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.

Gearing Up

Most of the garden is still feeling a little hesitant about throwing caution to the wind and letting loose with producing, but the signs that they're gearing up for all out production mode abound!

My Isabella Charantais' first female! This was taken Sunday, and I spotted two more today. They've been hand pollinated to up their chances of survival.

Looks like this lil one is making a comeback.

I decided to plant the Thai Hot pepper plant behind the melon plant above, along with some basil where the garlic used to be. It took the Thai Hot no time to settle in.

One of two White Habanero's is beginning to flower. These finicky little plants just didn't like the cool start to summer... Bring on the heat (pun intended)!

All three Tumbling Tom cherry tomato plants are beginning to flower, and look like this one...

The Meyer lemons are plumping up as well as putting out new leaves and flowers. My last lemon count was 25, and now it's down to 12 that are looking more and more like green lemons each day.

Although the plants are still relatively small (maybe 8" - 12" tall), both Bush Slicer cucumbers are hard at work...

As are the Bush King acorn squash...

It won't be long before my Purple Queens are added to the Harvest Monday tally.

I replaced all of the bolted lettuces in my salad table with basil I needed to plant. This brings my basil plant total to 4 varieties, and 23 plants. LOL I see lots of pesto in my future...

Two things not shown are my determinate tomatoes and the plums. The Pearson tomatoes are taking their sweet stinkin' time with producing anything, although they're flowering like crazy at the top of the plants. The Viva Italia is doing really well and is almost overtaking the two Pearson's behind it, but this too, is taking it's sweet time in giving me a red tomato. Some of the plums should be ready to pick this weekend. I picked four of the low hanging fruits, and they're still a little yellow around the stem and quite firm.

I fertilized all of the plants in my SWP's with a half-strength water soluble fertilizer (with my history of fertilizing thus far, I'm playing it safe!). With the exception of this and watering, things are pretty self sufficient right now. This leaves me with time for planning the fall garden, yessss!

Ooohh, Fuu-ngus!

The weather has finally warmed up here, and my peppers growing in SWPs are finally starting to perk up. Ok, I admit they're not looking the healthiest, but three of five are starting to bear fruit (one is too young).

At first I thought they looked sickly because of the unusually cool temps and rain, and more recently because of over watering--not that I can control that in these containers at this point, but then I lifted up one of the lids...

So, let's see.. All five pepper plants, and one of two cucumbers have moldy soil, leaving my 18 gallon SWP with melons and a Tumbling Tom, and one cucumber fuzzless. *Enter pitiful winy cries* I took the lids off of all the affected plants, scraped off what mold I could then sprayed with Neem Oil. Did you know that all molds are fungi, but not all fungi are molds? Sounds like a square, rectangle thing... I'm going to keep the lids off for the rest of the season, and let the soil dry out for as long as I can to see if this helps. I don't know what else to do... Chime in if you have ideas!

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...

Self-Watering Planter Update

It's been almost a month and a half since I planted my peppers in their SWP's, and thought it time for an update. Here's the crew, plus one more not shown...

The "not shown" is a Thai Hot pepper plant that I picked up today (along with Italian Basil). I needed more compost to add to my raised bed for the acorn squash going in soon, and after reading an article in the latest issue of Organic Gardening about hot peppers, I decided to bring another plant home with me. I'm having buyers remorse now, of course. One, I'm not supposed to be making unplanned purchases (oh, this has gone so well. NOT! My seed-buying self control sucks!), and two, I've already complained about two White Habanero plants being one too many. LOL. But hey, at least the Thai Hot has half the heat of the habanero...

Anywho... Here are close-ups of the first round of peppers. From left to right: White Hab.; Baby Belle; Baby Belle; White Hab. On each container I wrote which two received 1/2 cup each of d. lime and CRF (left two), and which two received 1/4 cup (right two), but the sharpie faded really quick. I wrote it down in my journal before the sharpie completely faded, but looking at the picture below, I'm not sure if I copied correctly. Doesn't it seem like the two that received larger doses would be larger? Grr! Lesson learned: better notes next time girl.

This is my new Baby Belle, planted on 5/3. If the weather will just cooperate and warm up already, this cutie shouldn't take long to catch up to the others.

Here are a few close-ups of the pepper plants. They have all been filling in, are growing wonderfully, and beginning to flower, but they are also beginning to show signs of something wrong.  Anyone know what's going on? Too much moisture? Not warm enough? It has been unusually rainy and cool for this time of year (ugh).

Bush Slicer Cucumbers... I started several in newspaper pots but waited too long to get them planted, and since I had a head start anyway, I decided to plant new plants to give them the healthiest chance possible...

Here's a close-up of the melons and petunias, and the Tumbling Tom cherry tomato I planted today (between the petunias). I probably packed a little too many in the container, so I guess we'll see how they do...

Sometime soon, I'll add a trellis for the melons and cucumbers. Dowels and the square tomato cage-wire stuff (blanking on what it's called) for the melons, and dowels and twine for the cucumbers since they're a bush variety--more for support than climbing.

There are only a few weeks left before Boy Wonder starts summer vacation (Momma screams "Noooo!"), so I'm taking some time to do things I won't be able to do for three months like veg and relax during the day. There is still gardening going on here and there, but my blogging may become less frequent. G'night.

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!