the ones in the one gallon pots did what I thought they would do. Green and yellow squash did better than last year. Pumpkins where better this year, but Dill's Atlantic didn't do anything. Cucumbers did very good in the new bed. Eggplant and watermelon did nothing this year. Peppers did well but not as well as last year.

Numbers:

Cucumbers: 2,133 lbs

Tomatoes Red: 613 lbs
Tomatoes Green: 308 lbs
Total: 921 lbs

Name this vegetable! It was grown in my pumpkin patch. I think it is a cross from a pumpkin, butternut and yellow straight neck. I call it a Straight Pumpnut."

Bill Simpson sent these photos over of the hail damage we got a week ago.

Finally, a review from a friend who gardens north and east of Casper.

Hi!

"I checked your website. Your garden looks great! I hope it came through last night [Sept. 21]. I prepared for a freeze and we didn't get one up here. I harvested my Red LaSoda potatoes. I was very happy with the productivity and taste.

My most productive tomato this year was Orange Santa. Nice flavor. But I continue to think Hybrid Big Beef the best tomato overall I've grown here. ([Note: McAtee and I trialed many tomatoes in 2000 and Goliath, Big Beef, and Park's Whopper all made it to, and remain on the Recommend List on the Tomato - Watermelon page on this site.])

Gardener's Delight and Black Cherry are the best tomatoes for flavor. I had a nice surprise. Although the cold June killed all of my baby cantaloupe plants, a hill of Yellow Baby watermelon came through though planted very late. I didn't think it had time to do anything, but didn't get around to yanking it out. It got almost no care but still gave me three nice little melons with quite good flavor. I may have found my Wyoming melon! It was grown in pure one-year-old horse manure. ([Watermellon seems to love the fertilizer and one can almost not give it too much.])

I'm hoping I can work out a trade. I'd really like some garden huckleberry seeds. Your plants are lovely. Maybe you'd like to try Lagenaria Longisima-a gourd grown as a squash. The fruit is very firm and dry. If you hate soggy fried squash it's great. Stays firm in soup too. I love the flavor. I harvested some nearly baseball size fruits yesterday. I'm drying them and hoping the seeds have time to develop. I will likely have some Tromboncino squash seed too. These are my second favorite after Lagenaria for the same qualities. Both produce long runners, but climb well.

I kept some Yellow Baby seed too, but I've not checked yet to see if it is a hybrid or not. Same with Orange Santa.

I will also have Devil's Ears lettuce, and I'm really hoping my yellow Australian lettuce produces seed. It is so very slow to bolt though, that is is way behind the other lettuce seed-wise.

Any of this sound interesting?

I also have Hyssop Officianalis and Red Clover seed. I may still get Summer Savory seed.

p.s. If you need manure, I know where you can get literally mountains of old horse manure...the same place I get mine-next door."

December 17, 2008

I recently received some photos from Barry Franck. His place is the Westside Nursery on Coates Road, just south of Paradise Valley. This site has long recommended Park's Whopper Tomato. My partners and I trialed Whoppers years ago. Barry grows them in a big way. He starts and sells around a thousand of them each season. He also grows them pretty large there at his place. Here are some photos of Barry's Whopper Tomatoes, which are pretty convincing evidence that Whoppers are top notch tomatoes for Wyoming.

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May 31, 2008 Looking West		May 31, 2008 Looking North
May 31, 2008 Looking East		Note that Barry is planting in stacked truck tires.
July 4, 2008 Looking West		Some of Barry's Whoppers got over 6 feet tall.
July 30, 2008 Looking East		July 30, 2008 Looking North
Sept. 6, 2008 Looking East		Sept. 6, 2008 Looking North