New produce!

Yesterday I got to have a Chandler strawberry for breakfast. I was so excited to eat it, I forgot to take a picture and weigh it first.







I had sautéed chard and a zucchini with my dinner...the first zucchini of the season.









This morning I found the first harvestable sized pea. I split it with Elliott, and while it wasn't all that flavorful I still could have eaten a handful because the crunchy texture was awesome. There are a couple more peas staring to appear and bunches if blossoms, so there should be plenty to snack on soon!









Fava beans are also just beginning to form, in a few more weeks they should be on my dinner table!




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Aquaponics & A Mysterious (Angry) Visitor

Over the weekend, Elliott helped me clean out the Aquaponics system. It was horribly green and we weren't getting very much growth out of the plants (probably because they have to compete with all that algae). We did a complete water change and did our best to clean out the rockwool and hydroton rocks. We also removed any pots that hadn't grown anything or that had grown a seedling which then died. We also installed a powerhead in the plant bed to try to get the water flowing a little more up there.

All our work was for not though, because last night we got a visitor in our garden who hopped into my aquaponic plant bed and started digging around. Many of the plants were totally uprooted and others were destroyed or thrown into the water. Many of my plant labels were pulled out and several were broken. The visitor left the daphnia tank alone, but not before leaving his prints at the scene. Any guesses? I'm thinking opossum or raccoon.




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Return of the Hawaiian Currant

This morning I finally took my fully recovered Hawaiian Currant tomato out of the aquaponics bed and put it back in the ground. A few weeks back I found the little guy trampled, snapped off at the stem, and wilted. I didn't think he would make it, especially since several of its leaves began to yellow over the next days and weeks. But I'm happy to report if now has ridiculously long roots now, is 100% green, and I have every hope that it will transition well back to life in the ground!




















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Corn

Planted corn seeds today in little homemade newspaper pots. Corn supposedly hates being transplanted and these pots should help since they can be planted with the transplant and breakdown readily.



I also put beet and radish seeds in the garden to fill in any gaping holes in the fava bean/strawberry/melon bed and sprinkled some carrot seeds around as well.

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More New Beginnings

I spent a chunk of my morning making small newspaper pots to start my corn seeds! Corn is always exciting to me because it was the flagship in my family's garden as a child. I will be planting corn along with beans between my already planted squash in a Three Sisters Garden. In this arrangement, the corn provides support for the beans, the beans provide nitrogen fixing for the heavy feeding corn and squash, and the squash grows around the base of the corn and beans providing shade (and therefore more moisture) for their roots and protecting them from animals with their prickly leaves and stems. This arrangement also allows for an efficient spacing of plants; I hope to have about 30 corn and bean plants planted by mid summer. The newspaper pots should provide a good nursery for my corn plants that will break down once I transplant the sprouts into the garden. The corn seeds are soaking as I right (and have been since this morning) and they'll go into their little pots this afternoon or tomorrow morning.

Other new beginnings are everywhere. My pea plants have just started to blossom, the fava beans have blossoms EVERYWHERE, almost every tomato plants has little yellow flowers, and even my boysenberries have a few white flowers to show off for summer. The carrot seeds I planted a few weeks back have finally started to sprout. The asian greens and mesclun I planted with them didn't fare so well, with only a half dozen or so mustard greens sprouting. But summer is fast approaching and the greens will get bitter with the heat, so it's not much loss. Perhaps I didn't water enough, or the seeds were too old (I bought them in 2009).

Plans for this week are to put in the pepper and strawberry plants I bought last week, seed the corn, seed more radishes and beets, and tie up the tomatoes and fava beans which have outgrown their last set training ties.

Tilapia Time!

This weekend I went to visit my brother down in San Diego. I picked over a pound of chard to bring to his girlfriend, but the chard is so prolific you can hardly tell out in the garden.

While we were down there I picked up my stock of tilapia for this summer. I paid for 50 fingerlings ($1.79 each) from San Diego Pet Supply who get their tilapia from Tilapia Mama. The store owner wasn't too big on counting them as he put them in the bag, so I ended up with about 75 of them. Unfortunately ~20 of them died on our way home. Turns out stopping for a couple hours for breakfast/lunch was a poor decision; I suspect they died from lack of oxygen. :( In any case, I was glad he gave us so many extras because I still had 55 fingerlings to put into my system when we got home. We bought a mesh laundry bag to contain them, which should make it easier for water changes and the like. I checked on them this morning and it looks like they survived their first night just fine.




