Misty overnight, overclouds today.

 Overclouds? That's a new word, meant to say overcast but overclouds works for me. Still supposed to rain on Thursday, how much...who knows but 70% is definitely water on the ground somewhere. Today was a good day to get out and do some more vigorous gardening. Due to the cloudier, windier evening I opted to not go out at dusk.

Lavender trumpet vine is blooming but not as much as it did last year. The vines are looking rather sparse for foliage but then it was a bit colder this winter. Will see if more blooms follow up. It is never trimmed, never fertilized and basically ignored in a lawn area. It's lucky to be alive. The onions I transplanted to the south bed are none worse for the trauma. Tops are growing as fast as ever (sorry can't tell due to dark soil) but will hope they last long enough to get nice and tall.

Everything looking good in the raised bed as well. Only a matter of maybe a few days before that cilantro starts blooming. I used a handful in a dressing today and plan on figuring out how to dry it, I have a container in the fridge from the store of 'fresh chopped' cilantro but by now it's dried so I may end up doing that.

It looks like there's one more cutworm in the corner.That one has fresh chew marks on it and even after digging around couldn't find anything. It was fresh enough that it should have been close to the surface because after my half hour of being out there the cuts were starting to discolor. Will see what happens tomorrow. 

I brought down the scraps bucket, which again is mostly coffee grounds, and also got a plastic fork for stirring soil. I used it to scoop some of the coffee grounds onto the soil around the onions and garlic. A few bits of eggshell made it in there as well. I pulled out the fertilizer because it's first of the month and time to do that.

Liberal sprinkling all over all the beds with that stuff (the picture on the left is afterthought and had already started stirring it in). Despite the soil still being damp I did water everything in afterward.

Yes, even the north bed got some food. Depending on what happens tomorrow and Thursday I may just toss the amendment in and get it all dug through. Wish I had a spading fork to do it properly and as  I'm looking at that picture and writing I realized a use for the edging plastic to put it over there. If the compost bucket had a more stable place to sit.

It's most definitely not gopher proofing but will consider it after I do get gopher deterrents in place.

 

After digging through and watering in, didn't bother with a picture after watering the north bed. Just...healthy muddy dirt. I also tossed the compost bucket, dumped out half of it and using the trowel and scoop and my hands stirred the bottom part as best I could then put the top half back in. Adding trimmings, scraps and such as needed, the stems from the cilantro use today went in the bucket for next time. Told my sweetie, don't need anymore coffee grounds.

This Jade is concerning me. I used to be able to get around it at the end of the bed but now it's completely falling apart. I haven't touched it, haven't watered it at all, need to ask in the garden group if anyone has seen this before. Doesn't seem to be wilting but wondering if the gophers have camped out under it now.

Previous post was talking about planning the next seasons gardening. IF (big 'if' there) I get more amendment and the north bed taken care of I'll be set for another season. As far as planting things go, I need more seeds or things to start. I can only eat so much cilantro and onions. Peas are fun but beans are more useful.  Would love to grow cucumbers on that trellis but don't have any seeds for that right now. As far as placement of plants goes, I think everything worked out just fine. I may well put cilantro in the ground next year as well as onions. With fall planting in my area there are a few other things that are good for fall/winter.

This is for my zone, I think I posted it before since it's in my desktop folder. Yellow bars are planting in the ground, blue vertical line is last frost date and red vertical is first fall date. Highly variable of course, we didn't get frost until January this year. So according to this I can plant cucumbers in the late summer and have them grow through winter? Always thought those were a summer crop and you planted in spring. Potatoes are fall/spring planting of course, squash is spring/summer. Tomatoes spring only? Well at least it says until early May so I'm still in the window. Lettuce early spring/early fall planting, beans are all the way from spring to summer for planting outside. I don't have anywhere to plant them at the moment but I have until June. So there's a lot that can be done with the limited space I have at the moment and limited palate to eat.

That list is only veggies, no herbs so that's another ball of stems to figure out. Ha! Time to go, more talk later.