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

This weekend's harvest was the second to very last of my spring plants (only garlic left now), and my last harvest for a while. I'm glad I was able to get a few extra weeks of growth out of my Sweetie Baby Romaines by shading from the afternoon sun. A couple were showing signs of bolting (look at the front left head), so they needed to be pulled...

A few also had guests...

I think these were cabbage looper eggs since there were one or two hanging about...

My total harvest from that bed came in at 7 ounces. Sure, it isn't anything like Villager's pounds of lettuce, but it'll give us several meals worth of greens.

I took leftovers from my Mexican themed dinner on Saturday, and turned them into Southwestern chicken salads for DH and I. Nom!

I also harvested some greens and flowers from my Whirlybird Nasturtiums. They added a nice zest which complimented the vegetarian Southwestern Egg rolls (on the left of the pic), and salsa "salad dressing" perfectly.

While we were eating dinner, a grasshopper stopped by to hang out on the window screen. I caught him in a bug holder-thingy, and each boy was allowed to share a piece of their lettuce with it.

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.

Harvest Monday

To begin preparing my raised bed for all the green beans currently growing inside, I spent some time on Saturday removing the Sweetie Baby Romaines.

The smallest of the bunch went into a small micro-greens salad for myself. The largest heads shown below were pulled yesterday for dinner salads.

DH asked if it was store bought lettuce, and I was like, "Um, why?" I wanted to know before answering. He said it was fantastic, crisp lettuce, and was hoping it came from out back. "Yes! It came from out back," I said, proudly. My 8yo then chimes in sarcastically with his silly wide eyes, "This lettuce is from Outback?" Ah, my son has my corny, dry sense of humor... Poor kid... HA! ;-)

The rest of the romaines were moved to the raised bed at the back of the patio. You can click here for a different visual of both beds. The bed at the back only gets 2-3 hours of sun, so I figured moving them here will extend their season as the weather heats up.

I'll mulch this bed tomorrow when there's a break in the rain...

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

Starting More Things

Just a small update on a few things...

I started my  Isabella Charentais melon seeds on Monday by placing them in a moist paper towel in a ziploc bag, and placing that on a seed warming mat. Two days--yes two days later and they've all sprouted... Craziness!

I've also started my green bean seeds using the same method. These will be going into my left bed along the raised patio which is currently growing Sweetie Baby Romaine lettuce.

I was originally going to grow Royal Burgundy bush beans, but they prefer cooler weather and I don't think they'll do well at this point. So I went and purchased a variety pack of bush beans from Renee's Garden which include Golden Roc d'Or, Purple Queen, and Green Slenderette. I'll be growing as few of the green-green beans as possible since they're so hard to find among the leaves...

I don't have a lot of my gardening budget left to purchase more pots, so I'll be potting the melons, beans and cucumber seeds in home made newspaper pots. I've seen a couple other bloggers out there making these, and someone even posted a great tutorial, but I couldn't find it once I started making mine. So, being a very visual person and needing to see the step-by-step of what I'm supposed to do, I chose to use these instructions from ehow.com. If you decide to make newspaper pots, do yourself a favor, and wear gloves! This is a great little craft to do while watching TV...

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.

I Get To Participate In Harvest Monday!

Each Monday Daphne, over at Daphne's Dandelions hosts "Harvest Monday." I don't typically get to participate since I either don't harvest, or don't remember to do it around a Monday... Today I actually have something to share!

I've been snipping enough lettuce 1-2x's a week for 2.5 side salads, and the table is still going strong... With the table facing south, and the temps starting to go up, I think the table will need to be put to rest soon until the fall.

 

There are a few radishes left in the table, and I'll harvest them later this week.

Yesterday I snipped my first bit of cilantro which went into a batch of Slow-Cooked Steak Fajitas. Nom!