Garden Blogger's Death Day

*Double post. Please scroll down for the first one.* I almost let it pass me by, then when I thought of it, I almost didn't bother since it's such a sad (but all too necessary) part of gardening... I've had two deaths in the garden this month. The first were my two marigold plants that I started from seed. I planted them in a container that sat on the concrete, and had really babied these guys; moving them twice a day from morning sun to afternoon shade. Then summer activities got in the way, and after they finally started blooming, the heat quickly killed them. I didn't take a picture of the carnage because it was just too depressing for me, but they look a lot like ribbit's lavender over at The Corner Yard. So, if you wish to sneak a peek at garden carnage, click away... The second garden death were my bean plants, but I blogged about that earlier this month. I'll try to remember saving descriptions of death until Death Day next time. ;-)

Seeds are Ready and Waiting

This week I received the rest of the seeds in the mail from Sustainable Seed Co., and I'm so excited! The only plants left are garlic and onion. I actually already have the onion seeds, but I don't know where the packet is at the moment... I either grabbed the packet and it's being used as a bookmark in one of the many gardening books floating around the house, or the LO got his hands on it and has strategically placed it somewhere where I'll only find it when I've given up looking for it, and have bought a replacement packet... We're went to the Gilroy Garlic Festival this past weekend, and although we had a great time, and ate great food, I was disappointed that they weren't selling more garlic bulbs. I was really hoping to purchase a few good looking bulbs for planting in October, but the one small kiosk I saw only had small bulbs. Maybe because we went on the last day of the festival... Oh well. I've decided to purchase a few organic bulbs from either Trader Joe's or Whole Foods (need to find a store around me first). I picked my first cherry tomato yesterday... The others are slowly following behind this one, so I don't know what they'll be used for--especially since I don't like them. I'll let DH taste test this one. The Fresno chili's are still going strong, and the okra have slowed down their production. I finally have a sandwich ziploc bag full of okra, and will fry it up tonight or tomorrow. Boy Wonder and I picked out a new turtle stepping stone from Smith & Hawken's a few weeks ago... I asked him a few times if he wanted to name our new pet, but he's a very practicle 7yo, and giving a stone a name just isn't practicle... I'm hoping to find a hardy purple ground cover to plant between the beds. Suggestions anyone? The weather continues to break the 100's, so here's how the boys have been spending many afternoons...

Very Proud!

A post related to gardening by way of our move to a home where I am able to garden... We moved here last year (8/13 to be exact) when my husband was hired by Yahoo. Now the fruits of some of his labor's can be shown off!!!! This is a video talking about the changes to Yahoo's home page, which DH has been working endlessly on the past few months, and he's in it!!! http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?cl=14758196 "Only" 30 million people visit Yahoo's home page a day, so I guess you could say he's famous... *smiles, grins, cheers* He's the gotee'd dude lookin' back at you... I'm one proud wife today...

