Harvest Monday

, Wow! Participating in Harvest Monday two weeks in a row! This may be a new record for me...

My sister-in-law visited this past weekend, and I was able to share lettuce and radishes from the salad table with her. That made this newbie gardener really happy!

Here are the last of the radishes for this season. If you look closely at the two radishes on the right, you can see where fungus gnat larvae have munched on them a bit (I've been treating the soil with BTi for two weeks, but was only able to find fly paper today to catch the adult gnats).

Also, my first broccoli harvest! A pittance of a harvest--maybe enough for my 8yo to eat with tonight's dinner, but still, it's a start!

 

I'll have a lot more broccoli coming soon... Just look at the side shoots the Waltham 29 variety puts out! I knew I'd get side shoots, but I imagined more of a large head, then a few baby heads, but this variety seems to grow mostly side shoots.

The "large" head on the right two pictures up came from this plant.

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!

First Harvest of 2010

Last night I snipped enough lettuce from the salad table, and a bit from my right raised bed for 2.5 side salads (the .5 being Boy Wonder's mini salad). I also pulled a few of the radishes growing there. I finally grew radishes! Only took me three tries. HA!

My harvest:

They're still teeny little things, but at least I can say I've grown them now!

 

 The carrots and peppers are store bought (for now!)

 

The LO tried a slice of radish when I showed him the pink (pink is the one color he can identify 100%), and promptly spit it out, running off screaming "Eeeew! Bugh, Mommy!" Boy Wonder said he didn't like them, but had no problem finishing them.

I'm very happy with the taste and growth habit of the Summer Crisp Lettuce. I've already sown more seeds in my left raised bed. The French Breakfast radishes are rather bland compared to the few store bought kinds I've tried. I wonder if it's the variety... I'm leaving the rest of the radishes in the table for a while to see if they get bigger, and if the taste changes.

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!

Finally Getting Back Into the Swing of Things

Wow! It's hard to believe I haven't blogged in a month! Time has gone by too quickly...

The day we returned home from our two week vacation in VA, the LO ended up with croup (I'm still extremely happy he didn't start his barky cough on the plane!), and as soon as he started recovering, I came down with a nasty cold turned sinus and eye infections with laryngitis, and now Boy Wonder is sick. I sure hope this is all we see of the sickies this season!

The next few days my posts will be focusing on updates around the yard. Today I'll do a mostly pictorial post of the growth and changes that have occurred to the plants I blogged about on 10/8. DH was kind enough to take pictures on 10/21 while I was gone.

SFG, right side

(back to front) Lantana, Green Arrow Peas, broccoli, radishes

 10/11

10/21

10/31

Today
(the line in front of the peas will be carrots)

SFG, left side
(back) Lantana, Garlic, Texas Grano onion (front) French Red & Dutch Yellow Shallots, Lettuce mix, and Musclun mix
10/21

10/31

Today

Cantaloupe

10/11

10/21

10/31

Today

Right raised bed
Sweet potatoes, musclun/lettuce mixes, carrots
10/21

10/31

Today

Dwarf Meyer Lemons
 9/23

10/5

11/7

During my next post, I will talk about the changes I've made to my garden plans, and a few issues I've been having around the yard.

Almost Done With Fall Plantings! (long post)

Well, all, I did it! It's finally cooled off consistently enough, so I went ahead and got the rest of my cool weather plants in the ground yesterday! Now, my downfall could come if we have a last heat wave, or if something happens in the next two weeks while I'm gone. Yes folks, I planted everything a few days before we are due to leave on our long awaited two week trip home! I'll either return to dirt or I'll be welcomed back by a lot of green babies in my garden! Let's pray for the latter, k?

I'm taking a relaxed approach this season to the "square foot" method, because my "feet" are more like 10 inches. As you can see below, I measured the plant spaces as I laid everything out before planting. My plans have changed a bit from my original chart, and I'll post an updated one when I return from our trip to VA.

Here's what went in the left side of the SFG. Top: CA Early White Garlic; Texas Grano 502 Onion seedlings. Bottom: French Red Shallots; Dutch Yellow Shallots; Musclun mix, and Lettuce mix seed mats.

