Morning posts continue, seeds are here!

 Same weather as yesterday, dry as a popcorn fart and no breeze to speak of. Might even have to turn on the AC today. The promised seeds from my friend Laurie arrived with the corrected postage, good grief.

So much potential for the next year! I wish I had more beds to plant! Not sure if all of them will be used in the coming seasons but will give it a shot. I definitely wanted jalapeños and a different tomato variety for the summer. 

Echinacea, 'Thornburn's Terra-Cotta' tomato which is a huge slicer tomato, 'Spoon' mini pea sized tomato, 'Rober' heirloom cauliflower from Poland, Snow peas, Jalapeños (yay!), 'California Wonder' bell pepper, 'Marketmore 76' cucumber which unfortunately is a vine type, 'Sweet Aroma' tomato which is a larger variety of Roma so same growth habit but more meaty, and then the 'Early Multiflora' sweet peas that are also heirloom. Very similar to the ones I previously got from the library.

Plans are; sweet peas first, soaking now after nicking them which I didn't do at all for the library ones and a good indicator that this is a necessary step. Only have four peat pellets to use for those since I was a ninny and used six for the Burgundy onions. I don't have much more room than that anyway on the trellis. Those will get planted tomorrow in the pellets and then plant them in the 4" containers and then in the bed for a little insurance against bugs in the soil. Snow peas are going to be for the spring, maybe interplant with the sweet peas as they will be finishing up by then I suspect. 75-85 days to mature, that's a lonng time even for peas. So if I plant now they'll be flowering sometime around Christmas and into January hopefully. 

But then, when do I start the tomatoes that need the trellis? Or the cucumber? The Thorburn's (the actual name of the man who grew it in 1893 was James Thornburn) tomato is 'semi determinate' so that will need the trellis, and the roma types are both indeterminate but do best with some support. 

Sigh. So many seeds so little room! I love it!

Then there's the Echinacea. Definitely ornamental, pollinator attractor but where to put just a few? I know how big the plants get, I've seen them in the nursery so they need a bit of room. 

I actually did get out to the garden last night and this morning.

I was going to use the watering can to just hit the small pots and I know I filled it yesterday but it was empty this morning with no signs of leakage on the soil. I filled it up and there it was.... so much for a watering can for the garden. 

I noticed the tomato was looking really yellow and know I had watered that well. I dug into the soil and it was dry. Very dry. I decided to just yank it. Couldn't get down to the actual tuber but dug out as much of that stem as possible.  If it comes up again it comes up but not this year. The other potato is green and lush that I planted recently. 

 The soil was very dry all through that area. It had some moisture at the surface but for the most part it was very dry. I got the hose out and did a thorough soaking.

My hand is holding the hose a good two feet from the nozzle, pressure was that strong to hold it straight. I wanted to get water down deep. I think I'm going to start a couple or three cauliflowers to put in that bed. I haven't forgotten about the carrots or lettuce but am giving up on the radishes, they just haven't performed at all.

I didn't even cover up the open area last night because it was very wet. Nothing seemed to have disturbed it this morning. Going to shift the cover over since I don't have the potato there anymore.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I moved all the pots into the shade again given the weather and then cut about half the orange zinnia flowers and a few purples  to take upstairs. Also made sure to shade the cilantro.

Very odd fuzz under the leaf of a zinnia stem, on closer inspection it looks like possible beetle eggs that hatched so I pulled those leaves off and rubbed it really well before tossing it.

The zinnias all fit in my little vase (the pictures look a little blurry to me hope they aren't for everyone else). The blue lid in the background is actually covering the tiny dish with the sweet pea seeds in them because first, cat. Second it will keep the water from evaporating too quickly. I want to know how someone safely 'nicks' a tiny sweet pea seed without crushing the seed or cutting your fingers. I managed to do it without any injury and then remembered that using sandpaper or a nail file to thin the seed cover was another way but still. These seeds are smaller than the snow peas and difficult to hold. I got it done and they're in water so it's all good.

Genie, I have my three wishes!

The air is so dry.... and a flower visitor

 'How dry is it?'  It's drier than a popcorn fart ladies and gents. Single digit humidity, 6%! Seriously. It got down to 45 overnight, so I wasn't just being a sissy putting another blanket on my side of the bed. We do keep the window open a bit for fresh air but still. Temp has already peaked at 82 'but it's a dry heat'. I had to actually put lotion on my hands a few times yesterday and having to do it again today. I have never seen it that dry here. I'm sure it's been that dry just never looked at the stats to see what it was. Very little breeze as well, and no break in this for at least a week.

