Assorted Update

Lots of things have happened in the last couple days. Here's the breakdown.

Tomato Bed:
The Hawaiian Currant made the transition back into dirt well and is beginning to put on some height. Given how miserable it looked when I picked it up, broken and wilted, off the ground a few weeks ago, I am shocked that it made such a recovery.

Hawaiian Currant looking good!

Green Zebra is still looking a little sad. I hacked it pretty good to remove a bunch of wilting leaves. The good news is that the brown wilt seems to be gone. The bad news is that there is only one growing tip left (until it grows a few suckers) and its leaves are somewhat curled, as if to protect itself or reserve water. I think it will be fine eventually, but it's not recovering easily.

Green Zebra...not looking good

The other tomatoes all have yellow flowers, and several are working on making tomatoes. Black Plum and Sun Gold both have lots of little green fruits. I'm curious to see who ripens first. Considering how well Black Plum did last year on neglect, and how well it's doing again this year, I suspect it will cement its position as favorite tomato.

Sun Gold tomatoes


Black Plum tomatoes

I put about 1 lb of E.B. Stone’s All-Purpose Fertilizer into the tomato bed. I also sprayed the bed with Neem Oil and sprinkled some Sluggo in the area. The tomato plants don’t seem too bug infested, but my poor pepper plants are just getting munched (except the Dulcettas, which somehow seem immune), I suspect by slugs & snails.

I bought a replacement Cayenne pepper to replace the one that got munched. It came in a 4-pack, so the others will probably go in pots. I also bought an Anaheim pepper. The one in the garden got so munched that I’m not sure it’ll make it, so I thought it best to have a plant on reserve just in case.

Anaheim Pepper might recover if the slugs stay away


Dulcetta Pepper looking awesome


Shallots (and one shallot that is probably not a shallot)


Garlic (Borage in upper left corner)

Legumes:
The pea plants look great. It’s going to break my heart when I have to pull them out in a couple more weeks. I’ve harvested about a dozen peas and there’s at least that many left on the vine for a salad or stir fry this week.

Very tall Pea plants


Peas

The fava beans are also doing well. There are several pods growing, and lots of flowers that should lead to bean pods soon.

Fava plants


Fava Beans

Leafy Greens:
Chard has taken over the garden. I really need to eat more chard. Lettuce looks fantastic. I think I’ll try to nurse it to the end of June for a BBQ on the 26^th, and then I’ll pull it out to give more room to the melon and strawberry plants. The Asian greens have also outgrown their welcome. I think they will become Chinese Chicken Salad this week. Mmmmm.

Red Chard


Asian Greens

Fruit:
A few of the melons have finally taken hold and appear to be growing. The ones closer to the back get much less sun, so they will take longer to get going, but I’m not sure having a delay between the plants will be a bad thing later this summer.

Charentais Melon

I finally got the 4 Chandler strawberry plants in the ground. Two of them already have strawberries trying to grow. Hopefully the others will get going soon.

Chandler Strawberry

Squash:
The zucchini plants are GIANT. I will have to hack it back a bit to get the corn in, but I doubt the plants would even notice. There are a couple zukes on it that will have to get eaten soon before they get huge. The other squash plants are doing well too. There are acorn squashes forming on one plant and the other squashes seem to have finally sunk their roots in and started growing.

Zuchinni growing


Acorn Squash

Other:
Radish seeds have sprouted out in the garden. Hopefully they’ll also be ready for salad for my BBQ in 3 weeks.

Radish sprout

The sunflowers have also grown quickly. I don't think I've mentioned them much in earlier posts, but the tallest is now taller than me.

Sunflower corner

My corn seeds have sprouted (all but one) in their little newspaper pots. When they reach ~6 inches tall, I’ll move them out to the garden.

Corn sprouts

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!

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.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

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.

Peppers

I transplanted most of my pepper plants into the tomato bed today. There is one pepper plant in front of each tomato, except for one...my Anaheim peppers are still a little too small so I left a spot reserved for one. From left to right they are jalapeno, cayenne, ancho/poblano, anaheim (coming soon), california wonder, sweet chocolate, golden wonder, dulcetta x3. Each transplant got about 1/2 a tablespoon of Sure Start at the bottom of it's new home and while I was there I also gave each tomato a heaping tablepoon of Tomato & Vegetable food.

Because I had 15 pepper seedlings and 10 spots, that leaves 1 ancho/poblano, 1 cayenne, 2 dulcetta, and 1 anaheim that will be going into pots in the side yard later this week. They will be joining my boysenberries and Martino's Roma tomato which, since I had it out, also got fertilizer today. 1 T for each berry plant and 3 T for the tomato. Hopefully I will get my herbs and those boysenberries into bigger pots this week as well.

The Hawaiian Currant that I put into a rockwool pot in the aquaponics bed may recover, but I'd say it's a long shot. Only a couple small leaves have perked up since yesterday and they are still looking mighty sad. The duckweed trough for my aquaponics setup is looking sad as well. I think I will do a water change on it this afternoon and get an air bubbler in there as well. The water from the change will come from my main aquaponics system. It has turned such a lovely shade of electric green over the last week that you can no longer see the fish, but this green water will be delicious food for the daphnia that I am hoping to purchase this weekend. I suspect that once the seeds in the net pots get going, they will outcompete the algae and this problem will resolve itself.

Tomato Bed Update

My tomatoes have really taken off. Many are triple the size they were when I planted them less than two weeks ago! Below I've posted pictures of several of my babies :)

Hawaiian Currant...tried to order one of these last year but didn't get one. I'm really looking forward to seeing the fruit on this variety.


Paul Robeson...not a big producer last year, but I did utterly neglect them and given the good reviews I figured this one deserved another shot.


