Garden Updates: May 10th, 2012

Our Tomato seedlings have matured and are almost ready to transplant to the beds.

A little late, but since I was out of town, I didn't get to start the Cucurbits until this week.

This year we are growing "Kabocha" pumpkins, "Black Eel" zucchini, an unknown cantelope (seed saved from the farmer's market), "Thai Catchai" watermelon, "Japanese pickling" cucumbers, "Double Yield"cukes, Bitter Melon, yellow and green Pattypan squashes, Luffa, and Butternut Squash.

 Here on the left, we have the "British Wonder" shelling peas coming to the end of it's season. On the right, we have "Japanese Nappa/Hakusai" cabbage going to seed. Most of it were eaten by the birds. (Share with nature!) but we save some under a veil and hope that next year's crop is a good one.

We are saving lots of seeds.

 These are parsley seeds forming

 Chayote starting to grow very vigorously

 bulb onions after I've harvested all the carrots. There's one Lettuce left (front). These onions seemed to be doing nothing so far in terms of bulbing...sigh. The garlics are done and out they came out the next bed.

This year we have 3 varieties of sweet potatoes. The typical "Garnet Yam", the "Okinawan purple"(pictured here on the left), and a mysterious purple sweet potato with purple leaves which we just got from the swap this past Sunday. The purple one just "perked" up today. Sweet potato slips amaze me at their hardiness. I just planted it 3 days ago. It had no roots, and it was wilted when I planted it. Now it's not droopy anymore. The Okinawan was planted 5 days ago and it's already started growing!

 The path that encircles the back of our fig tree. Here you see the cloud of orange Calendulas, some common sage, "African Blue" basil and in the foreground some camomile.

 The fig tree has started growing it's fruit-buds. This is the normal cycle, but we've had some "out of season" fruiting these past 2 years.

 These are the "out of season" figs. At this rate, they may mature by June. Normally, our figs ripen in August.

 "Russian Black Plum Paste" tomatoes are growing!

 In the "pond" area, Amaranth has decidedly won out in the competition between it and sesame. The sesame seedlings were voraciously eaten by snails. We thin out the Amaranth and eat them.

 Next to the Amaranth we have Gobo(Edible Burdock). We're hoping to collect seeds this year.

 Canna Edulis/Achira

 Only one graft was successful on the peach tree in the back.

The "Goldmine" nectarine graft is growing well.

  It turns out, the peach tree in the back is actually a nectarine tree. This is the fruit of the parent tree.

These loquats are pretty big! 

 Our mania. Rooting cuttings

 This is our "Hugelkultur" test bed. We piled in lots of old rotting logs, layering them with manure, and covering it with soil and seeded it with vetch. We will try growing corn here first.

 We're covering our Cabbage crop in the heat so they don't bolt

The peppers have flowers! The leaves are a bit yellow, and I did add some extra compost and worm tea, but maybe it needs something else?

 Onto the front garden: The Haas avocados are growing steady

 Lupini beans under the rosebush

 "Alauria" our front yard peach tree has fruits!!!

 "Kyohou" grapes are forming

Garden Updates

Happy Spring! Spring has definitely sprung here in SoCal. Here's a snapshot of our back raised beds. The fig tree is vigorously leafing out and has already started fruiting. This is actually a very unusual thing for our fig tree. Last year it had 2 fruits that came out with the new, spring growth, this year we seem to have at least a dozen. Normally, fig trees will spout their leaves first, then the fig "flowers" come later.

 Here's the "pond" I dug out most of the burdock except a few so we can  hopefully get the burdocks to flower, then set seed. I seeded the rest of that back(left side in this pic) with sesame seeds since we found quite a bit of root-knot nematode infestation. I also sprayed a generous amount of Dragonfire SPP in that area as well. I will be growing marigolds there just to top it off and hopefully get rid of most of them. This "pond" soil is VERY sandy since the soil was brought in to fill the hole. Root-knot nematodes love sandy soils.

 Clivia under the Navel Orange tree is in full bloom!

