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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Oaktown Oasis Gardens June 19th video update

I shot a quick little video update with the iPhone the other day. Just wanted to get some video footage of the garden at this state.  It's shaping up well!

There are a few items I need to address - little things like tomato cages, shade for the lettuces and something for the beans to climb on, but overall I'm happy with how things are progressing.




OOG June19 videoUpdate VIMEO from Malcolm Johnson on Vimeo.


CHEERS!

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June Garden Update

Just a little garden update. Things are really flying up!

Forgotten flora

DANG!

I had planted some flowers in the front area and they were totally forgotten after I planted them!
Seeing as I have not made time to run drip hoses to all the plants in the front yet, they were missed for a few waterings.

It's been somewhat cloudy and it's rained a few times, but they are looking pretty bad.

Chalking it up to: Lessons Learned.   :(

Another round of planting

We did another round of planting and shifting thing around today. Sadly, I have a cold and it probably wasn't the most intelligent thing to do, but I had the day off and it needed to get done. :)

Tali helped a bit and Shana - also sick - tackled some of the items in the front yard.

We purchased a replacement tomato plant for the lost plant we had and several other additions for the planter box and back side garden.

We have buckwheat planted here and there as filler mulch. I guess the idea is that it grows, then you cut it down to the ground and use it as mulch. We'll see if it works.

We have two types of melons planted.  Uchiki Kuri melons.

And Hokkori

 We're trying to get things in an order so that everything is with it's on type of plant. Lettuces, potatoes, peppers, tomatoes....all with each other. I was thinking that we'd mix them more, but we kept them together for the most part.

Talia really likes helping in moderation. :)  She has a short attention span for this, but manages to enjoy it while she does it.

We did an additional box of strawberries. We're hoping we can get more going this year.

So, this is the current back yard lineup. 

Again, this round of planting is partly experimentation. We'll see what does well where, then repeat the process next year based on our findings.

The front garden

A drawing by my 4 year old.

Me in the garden with flowers.

As I write that, I have misty eyes. :)

The front garden is getting to be a little more tame, which is nice. We went through over the end of last season and the start of this one and did heavy weeding and trimming. I still need to run water tubes from our drip spouts - that'll be a great help with the drought. It's just a matter of running them out, then covering them with dirt. This will make the whole of it look better and might help to prevent what's happening now - them getting ripped up and out every time weeding is done! heh

My 4 year old INSISTS that the red and white flowers below are honeysuckle. I've looked and I can't determine what it is, but don't think it's honeysuckle. :)

Our purple Salvia has new red Salvia to keep it company. No, we won't be ingesting any of it.

The twisted root plant (center below) is a image of it's former self, but is actually struggling back with more and more leaves and flowers! Whew! I'm happy about this - I really liked it and was sad to see it hacked up. It's fun to see it come back like this.

Talia's little red and yellow plant pot is booming.

Little buggies - possibly grasshoppers? No idea. They love the roses. There are not many, so I let them hang around.

This plant that Seneca is taking care of here was transplanted from the front. It was getting too much sun up there and has a bit more shade now that it's part of Talia and Seneca's Fairy Garden! :) Must be the fairies taking care of it. :)