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.

No poo for me

So I have given up normal shampoo and conditioner as described here. I am finishing up on week 2. I have been washing on Wednesdays and then sometime over the weekend. That first wed-sat was really greasy but since it has been better. Since my last 'shampoo' I have gone swimming, running and been outside in the 101 degree heat with just slight greasiness. We even got our church directory portraits done Thursday night :) My favorite thing about 'no poo for me' is that my shower on non-hair-washing days takes like 2 minutes. More sleep for me!

Phone test

I'm doing a test post from my phone. There should be some pics at the bottom.

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?

Notes to Self

1. Chard is pretty but we don't eat it - don't grow next year


2. One cucumber plant is plenty


3. Tomatoes need more than 1 square foot of space (more like 2x2)


4. Don't be lazy and neglect to pinch off suckers on tomato plants


5. Pole beans are better than bush beans but they need poles (easy)


6. Corn and sunflowers grow well together but put sunflowers in the front or they will face away from the garden.


7. Watermelons like to take over the world; give them space to do so.


8. Calendula needs more than 1 square foot (more like 2x2)


9. Marigolds are awesome


10. I am too busy to water potted plants every day.  Don't bother planting in the summer time


11. Potatoes are easy; plant more


12. Ocra seems unhappy.. not really sure why.  The small harvest I've gotten has been very tasty

New Toy

I finally broke down and got a compost tumbler.  The worms were too hard, they always smelled and had mites.  So anyway, here it is!

Its a ComposTumbler.  So far so good.  I put a bunch of shredded paper in there last weekend and have been gradually adding food and garden scraps as I get them.  I also dumped the remains of the worm bin in there.   I don't think theres enough green stuff in there yet to do anything spectacular.  I will keep you posted on how things go.

Harvest

This week has been very exciting! I have harvested corn, a pepper, cucumbers, potatoes and onions.

That bottom one is pretty pathetic.  Only like 20 of the kernels got pollinated.  Since then I have harvested several more ears that have looked much nicer. They got eaten so fast I didn't even get pictures.

Cucumbers!  This is the first of two so far.  It was yummy.

I made a chicken wire lined bed for root crops.  Yesterday I dug up everything in there.   That strange looking thing on the bottom left is a carrot.  It got smooshed up against the chicken wire and looks like a mutant.  A couple of the potatoes were giants- even bigger than the originals.  We ate them last night for dinner :)  I love the color of the onions- haven't tasted those yet though.

I am impatiently waiting for my tomatoes to ripen.   There are like 5 billion green tomatoes but none of them are ripening! boo.

Park and B&B Reviews

We visited a lot of parks this week so I thought I would give a little review of each one for anyone who is interested.

Pinnacles National Park- REALLY REALLY REALLY HOT! During the day at least. There are two sets of caves, but only one was open when we went - Balconies. We hiked there and it was really cool. There are also lots of places to climb for those who are into climbing. The campsite was also decent. There are bathrooms, 6-minute hot showers, although mine still seemed quite cold at 6am. There is also a pool that looked pretty nice but we didn't swim.

Big Sur- So there are 3 different parks in the Big Sur area: Andrew Molero SP, Pfieffer Big Sur SP and Julia Pfieffer SP. I will review them separately.

Andew Molero State Park- We only hiked here but it was beautiful. There is a cove area with a beach which is popular with the surfers. You have to cross over the river (wade) to get to it though. You can also hike out to the point which gives you a nice view of the cove and the ocean. This is actually the largest of the three parks, but also the least developed

Julia Pfieffer- the main attraction here is the beautiful cove with waterfall and crystal blue water. The area was donated by a lady who used to live up the hill with the condition that there be no access to the beach. So you can't touch it but the view is fantastic. Its only about a 5 min walk from the parking lot. There are other hikes back into the mountains but we didn't go.

Pfieffer Big Sur- This is the main park of the three and the one people commonly refer to as Big Sur. This is where we camped. I wasn't particularly impressed with the hikes. We went up to Pfieffer Falls (decent waterfall) and Valley view (totally not worth the uphill haul). I was also quite tired and cranky this day so that might have biased my experience.

