July Garden Tour by Way of Videos

I've been wanting to give y'all a video tour for a few months now, but wanted to wait until all the plants were up and growing...

These were the first takes, so I have to apologize in advance for them being so shaky and for the blurry "close-ups." Let me know if you have trouble viewing them or with this post loading. I didn't realize the video file size would be so large.

Video 1 is of the containers...

Video 2 is of the "square foot garden" raised beds and salad table...

Video 3 is of the raised beds along the deck and the rest of the yard...

Hope you enjoyed! On Friday I'll share a few picture updates with you as well.

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...

Harvest Monday, and More Planted

This weekend was satisfyingly productive. Sigh... Beautiful weather, happy boys who listened and played well, and accomplishing a lot in my PJs. Yes, the proof is in the PJs... This is how I meander into my garden most weekend mornings... T-shirt, flannel jammies, and socks (maybe that's why so many of them have holes).

The alliums are coming! The alliums are coming! Quick! Run for your knives!

I removed the onions (Texas Grano 502) that I started from seed on 8/7/09. I didn't want to pull them just when they were starting to plump up, but I needed to get my melons in the ground. Ya' know? I'm not too sad about it. They produced something! Including the greens, they weighed in right at 4 pounds.

The largest one is a little smaller than a tennis ball...

I also pulled part of my California Early White Garlic. These were also small of course, but they're a little lumpy, so it looks like I have something usable. These weighed in right at one pound.

Geez, they look big in these pictures, but they're not...

Fortunately, I have ten more left that will have the chance to get nice and plump...

In the picture above, you can see that 3 of my 5 Charentais melons are set to grow up the trellis. In front are more Purple Queen beans. I'm not sure how well the beans will produce... They look pretty scraggy. The last two melons will go into an 18 gallon SWP  when I finish this post.

While I was amending the soil for my melons and beans, I found this beast...

Last week I received an order from Park Seed Co. of flower seeds along with a packet of heat tolerant lettuces. I've complained in the past about mixed lettuce packets because I don't know what I'll end up growing, but I got these after I went through Park's heat tolerant lettuces and my basket was full of most of what was included in the mix anyway. Although it's late to get a new round going, and I'm more than likely going to end up with bolted greens, I wanted to give it a try. So, I mixed up some soil for my salad table (40% peat, 40% compost, 10% perlite, 10% vermiculite, fertilizer & some lime), and planted the pre-sprouted seeds. The table will receive first light, and then about 2 hours of sun around 11-1pm.

Each week Daphne over at Daphne's Dandelions hosts Harvest Monday. Check out her page to see what other's have been munchin' and crunchin' on this week.

Garden Update

It's amazing how much things have changed in the 10 days since I was last in the garden. It feels like I missed out on the last part of spring, and stepped out into summer! The past few days have been in the 70's, but throw in the blazing sun on my south facing concrete garden, and my soil's temps are around 85 at the peak of the day.

I spent a large part of my free time (ie the LO's nap) outside yesterday cleaning up, and clearing out. Here's what's goin' on...

I hilled up my 1st round of Russet mini's. They're already almost to the top of the bucket! I may need to come up with a way to extend the bucket's height. Maybe by cutting off the bottom of another bucket and attaching somehow. Any suggestions?  The rest of my potatoes are slow-going thus far... 

The left side of my SFG: Garlic, onion, shallots. I've trimmed all of the alliums several times over the growing season, and they look wonderful, don't they?

Close up of the shallots...

Yeah, above ground, they're pretty, but these two shallots (from one seed) are what they looked like when I pulled them out. I don't know what went wrong here. I even fertilized them once--maybe twice with a diluted solution LOL.  I also pulled a garlic plant, and it looks the same.

I'm feeling a little defeated by the alliums because I planted them back in October, and they should be ready around now. Either way, I'll have to pull them in a few weeks to make way for my tomatoes.

The right side of the SFG growing the peas and broccoli... I don't know why, but the left two broccoli plants grew very large, but not a SINGLE florret grew on either one of them! What the heck?

My peas are becoming infested with aphids. I think it's due to the heat and the compact space. I also have carrots squeezed in between the broccoli and peas, so in an effort to get the peas and carrots to mature, and because I was tired of the broccoli not producing, I pulled the broccoli...

Here is my last brocooli harvest of the season.

My lettuces in the salad table bolted some time last week. *sigh* This was my most productive part of the garden this season, so I'm really sad to see it go. I've cleaned out the lettuces, and moved the table to a shadier, cooler part of the yard to see if my carrots will mature. I pulled one, and it's the length of my index finger, but as skinny as a pencil. Here's hoping they'll fatten up a bit!

 I've decided that this coming fall I will probably either grow only lettuces or a combo of lettuces and cover crops to improve my raised beds soil.

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!