Green Zebra...I'm not a big fan of green tomatoes, but when you have red, purple, orange and yellow tomatoes you gotta add one of these in the mix


Blood Gulch...tried to die (twice), but appears to be making a comeback!


Opalka...produced a big crop for me last year of fleshy paste tomatoes


Yellow Submarine...this one is looking a little frail still, but last year it took awhile for this potato-leafed plant to really get going and it later became one of my top producers.

Not Shown: Sun Gold, Black Plum (my FAVORITE!), Mortgage Lifter, Goose Creek


Shallots coming up! There appear to be many green stalks coming out of each clove. There are now 3 shallots that have started putting up shoots.


Mmmm....Garlic. All but two or three cloves have 6" leaves bursting out of the soil!

15 pepper plants (2 Anaheim, 1 Jalapeno, 2 Cayenne, 5 Dulcetta, 2 Ancho/Poblano, 1 California Wonder, 1 Golden Woner, 1 Sweet Chocolate)....many of these will be heading out into the tomato bed in the next couple weeks.

Show Me the Green

My first strawberry leaves have started to pop up along with the first sweet pea, and many of the fava beans are breaking ground as well!

Strawberry Start (Sequoia?)

Fava Bean and Sweet Pea Shoots

I spent the afternoon double digging the vegetable bed. I got halfway done, so hopefully I'll finish that up tomorrow. It won't be a minute too soon either. I put peas in wet paper towels on Monday and they're already trying to sprout. The sooner I can get those off my kitchen counter and into the ground, the better!

Squash/Melon Flat

Pepper Seedlings

My seedlings are coming along. Many of the herbs died, but the squash, melons, and peppers are all putting up their first true leaves.

Dead Herbs (except one Cilantro)

I reseeded a few pots in my squash/melon seedling flat today. The first seeds sprouted promptly and then wilted. I was afraid I'd lose the whole flat that way, but they seem fine.
Hopefully these seeds catch up soon.

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A fresh start

Clearly, I am terrible at keeping a journal of any sort. I haven't posted in months and my garden has been almost as neglected. So, with Spring just around the corner, a new batch of seeds flats, and an iPhone to hopefully make it easier to post...I'm beginning again.



I've got melons, squash, peppers, eggplant, cucumber, and a variety of herb seeds in seed starter mix.



A couple courageous melons have started to creep upwards and I look forward to seeing their more timid flat mates soon. Boysenberry starts from my Aunt Steph are also waking up for Spring.




This morning I sprayed Round-up on the weeds that infiltrated my beds over the winter and I look forward to their slow death that will ensue. By the time my little seed children are ready to go out and play, hopefully I'll have the beds weed free and dug to fluffiness. Beet, carrot, radish, chard, and pea seeds are at the ready and will hopefully make their way into the garden in the next week.

It's good to be back with my hands in the dirt!

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Busy Weekend

Alright...I spent all of Saturday afternoon and a couple hours on Sunday in the garden. Here's what happened:

In the Tomato Bed:

1. Tomatoes got pruned (any branches that were dead, dying, munched, or too close to the ground) and tied vertically against the fence



2. 13 Basil Seedlings (3 each Lemon, Mini, Purple, Genovese and 1 Sweet) were transplanted into the bed



3. 3 Scallions were transplanted into the bed



4. 1 Anaheim Pepper and 1 Red Bell Pepper purchased from Home Depot were planted
   


5. A cup or two of E.B. Stone Vegetable fertilizer was sprinkled on the bed
   


6. A bag of compost/mulch was spread around the bed

Along the concrete wall:

1. The edible peas and sweet peas were yanked up



2. Two bags of compost/mulch was spread around



3. Runner beans were planted (12 inch spacing...right under the drip line drips)



4. 1 Edamame bean was planted (I had others but I left them out overnight and somebody stole them)



5. Carrots tops were unburied so that they can continue to grow despite the mulch



6. Cucumber seeds were planted (3 sweet cucumbers, 3 English cucumbers)



7. A 5ish ft row of radishes alternating with carrots was planted.
   

In the corner:

1. 1 bag of compost/mulch was spread around



2. 7 corn seedlings were transplanted (and one new seed)
   


3. 1 acorn , 1 delicata, and 1 spaghetti squash were transplanted



4. 4 Sunzilla Sunflower Seeds
   

Beans Begin!

I emptied a package of Magic Beanstalk Scarlet Runner Beans and 6 Edamame seeds into a wet paper towel in a bowl. I'm planning on putting them in the ground on Friday or Saturday.

Tonight's dinner menu comes from our garden again. My Juliet tomato plant has finally decided it wants to fruit so I decided we should have BLTs tonight to celebrate the little tomatoes. Bread machine sourdough is rising as I type and a pack of bacon is defrosting. I've got a little head of some sort of red leaf lettuce (it randomly grew in what used to be the chard bed) that will join some Juliet tomatoes and a sliced red onion (sadly store bought). I also took out a cup or so of the fava beans I froze a little while back and I think I'll make a spread out of those to moisten the sandwich instead of the traditional mayonnaise.

All the squash seeds have sprouted except the Black Beauty Zucchini. Honestly, I'm not heartbroken about that! I only wanted the Black Beauty for its blossoms anyways, so having that plant get a little bit of a late start is fine by me. Zucchini squash is gross...except in zucchini bread (mmm).

The Dulcetta pepper seeds definitely get the award for being the most reliable seed. Another one has sprouted, and nothing from the other three types of peppers I seeded at the same time.

My tomato bed is becoming overrun with (surprise) tomato plant. I'll have to go out as soon as I get a chance and start training those up the fence so I don't lose the ground space. My plan is to plant my basil, onion, and pepper seedlings in there on Friday or Saturday.

Tally:
11 oz Juliet Tomatoes