The heater in the tank keeps the temperature hovering above 67 at night, while it typically gets up well above 70 during the day.

In other aquaponics news, Bailey has discovered that the Daphnia tank is a fun toy. I will need to adjust my plan to keep her out of that, since the screen has already been dog-stroyed. I'll replace the screen to keep the mosquitos out this summer, but it will need something more to protect agains dog attacks.

I also took a look at my little Hawaiian Currant tomato today, which appears to have officially been saved by aquaponics. I pulled it's pot out of the float today and it has long roots extending out of the pot. I think it may be time to transplant the little guy back to his home in the tomato bed. Perhaps I will have Hawaiian Currant tomatoes this year afterall :)

Damn Snails, Praise Armstrong

Snails ate three of my beloved pepper plants, the jalapeno, ancho/poblano, and california wonder. I love starting plants from seed, but it's just to late to start these over since they take weeks just to germinate. Thankfully I was able to find replacements for all three at Armstrong Nursery in Pasadena along with some very hard to find Chandler strawberry plants. At $3.99 per plant (compared to the ~12 cent strawberry starts I put in a couple months ago) it was a steep price to pay, but I took four home with me anyways because my mother says they are the best strawberry she's ever eaten. I hope she's right, because they are going to be very expensive little morsels when they start fruiting. All 7 of my new plants will hopefully find homes in the ground later this week along with a healthy serving of Sluggo!

Leafy Greens, Ho!

Lettuce and Chard are in full production. On Tuesday I picked over half a pound of chard to bring to my Trainer and on Wednesday I picked not quite half a pound of lettuce for a delicious (and beautiful) salad. Unfortunately I wasn't home for dinner on Wednesday to enjoy it, but I had leftovers on Thursday along with some tuna and two pretty radishes (one red, one purple) that I picked that day. I can't believe the radishes are already a harvestable size! I will have to plant more radish seeds soon, since the radishes that are still out in the dirt won't be there for long...Mmmmmmm.

Squash Planting Done! (almost)

Today I planted squash transplants. The squash I transplanted a few weeks ago are HUGE by comparison, so much so that I fear not all of these transplants will make it. But at least now they're in and they have a fighting chance. As I try to do with all transplants, I put a bit of E.B. Stone's Sure Start at the bottom of each transplant's hole. I still have a couple acorn squash and butternut squash transplants that I didn't put in, mostly because I don't know where the heck I'm going to put them!

I also pruned tomatoes. The Paul Robeson and Blood Gulch were slower to start and are only about half the height of the other tomatoes now. I realized today that part of the reason for this is that they were putting all their effort into growing strong suckers. I should have pruned them much earlier. Now I know.

The daphnia population for feeding my aquaponics has exploded. They're going through the green water really quickly. Every couple days I have to pull water out of the main setup to feed them, otherwise their water becomes quite clear and you can see the thousands of little bugs wiggling about.

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Mouse!

There was a mouse in my garden! He was a tiny little thing, not two inches long (minus the tail). I wish I had snapped a picture, but when I turned to tell Bailey to go away it took its opportunity to slip away. On the one hand I love having the garden because of the variety of wildlife it brings, but on the other hand I don't really want mice running around my garden because it won't be long before they discover the house or garage and supposedly they'll eat crops like corn and squash. I suppose if he sticks around or brings friends, I'll have to do something about that. He was really cute though!

Melons Planted

Yesterday I got my melon seedlings in the ground. They are taking the place of the many strawberry plants that never decided to grow. Hopefully today I'll get the rest of my squash plants in. The four squash plants that I put in a couple weeks ago are HUGE compared to the ones that are still in their pots. It's interesting to see such a difference when they were all about the same size not too long ago.

I also managed to get all of my herbs into pots and baskets (finally) along with the remaining pepper seedlings (an ancho/poblano that looks good and a dulcetta that I don't think is going to make it), an artichoke, and moving the two boysenberry plants into a larger pot. I put a japanese cucumber plant (bought from Home Depot a few days ago) into a basket on the side yard. I'm not sure how well it will do there, but if it thrives I think it will be an interesting addition to my little container garden.