The instructions that came with the garlic said to plant them 2" deep. Since I'm absolutely horrible with estimating measurements, I marked a dowel and used this to confirm I pushed the garlic deep enough.

Covering the seed mats... Like last time, I removed the needed amount of soil instead of adding it on top of my mats since my beds were recently filled. Like the dump truck? HA! I just grabbed whatever was closest. The air may be cool out, but the Cali sun likes to cook ya', so I was working fast!

 I didn't thin a lot of the TX. Grano's as they were growing indoors, and it was getting late, so I'll thin themm after they prove to be happy in their new location. I've been acclimating them this week, but I'll shade them in the afternoon until we leave.

The Green Arrow peas I planted on 9/30 began sprouting yesterday (not pictured, but also sprouting are the lettuce/mesclun also planted on 9/30. One carrot has sprouted, the rest are taking their time).

Below the peas, I planted 4 "squares" of Waltham 29 Broccoli, and below the broccoli I planted my radish seed mat strips. I may plant another set of radishes above the broccoli when I get back.

Lastly, I was about to give up on my cantaloupe earlier this week, and rip them out because I didn't see any melons growing, but at the last moment, this caught my eye! It was totally camoflauged by leaves, the lucky duck! I've placed a piece of foil beneath it to keep it off the soil, and to help reflect light onto it since my neighbor's ginormous trees are casting longer shadows on my raised beds.

Alrighty! I'm off to pack our bags!!!!!

A few Days of Work

Few! It's already Wednesday! With the LO being sick, Boy Wonder's last week of school, and working in the yard, I've forgotten to blog... This weekend DH built my 2 2'x4' raised bed (RB) frames (yea, I "let" him lol just kidding honey). He also went the extra mile for me and leveled out the ground for the beds to go on. It's good that he did that instead of me... He's very detail oriented, and had a level out n' everything. I would've just eyed it, thrown some dirt down here and there, and gone about my business. The RB on the right will have my sweet potato slips growing in another week or two... As I was filling the bed, I decided to try the "dig and drop" method of trench composting. My pallet compost bin isn't doing very well (yet! I won't give up!), and I was tired of storing food scraps in my freezer so I buried them at the bottom of the empty RB. LOL I felt like an animal burying my food... Oh wait. I am an animal, and I was burying food. Doh! The box on the left has my cantaloupe and unhappy marigolds (suffered heat stroke from sitting in containers on the concrete). The cantaloupe already look a lot happier not being crammed together! This weekend I broke off a few SP slips and placed in water. They're not very big, as you can see, they're sitting in standard size shot glasses. I noticed the slips still growing from the SP have taken off, and almost doubled in size since removing the below slips. DH and Boy Wonder had a little fun picking cherries from the tree. Someone at GardenWeb let me know we're growing a sour cherry tree. And sour those cherries are! Whoa! We won't get enough to make a pie or anything, but the boys still had fun... I wanted post this pic because I think it's so darned cool! Again, my GardenWeb gurus let me know this is a parasitoid wasp resting (or parasitoid-ing) on a bean leaf. Before borrowing Garden Insects of North America from the library, I'd never heard of parasitoid wasps, so it woulda' been a goner! I love that book... I took daring action with my Yolo Wonder bell peppers on Monday, and separated them. They were doing perfectly fine sharing the container--my best growing plants so far in fact, but I had an empty container after moving the cantaloupe, and decided to separate the plants to give them more growing room. The existing fruits appear to be doing well, but a few buds have fallen off. The roots were pretty compact, and filling most of the container, so I think they'll be happier now... I pulled up a radish to see how they were growing, and it was all leaf, no root. I proceeded to tear them all out, tear the leaves into shreds, and put the shreds back into my empty squares (the ones previously holding broccoli). I read somewhere to do that with the leaves... don't know why though... In those squares, I also planted my okra seedlings. Lastly, my cherry tomato plant is growing like crazy, and has it's first buds. "Oh, neat" I flatly thought when seeing them... I don't like tomatoes, so am rather indifferent about their growth.. But I'm growing a tomato plant, so don't be a tomato hater hater, ok?!?! ;-)