Indian Summer continues

The unseasonably warm weather has held for the past week. Tomatoes are continuing to ripen on the vines, as are red peppers. The basil which was heavily pruned has put out lots of new growth. I may get another batch of pesto out of this.

The broccoli plants are now just about a month old and are looking good. Several nights ago I added Dill seeds to the troughs between the plants. No sign of seedlings yet. The soil has been warm and I've done a good job of keeping the soil moist.

The fennel, also a month old, is not developing as quickly as I thought it might. One of the plants got munched by slugs, although not enough to destroy the plant. Sometimes I wish I could rent a chicken.

Onions

Onion seeds went into planting troughs today. I think I may germinate some in coffee filters as a test group. I found a packet of seeds called Candy. They're supposed to be a short season onion, which is in keeping with the higher water content, sweeter onion types. I'm dubious of the packet which promises maturity in 80 days. Everything else said 100+. I'll know when the tops fall down.

Late fall planting

It's been unseasonably warm the past couple of days. I took the opportunity to work in the sun and get the seedlings into the ground.

12 bulbing fennel plants went in where the green beans had been this summer. It's a nice rich soil mix there.

18 broccoli seedlings went in to the north of the remaining basil. They'll get good sun there, and will have enough space to develop. I'm thinking I'd like to plant a fair number of garlic and onions, but where to put them?

TheRoommate wants to put in bulbs, but I'm not sure how to square that with the available sunlight and all of that. Ranunculus are my favorite, but I don't know of the corms are squirrel fodder.

dwindling harvests

Cut down most of the basil today. Will make pesto later.

The cherry tomatoes have cascaded out of their giant pots, to twin on the ground. I pinched off every new sprout that I could find. I want the last tomatoes to ripen and then be done with the things. Next year, no more than one or two plants. More of the bigger fruits would be fine.

I did get a couple more pints of cherry tomatoes. What I'll do with them is anyone's guess. I also got about 7 more red chile peppers.

First rain

We've had 18 hours of rain and no real signs of abatement. The ants are going crazy swarming out of their flooded nests. No better time to get the hose and the boric acid.

Meanwhile, many of those little broccoli seeds that I planted about a week ago have sprouted!

Paper towels are bad for germinating

Despite what any novice pothead will tell you, paper towels suck for germinating seeds. Oh sure, the little shells do seem to love the ratio of water, light and air. However, once the roots start to develop they intertwine themselves with the loose fibers in the towel. When it's time to pull the layers apart, the tiny seedling gets shredded.

Fall harvesting, cleaning & planting

Harvesting:

As per usual, the tomato plants did not get the memo suggesting that as November looms they should stop blossoming. I picked 2 dry pints of cherry tomatoes and nearly 3 gallons of red slicers, the crimson carmellos. A batch of tomato sauce made from a mix of the cherry tomatoes and slicers was very tasty.

The basil is flowering madly, but was too dry to harvest. I'll give it a gentle deep watering and pick most of it in the morning.

There are quite a few red peppers on the pepper plants. The lone pepper that was in with the cucumbers is trying to make up for lost time. It's covered in blossoms and is setting quite a bit of fruit. I'll feed it a bit today as well.

Cleaning:
Today I tore down all the forlorn corn stalks that had been decimated by squirrels. The spent sunflowers came down as well. The trumpetvine which cascades over the eastern fence was blocking a lot of sunlight to the ground, so I cut that back very aggressively.

There was quite a bit of wood sorrel choking the basil, that's now gone too. However, the backyard is generally looking like an episode from Weeds Gone Wild. I'll have to convince TheRoommate to bust out his weedburner.

Planting:

The seeds that germinated at the beginning of the month have yielded some results. I sucessfully transplanted about 6 of the fennel seedlings, but only 2 of the broccoli seedlings.

Today I'm going to direct sow broccoli into a long planter box. When the fennel seedlings get bigger they'll go into the barrel where the sweet peas had been previously. I added a few seeds to the planting box where the bigger seedlings are. Hopefully, they'll germinate.

