Major Garden Update

Whoa! It's been a busy couple of weeks around the yard, and around town. I wanted to share a few of the highlights and a garden update with you, so grab a drink, maybe a snack (yep it's that long), and enjoy!

I first read about the Bay Area Maker Faire on Homegrown.org, and three weekends ago I took the boys (DH included) there. There were a wide variety of things going on, and something for everyone. We all had a really great time, and I'd love to go again next year. Here are my two favorites...

UCCE Master Gardener's Strawberry Tower, made of two 5 gallon buckets. You may be seeing one in my garden next spring... ;-)

I had just discovered these guys online, and here they were, in person! Absolutely love the concept...

On 5/26 I planted my Bush King acorn squash.

May closed out with high winds, making many plums go splat...

Over Memorial weekend we exchanged the cool weather at home for sand castles at Santa Cruz/Seabright Beach...

I almost stepped on this guy when we walked out of our hotel room at checkout time. No joke, it was the size of my thumb!

And, this morning, the yard and it's inhabitants looked happy to finally have a week of warm weather...
The Concrete Garden...

Raised beds and flower garden...

The Container Gang...
Clementine in the back left with nasturtiums, White Habanero's and Baby Belles in the way back (melons and tomato in the green SWP). In the second row is another Baby Belle, two potato plants, and a cuke. In the front are two more potatoes.

Charantais melons and Tumbling Tom (between petunias)...

Bush Slicer Cukes...

My poor, abused Meyer... It hadn't been doing well, and then I made things worse by doing a few things; extreme temp fluctuations, too much moisture retention due to me mulching the soil, and under fertilizing then over fertilizing (slap my hand) to correct nitrogen deficiency. A lot of very yellow leaves were blown off. I flushed the soil several times and removed the mulch, and it seems like it's finally recovering. I'll try to prune heavily when pruning time is here, and continue to cross my fingers.

The good Meyer news is that I've had several successful pollinations! I counted around 25 fruits that are plumping up (I doubt that many will make it).

Garlic, Charantais melons--two of three have started climbing the trellis. I pulled the third plant, and was going to replace it with the Thai Hot Chili plant behind it, but I noticed the melon's roots hadn't broken through the newspaper pot it was still in in the ground so I tore the newspaper off and replanted. I think it'll recover. (Darn! I'll have to make another SWP for the chili plant). A random basil on the right, and Purple Queen bush beans in front.

The tomatoes are doing well. I haven't seen any signs of Early Blight in almost 10 days. It's been 16 days since I treated them, and I'm hoping I won't need to again since I was told by my Organic-Guru-Nursery-Guy at OSH that any flowers that haven't set fruit go sterile when sprayed. Oh yes, I added two more random basil here too.

The Pearson (the one in front) is the first to fruit...

Despite the temps getting into the 90's this weekend, the salad table is doing well (See the random basils in the back right? LOL). Thank goodness for cool ocean breezes making it all the way over the hills to Pleasanton!

There's borage on the left side of the box... Ah, the beans... I started my beans in newspaper pots, and then I ripped most of them out because they were doing horribly. I don't think it was completely the newspaper pots' fault (although I'm still skeptical because of the scrawny melon plant). I just think I should've direct sown.

A few of the original bean plants that weren't doing too bad now have beans growing...

The Acorn squash (and a random basil) love their home...

Phew! Just a few more. The end is close! ;-)
Not a very good pic (I was running out of time this morning), but the plums are getting big, and there are a lot more than I thought there'd be.

Fire blight has returned to the Comice Pear tree, and I haven't seen a single fruit growing, although the foliage is really thick from the pruning we did last year after fire blight stuck.

I call this "Bird Food," DH calls this "Teasing." They're just too high for us to reach.

If you've stuck it out, here are a few flowers for you:
The one CA Poppy plant I've let live, and only because I appreciate it's ability to grow in this tiny crevice behind the AC unit.

PS Not pictured are three new random plants I bought that need homes. Can you guess which random plants I bought? LOL I don't know what this sudden fascination is...

Container Garden Update

It seems like spring is bringing out the busy bees, and busy me's! Between all the activities going on around here, and me being in the mood to do some heavy duty spring cleaning, this here blog is getting pushed aside... Isn't that always the case?

I did have the chance to get outside on Monday, clean up a little, and take some pictures, so here's an update for you.

I fed my Meyer on the 8th with 1.5tsp of Espoma Citrus-tone, and 1tsp Blood Meal (nitrogen), hopefully erring on the side of "less is more." The leaves are starting to look a little better, and the blossoms are opening up.

My Clementine is also blooming...

Just look at these ratty cilantro under the kitchen window! I wish they'd hurry up and give me some seeds already...

At least their blossoms look pretty (up close LOL)...

Here are my bucket potatoes. In the green buckets are the first round I planted on 2/1, and the white buckets were planted on 2/28. Guess I started the first round too early... All other signs of fungus gnats around the yard have disappeared except in these buckets. I've been using Neem and a BT when possible, but it's been a tough battle trying to dry the soil out when it's been raining almost once a week. So, they've spent the last 24 hours in the shed to stay dry while it rained yesterday. I noticed the fungus gnats don't really even leave the space between the leaves and soil, so I've also loosely bunched and tied the leaves up and strategically placed a fly trap close to the buckets. If this experiment fails, at least I've learned a few things... Regardless, I'll be trying potatoes in containers again next year, just in larger containers.

