It really rained. A lot.

 

(photo for blogger/facebook analytics in the case of changing my thumbnail photo. Really cool picture of the clouds!)

Woke up yesterday morning and knew the sun was gone.... garden plans laying on the shelf. 

Okay bad attempt at a copycat song, sorry. But yes, woke around 8 in the morning and it was already raining pretty hard. It continued straight for most of the day and if it let up it was only for less than an hour. So by the time it did pause, it was dark outside.

That was the only picture I could get of the rain coming down as we were headed out the door to do much needed gas in the car and a few other items. It was also very cold, dropped down to the high 40's in the afternoon and night. The other two pictures are from this morning and apologies for the view out my dirty window screen.

More clouds from today. Very blustery and overcast so more rain tonight and a bit tomorrow then just cloudy and possible rain. March going out like a lion for sure. So not much in the way of pictures due to weather.

You can see how completely wet everything is. Muddy but the tomatoes are still fine, 'water resevoirs' are catching the rain, the lettuce is having a blast and so are the onions. Hope to get some better pictures tomorrow.

The gophers are still in the garden. At least that's what that looks like, might be another animal digging a hole. Then there's seedlings. Remember the seedlings I found in my beds? Yep, there are dozens and dozens of liquidambar seeds coming up all over the lawns. So it's not just me, the lawnmower will take some of those down but a lot of them are up close to the trunk of the trees due to wind and rain. Would have to get tweezers of some sort to pull the ones not in the path of the mower. Oh well. 

Good thing is, those are not the same side of the plant family as the grass so technically could use some type of broadleaf weed killer on them but the complex gardeners aren't going to bother. Heck, there's two palm trees coming up from seeds under a stairwell they haven't bothered digging out yet or noticing they need to be pulled.

Going to be busy with grocery shopping tomorrow and other running around so hoping to get out if it's not raining too badly and get a closer look at things in the garden.

Rain, rain go away.....my garden needs a sunny day!

 

 

'Calm' before the storm and garden visitor.

 More breezy today and those wonderful puffy clouds on a pale blue sky. Not much happening in the garden until I start planting more seeds.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just more shots of the pretty sky and trees from different angles. Just enough breeze to need a light jacket, birds are chirping away and it certainly feels like spring now.

 

The viburnum bushes are in bloom and smell lovely. Same with the Indian Hawthorns in full glorious pink soon. The bushes are loaded with buds and by next week they will be covered in pink. 

 Spotted one of the smaller lizards on the fence. I really need to get an anti glare cover for my phone so I can see what I'm trying to take a picture. Monarch spotted on my walk yesterday taking advantage of the near wild potted plants in front of a house. Same house I got the seeds from an onion, which are blooming again. The only clue  I have about why they have gigantic onions is to keep gophers away. That would be true in the ground but in a pot?

Planted three squash seeds in the pot and instead of keeping it up on the porch just put it out in the garden so it gets warmed up and some rain this weekend. Since it was in the shade more, it was a lot more wet than the tomato tray. I gave those some water at least since they're so small.

The Romaine is sprouting from the sides! I knew if you cut above the base the center would regrow I forgot that's something they can do. Will have to see if the snails go after the leaves like they are the center. Cauliflower are still growing and, as I've said, likely won't be able to get a good head before it gets too warm. I dug down to check on the carrots and they were still rather pale and very deep so they aren't ready yet either but look at that lettuce!

And the cilantro in the corner just going crazy. I need to plant some seeds in that south bed but then I remember I still want to add some compost there. And fertilizer and more soil for the raised bed.....

Gardening isn't cheap but it certainly beats a therapist.

Just some gorwing updates.

 The morning started out a flat white cloud cover. Like you would think it was a blank piece of paper. Not a break on it, at least from my bedroom window. It is now sunny, barely a breeze and the haze is mostly burned off. On track for rain on the weekend it looks like.

Variable skies for sure, flat white to the south and east lighter haze then to the north clearer skies. So it was mostly sunny by the time I got out to the garden.

Onions are above the rim of the bed, the snow peas are slowly fading (I picked four of them and munched on them while I surveyed the area). The sweet peas are incredibly full! I tried tucking and moving some of the branches but they are very much attached with tendrils to everything. I can't wait for the flowers!