Hearst Castle National Monument (or something)- this isn't technically a park but it is owned by the park system so I'll count it. This is incredible. Our tour guide was superb and the 'castle' is beautiful. A little pricey on the tickets but worth it in my opinion.

Montana de Oro State Park- This park was really pretty, lots of beach area, eucalyptus groves, etc. But we had the hardest time trying to figure out where we were supposed to go for camping. We went to the visitors center but it was closed (at 3:30pm). It had sign telling us to go somewhere else, that place said to go somewhere else, etc. We eventually figured it out with enough time to take a picnic out to the beach before we had to hike our gear in. This was our only night without showers but also the most peaceful. We were the only ones in the 1 of 2 campgrounds in the area. We had E-camp #2 which was in the eucalyptus grove but we could here the waves down the hill as well.

Point Mugu State Park- We didn't do much here besides camp and putter around on the beach for about 20 minutes. There were showers but you had to feed it quarters to get any hot water. Well worth it in my opinion :) You could also hear the beach from our tent.

Malibu Creek State Park- My least favorite park. Hot hot hot, bugs bugs bugs. Loud french people. Thats all I have to say about that.

Secret Garden B&B, LA, CA- After an entire week of camping we thought we had died and gone to heaven. There was a bed with lots of pillows and someone to fix us yummy breakfast that wasn't from a box. The owners were friendly but not too in your face, which we appreciated. We also got upgraded to the cottage (separate building in the back) for free! There is a nice garden with a waterfall and birds (like lots of them, in cages) that almost drown out the traffic (its LA, what do you expect). Overall, very pleasant, would stay again.

Vacation Itinerary

Derrick and I drove south down the coast to LA, camping and site seeing along the way.

Day 1- Drive to Pinnacles NP, hike to Balconies Cave, camp.  The caves were pretty awesome, some parts were pitch dark and it was hard to tell which way to go even with a head lamp.

Day 2- Drive to Andrew Molero SP, hike to the beach;  Drive to Juila Pfeiffer SP, see awesome waterfall/cove thing; Drive to Pfieffer Big Sur SP, hike a bit, camp

Day 3- Drive to Hearst Castle, tour; Drive to Montana de Oro SP, pinic at the beach, hike in to campsite

Day 4- Drive to Santa Barbara, go to the beach, Mission, and a big fig tree; Drive to Point Mugu, hike a wee bit, camp

Day 5- Drive to Malibu, go to the beach and out to lunch for my b-day; drive to Santa Monica Pier and then to the Getty museum; Drive back to Malibu Creek SP to camp

Day 6- Drive to LA farmer's market, eat brunch; Drive to Griffith Observatory; Drive to Bed and Breakfast in West Hollywood

Day 7- Wander around Hollywood in the blazing heat, Chinese theatre, El Capitan to see Prince Caspian

Day 8- Drive home!

Pictures can be found here.

This week I learned

1.  Trying to put out a flaming piece of tape with an ethanol soaked tissue = not a good idea

2. Leaving a graduation ceremony early ensures that you will get first dibs on the free food

3. I am not motivated enough to get my lazy ass out of bed to work out in the morning.  Help! Anyone!?

4. If you leave crumbs on the floor for several days ants will find them. lots of ants.

5. Attending other people's graduation ceremonies is fun because it reminds me that I will graduate. One day. eventually..

Overall a very productive week indeed :)  Now its time to go play in the woods for a week!

Peas, Dead pumpkins and babies

I pulled up and harvested the last of the peas over the weekend.  I also bought some flowers and herbs for my hanging baskets.  I found some lemon balm at Ace and it smells absolutely divine.   The flowers are pretty too- I will try to take a pic soon.

I have sad news. Today we had some pretty strong wind and at least one of the pumpkins is dead, stem just broke off the rest of the way.  With the way the wind is around here I think the rest of them will probably die too before they get around to even flowering.  So sad.  Perhaps I shall go buy some replacements at Ace..

I checked this evening and I have baby corn! And a few more baby tomatoes as well.