So So Succulent

(I was playing with the picture layout, as you'll see below, but it wasn't cooporating which is why there may be big gaps in places, and it looks messy... I've just run out of time to play with it more.) Yesterday afternoon while the Little One slept, and Boy Wonder read, I cleaned up the succulent clippings I received on Sunday. I took them outside to my potting "table" (an old small dresser) next to the shed, and spent as much time as I could bare in the heat, mixing my soil, and potting things up. This isn't all of what I received, just the creme de la creme for photog purposes ;-). click the pic Lots of sweat, and one slightly sunburnt arm later (the shade provided by the shed slowly fades as the sun moves across the sky, and my arm got the worst of it), here are my plants! I don't have much skill with arrangements, but at least they're in dirt! Once they're established, and I find out what their growing habits are, I may need to do some rearranging. click the pic The two large terra cotta pots will stay outside, the rest I brought inside to nurse until I decide what to do with them. With help from the wonderful people hanging out in the cacti & succulent forum on Garden Web, I was able to have all of the plants I received identified. Blue pot: Oscularia deltoides in the back, hen & chick in the center, and either Sedum spurium variegate or Kalanchoe fedtschenkoi in front (waiting on re-confirmation). Green pot: hen & chick surrounded by Sedum burrito (or burros tail/donkey's tail). Brown pot: crassula tetragona Tiny Oscularia deltoides at the back, hen & chick on the right, Sedum burrito front right. The variegated plant in front is either Sedum spurium variegate or Kalanchoe fedtschenkoi variegate. The flowering one is Aptenia cordifolia variegata or "ice plant." Crassula Ovata or "jade." The tiny plant sticking out of the front with yellow flowers is sedum reflexum. I told myself I was done. Nine pots of plants was enough. After cleaning up, and bringing my haphazardly arranged plants inside, the remaining plants and extra pots wouldn't leave me alone! They needed the love--the acknowledgment their brethren had received. Who was I to ignore their cries?!??! How could I, in all my green thumbedness, ignore their desire to belong? I finally gave in to their pleas. I thought, with the two big terra cotta pots staying outside, using two more pots for inside will keep things even. Then, my seven year old pointed out, "There needs to be one to grow on." (He big on "one to grow on." It means more marshmallows in hot chocolate, one more piece of candy, an extra kiss... lol) After these were planted, I had to put the rest of the plant clippings outside. I knew if I saw them, they would end up in a pot--or a few. lol Here are all the little babies sitting by the window, looking out at the SFG. Oh. I didn't want to leave this one out of the post. I've had this kalenchoe blossfeldiana for a few weeks... Here are the ingredients I used to make my soil. I used equal parts of each, and added a less than recommended amount of 18-4-9 granule fertilizer. Lastly, I dug these pictures up last night... Here's to my dear old house plants. The next three pictures show only a few of the 30 some plants we freecycled before we moved. I still miss these guys, and hope they're doing well...

So. Hot.

Sorry about the text color if it's hard to read... I don't know what the default is, and I'm tired of trying to fix it grrrr... Yesterday was a hot day, and we're in for one more before it'll taper off. The new thermometer I bought from Smith & Hawken read 108.3 as the high, and I haven't even set it up outside yet. Oh, what I wouldn't give for some rain... Even just a little drizzle to clear the muggy air. Most afternoons there is a nice breeze flowing in over the foothills that are San Fran's leftovers, but it's not the same as a sweet smelling summer shower. After I pulled my snapdragons and verbena last week, I decided I needed to put something in the top box that can take the heat better (the mint on the bottom is doing fine--I think it gets perfectly shadowed by the top box at the peak of the day). I bought the succulents pictured below. This morning I discovered these poor things are already getting burnt. :( As much as I enjoy the window box where it is, I think it's time for some relocating. I posted a "want ad" on Freecycle for succulent trimmings to add to the window box and inside the house, and once again, my fellow freecyclers have outdone themselves... Yesterday I met with a wonderful lady who has lived in her home for over 50 years. Her backyard was quite a pretty site! Not a spec of ground was left untouched by some form of greenery. I brought a tupperware with me, expecting to receive a few clippings, but what I received was much more than I bargained for! After pointing out how much she needed to trim her plants while walking me around her yard, she proceeded to trim them, and give me almost half of what she cut off! While these guys sit in the shade for a day or two and callus over, I'll try desperately to find a place for them. We have a few pots left over from getting rid of our houseplants before moving, but I don't think they'll be enough. I may just have succulents growing in random spots throughout the yard in a few month's time!

Cross Your Fingers!!!

This morning I hand-pollinated my Meyer Lemon blossoms. There are still a few that haven't opened, so I'll do it again in a day or two. I wasn't sure where I was supposed to place the pollen, so I used a paintbrush and brushed it all up and down the inside of the bloom, around the tips of the stamen, and went from blossom to blossom once or twice. Hopefully that'll do the trick!

