Just another garden post

love my garden.   Even when everything else is going horribly, I can find solace there.  Perhaps I am like the crazy cat lady, except with plants.  Its spring so everything is starting to pick up- its even rained a couple times so I just come by to visit and magically my plants are watered.  

So I know the internets are just dying to know what I have growing this year so I will tell them!

First exhibit: my one survivor strawberry.  All the rest died from neglect last year.  

Here is the view facing north- things look really great from this direction; a couple small broccoli plants on the left, chard and beets on the right and herbs and flowers in the back.

But then you inevitably have to turn around to find this:

Look at all those weeds!  Those are on my to-do list for the weekend.
While I was picking some flowers I heard a rustling and looky there!

 

Here leezerd leezerd...

  

There you are! Posing so nicely!  He didn't seem to nervous about the crazy lady with the camera.  And then on the way out I spotted some poppies in a fellow garderner's plot.  I love poppies!

This concludes our garden tour, please come again!

Garden Clean up

This afternoon I spent a couple hours in the garden doing some clean up and weeding.  The mexican sunflowers were falling all over my peppers and looked really ragged so I just ripped them up.  The chamomile has been dead for a while and the yellow pear tomatoes were scraggly so they both got yanked.  My neighbors' cactus broke and there was a big chunk laying on top of several plants.  I'd hoped they would clean it up, but its been over a week so I hacked it up and tossed it in their plot.  I also pulled up a bunch of bermuda grass that has been gradually sneaking in from my other neighbor unattended plot.  I have decided that after this year I am leaving this plot.  We are either moving from Davis and I will leave the garden :(  or I will just change plots.  My current plot has a lot of perimeter compared to area due to it elongated shape and it is just too much path maintenance for me- especially when I also have unattended neighboring plots.  There is no hope for keeping the weeds at bay.   I also don't like being near the cactus.  Its very pretty, but people are always tramping through my beds to get to it.  hmm.. Maybe I should rename this post "Garden Whine."

Watermelon

This weekend we harvested the first watermelon of the season!  The variety we grew was called Desert King.  It has yellow flesh and is drought tolerant.  Derrick picked out the seeds and took charge of caring for them.  He was nice and shared the fruits of his labor with me, though.  Here are the pics![gallery columns="2"]

Pictures!

This post is from back in June.. I'm not sure why it never got published.  I must have gotten distracted!.

I'm pretty sure that I promised pictures  month ago so here they are finally!

So I'll start with the flowers/herb section.  On the left are most of the herbs and the flowers are on the right.  Herbs include cilatro (flowering), oregano (front half of the giant bush), lemon balm (other half of the giant bush), peppermint and mojito mint (buried under the the giant bush), sage (can't see it behind the lemon balm) and rosemary (in the very back).  On the right are the flowers- calendula (orange ones in the back), zinnia (can't see it), cosmos, mexican sunflowers (haven't bloomed) and then chammomile (sprawled out on the path).  The macro picture is the zinnia. So pretty!

Here are the peppers, ocra and eggplant.  The peppers are looking sad.. they always do until around August when they suddenly start making tons of peppers.  I will wait..  The ocra is even more pathetic.. it hates this dry heat and clay soil..  The eggplant has lots of holey leaves but has still made several nice sized fruits.

The tomatoes look great! I have not done a perfect job on picking off the suckers but much better than last year.  They are at least climbing the string instead of just sprawling everywhere.

This is the jack and the beanstalk beans.  These plants are HUGE and flowering all over the place but I have only gotten 2 beans!  The flowers keep falling off and I don't know why. Too hot?



yay watermelons!  These are Derrick's babies.   They are yellow fleshed fruit and supposed to taste tangy!  Then there's the corn.. It is freaking huge but making lots of yummy sweet corn so I am not complaining (too much).

Here's a macro shot of the silks and a little visitor (death to the cucumber beatles!!)  And finally the corn tassle.  So pretty!

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! ;)

True Leaves

Today I came home to find itty bitty true leaves on the tomato seedlings!

Seedlings!

I finally got around to starting seeds a couple weeks ago, on Feb 16th to be exact.  I planted tomatoes, basil, cilantro, hot peppers, bell peppers and parsley.  Thus far everything has come up except those pesky bell peppers.  The seed was a couple years old so maybe it is bad.  Anyway, on to the exciting part- the picture!

In the left column the only thing that came up was one cilantro.  There was another cilantro and chives planted in the other two.  Next column has three basils- they are so cute and already starting on their first true leaves!  Next column has parsley at the top (it hadn't come up as of the picture but its up now) and two marzano tomatoes.  Finally, two tomatoes- one still trapped in its seed coat- and an empty spot (the hot pepper peat pellet has now been transplanted there).

I am trying something new this year, starting the seeds in the peat pellets and then transferring them to the bigger 6-pack when they sprout.  I find the 6-packs much easier to work with, but the seeds sprout much easier in the pellets. We shall see how it goes.

I just love having these little bits of green in the apartment- especially on days like today when it is rainy and dreary out.  I just sit and stare at them, marveling at the miracle of a sprouted seed.

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?

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.

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, 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.

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)

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!