My New Favorite Quote

"If we knew what we were doing it wouldn't be called research, would it?"

My, how you've grown!

So its been about a month since I have posted any pictures (oops!) and my how things have grown! And I have lots of news and updates to report!

OK, so lets start with the overall picture:

This is actually only about half the plot. The corn, sunflowers, beans, pumpkin and watermelon are behind me. Anyway, the ocra is the empty looking space in there. It still hasn't really taken off yet. I've heard it really likes the heat and it has been cool(er) lately.

Next, a story about my tomatoes. My roma tomatoes have been flowering like CRAZY but I had yet to see an actual tomato. I noticed last week that the blooms were just falling off!! I was so sad. I thought maybe my soil nutrients were off, but a little internet research suggested that it was due to the heat wave we had the week before. Anyway, as you can see in the picture below I have at least one baby roma! yay!!

Oh, and one more story. So I was all excited that I was going to string up my tomatoes and have tomatoes growing up this 6 ft high strings, etc. I failed to realize that romas are indeterminant so they won't climb, just make giant bushes! Which is fine, I am just a little sad that they won't get to make use of my great trellis! The cucumbers are enjoying it tremendously though.

I also have a baby 'mystery tomato' from the picnic day batch. yay!!

Below is the chard. Oh great beautiful chard that I have no idea what to do with! I have discovered one yummy recipe that involves wrapping it around fish but other than that I am at a loss. Anyone with good chard recipes please hook me up!

I have peppers!!! So. excited. I bought this plant from Ace- some kind of hot peppers (red something, maybe you can read the tag in the pic ;) )

Here we have soy bean on the left and black turtle beans on the right. They are growing lots but no flowers yet.

Here are the limas and the remains of the peas on the left and pumpkin and watermelon on the right. The Green Arrow peas have been wonderfully delicious and productive. The pumpkin is growing really well. I thought I had lost it during the high wind storm we had last week. The main stem got a little broken, but apparently it doesn't need the whole stem to feed the whole plant. Watermelon is looking kind of pathetic. I got the seeds from a watermelon from the grocery store. I'm not even sure what kind it was. It was small and really tasty. Hopefully not a hybrid though. I am tempted to go to Ace and get a new one...

My corn is so pretty! It and the sunflowers have created their own personal jungle. Some are starting to form tassels. The real test will be when the corn comes and the squirrels notice..

L: Cucumber flowers! So far most of them look like male flowers, although they are still small yet. I don't know, I have never grown cucumbers before. If I can figure out the flowers I want to try hand pollinating.

R: Potatoes! They are blooming. I didn't know that potatoes bloomed- I guess I never really thought about it. These are another sort of experiment. I took organic grocery store potatoes and stuck them in the ground. How do I know when they are done? Does the plant die and I just did them up? I need to do some google-ing.

OK, just one more- the strawberries! I have two different types. The first are the ones I got from my neighbor. They are growing well, putting out lots of yummy berries and lots and lots of runners. Even the runners have runners. Crazy. So if anyone wants any strawberry plants just let me know!

The other variety I have is Fragaria. I got these from Ace. They are supposed to produce throughout the summer and do not produce as many (if any) runners. They have also produced lots of yummy berries.  Here is an almost ripe ones and the remains on ones I had a nibble on.

Whew! That was a long overdue update. I am amazed at how much everything has grown up in just a month. Before I know it I will have produce up to my ears ( I hope!).

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!

More sprouts

One ocra and a lot of the black beans came up today!  I think I will be able to pick my first harvest of peas this weekend!

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.

Picnic Day 2008!

I'm not sure why this never got published but anyway here goes:

Saturday (like a month ago) was picnic day and it was so fun! We spent the morning wandering around looking at stuff- I got my free plants (tomatoes). The viticulture people were giving out grapevine plants. I really really wanted one but couldn't think of where I would plant it so I passed. I spent the afternoon at our lab's poster in BAE and the Biotech exhibit. I was pooped by the end of the day. I also carried around my camera for the entire day and didn't take a single picture..

