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

Harvest Updates; May 9th 2012

Hi Everyone! It's been a good while, and I apologize for not posting sooner!

We went to visit my sister in Oahu to see our new nephew and to see our families both on my side and Tim's. Now, we're back! Here are some of the harvests from the past month. Please keep in mind, this is probably about 1/5 of our total harvest. We just can't keep up with everything that's coming in, plus I was gone, and my brother was helping me pick some strawberries that went straight to the freezer.  I'll snap some Garden Updates pictures soon!

Here we have some beets, snow peas and strawberries

 The upper left are "seri", lower left, carrots of course, and to the right, lettuce and baby amaranth.

 Lots of strawberries and peas, tree collard greens, shungiku (edible chrysanthemum) and loquats

 Our 1st Garlic harvest, along with baby carrots and potatoes!

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.