May 29th Garden Update

The garden is coming along nicely. As we go along, certain things become easier to work out. We've even had a few meals with food picked from the garden which was a blast.

Here's a little garden update.

It looks like the apples are doing well. The moth traps seem to be working so far. I think we should get a few more to make sure they don't ravage our crop again this year.




The plums are ALL OVER the place. There will be enough to make some jam, have for snacks and pass out among friends.

The strawberries came back. Now we just need to keep the strawberry thief away.
  

For a little color, we have a gift from our neighbor. It's rather nice, actually. She was chopping some down in her front yard and just passed us the clippings. I popped 'em in the pot and they took off.

The tomatoes are grand. We just need to keep 'em watered and they see to be happy.

The sweet potato I planted sprouted out and looks really interesting. The leaves are green with purple trim. I can't wait to see if the potato will sprout other tomatoes.
 

We found out that we didn't plant the onions deep enough to give us onions proper, but we have chives. :)

 And the best part is having a place the kids can play and learn about nature. They have a great time playing out there and seeing the stuff grow. And, the best part about that is being able to EAT the project as they do it! :)

 AND BEES! 

:)

Garden ROBBERY!!!!

Some little buggers ROBBED us of our Strawberries!!!!!!!

So pissed. They were doing well and the kids would have loved picking and eating them. Sad.

Guess we need to invest in additional security measures for them. :(

More shots of the garden

Using the Canon instead of the iPhone makes a WORLD of difference! :)

Bloom

:)

Garden Progress - May 3rd, 2014

The California summer heat rolled in a few days ago and it's been a juggling game keeping the plants happy of late. I've been trying to keep things moist, but not over-watered and it's been interesting. I think that watering earlier in the day is the way to go. It seems to be working well.

Most of the plants are happy, but we've had some struggling folks as well. I think it's part of that heat to water balance - some of the plants are taking to the heat better than others.

Not too happy  :(

The tomatoes seem to be thriving. At least the Black Krim are. We spoke to a another customer at the nursery and he said they were his go to tomato plant and I can see why. It's growing like a weed while the Big Rainbow is just staying the course. :)

Black Krim

Black Krim

Rainbow

The herbs are thriving.

The other question I had that we need to research - not being farmers :::grin::: - is just when and how to harvest the plants. Some plants and be cut back and re-planted. Others just get cut to eat, then they keep growing. We just need to sort out which ones are which.

The kids are going to love eating the strawberries. :)

All in all, I'm happy with the garden progress. I think we're learning a lot from this round. What to plant, where to plant it and things that just seem a bit harder than others. Our carrots, for instance. Not thriving. Hehehehe. Even the seed sprout pots we used seem to make a large difference. We had these woven, natural little pots, but the cheap plastic seemed to be better for the plants, oddly. The one's in the little plastic tubs shot up like mad.

As the heat comes and stays with us for the rest of the summer, the big challenge will be to stay on the watering and trimming. And cooking with our lovely garden bounty! :)

Chives

Apples starting!

Kale

Garlic

Onions