We're drowning in RAIN!

It's been raining, A LOT! It's Monday night and it has been raining since Friday of last week! Still 2 more days of rain to come...Can't believe how much rain is coming down! My plants are starting to be water-logged, the strawberries are rotting before they ripen, the lettuces are starting to grow white mold, the oranges taste watered down.... argghh...

So this is Christmas Season in SoCal...

Gorgeous golds!

These bell shaped blossoms are on a succulent that flowers in Dec.

Oh, these roses are so beautiful! They're red and green, perfect holiday colors!

Harvest Updates

Seemingly endless amounts of Mandarins and Guavas right now.

Still getting strawberries, in DECEMBER!!

Yams

yummy Lettuce

More lettuce, some bit of green beans and our first Meyer Lemons form our tiny tree!

Guavas are raining now

tiny carrots I thinned out

More guavas, these went to my sister

another day of strawberries, perfect for our homemade soy yogurt

attempting to make satsuma mandarine (marmalade) jam

finished jars of Satsuma  and Guava jam

Root Knot Nematodes vs Janice's Garden

I am purchasing Dragon Fire CPP, an organic wild sesame oil spray that is supposed to kill most of the root knot nematodes we have!

Organic Gardening Supplies and Biological Pest Control Products from ARBICO

Garden Updates, new DIRT!

So! here's the new dirt we've been talking about! Exciting, but we found LOTS of rocks in it, so we'll have to clean those rocks from the beds.

taking out the pebbles

just a small portion of the rocks that came with the dirt fill, we have a big job to do cleaning this new dirt!

Garlics, onions, chinese lettuce, romaine lettuce, snow peas, celery seedlings, napa cabbage, cabbages, and in the foreground tall marigolds

Lori basking in the morning sun

Here's the yams before frost damage

Frost damaged the yams, so out they came! You can see our second harvest in the updates

After cleaning...must plant something else now!

Winter Garden Harvests

Autumn Garden

This is a delayed post as I took this set of pictures before I left for a 1 week trip to Barcelona.
Autumn Mums with Fever Few

Next year's strawberries being nurtured in pots

Satsuma Mandarins turning color.  Now many are ripe! I'll post more pics later since I have several weeks off from work due to a Hiatus!

White Guavas galore!

The new member of our family, Musa Mahoi.
It's supposed to fruit 2 bunches of bananas instead of just 1!
It's also a semi-dwarf reaching only 10' instead of 15'~20'.

Dwarf Mango is getting settled in. It was planted about 3' from the spot the poor pear tree had succumbed to fire blight.

Carrots growing along side garlic chives. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to us there are a LOT of root knot nematodes here. I just discovered that when I started thinning these carrots last week. :-(  I think I will have to splurge for the Dragon Fire SSP spray or some sesame cakes. Will need to research which is better. Anyone have any experience with the Dragon Fire?

View of the Garden from the east side of the garden.

We decided to take out one of the beds that was hugging this wall. We need a space just to mix soil, process large branches and composting materials. We had been using the large open space we opened up this past spring, but this weekend, we are finally bringing more dirt we found from San Dimas. I'll post pics of that soon!

Garden beds from the west side

Autumn Harvests

First Harvest of "Satsuma Mikan" Mandarine, White Guava, and some strawberries.

Our last Zucchini, Chinese Lettuce and a bit of strawberries

Experimenting with indoor lettuce.

Yams, Limes (foraged), and Rugen Alpine strawberries

More Strawberries, and a lovely Fuji apple!

Lettuce, Bitter Melon, Onion (hiding), White Sesame Seeds (lower right corner)

White Guavas, and one Mikan.

Ruby Yams from the front yard!

Lots of Sun-chokes and more to come!

Tender baby lettuce greens.