No rain yet. They tried, but did not succeed.

 It's cloudy today, feels like it'll rain but nothing yet. Reports say only 15% chance today so at least it's cool, windy and cloudy. Keeps the soil moist longer.

Cat deterrent worked just fine. It was caved in but no damage to soil. Their little paws likely fell through the mesh.

Flowers first as always. Zinnias aren't very big but that orange one has a lot of buds. The purple one not as much and I wonder again if it's due to it staying moist at that end of the bed  more than the other.

Hard to see but the  middle of the bed is caved in at the end of that short stocky branch. I suspect it was another landing or take off for the wall rather than trying to do anything. I took the logs/branches out and it is ready for planting or whatever. I don't think the lettuce is going to be taking off if nothing shows in the next few days. 

Raised bed is fine, caught a moment of sunshine between the clouds for that picture. The onions are.... slow. Only the one tall one in the left cup and either a bent one or two coming up right next to each other in the right one. I will likely try and get some onion bulbs instead of onion seeds in the future. This is going to be slooooowwwww tooorrrrrrturrrreeee.

The strawberry is doing fantastic and as I've said, one out of four is fine for me. If it gets big enough to give us strawberries next year that means the potential for more plants from this one little start.

I added more 'stringers' to the trellis for the potential sweet peas. once they come up I'll move them out of the way and add another line closer to the ground for them to grab before planting them out.

I cut another piece for the west bed, just big enough to go from the potato to the other end and zinnias to the back edge. Some gap on the one end was dealt with pieces of bark.

'Layla' it seems, finally dug up the purslane that was growin in her two beds and just plunked them down on the compost bucket. I need to get out there and clean up that corner, it's looking rather trashy now with the white bag over the one bucket and the blue bag of bark. I can't put the bark down until plants are bigger and even then I'm reluctant due to it being colored bark . Will see what I can do.

That's going to be at least an hour or more of hauling out, raking, might put the bark down in that corner then the logs on top for the buckets. need to restack the cages and put the poles through the center of the chicken wire roll for keeping. The window box is another thing entirely. It'll look a whole lot better in a few days.

So with cooler weather comes more activity outside with less sweating. Yay for Fall!

More seeds and cat deterrent in place

 With the wind today it does herald change of weather this weekend hopefully. App and news still says rain on Saturday so we will see how much we get. I watered since there are seeds in the ground. Will be keeping that damp as much as possible.

But first, a friendly garden helper spotted. I don't think it's the same one as the other was a bit longer and brown, this one looks a little younger or it could be this is the next instar of the one I saw and it's just not grown out yet. A potted ficus on the patio is where I saw it and if not for Rocky going in that direction I would not have caught it up close. It had it's eyes on me and stayed hunkered down until I backed away and held still a moment.

The pepper seems to have lost more leaves but is recovering. I am not watering it at all purposely but did get a bit of a splash when I was watering the cilantro sprigs.

So you know how it goes, water, water, water... okay I think that's enough. Moved a piece of bark aside and then shifted some of the soil to cover the cilantro seeds... bone dry right under the surface. Alrighty then, back to the hose, I've learned not to turn it off unless I know for sure everything is watered well. 

After watering I pulled out the Danvers 1/2 long and the Red Core Chantenay seeds and sprinkled those in the two rows in front of the peas. Talk about tiny seeds for those Danvers! I'm getting the hang of how to shake the envelope to get them to come out mostly in a row. The Chantenay were a bit bigger and I had a lot more of those so they came out a bit more than I was expecting but that's what thinning is for right?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The cat deterrent was temporarily placed last night. I had it still attached to the roll because I was rushed. Just stomped on it on the ground to get it mostly flat. I cut it off this morning and it gives good coverage and it slightly domed so I can take those logs out tonight and maybe put some lettuce and green onion seeds in there. Going to try and do the same thing for the raised bed but that one seems to be unmolested at this point. 