Today at 12:15pm. Shade is already halfway across the garden area. I doubt the south beds got much direct sun at all.  You can see the minor disarray of the smaller logs, I didn't do that, someone else has picked them up and messed with them. I have a small pile against the wall on the right so I might just move those behind my west bed.

Oh to put a taller raised bed in that spot where the logs are big enough for two people to share the space. Not likely to happen while I'm there, the cost of materials even for a diy pallet type bed would be out of everyone's budget.

A reason for keeping my zinnias as long as possible, still getting small butterfly visits. This one is the size of a skipper, I couldn't see what color the inside of the wings were but suspect they would be grey with some dusty brown as well. She visited every single one of those little yellow cups of nectar and then moved on to another flower to do the same. I forgot my clippers but will go down tonight and take some of the orange ones, more than enough for taking inside and keeping on the bush. I also shaded the little cilantro seedlings that seems to be struggling. They've barely grown the last week but then it's been really odd weather.

The water was completely gone this morning so I decided to plant the remaining of the Red Burgundy onions which it turns out, was six seeds. They are very much smaller than the huge ones from the mystery white onion I saw on my walk and collected from. Will take a picture of the other ones for comparison for next time.

Will see how long it takes the burgundy onions to sprout compared to the others. I discovered another seed as I was folding up the little envelope and just dropped it in one of the pellets. No biggie.

The lettuce sprouts are not doing so well either. I need to get some seedling mix and try again. I lost a few yesterday after leaving them in the sun unfortunately. When the weather starts cooling down again humidity will be going up so better weather for more seeds. I might try to find a colander at goodwill so I can sift small amounts of soil for doing seeds.

Another month is upon us soon and more opportunities for growth and change.

With little to do, little to post.

 Big wind today, and looking at the weather app, it is Santa  Ana conditions. Hot, dry and windy with temps climbing into the 80's this coming week but still drops down about 20 degrees at night. So almost needed another blanket for my feet last night. The air is very dry and 'thin' if you know what I mean, very low humidity. Once this fall Santa Ana is done it will be safer to plant some seeds. This is typical fall weather for us, just forget it happens every year until it gets here.

Progress on the oregano and rose definitely. They are loving the sunny weather for sure and might have to put them in a larger container soon. They are both planted in a peat moss type potting soil so have to be careful not letting them dry out too far.

I left them all in the bed yesterday, so I had pictures but was crazy busy on the computer with other things and never posted.

I decided to chop up the red potato with the biggest sprouts into three pieces. You can see the damage from something that dug into it there on the right. That was as far as it got so I wasn't worried. I then put them in the little cat food can and took them to the porch to dry overnight. Also added more water to the pellet tray, the one at the far back hadn't expanded entirely.

I left a small piece that didn't have any roots out on the surface to see if anything ate it. Looks like something did. Not sure what but will put something over it tonight and see if anything is still there in the morning.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Hard to see but I planted two of the pieces on the left and the other one on the back right. Will see what happens. I covered them lightly with soil but having just watered, left it as it was. This was just a few hours ago as you can tell by the shadows it's about 4pm. The lettuce was almost completely obliterated from the sun, everything else will survive. I put the lettuce trays back in the shadow area after watering everything thoroughly.

Put the larger plants back in the sun and then saw as I was leaving one of the lemons was actually turning yellow. Nice. I was just wondering about that the other day. 

Because the air is dry, the heat isn't as insufferable as it was in the summer. We didn't have to turn on the ac but it was close since I was running the crock pot and the oven for dinner today.

Water in the morning, water in the evening, ain't we got fun!

Not much, just potato investigation.

 Weather was perfect today. Cool breeze, mostly clear skies, wonderful temperature for walking and leaving the windows open all day. It edged up to a bit too warm in the afternoon but only inside due to sun angle. Need to figure out how to reduce that with something we can roll up out of the way.

I only have four pictures of me trying to dig up the little potato start that came up under the tomato. No seeds from my friend as the post office returned the seeds to her saying there wasn't enough postage. Will get them next week sometime. It's all good.