Planning for Fall

I've been mulling over what to grow this fall, and I was finally inspired to get a move on after seeing Crystabel's plans laid out. Since I planted my cantaloupe, sweet potatoes, and watermelon late (they're in the right raised bed), I've decided to plant my beds more or less by month. As next spring rolls around, I'm going to gradually switch over to having each bed designated to certain veggies instead of a mish-mash of stuff in each one. That's the plan, anyway... To the people who know me and my occasional "obsessions" with putting things into excel: This is only the first page! LOL Please click the plans for your perusing pleasure. I'm told September is the hottest month of the year here (you mean it's going to get hotter than the 100* heat we've been having??), so I have some time to prepare for planting my cool weather crops. Here are my to-do's:

• Enrich soil in SFG - I'll do this by adding compost, used coffee grounds, and grass clippings. I was told 1.5 months was a short amount of time to do this in, but what can ya' do...
• Build trellis to add to SFG - I'm going to try to find recycled materials through craigslist, so I'm not sure how I'll be making this yet. I was given a height max of 4ft by DH though, so hopefully my peas (and whatever grows on it in the future) will be content... When I built my SFG, I installed PVC pipes on the right side before adding the dirt. These will allow me to install the trellis but also allow me to remove the trellis if I don't need it (yay me for planning ahead!).
• Add another set of 2x4's to my salad table - This will increase the soil depth to ~7in. Even though Lettuces have shallow root systems, a single level of 2x4's really only amounts to 3in of settled soil, and I don't think that's enough for growing good lettuce.
• Decrease height of salad table legs - When I built the table, I forgot to account for the added height from the casters so it's pretty, well, leggy right now (har har). It's a good height for working on, but I'd like it to be shorter so it's easier on the eyes.
• (maybe) convert the buckets I received in May to self watering containers (SWCs). This may or may not happen before fall sets in. I was originally planning on making the SWCs for next spring/summer's plants, but I also want more space to grow things now! I may just dump some dirt in a few and see how things grow...
• (maybe) Create removable "hoop house" over one or both raised beds - I'm thinking the hoops can hold either plastic to create an enclosure and extend my season (I don't know if that's really needed here or not), or row cover to protect against bugs.

Poor Pepper Production and Pulling Puny Pod Producers

I finally snipped the red Fresno Chili off the plant today, and burst out laughing when I noticed it's size! It's a little over an inch tall. When I took the picture the other day, I was too lazy to crouch down and just shoved the camera down into the plant, so I didn't bother to look at the pepper in detail. It looked so much bigger in the picture... I'm still fighting DH over this little guy! Last night's dinner was a low effort affair. Paper plates n' all... I threw together Bacon Jack Chicken Sandwiches, minus the sandwich, grilled the peppers shown in my last post, and added to the chicken. Awesome! After seeing how wonderful Granny's pepper looked (and feeling ever so slightly jealous), I hacked all but one of the peppers off of my two Yolo Wonders. They look so sad, and taste just as bad! I believe the multi-colored one in the middle has blossom end rot, so this is yet another problem these poor plants are enduring. This is my last ditch effort in seeing if these plants recover and produce something edible. The one remaining Yolo still looks quite odd, but with no signs of rotting (yet), I'm leaving it in place to see what it does. I had been holding my breath, and crossing my fingers for this lonely little pepper on my Green Bell plant to show me how it's done... ...but this is what I discovered today. *sigh* I was fed up with my bean plants, so I yanked them all out (see previous posts for ranting). The brown stuff on the top of the pile were my snapdragons and verbena. Here is what I salvaged, but I'm not going to bother with the teeny curlycues. There should be enough here to serve with the boy's lunches tomorrow. Oh, and the LO yanked a baby cherry tomato and threw it in the bean pile teehee. Here are a few of the 360* beans I mentioned on Monday. I think they were confused... Sans beans. The SFG is looking pretty empty now, but I plan on spending the next 1.5 months enriching my soil, hoping that my second round of gardening will be more successful that the first one has been. Currently the squares are: back: mint, 3 empty, okra, okra, okra, fresno front: cherry tomato, empty, marigold, empty, 2 okra, empty, empty, Green bell. This is how the LO spent his time outside while I cleared out the beans. Ah, the highlight of my day...