Fall planting

It's only been about 5 days and all of the kale, fennel and broccoli seeds have gone to town germination. The rainbow chard sprouts are very pretty. I don't have time to get them situated into little pots this morning. Tomorrow, tomorrow.

Fall Garden

Cucumbers are done.
Sunflowers have peaked.
Perennial herbs are flowering. Basil is trying to bolt.

Dahlias took too much damage to survive, am going to pull them.

Bed of cutting flowers is leggy but still blooming.
Container pots look terrible. Will try to save the white carnation, and take seeds from the forget-me-nots, but will pull the pinks, the white lobelia, and the powdery mildew covered salvia.

Started seeds:
Broccoli, fennel bulb and rainbow chard. Guess I'd better learn to like chard.

Fertilizer burn

Ooops. I guess buying the cheap fertilizer should have been a more obvious bad plan.

I bought a granulated 5-10-10 granulated fertilizer a few weeks ago and burned the string beans with it.

Elsewhere in the garden the NM anaheims are continuing to do well. Each plant has at least 4 peppers on it. There are a couple that are getting dangerously big enough to harvest. Patience, gardener, patience.

Meanwhile, my tomatoes confound me. The plant getting the least full sun & water is the biggest and healthiest looking. The plant getting the most sun & water & was the first to have the most blossom sets, but isn't doing so great otherwise. I did finally dig those poor cherry tomatoes out of the tiny plastic bin they were in. I didn't have a shady spot to put them in while they recovered from transplant. I hope they make it.

All the flowers have taken off , the zinnias have buds and the sunflowers are starting to form flowerheads.

4 of the corn stalks have ears and about half are tassleing? The cucumbers continue to deliver every week or so. I haven't figured out what to do with them all yet?

back to square one

The lettuce germination did not go as planned. The root talks poked through the paper toweling and couldn't be easily removed.

Will have to try again, but probably not for several weeks.

The pumpkin seeds have sprouted, and will be transplantable soon. The fennel seeds are doing nothing. I bought a fresh pack of seeds and will start them soon.

basil overgrowth

Fresh basil is on of summer's quintessential pleasures.

Last month the local grocery store had one gallon containers on sale, so I picked up a couple and dropped them into the ground next to one of the tomatoes for a little companion planting goodness. The tomato plant seems to approve, as it's got more flower clusters in bloom than all the other plants combined.

Last week's lovely, warm weather turned the basil into some decent sized shrubs. I was afraid the plants would flower and bolt, so I conducted a mass pruning earlier this week. Although a few leaves would find their way into my weekly caprese salad, it wasn't really doing much but taking up counter space. Apparently, I'd harvested close to 7 cups of basil.

The only real solution for that is pesto. Instead of the Italian pine nut version, I went with the nut-free French version called pistou. Unfortunately, I went a little heavy on the garlic (read: severe gastric distress quantities of garlic). This evening I went out and hacked off another 4-5 cups of leaves off the leggier plant and made a garlic-free version to mix into the pain inducing stuff. Since the top layer had turned a really unappetizing brown (from oxidation), I didn't add the last two tablespoons of oil, and instead poured them over the top to create an oxygen barrier. Let's hope that keeps everything green.

I'm considering freezing quarter cup servings of it in the little snack size ziploc baggies. That's an easy size to give away, or to take to Bettie May's cookoff come September.

Ziplock germination

I found a great seed germinating technique over at Uncle Tom's garden.

Sprinkle your seeds between two coffee filters, dampen and slide into labeled ziplocs. I don't have the appropriate kind of coffee filter, but I'm guessing that 2-ply paper towels that have been separated will provide the same effect. Currently I have 10 year old fennel seeds, the 4 recently purchased lettuce varieties, and 5 pumpkin seeds lounging on an end table in the living room.

3 of the 4 lettuces are growing squirrly white tails (roots). Soon I'll pack the plastic veggie bins that I've been saving with potting soil and poke them into dirt. I think I'll have to pick up some sort of copper flashing (a construction material) to rim the planned knot garden. Snails and slugs go crazy for tender lettuces.