It's a hot day, and summer is certainly on its way. Jobs for today (or tomorrow): Get the squash plants in and start some corn seedlings.

First harvest!

We had our first official harvest for the year today!




I snipped 101g of chard out of the garden and chopped it up to throw into a meal of fried rice. Unfortunately with all the spices and such, it was difficult to taste the chard alone, but it seemed to have a good texture and mild flavor. This chard was planted on April 2nd, making it 37 days from seed to harvest.

Also, I planted the Anaheim pepper today. It finally had it's second set of leaves and I didn't want to risk killing this seedling too, I think it's safer in the ground.

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Squash Blossom

My first squash blossom appeared yesterday afternoon on one of my zucchini plants. It was beautiful, but unfortunately when I went to take a picture this afternoon it had already closed up. But not to worry, it looks like there are more on the way!


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Happy Day!

Today is turning out to be pretty fantastic, not only did I get into my first choice school for the fall (Yes, I agree that is completely unrelated, but I don't care. I'm excited!) but I also discovered as I tied up a few of my tomatoes today that I have a BABY TOMATO!



Baby Black Plum Tomatoes, Weeeeee!
Actually there are two, and to make it even better they are on my black plum plant, which means they will not only ripen faster since they are little grape tomatoes, but they are my favorite kind of tomato so they will probably be delicious. I am so excited.

Three of my tomato plants are now tall enough that they need some tying. The Yellow Submarine and Paul Robeson are lagging behind everyone else, especially the Yellow Submarine which seems to have some really odd leaf shapes and not only because it is a potato leaf.

The Blood Gulch, I am pleased to report, has made a full recovery and is catching up with all its might. It has surpassed the Paul Robeson in size already and is looking very robust.



Blood Gulch



Blood Gulch looks tiny next to its neighbor
The Hawaiian Currant is still alive, somehow, but is looking a little crisp around the edges due to the intense heat we've had the last few days. I've not given up all hope for it yet, but I am certainly not holding my breath for it either.


Hawaiian "I'm not dead yet!" Currant
I also tied up my fava beans today as they were starting to crowd the chard and the sweet peas are just not getting enough light. Hopefully this doesn't negatively affect my yield from the favas, though I think the benefit to the chard and sweet peas should more than make up for it.



Favas & Chard
The chard is looking amazing. Earlier this week I was thinking about pulling a few leaves to put on a sandwich, but now I think there's enough for a side dish of sauteed chard. I will definitely be eating chard with my dinner tomorrow. That'll be the first harvest of the season. How exciting!!!!


Red Chard



Yellow Chard
I also discovered a little strawberry flower bud yesterday afternoon that today was open and smiling. Only 10 of the 36 strawberry starts I planted ever grew anything, but perhaps I will still still get some strawberries this season :)



Hello there!

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday

On Sunday Elliott and I went to Laurel's plant sale and bought a Sun Gold and a Black Plum for friends and a Red Olive Tomato, which I'm not thrilled about because I really wanted a Hawaiian Currant or a Peace Vine. Perhaps I will go to another plant sale in a few weeks and see if I can't still get one. The Hawaiian Currant that I'm trying to save using aquaponics looks better every day. I can't say for certain that it will survive, but it is definitely looking less like it's going to die. Another week or two and I'll know for sure.

After the plant sale, we drove down to Costa Mesa for a COAST fish club meeting. They hold monthly meetings, but we haven't gone in about a year. The real reason I was there was for the epic auction that always takes place afterwards. I was able to acquire a bag of Daphnia to start culturing some live foods for my (coming soon) Tilapia. I also bought a pair of guppies to put in the plant bed portion of my aquaponics setup. There are some mosquito larvae in there that I would rather do without. We bought a handful of plants and other items as well for our discus tank.

When I got home I was horrified to find that my remaining pepper seedlings were withered to a crisp. Apparently it was a hot day and they didn't fare well. It looks like one anaheim, the ancho/poblano, and maybe one dulcetta will make it, but I for sure lost the cayenne and probably the other anaheim and dulcetta. Oh well...c'est la vie.