Also, my computer is having issues- it has downloaded Windows (XP) updates but won't install them. I click on the yellow shield to install, it thinks about it for a minute and then tells me that the updates were not installed. No error message or anything. Does anyone know whats wrong? Do I have a virus or something?

Another one for my stupid file

At the beginning of the quarter I registered for a swimming (PE) class and got waitlisted. I was like 23rd on the waitlist or something crazy so I didn't think I would make it in and didn't think any more about it. I happened to log in to myUCDavis (the student portal website thingy) for the first time since that time and noticed that I was registered for a third course besides my reasearch and conference classes. hmm.. thats odd...

...

...

OH CRAP! I must have gotten into the swim class!

...

OH CRAP! I was supposed to be going to class since the end of March.

OH CRAP!

Ahh the joys of being an absent minded crazy person! :)

I emailed the instructor and I'm sure he got a good chuckle. Or he was just annoyed. Anyway, he pretended to be nice and said he would give me credit for the time I missed and to start coming next class. Everyone else in the class is going to be like "who is this random girl adding in the middle of the quarter?" Oh man, good times..

Lots of Pictures!

L: CW from the front: Lettuce, oregano, peppermint, spinach/lettuce

R: baby corn and sunflowers. A couple of the corn plants got frost damage :(



L: Tomatoes and basil. A couple of the tomatoes got frost damage too. I think they will recover but right now they look pathetic.

R: Strawberries!!! I have one that is almost ready to pick



L: Rosemary bush, marigolds, peppers

R: Peppers (frost damage! :( ), chard, onions/potatoes under cage- which still hasn't kept the rodents out. I think it must be mice that can fit through the chicken wire. grrrr.



L: Peas and where the soy beans will go

R: More peas and the bed where I planted the lima beans. The rough looking patch in the background is where the black beans will go



View of the whole plot from the north end (the hanging baskets are behind me)

Grad school is hard

Every morning I wake and wonder if I can really do this.  And every morning I have to convince myself that I can or at least to just get out of bed and go try.  Almost every fiber of my being says quit, run away to somewhere that is safe and comfortable.  But where is the fun in that?  I don't want to look back on a safe life.  I want to look back and know that I pushed my limits and put myself out there, whether or not I was actually successful.  I'm not really sure how I ended up here so I just have to trust that God put me here for a reason.  I don't know what the reason is but I don't think it was to quit and run away :)

Spring has Sprung

There has been a lot going on in the garden plot lately.  Sorry I don't have any pics. My camera battery is dead and I haven't had time to go get another.  Here is a list of whats growing (or at least not dying):

• Corn: planted about a month ago; sprouted two weeks ago; about 5-6 inches high now


• Tomatoes: planted a couple weeks ago, growing pretty well; still waiting for them to get bigger before I 'string' them


• Basil: Growing well; still covered with plastic jug, just in case it gets cold


• Cilantro: One pathetic little plant


• Peppers: planted with the tomatoes; red, orange, purple and hot varieties; growing slow but not dead


• Sunflowers: planted with the corn; sprouted at different times so lots of different sizes


• Peas: not very many sprouted, but the ones that did are growing well- I can see the beginning of flowers


• Strawberries: got free from my neighbor; growing well- lots of green strawberries


• Rosemary: growing like CRAZY!


• Swiss Chard: just transplanted today


• Lettuce and Spinach: very happy in their baskets; I've eaten several yummy salads!


• Peppermint: happy in the basket; I had some peppermint tea last night!


• Oregano: happy in the basket


• Marigolds: blooming!


• Crimson clover: leftover cover crop is blooming; I should probably turn it in but the flowers are so pretty!


• I believe thats all!

This weekend is PICNIC DAY!!! so. excited.  I am most excited about free plants.  If the PES dept doesn't do that again this year I will be crushed.   I also will be at the BAE poster from 1-2 and Biotech exhibit from 2-4! Come say hi!

Planting!

So over the course of the week I have planted pretty much all of my tomatoes and peppers outside. Still waiting a bit on the basil because its supposed to get down into the 30s tonight. I will post pictures as soon as I take some!