Knot garden a go

I biked over to the nursery this morning and picked up 4 varieties of lettuce: red deer tongue, merlot, winter density and emerald oak. I couldn't find any frisee seeds. The pattern I'll use is a 3 foot square divided into four smaller squares in a window pane pattern overlaid with a 3 foot square set diagonal, like a diamond. The squares will be green, the diamond red. I hope it comes out okay, those seed packs weren't as cheap as I'd like. The instructions for sowing the nut garden indicated seed should be broadcast very densely.

I raked out a square of garden between the basil and the corn. There's still a fair amount of torn up cardboard that had been serving partly as mulch and partly as a barrier between the good soil and the bad. I'll keep it moist and keep turning it for the next week until the seeds have all germinated, but after that, any loose cardboard is going into the dumpster.

Lettuce knot garden

I'm all excited about doing a knot garden. But honestly, if I do it in herbs, it will have to wait until next year.

However, lettuce is a fall crop that I can start germinating any time now. I looked up various types of lettuces, and there would be plenty of different colored and textured greens to do this project with. I'd like to keep it simple, limit myself to straight lines and not more than 4 or 5 kinds of lettuce. A mix of cos heads, a mix of leaf lettuces and some fancy greens like curly endive (frisee) should look nice and keep me in greens for quite some time. There are some deeply colored reds available now including a very dark one called merlot. Rumor has it there is a black cultivar called Black velvet, but I'll believe it when I see a seed packet.

Knot gardens for herbs

Gardening is all about finding little unexpected things here and there. While I was looking for information on how to plant diagonal rows, I found tips on growing knot gardens with herbs. It's too late for this planting season, but I'd love to have a knot garden next year. I think a small dark thyme would look wonderful with something leafier like parsley. Dill might also make a nice contrast with its tall, misty blue foliage.

Night time ravages

Something eats in the night. It has attacked the two largest sunflower stalks and bitten the flower buds off. This morning I found chewed bits of stalk strewn about a flower bed, and tell tale evidence of pulled up sunflower seedlings.

TheRoommate is putting mousetraps in the garden in hopes that the eater will be smart enough to stay away after a paw gets bruised.

Too early to count chickens

Five of the tomato plants are blooming and the biggest two have already begun to fruit. There is so much hope in those little green marbles clinging to their vines. Last summer the globe tomatoes set fruit which never ripened, although the romas had a few gallons of output. I'm hoping these new varieties do better.

I'm hoping that the pruning will give the plants the sunlight and nutrients they need to develop, because I cant wait to eat some tasty, homegrown tomatoes.

the 5 plants you'd rescue

There was garden giveaway on Garden Rant last week that asked readers to list the 5 plants they'd rescue in a catastrophe, (or really, 5 plants they love) to win a garden cart. Unsurprisingly, tomatoes and raspberries topped the list. There were a

I realized that I don't have a lot of floral diversity in my garden when I thought about the question. I have fewer than 40 plants. Of these, 12 are herbs and six are vegetables.* Surprisingly, few of these are plants I really love. The plants I'd rescue? The gardenia, in hopes that one day it will flower; the oregano I couldn't cook without, and the carnation that smells beautifully and reminds me of all the happy occasions for which it is used. If I had them, I'd rescue a jacaranda tree and a meyer lemon bush.




*Here's the complete list: geraniums, sunflowers, bacopa, dahlias, gardenia, salvia, sweet william, lobelia, carnation, forget me nots, calla lily, aloe vera I, aloe vera II, aloe vera III, euphorbia, barrel cactus, crassula, unknown succulent I, unknown succulent II, summer savory, basil, thyme, lemon thyme, marjoram, oregano, dill, catnip, spearmint, chocolate mint, apple mint, parsley, cilantro, corn, tomatoes, green beans, snap peas, persian cucumbers and anaheim chile peppers.