 Valencia Orange tree in bloom

 Columbine

 Lori sitting by the white, delicate Azaleas

 Freesias in a pot next to the raised bed of lettuces

 Here are the lettuces, tender and enjoying the day after the rains

 This area will end up having 2 more raised beds, but for now, we have soil mixed with compost for potting. I also have a few stray plants that have decided that it's a great place to live. (Potatoes, black radish, spinach and a few strawberry plants)

 Starting the Solanaceae and the Apiaceae families in the "green house". I'm also starting the peppers and eggplants. I have a special trick I'm trying this year. Placing the seeds in a ziplock bag with a moistened, paper napkin, then closing the bag and taping it to the back of my iMac. (constantly warm behind there!)

 Now, onto the front garden: Red roses in full bloom!

The Kyohou grape has broken dormancy and is happily climbing towards the top. It looks like it has a good number of flower clusters too.  :) 

 Pansies and edible Lupines (Lupini) under the persimmon tree

This is the divide between the neighbor and our property. It's been widened from about 1 ft to nearly 3ft wide over the winter and gated off so the animals don't do their "business" there. We have broad-beans, peas, cosmos, asparagus, and nasturtiums planted here.

close-up on the broad-beans (fava)

Close-up on the peas

 Here is the view of it from the other end. We placed some stepping stones inside so we can tend to the plants. On the right side of the stepping stones is "Alauria" the peach tree. She has flower buds for the very first time!!! :)

 Our ornamentals

Apple: Fuji always seems to wake up sooner than Akane.

 Japanese Maple in front of Plumeria

 Delicate, yellow, thornless rose vine; A cutting was given to us from our neighbor and mom has grown in to 6 ft in height now.

So here it is! The hole for the grape vine!

After planting, and proud daddy.

Here's the opposite angle

Now for some backyard news: We decided to keep the Russets as they seemed to tolerate that nasty frost-kill much better and look how they've recoverd! I'm planning on planting another row of Russets and it'll be ready a bit later than these.

Mom cut half of the Feijoa Guava tree, since it's always blocking one of the beds and it's not a great fruiter. Or that the fruit will not be very tasty. It can produce as a compact bush, so we shall see this year.

The Guava tree is the same size as the fence now, on the ground you can see the cut branches

The bed closest to us is now a little more sunny. The middle front bed is growing Garlic and some Carrot seedlings. I just planted some lettuces as well. The far left front bed is growing Bulb Onions and Carrots. The back left bed has Spinach, Beets and Chard, although the latter 2 are still very small seedlings. The middle back bed has Bulb Onions that we started last year and some Lettuces. The right back bed has Daikon Radishes, one Chard plant that survived all torture, and Spanish Black Radish seedlings in pots waiting to be planted (not shown)

Lori found something in the orange tree, and was curious enough to climb a rock to take a closer look. Maybe it's a butterfly... I couldn't see it from the angle I was in, from the inside the house.  I thought it was interesting that the shadow on her face looks like a swallowtail butterfly with an extra long tail.

Indoor plants. These are the plants in our dining room window sill. The far left plant (it has a tiny 2" pot) is a Vanilla Orchid climbing on top of the flowering Christmas Cactus. I really have to repot that thing, but I've heard that orchids flower better under stress. Do you know anything about orchids? Next to the Cactus is a white Phalaenopsis.

We've decided to try the lazy way of preserving heat loving plants, taking the cuttings and keeping in them water, indoors.  The Blue Basil responded wonderfully with tons of new roots and is blossoming(it had small buds when I picked them)! The Sweet Potato was just started this week, so we'll see if they'll root. The far much has a leek and chinese celery bought from the store. I'm trying to see if they'll root so I can grow them and harvest seeds. These are the lazy ways of acquiring seeds or starting new plants. It WORKS! Raising Basil this way is by far the easiest. Instead of fiddling with tiny seeds that have a low germination rate, rooting the cuttings is almost a sure fire way. Plus, it's pretty in the window. :-)  These are sitting on the ledge of our front window. Lazy farming is the way to go when you have so many other chores to do around the house!