Swiss Chard

Today my Bright lights Swiss chard came up! I originally planted it directly outside but it never came up. Apparently each seed is actually more than one seed stuck together- check this out:

Theres like 4 plants coming out of there!  I love that the colors are already visible.  I have no idea whether or not I even like chard, I just bought it because its so pretty!

Updated Lab Picture

Yesterday we had a going-away-yay-you-got-a-job- lunch for Rowena and Harrison. I am so happy for both of them, but I will miss them! Especially Rowena since I am now the only female (not counting Dr. Zhang of course). So anyway, here we are:



Back: Iain, Xiguang, Dong

Front: Yi, Baoning, Me, Rowena, Harrison, Josh

Missing: Chris and Dr. Zhang

Almost planting time!

I have been hardening off some of my seedlings for the last couple of days.  Most of the tomatoes, peppers and marigolds are big enough to go outside and I am so excited.  Sunday afternoon we set up the tomato trellis. It looks nice, but will look even better with lots of tomato plants growing up it! :)  I am using the 'string' method as described here.  Last year I used cages and the plants outgrew them about halfway through the season so I am hoping that going up will work better.  I am only growing one type of tomato: Roma.  I will probably get 1 or two more from picnic day too, but for now thats all.  For the peppers I have several different kinds: CA wonder (red bell), orange sweet bell, purple beauty and cayenne hot.  I was never able to get the purple to sprout so I just went out and bought a plant at Ace.  I am thinking that next year I might just buy all my plants.  For all the effort it takes to start seeds it might be worth it to spend the extra, at least for things like tomatoes and peppers that you transplant anyway.

I want

this
Too bad we just bought a new car.

Anyway, today I finished my last. class. ever. It feels good. I cannot say that I took my last exam, however, because I still have the daunting task of passing my qualifying exam ahead of me. This week I must finish my proposal. I must. If I don't, there is a good chance that I will have to go on vacation before I take my quals and that will just suck. I would much rather be able to truly relax for a week!

Yesterday Derrick and I went out and flew our new kite! We got it at COSTCO. Its a seahorse- our compromise between the blue angel and the pretty bird. Anyway, we found this open field on campus and started romping about. Our seahorse wasn't very good at flying, maybe because he's actually supposed to swim. He kept crashing down on his head. oops. We did get in a couple good flights, though. We will try again when the wind isn't so gusty.

Seedlings are growing!

Pottery!

I've been taking a wheel throwing class at the campus craft center and I took home my first finished pieces on Sunday! They are in order of creation. I love the white glaze on the inside of this first bowl.

This glaze was supposed to be the brown and green thats at the top. I think it got contaminated with the blue, but I like the way it turned out.

This is my accidental pitcher. I bumped the rim when I was taking it off the wheel so I made it into a pitcher.

This is a cute little bowl. The glaze is kinda weird- bubbly in some spots. Oh well, still functional :)

Last week we learned closed forms and I'm so addicted.

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.

Tulips and Sunset

I went out one night to try to take a picture of my tulips blooming, but they close in the evening. BUT I did get to see the most beautiful sunset!

 

And then I came out the next day to get the tulips at their best. They are a wonderful intro to spring!

 

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.

haha

moar humorous pics

Seedlings!

I have started seeds indoors!

So far I have peppers (orange and red), one tomato, marigolds, garlic chives and basil seedlings. Still waiting on the rest of the tomatoes, purple and hot peppers, poppies and calendula to come up. My system is kinda ghetto. I have Spongebob paper cups with dirt under two desklamps. Overall it seems to work pretty well. Two things for next year: 1. garden soil and potting soil are not the same- get the potting soil. 2. Paper cups rot- get plastic. This may not be a problem if I get sterile potting soil though. Anyway, here are the pics:

Its almost spring!

Things are starting to come alive out in the garden! The tulips are almost blooming:



The rosemary is blooming:


And the pansies finally decided to bloom after like 4 months:



And just for fun, a picture of my hanging planters that have baby spinach and lettuce plants in them!