Companion planting

I'm perusing companion planting charts today. My primary garden is a long narrow strip. I'd like to add some second crop seeds. I'm considering adding lettuce, sugar pumpkin, and something like broccoli or spinach. Chard grows very prettily, but I'll have to get better about actually harvesting and eating it. Fruiting vegetables are so much tastier.

Progress reading

Saturday is fertilizer day, as well as pull the weeds day, check for powdery mildew day, prune a little bit here and there day, and pick anything that didn't get picked during the week day. I wish I had jotted down when certain things have happened in the yard. It's frustrating not to be able to judge process, or to have a baseline for doing things better next year.

Tomatoes:

I do love tomatoes. This year we have crimson caramellos and some sort of cherry, possibly sweet 100s. We started the first batch of seeds in mid March, and a second batch on April 20th. April 10th seems like it would have been the best time. I don't know when I transplanted the tomatoes, but it looks like it was between the middle of May and the middle of June, which seems like the right time to do it. Any time during the week leading up to Memorial Day is probably best. The poor cherry tomatoes are still languishing in the plastic box my organic baby greens from costco came in. It was a great planter for starting seeds, much better than the half gallon milk containers cut lengthwise. I'll use these again.

I just read a good article on pruning tomatoes for best production, Pruning Tomatoes.
Clearly I should be snipping more off these plants. I barely pruned at all last year. This may explain why the plants didn't do so well.

Snap Peas:
I cut down half the snap pea vines, the dead ones and the dried out ones that were only producing pods with a single pea. The rest I left to hang out with the Dahlias and the volunteer Catnip plant that I thought was a weed until the distinctive scent from the bruised leaves and stalk clued me in. I'm thinking I may start some peas in pots against the back garage wall. They'll only get about 5 hours of direct sunlight even at the peak of summer. Later I'll move the pots to a different shady area. Because we're on the direct fog path, I want to see if I can grow peas in containers year round. Because they fix nitrogen to the soil part of my plan is to use their soil as replacement soil for the one strip that is sunny enough for tomatoes.

Beans:
I also love green beans. I have 6 plants producing, but it's not as much as I'd like. Next year I should have 9-12 plants, and should also get them into the ground by May 15. The beans are mostly green with purple marks on the pods.

Herbs:
The parsley, marjoram and oregano are still going gangbusters. I am now agressively pruning them and drying the stalks. The lemon thyme and the Danish thyme are both bolting, which is sort of a surprise. That the cilantro and dill are bolting is not a surprise at all. The summer savory is doing well, at the base of the tier far back along the fence. I hope to harvest a few bags worth of pesticide-free, Italian blend dried herbs.

Flowers:
I have BEE city over at my forget-me-nots. Every time I go over there the stalks are humming with bumble bees, honey bees and some sort of tiny bee that is probably either a carpenter bee or a sweat bee. The forget-me-nots are squeezing out a remaindered white carnation that I found on clearance lacking any sort of label. I happened to recognize the foilage, and thus got quite a bargain. The pure white blooms are small, (since I haven't pruned at all), but have the classic spicy sweet scent. I hate to displace the bees and cut the forget-me-nots back, but they're crowding the carnation out. We'll see what happens.

On either side of the forget-me-nots, I have pots with sweet william (another member of the same family carnations belong to), white lobelia, and blue salvia. The salvia has a terrible case of powdery mildew. I may just pull those plants so that the mildew won't transfer to the dahlias.

TheRoomate has planted a fair amount of corn and some sunflowers. He likes the tall seed producing kind. I like the smaller, dark orange kind. This year, we'll have both.

Garden love

Garden blogging, all the rage?

I've been a lazy gardener since earliest days when my mother had me water the pots of petunias and sweet alyssum. I ate apple mint fresh from the boarder around the small patch of grass, and gloried as lilacs and iris announced the arrival of spring.

I'm all growed up but can't shake the urge to pick things from the yard. I live in zone 17 now, the San Francisco Bay fog belt. Rental housing doesn't lend itself well to expensive perennials, so pots, annuals and things I can eat will be my garden superstars.