The one onion is shooting up but the other, since it was crumpled, is having a harder time. I need to plant some green onions over there and on the opposite side that I mistakenly sowed cilantro. It's all good and there's plenty of room. Could even do an in between seeding of the carrots and radishes with onion if I want, still have some of the bunching onion seed left. Had to go find that as I had it in my warm season seeds.
I moved the lettuce trays back to the shade since it's still very warm out. If those don't take I still have plenty of the lettuce seed left for successive planting.

So there it is, raised bed is seeded, I was supposed to put lettuce in front of the peas but oh well. I didn't have very good success with radish and carrots in the ground, will see what happens in the raised bed.

 And that's all the plants that are fit to plant.

In a rush today, late start, seeds planted, onions pulled

 Another clear and warm day today. We had to actually turn the AC and fans on yesterday because it was going to be 84 outside but was already almost that inside. More comfy today at noon but will see what happens later. 

Pictures from yesterday I didn't get to or forgot:

I watered and smoothed then used one of the green poles to scratch planting lines. Trays and strawberry... singular as I pulled the other one that had no roots whatsoever.

Everything was dry on the surface this morning but also.... stupid cats in the garden.

Fat caterpillar I rustled from Dolores' kale along with three green ones. Tossed them all over the wall of course. Stupid cat trampled my green onions and likely peed where the stick used to be. Wouldn't be surprised if it kicked it out of the bed. Since I pulled the onions, tonight will be cutting the chicken wire to put over it. Grumble.

Yanked them all, cleaned them and then bagged them with soggy paper towel and put in the fridge. I planted cilantro along the left side of the raised bed from the last of the purchased seeds. I then I picked out the Red Devil B radishes and Crimson Giant and sowed those in the front and second row, intermixing a bit. Tried to cover them as lightly as possible with smoothest soil possible. Someone said radish seeds are tiny... obviously they have never planted lettuce or poppy.  They may be used to things like melons and bigger seeds. Heck even tomato seeds are the same size or slightly bigger than radish. Will water them in tonight. Yes I'm taking a chance with the pill bugs eating the seedlings, will see about getting some diatomaceous earth (DE) sometime, somewhere.... in my dreams.

The thyme sprig still seems to be hanging in there, will see if it needs water or cover or something tonight. Like I said I was in a rush and everything will be fine until tonight. 

Still haven't had a chance to get to the library for more seeds.

Weather shift but still comfortable. And then there was one.

Supposed to be in the 80's for the next three days and then possibly rain on Saturday, generally cooling for the remainder of the month and into October.

I decided to plant the sweet peas in cups rather than out in the bed. Because after I cultivated the soil again there were still over a dozen pill bugs coming to the surface.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And then there was one. I'm afraid that smaller strawberry is not going to make it.  Wondering if I should have left it in the shade a bit longer than the other one (which seems to be thriving thankfully). And the pepper plant is wilting and dropping leaves. I think it's overwatered. I moved it to the East end of the bed and won't bother watering it for a few days. 

The mystery (white?) onions have emerged! Yay! Had to move a small chunk of bark/wood out of the way for one of them because I figured if one was sprouting the other one should be and there it was curled underneath. The little green mark is how big that one is that  I noticed first, the one in the back is the one that was curled under a piece of wood. Now the year long wait ensues. I planted two seeds in each cup so will see if all four come up. I  still have burgundy seeds to plant and will get those going really soon to add to that east side.

I used the, still very wet, potting soil to plant the sweet pea seeds in the cups. I realized after pulling off one of the cups from the stack that it was the one I had cut the bottom off. Sigh. Okay, toss that one aside and realized I only had four more cups. Sigh again. Planted all five cups and put them in the shade in the window box. Because they are peas they should really soak first so that really damp soil should be good for them. Then.... realized they need warm damp soil to start germinating.

Before and mid cultivating. I stopped and realized this would be a great time to add some fertilizer so sprinkled to small scoops of it on the bed and went at it with the cultivator. The center of the bed was still very damp but the edges were drying, that's okay. Not going to be planting directly up against the sides anyway.

