The garden is alive!

I am barely alive but luckily the garden hasn't needed too much of my time lately. I am doing an internship at Genentech this quarter along with school.  I am really enjoying this internship but the drain on my time is making me slightly insane.  Anyway, in my absence (aside from watering) the garden has been doing pretty well.

I went out this evening and found that I have my first baby tomato- the green zebra! The others (san marzano and yellow pear) have blooms but no fruit that I have found. The corn is getting tall, should be putting out tassel soon! I also have baby peppers on 3/4 of the pepper plants.

Last week was attack of the cucumber beetles week. My poor beans barely had a leaf left on them but they seem to be recovering. My pest control method is squish all the ones I find and hope for the best. I am lazy :)

My herbs and flowers make me so happy. All the herbs are so easy and taste/smell so good! I have lots of calendula- I have been cutting them and bringing them back to the apartment for display.

PS. Sorry for no pics. I promise it looks really great! ;)

Is it spring yet?

So I've been a little bit busy and gardening has not fallen by the wayside but my blogging about it has.  I had quals in December so all my spare time went into prepping for that.  Its over though so now I can hopefully get back into regular garden blogging. Thanks to Paige for the reminder ;) My last post was in September so I guess I should try to summarize the last 4 months. .. I grew lots of tomatoes and made some really bland sauce.  I think it needed more herbs or something.  I also grew a pumpkin that didn't ripen until about Thanksgiving.  Its still sitting in my kitchen.  Its not a pie pumpkin but I can't bear to throw it away.  For the winter I planted peas, broccoli, garlic, green onions and beets.  Still waiting on the peas to make peas. They got a little frost bitten and have been slow to recover.  The broccoli, onions and beets have been very yummy and easy. Last year I had a big problem with aphids in the broccoli. This year I companion planted with garlic and mint and it seems to have done the trick.  No aphids!

OK, now for future plans! I have decided to dedicate the back fourth of my garden to herbs and flowers.  Thus far I have oregano, peppermint, parsley, cilantro, rosemary and in the future there will be basil.  I may also companion plant some basil in the with tomatoes.  I also want to put some wildflower mix back there to attract pollinators.  RIght now I have daffodil and freesia bulbs poking through.  As for the veggies, I have seeds for San Marzano tomatoes, some yellow watermelon, cantaloupe, green pole beans, black beans, corn, sunflowers, bell peppers and maybe some other stuff that I forgot.  I am going to try to grow with beans with the corn as the 'pole'. Last year they were next to eachother and the beans on the edge climbed up the corn so I decided that might be a good way to save some space and the corn probably appreciates the extra nitrogen from the beans.  Hmm.. I think thats it for now! I need to get my tomato seeds started..

Newest garden pest

So as if it's not enough to be fighting squirrels, rabbits, bugs, slugs and everything else, our community garden's newest pest is people. I had a watermelon disappear earlier in the week. My neighbor has had several stolen. I also noticed footprints in my beds. I think that's what irks me most- I can sort of justify the watermelon- maybe they were homeless and hungry. But if your going to steal my stuff and least respect the space. This also suggests that it is not a fellow gardener because they would know to stay on the path. Argh. Ok I'm done ranting now.

Compost Tumbler- Grubs!!

So I have been feeding my compost tumbler and it seems to be doing pretty well. Things are turning brown and the volume has decreased and it doesn't smell too bad.  My only concern is that I have grub/maggot things in there.  They seem to be going to town on my corn cobs and my general feel from my internet searching is that they are good for the compost bin.  My only concern is putting them in the garden. Will they eat my plants/roots?  I am hoping them will die/go away before the compost is ready but if they don't is it OK to put maggot-y compost in the garden?

Peas, Lettuce and Beneficial Insects

Over the weekend I harvested my first peas and they were so delicious. I just shelled them and ate them raw. yum! Today I harvested all the lettuce and will eat a yummy salad in a few minutes.  The spinach bolted last week.  Its supposed to get up into the 90s this week (where did spring go!?) so I figured the lettuce was about done too.

Today I also saw a Soldier beetle (I think). It was just chillin' on the sunflowers, hopefully making a meal of lots of cucumber beetles.  I also saw another bug that I think (even less sure on this one) may have been spined soldier bug.  Or maybe just a regular stink bug.  I didn't get a close enough look at it.  I did notice that as it flew off, there was red coloring under its wings.  I will have to get pictures next time!

Beetles and Sprouts

The past week in the garden has been very exciting!  Here's a list:

• Planted soy, black and lima beans; limas and soy are mostly up; still waiting on the black beans


• Planted clover in back beds


• Planted pumpkins and watermelon; came up yesterday


• Cucumber beetles (spotted and striped) are out with a vengence (as of May 1). I squished lots of them as they nibbled on my sunflowers.  When their numbers seemed to dwindle I put my actual cucumbers out. So far so good


• Bought hot (chile and something else) and chocolate bell pepper plants to replace those lost to frost.


• Bought fluffy pyramid flower plants to add some color.


• My tomatoes have flowers!!!!!!!


• I have peas!!!!!!!!


• I'm only mildly excited about those last two..

So everything is gradually greening up and filling in all the empty space.  yay! I will try to post some pics eventually.

Squirrel Update

So my efforts at burying the fence were fruitless. I came back a couple days later and they had just gone under it. My new strategy is to scatter the remaining plants around the garden in hopes that the squirrels won't find all of them. So far they haven't found any. In the future I am going to line the beds of root crops with chicken wire. I did that for my tulip bulbs and it worked so hopefully it will work for more tempting things like the potatoes I planted this weekend.

Squirrels, gophers and rats

These are all pests I suspect to be frequenting my garden.  I'm not sure if I have squirrels or gophers or both, but there is definitely a tunneling mammal swiping my root crops.  So today I spent a back breaking afternoon in the garden burying the bottom 12'' of my fence.  Hopefully this will at least deter them.  One fellow gardener said that he had buried his 2 ft and the little boogers still mananged to get in.  I should at least win against the rats.  They live in the brush under the cactus right next to the back half of my plot.  I think they used to slip under the fence, but hopefully burying it helped. Unless they can climb. Or fit through the holes.. meh.