The Oasis is Alive and Kicking

A random dump of images in the middle of birthday parties, first days of school and hellish one day commutes. :)

One of the things I realized is that there's more than just growing the veggies - there's eating them as well! The lettuce is easy. Pick and eat. Some of the other items are requiring a little more research. I tried roasting the peppers we have, but it's not the same as roasting a red pepper or something like that. Shana thinks they will be good for tomato sauce.  Stay tuned.

INSTANT SALAD! :)  So good!

Hard to see, but the cucumbers start out tiny with little flowers on them....

...then grow to crazy sizes. Delicious, but we need to cut the skin off because it's too bitter, but the inside is so good!

These peppers. Not a good roaster, but may be good in sauce.

The squash is another cute one. Starts out small and fuzzy with a flower....

 

Then it balloons right up! 

 

The flowers are edible. We had some stuffed with cheeses and fried at a local spot and it was really delicious.  

 

 The vine is on the loose! 

Far side tomato - going strong.

Shed side tomatoes - going strong as well. Salad with one of them last night and the black krims are still super yummy!

The main garden spot is in full swing. The corn is acting a bit funny. I need to research it to see if it's just it's natural cycle or if it needs more or less of something. We'll see.

Spicy pepper. Need to sort this one out.

Water is another tricky thing here in California. We need to be smart with when we water, where we water and how often. Seems to be working out. We do things like collecting bath water and the water that runs when you're waiting for the hot water to start flowing and dumping it on the plants when we can.

Cucumber. :)

Beans!  Another fun one for the kids. They love 'em right off the vine!

The kids love helping out when they can as well. They are part of the process!

And scruffy ol me loves the garden for sure! :)

July 26 Video Update

Just another little video update on the garden progress.



OO July26 2015 videoUpdate from Malcolm Johnson on Vimeo.

Little Farmers

Little farmers pick, laugh and fight all in a few minutes. :)

OO July25 2015 ImagesNFarmers from Malcolm Johnson on Vimeo.

July 24th - 2015 - Update Photos

July Garden Update

I'm not going to write so much here - the photos speak for themselves. :)

We went away for a week and some neighbor girls took care of the plants for us. Well, they watered every day and it looks like they watered a lot. That plus a little heat really got our plants rolling! We have a lot going on right now. Things are looking pretty good.

Wildflowers

Peppers

Corn

Black Krim Tomato

The Main Garden

Apple Tree
Not as many apples or leaves as last year due to the drought. 

 Peas

English cucumber, I believe. 

Wildflowers actually came up this time

Buckwheat 

 Tomato

 Lettuce 
This was interesting. The lettuce started dying and wilting and I had to figure out why. The answer was simple - the potatoes were dropping down and over them and they were not getting sun. A few stakes later and a sunny day and they came right back! :)

The side garden - tomato and squash
Another interesting experiment.  This area didn't get as much sun as we thought it was going to get, so the plants didn't take off like we expected. However, the tomato and squash are in the sweet spots, so they get enough sun to roll. 

Happy with the overall progress. This SQUARE FOOT GARDENING is working out well. Everything has a place and a zone, but it still has that "clumped together" look I wanted. Good times here at the Oaktown Oasis Gardens! :)

Progress has stopped on the kids Fairy Garden, sadly. We just need to spend more time on it. I was looking at a little more enthusiasm from my 4 year old - I thought she'd be more into it. However, there is still an age issue where she likes it when she's doing it, but doesn't think about it at all when she's not right in front of it. hehehehe   This is actually a good thing, I believe. She's not overly invested, so if I want to take it on and make it something, she'll pretty much just roll with it.

The plums didn't get used this year. Sure, some were eaten, but that's about all. Many just fell and rotted, sadly. And...man....what a nightmare THAT is! hehehehe   NEXT YEAR: We need to clear the weeds and plants back and away from the plum area so that when they start to fall, we can address them right away. If we don't, they rot, ferment, mold and promote swarms of these little nats. In short - NASTY! :)

Cheers!

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