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...

Roots, Fruits, Yucks, Blooms

Monday marked the first day of hardening off my second round of seedlings--beans, cucumbers, melons, two more sweet peppers, and one more tomato.

With the exception of my last tomato plant (I can't remember if it's Pearson or Viva Italia), everything was grown in the newspaper pots I made.

I don't think I'll need to worry about the roots having trouble getting through the newspaper walls. HA!  I must point out though, that these pots are one sheet thinner than the instructions say to use...

The plums are coming in nicely... From what I can tell, it doesn't look like we'll have as large a harvest as last year.

We also had some pretty windy rain earlier this week which knocked some fruits off. The LO loves gathering them for me which gives Momma time to get some uninterrupted work done. Yess!

There's one cluster of branches that are infested with aphids (yuck!), but it's a lot better than the whole tree being covered like last year. I'll spray with water and release ladybugs since that worked well last time.

This is my neighbor's nectarine tree, which partly hangs over our patio. I suspect this is peach leaf curl, and is the second season it's occurred. There were no blossoms on the tree this year. I'm frustrated that it's not being cared for. I mean, come on. The tree is obviously sick. I rarely ever see my neighbors, let alone talk to them, so I can't exactly bring it to their attention, even though it is right outside their back door.

Well, let's bring the mood back up, shall we? My first Whirlybird Nasturtium bloomed this week. I used to think I wouldn't grow it unless I could eat it, which to me meant no flowers. Now that I know I can have them and eat them too, I'm just giddy!

One of my Pearson tomatoes has it's first blossoms also...

Enjoy your weekend!

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...