And after all smoothed out. The lettuce trays will stay on the ground where it's going to be warmer, I must have picked out about a dozen pill bugs just as I stood there catching my breath. The farthest pea cup is the one with no bottom and then realized the bottom of it was over by the planter box and put it under it because... pill bugs. The thyme sprig seems to be doing okay, doesn't look wilted and soil is still damp Have no idea where I'm going to plant it if it does survive. Best case scenario is window box, then where to put that? So should it survive I might put it in a corner of the west bed. 

So yay! More progress made, if the peas get started and emerge as soon as they have a second set of leaves I'll plant them out in their designated places and add some protection from bugs. Same thing for the onions. Then it's lettuce, radish and more onions. That lettuce should be coming up soon. I hope. Apparently the general consensus from the seed company is they don't germinate well in temperatures over 75. Ooops. Will have to see what happens. Not like that's the last of them that I have. Plenty more where those came from and with cooler weather coming up it'll be easier to germinate. Also need to sift some of that soil for them and the carrots and radishes.

So much to do that needs to be done soon. But not too soon.

Oh, a side note on what I said previously about the Chinese Flame Tree (Koelreuteria) planted at my grandkid's school with the cool flowers:

Those are sprouts from the tree growing over the four foot tall juniper. This is why I consider it a trash tree and should be put on the list of invasive species and a nuisance. I'm sure all the maintenance guys are going to do is cut them down, but if they are experienced and have been dealing with this for a few  years, they'll dig down and yank them out.

Okay plant rant done.

 

Repeat of weather from yesterday and another decision made

 Gorgeous sunny weather all this week and by weekend it is predicted to rain. If it keeps up this trend but shifting to rain in the week and clear on the weekend it will be great weather for gardeners. 

I decided to cut the sunflower head off and get what seeds I could from it. Sunflower oddly is not one of my top favorite flowers. At least the plain yellow ones, I like more colors in flowers. So I cut it off and because there was the second flower I left the rest of the stalk.

Pictures from the evening check. That divot was not there in the morning so everybody into the bed! Is this like they say of putting your vegetables to bed?

 

 

I left some of the sunflower leaves in the bed to see if they got munched. They did, but were more dried than anything else which is not a tasty snack for slugs and pillbugs. I took the lettuce seed trays out of the bed before I watered this morning. Oh and I used my pruner blade last night to poke some holes in the bottom of the trays for drainage.  Hoping it works well enough that one deeper soil tray is not draining at all. Still soggy as when I first watered it.

 

The jade bush seems to have recovered itself. Interesting. Wondering if it is a cycle after flowering falling over because I don't remember seeing that last year but I don't think I was paying attention as much to it because I didn't have the raised bed there. I also decided to use one of the cups to plant the thyme sprig. That soil is not getting any sun at all so like the in ground bed it is not drying at all. This is good for the cutting but not so much for anything I want to grow along the wall.

 

Can't see it but those seeds have some snail trails on them, I had left it over on the compost bucket to dry but you need sun to dry so I moved it over to the bucket by the raised bed. I then decided... to just pull the stalk. It isn't worth keeping and the sooner I can make more room the better. 

 

The roots were not very extensive or robust but it was enough to get it to flower. I chopped it and the dried cucumber vine and the wilted lemon branches and packed them into the compost bucket. Stirred up the soil in the bed and paused for my next decision for planting.

It's hard to make cat proofing work and still have plants in there at the moment. It just now occurred to me I can cut a piece of the chicken wire and lay it on top of both beds without being on the soil. Brilliant. But that will need some thought and some serious cutting with gloves and long pants. Will take some measurements tonight. The other problem is keeping it in place on the raised bed. I suppose I can attach it with the green wire to the trellis and make sure it's flat rather than curved. It'll be more difficult on the west bed with the potato coming up and plants already in there. Some coverage is better than none.

That south bed... shaded with only onions in there.... just don't know what to do with it. Will have to ask the garden group and see what ideas they have.