I did get out in the morning and check on things but Dolores came out so I didn't get a chance to take any pictures. Nothing new, she noticed the rose was growing well, the oregano also and we discussed moving most of the logs away and maybe behind my bed so there's more room for a sunnier spot for her. I told her I did want to keep some of the logs but they were also being infested with termites (wonder if the lizards are doing anything about that). She asked who to talk to and I told her the manager or Mike the lead maintenance guy (who's very busy at the moment turning around 3 different units).

Seriously, that bed needs some more soil. I dug with my hands and then got the shovel. That's maybe four inches down.  The potato is indeed growing through the chicken wire on the bottom so I made a decision to keep it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

See how much shallower the shovel is on that side? There was also a lot of roots left over from the tomato and I cleared some of those out then loosened a lot of the soil and piled  it up around the stem of the potato.  If I just decided to pull it up, the stem would just break off and I'd have the rest of it under the chicken wire. Might as well just make the best of the area. The soil was all loose and nice so just piled the pieces of bark back on and put the cover back. It's not as obvious but about two inches down, the soil was dry. Once the zinnias are done I'm going to scrape as much of that area as possible and water the heck out of it.

So I did water rather well I thought, got the raised bed and the potted things, including the onions on the front porch that I watered by the cupful. Oh geez just remembered I left some peat pellets in one of the containers with water to soak up this morning!

 Not enough water for all of them to completely expand so will add more water in the morning. There's four more that I didn't use still in the box so have to hold off on those till later. What am I going to plant in there? Well, four will be sweet peas and the other two might be the burgundy onions. Carrots and radishes have to direct sow, and I still have plenty of cilantro. Really tempted to be crazy and drop a few tomatillo seeds in a container, or peppers. 

I'm being silly, need to wait and see what comes in the mail next week. The weather is just now getting to the right temperatures for planting so the delay worked to my advantage. 

There needs to be an impatient gardeners group.

 

Okay late post and all that...

 I was having issues on my other blog getting it to do things so here's hoping this works. It seems that the format and security for Blogger/Google has changed and then Firefox will become Mozilla on Nov. 1. Good lord, the hoops I just had to go through to be able to upload pictures here.

Weather just seems to be flip flopping on a regular cycle now. Cloudy, sunny, cloudy, sort of sunny.... geeez. There was a cool breeze blowing later in the day today and it was a very comfortable and mostly sunny day.

So yes, clear and sunny day today. That is the actual color of the sky, wonderful blue behind the green of the tree. I moved the two onions  to the porch rack, will have to keep an eye on them every day for watering. Why did I move them? Because...I have no idea. I had an idea when I moved them but now forgot it.

 

So I also decided today to check the little onions in the bed and a few of them came out rather easily, so I guess I'll just be planting seeds there now. The ones that didn't pull out easy I left. I then noticed that little can I had used as a pill bug trap and just tossed it there... was full of snail shells! I'll be dipped, what the heck is up with that?

 

They were all empty shells and a few pill bugs that were still alive. So... I guess the 'muck' that was in the bottom of it was actually dead snail shells? I have no idea what is going on anymore but that's a LOT of snails.I dumped them all behind the log pile where the lizards live just in case there were some still alive. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I stirred up all the beds with my hands and the cultivator because I hate compacted soil (that's why I ended up pulling some of the onions in the raised bed). I'm considering cutting the chicken wire perimeter on that south bed or digging it out entirely and resetting it like the west bed. That's a huge project and will decide no later than spring on that. Can't plant much there other than lettuce anyway.  There's just a lot of wasted space in that bed and if I do that it's going to get a soil make over as well. I once again paused and considered tossing some seeds in but put them away because both those beds need more soil to be really healthy. And of course since I stirred up the soil I put the covers back on just in case.

Dolores seems to be using her little black peppers, there's fewer of them than before and she planted a japanese eggplant. It has a few flowers on it but I don't see signs of the flowers or fruit. Her kale is still being eaten by the caterpillars but that's gotten less annoying since it's getting colder now. 

 

The good and the ugly on my walk today. Beautiful vinca (Catharanthus) in a sidewalk strip....surrounded by artificial turf...oh well. And the duranta bushes that I took pictures of in the spring... were all cut/hacked back. So were the privets that were bordering a driveway entrance to the right of that picture. WHY???? The duranta I can imagine it being a security thing up against the fence of some building but there isn't enough space between the bushes and the fence to hide anything. The privets... I guess they figured it was a visual obstruction or something. 

But they didn't have to just hack them back! Sigh.

So, late post a bag of chips and all that.