Speaking of onions, the south bed ones are reaching for the sky now that the radishes are gone and the sun and rain are happening. I just cut up one of the larger ones I pulled a week ago and used it in my breakfast. Was going to keep the end of it to re grow and thought, 'nah, still holding out for seeds'. The soil does look dry but only about a quarter inch down.

The cilantro has recovered, it was probably just the rain or my watering that battered it down. Might be cutting some of that over the weekend along with the south bed to fix some salsa.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, I tried to get a picture of the four tomato seedlings coming up but angle and lighting did not cooperate. Dry soil was also not helpful but that's four out of a dozen or so and that's more than enough for me. I had eight last year and ended up with four and only two were big producers. This is a different variety but still a roma variety and should be a good producer.

The aloe is still doing good, I gave it some water the other day but with as tight as it is in the pot, it's likely solid roots in there. I know for a fact because I had to uproot it and move it, has to way about 40 lbs at least. The compost is doing good, didn't bother shaking things up, I didn't see the birds flitting around so the ants are likely settled or moved on and the fruit flies, snails, worms and other things are doing their job in the compost buckets.

Speaking of ants, at least three of them drowned in the water. I am not sad at all about that, there were enough of them flying around that they could populate the entire block with nests. 

I am going to try and spread out the soil in that one container to double check for any that may have tried to nest there. Then sift it as much as possible and plant a few of the straightneck squash seeds next week. Apparently April is the time to plant squash, tomatoes, pepper and a few other types to get ready for summer planting.  I may be on track this year.

I sprayed vinegar on the weeds along the wall yesterday. Mixed scrubby grass and oxalis. The grass was hardly affected but the oxalis is toast. That is a testament to that water tension I talked about. Going to put more vinegar in the bottle with a drop of soap and try again tomorrow before the rain comes. Might do that later today actually.

Growing and killing and moving and shaking.... shhhh no shaking.

Clear skies and realization of the garden.

 Slightly hazy, weather app said it would get cloudy later in the day and it's almost 3pm with no cluds I can see from my window. So enjoying the weather and temperatures, being typical spring weather which a lot of people make fun of. Clear one day, cloudy the next, rain and then windy. It all fits together in the larger scheme of weather.

Everything is green and growing, flowers blooming and all that. Gives the plants much needed energy to grow with a clear day like this (will have to edit that first photo and take out the satellite dishes).

Two revelations. First one, that little onion that is growing in the west bed is still there. the carrots and cilantro have been covering it up so I liberated some sunshine but it's bent at an angle. I think that's one of the larger onions and will likely transplant it sometime soon. Second one is what I thought were lacewings when I was first in the garden, turns out they're winged ants. Yep. Swarming season for ants that I discovered in the pot of soil waiting for me to plant in. There's two sets of wings, an ant that lost them and one that still had them.

I then realized what the Phoebes were going after. Not fruit flies but the winged ants. I got videos of those in the little pot and the phoebes and another finch going after all the ones flying around.

The better bird video is over a minute and a half so will hold off on that and just show the 34 second version. My hands aren't the steadiest so sorry for the jiggly video.

Other than that, I also was worried that the ants would make a nest in the raised bed. Found at least two that had fallen in there so hoping for luck they don't and the birds eat as many as possible.

 

 Everything else is just waiting for the next storm. I did water a bit but only to try and convince the ants my beds were not a good place to stick around. I was so hoping they were eating the fruit flies, and they may well be but the ants are more numerous.

 

 

Oh yes and 'Charlie' was out on the log pile as well. May even have been taking advantage of the flying buffet as well. The sweet peas are overtaking the snow peas and the lettuce is finally kicking into high gear. I will have to grab that single pot and drop in either some straight neck squash seed or a poblano pepper. 

So many things I want to plant and they all need time and room to grow. Almost pulled one of the carrots, which btw I sliced up about four of them from the last harvest, boiled them in the  microwave, added salt, pepper, butter and sugar and they were delicious! I am not much of a carrot fan but these were good!. I could tell the difference between mature and not by the color, one was bright orange and another was almost green in the middle, tossed that one and stuck with the more orange. I cut the tops off the largest one and might make sticks of that to go with some ranch dressing later.

The lemon bush is flowering which caught my attention with the scent of the flowers. Crop doesn't look as big as last year so far but will see. Last year the bush was covered in flowers and maybe a dozen or so fruit matured.

That's it for today, not sure if I'll get out on my usual hike for Easter but will see what I can do.