The new setup so far...

The citrus were to the left more, the salad table was where the trees are now, and I had the cilantro and potatoes where the SWP peppers now are. The citrus will move to the west side of the patio once it gets warmer to be shaded in the afternoon, and I'm pretty sure all of the SWP's will be moved to the east side of the yard. The pepper's soil temp is already getting 10-15 degrees warmer than the air, so they'll fry if they stay in this south-facing spot all summer.The lavender plants in front of the Meyer will go in the ground soon (I'll share in a later post). I just have them there in hopes of attracting bees to the citrus. And I know, I know, I need to get my baby Calamondin in a larger pot.

I know that was plenty of pictures for one post, but I have to post this of the boys playing well together. They're checking out a roly poly...

Have a great day!

EG's Self Watering Planter Idea Implemented!

Back in January, EG from Our Engineered Garden shared yet another one of his awesome creations--a self watering planter (or a self watering container; SWP or SWC). I instantly loved the construction of these SWPs because of the fact that they use recycled/inexpensive items, and each container only uses one bucket instead of the traditional "bucket in a bucket" method (you can find instructions for that method here and here).

Last year I received a bunch of kitty litter buckets from a very generous Freecycler, and planned on making SWPs with them but never got around to it. Frankly, I'm glad I didn't because I have a better understanding of how things will grow in my garden, and can now make more using EG's method.

I bought a couple floor tile squares at HD for $.65, and blew through those while doing a few trials of cutting incorrectly and drilling holes that were too big. I later found $.45 tiles at Lowes.

My redneck work area in the garage...

We don't have a tool bench or a table top that I could get all crazy on with the exacto knife, so I used cardboard LOL.  And, nooo, I won't be spray painting my containers gold... When I traced the yogurt cups for the wicking basket hole, it was way too big (or small depending on the side traced). The top to the spray can was a much better fit.

The tools...

I've used a hack saw for previous PVC cutting projects, but after someone at Lowe's cut my 9ft PVC pipe in half by squeezing a pipe cutter 3 times and after I picked my jaw up off the floor, I came home with one. I love this tool! I'm not strong enough to get a good back & forth motion going through PVC so it's always a pain to do. The pipe cutter was still hard to use. Actually, I ended up setting it up on the ground and stepping on it HA! (Not shown is whatever tool or bit DH will let me use to cut the holes in the lids.)

Because of the smaller width of the bucket, the yogurt cups overlapped the wicking basket hole/area.

Overlapping solution: cut the top sections of the containers.

Tada!

I will be using kabob sticks stuck in wine corks as my water level indicators.

I can't wait to see how growing bush cucumbers, baby bell and white habanero peppers in my SWPs will turn out!

Lastly, this week EG showed us how he is implementing his SWP concept with a large storage tote. Perfect timing, since I brought home these 18 gallon lime green totes (what? they were on sale!) two weeks ago! Now I can make two. Yeessss...

Thanks for sharing your brilliance with us, EG!

Starting 2010 With Rain, Growth, and Blogging

First, thank you to those of you who contacted me to make sure everything is ok, and to those of you who have encouraged me to get back into writing. After being gone for two weeks back in October, I fell out of the writing and gardening groove. Having the holidays thrown in there didn't help much either! One of my New Year's "Do Better's" ("resolutions" seems so extreme, and tend to drop by the wayside faster than "do-better's") is to get back in that groove!

So, here's what have been growing around the garden. I have two sets of most pictures. The first of each are from 1/11, and the second from today, after we've had a week of rain (gasp).

Below: Salad table, and current hot spot for producing life! Left (sown 11/5): Summer Crisp Lettuce. Right, back to front (sown 11/23): French Breakfast Radishes, Short & Sweet Carrots, loose-leaf lettuce mix.

Cilantro. After all the rain, I have fungus gnats--bad. I drilled more holes at the bottom, and will treat with BTi once the rain tapers.

SFG, right side: Peas and broccoli, and hidden behind the broccoli, under the peas are carrots. The carrots were more of an experiment after my carrot seed mats sown in my west-east running raised bed failed due to lack of sun, and slugs. The peas are taking up so much more space than I anticipated. I added a wire "fence" to try containing them, then I added more trellis string I had and tried tieing them back, to no avail...

At least the peas are beginning to bloom.

My broccoli is beginning to flower! YES!

SFG, left side: Looks like a bunch of weeds, yeah? Garlic and onions are in the back, with soggy onion scapes taking over the empty spot on front right. Shallots in the front left. I dug down in the dirt to see what's happening, and nothing is happening. Nothing to match the growth on top at all. I'll give them until April when tomatoes need to go in (yes, tomatoes, but more on that another time) to show me they're worthy, or they're gone.

 

The orange bush/tree is doing really well. This year there are a lot more but smaller fruits growing than last year... Interesting...

My hyacinths and crocus' (croci? hehe) are coming up. Early I think? They aren't very picture worthy at this point since the flowers that haven't been decapitated by slugs are spread far apart...

Hope you've enjoyed!

PS Many thanks to Mom and Dad for my new camera! Now I just need to learn to use it to it's full potential!