Fruitiliciuos!

With the exception of snipping off an okra pod every day or so, and a few more green beans, it's been pretty quiet in the back yard the past week & a half. I was able to get about 10 more beans from my plants, but I think that will be it for edibility. The rest of the beans are pretty curled (we're talkin' 360* here), are smaller, and lumpy (seeds). I am concerned they'll taste the way they look. Funky. Here are a few sweet & spicy developments: My Dwarf Meyer Lemon tree has finally settled into it's new home. I moved it to the west side of the yard where it enjoys spending it's afternoons in the shade of our neighbor's trees. Hopefully we'll be able to enjoy some lemons from this round of growth! I counted 8 buds that are close to opening... On the east side of the yard, our pear tree is bursting with fruit. Well, the part of the tree that is still alive... I don't know why, but this spring after the fruit started growing, the top of the tree just shriveled up and died! I noticed this occurred where the tree had previously been trimmed (by someone else, not us!), and the new growth is what perished. The orange tree is finally producing some sour oranges. Here's a cluster of fruit that is much smaller than what we harvested last fall/winter. Hopefully they'll taste as yummy! My Fresno Chili's are still growing strong! Look at the red one I discovered at the bottom of the plant. DH and I might be fighting over this one! My cherry tomato plant is about 4 feet tall, and producing more and more fruits, but none have turned red yet, so I won't take a picture until then... It just looks like any other green plant right now. lol I've had a visitor hanging around my SFG today... It's a Gray Hairstreak. I love butterflies, and since I haven't seen many around here, this was a welcome visit. Wait a minute... I did some reading on gray hairstreaks, and now I think I know what's been helping the grasshoppers put holes in my bean leaves! Looks like they like my okra too (it's in the hibiscus/mallow family). That's ok... They're a welcome bug in this garden.

Finally Seeing Green!

This was my first "substantial" harvest, on or around June 30th. A lot of garden bloggers out there are weighing their harvests, and I think I'll do that this fall... For now, my harvest is small enough that I can count what I get! LOL 9 Green Fresno Chili's - I've really enjoyed these, and have been our most useful vegetable so far. I've added them to pizza and ramen for a little zip. We've also grilled them, and added to our steaks and burgers. Having these chili's have been great because DH and I like things spicier than the boys, and they're small enough to dice up and add to our individual meals. 25 Green Beans - I have two varieties growing; Kentucky King and Greencrop. I picked 9 today, and the rest are in the picture above... I steamed those, and split between the boys and I for dinner (DH worked late, so he missed out). Boy Wonder really enjoyed them. We both agreed that they're a lot sweeter than store bought beans. 7 Clemson Spineless Okra - I'm clipping 1-2 of these every other day or so... I've been cutting and freezing these without blanching. I'm hoping to have enough before too long to make some fried okra. Here are a few pictures of what the garden was doing on July 4th... The blooms on the okra truly are magnificent, but I have mixed feelings about them because they only last for one day. This is good because it means I get to enjoy the okra that much faster, but I also wish I could enjoy the blooms a little more. I don't get to make it to the back yard every day, and when I do, the blooms are typically on their way out. It's really hard to tell yet, but the cantaloupe are growing. Hopefully they'll pick up some speed, and produce a melon or two before the end of the season. I planted my watermelon on June 19th, and they are taking off! These are called, "Family Fun" watermelon, which I was told is an heirloom variety (yay me! I'm growing somethin' old school). Behind the watermelon are my sweet potatoes. I think they've been taking their sweet time establishing their roots--but that's ok! That's where the potatoes will be! I did notice a new leaf forming on one of them, so there's proof of growth above ground too. I'm pretty sure these are going to turn into long skinny potatoes, which happens when there's too much nitrogen in the soil. And, I think there's too much nitrogen in the soil because it's a brand new bed... We shall see!