Weather, watering and wind

Late post today due to other things going on. Weather was fine, kind of overcast in the morning but very windy and cool enough needed a jacket. I knew it hadn't rained that much so got my nozzle and made sure to bring my gloves this time. First, this evening's discovery then yesterdays...

Three days ago this rose bush was covered in aphids... nature took care of it for me. I saw that the one rose bud was now completely clean and there was a lump under one of the leaves. Sadly a caterpillar got to the bud but that was not the lump. The lump was a ladybug larvae! Yay!

 

  Almost all the aphids were gone, eaten and then I noticed another green lump and saw it was a lacewing larva cocooning. And even as I stood there I saw the ladybug responsible for more of the aphids. It was a yellow orange one rather than red which means it's one of the native beetles.

On  my evening foray previously I noticed this pea leaf with holes in it (sorry for the bad pictures) and knew what was causing it. There was not one but 3 looper caterpillars on it. That's just one leaf. I got video as well.

 

(I got google drive loaded onto the computer so now I can shift things from phone to computer easier)

The view this morning, nice and sunny but breezy and cool. Dry soil enough that I was sure to bring the nozzle with me to water. No rain is expected for the next week and a half so it's going to be watering every other day at least. The buds are starting to form on the cilantro as well as the onions next to them. I have never had onions flower in my own yard always seen pictures and have heard they are just as good for eating. Looking forward to more fresh onions for cooking.

 

Why did I take a picture of the north bed when it's just a pile of dirt? Because it reminds me of the promise I have to make that a viable bed for the summer. No more signs of snails but it was quite warm and dry there so they may have dug deep to hide. I watered enough to get that dirt wet on top so will see what it looks like tomorrow. I tossed the ends of a bunch of cilantro into the compost bucket the other day. It's broken down a lot though since I remember when it was raining a while back it was almost to the top. I'd say it's about 2/3 full now maybe almost half so I might get a nice handful of compost out of it when it's done. Hahaa.

I was getting the hose to water and saw this hole behind the lemon bush. One of the other tenants had seen me heading there and half followed me, apparently the lemon bush is hers or she's taken responsibility for it. She may be the one that almost barked at me originally about not watering it. She said she hoped it got lots of lemons this year and I told her don't count on it, it needs food and pointed out the gopher holes to her. It should have more water as well but I didn't mention that to her. I then put the hose into the gopher hold and was only able to do that for about two minutes before I realized my garden needed the water more than flushing the gopher.

 

The tomatoes are still looking great, except for that one. They are at least  as big as any you'd get in a 6 pack at the nursery. So perfectly fine for planting. If I had a place to plant them all. Hope they can hold out until the cilantro can be pulled at least.

 

The tomatoes are still looking great, except for that one. They are at least  as big as any you'd get in a 6 pack at the nursery. So perfectly fine for planting. If I had a place to plant them all. Hope they can hold out until the cilantro can be pulled at least.

 

Not much difference but before and after watering other than the box and soil being wet. I wasn't careful when tossing the dirt yesterday and tossed it on the end of the window box. I hosed everything down really well. I even took the empty cup and used it to do a bit more point watering, it drained really well. so it took almost five minutes for water to completely get through all the soil on those tomatoes. They're good and wet hopefully now.

 

Formatting is being stupid again but there's the cloth I found yesterday, fabric is too thin to be pants, so it's possibly from a shirt. It's my garden rag now, dug from the depths of the soil.

The Watsonia has more stems blooming, going to be spectacular in a few days with as many blooms that are going off. Just wish it was in a better spot for photos.

My evening harvest of peas. We feast tonight! A couple of the pods felt wrinkled so they were prime for picking. Got those in a baggie in the fridge now and will be adding to them as they fill out more. I tossed the shucked pods into the scrap bucket. Not sure if I want to grow peas again at this rate. I would prefer Sweet Pea flowers really, they have sentimental meaning for me and I love the fragrance. Will see about getting some seed before the fall so I can plant them in October/November.

Technically could probably pull the onions next to the cilantro, oh I was careful not to get the garlic too wet just in case. Maybe those will come up the same time as the cilantro and have all that room for the peppers and tomatoes. The peppers are doing good, not so sure on separating them when they're planted on top of each other so they'll all be double plants. Which just means that at some point they'll either coexist or one will suffer and have to cut it out.

Bell peppers I certainly can use, onions, tomatoes, lettuce all of that and hopefully will be able to figure out what else I can plant. I'm hoping the amendments and fertilizer makes a difference in the bed.  I didn't have much luck with the previous peppers, the tomato was off the charts but mostly growth. That's the soil I have, all iron and nitrogen not much else. Just gotta keep pumping fertlizer in there and maybe get some bloom food for the phosphorus. But then the fertilizer I have is a 3-5-6 so it's good on the other two numbers that I need for veggies as long as I put enough in to make a difference.

That's all folks!

 

 

And more rain starting early

 Rain on and off all day today. Woke around 6 am to pounding rain outside and it's been cloudy and sporadic all morning. Cleared enough just now so I ran down to check on things  but first, some comparisons of how far my garden has come in a year.

A year ago almost to the day I had two potatoes growing in the 'fence bed' that by June was devastated by gophers. They took the huge marigold first by then though I had pulled the potatoes and was considering growing something else.

This year, a well protected, elevated and healthy soil bed. These pictures were just after filling it on January 28. You can see where the soil level is at the first 'rib' of the walls. I didn't pack it down very much, always conscientious of compacted soil but that is from dealing with hard ground dirt. I didn't want to get too high on the walls for fear of it running off in the rain I knew was coming.

 

This was the other day. It has sunk at least 3 inches which I did not count on but too late now. If I had straw I would be putting that on the surface to help the soil stay moist. All said and done, should have taken the extra bag of soil.

I joined a Raised Bed Gardening group on FB to see what things people were growing and techniques and stuff. some people call having a single height frame on the ground just amending the soil a raised bed. Well if it's ground level, it's not technically 'raised' if I could add a 12" frame around my in ground beds and add soil, I would do it. Adding in more poultry wire of course on the bottom, because gophers.

I realized that with no job and having the opportunity to grow things, gardening is going to be my focus. I do other things on the computer but with summer coming up I want to do more things outside for sure. 

The north bed has been through a lot as well.

A year ago I had a tomato I had let grow over, radishes along the front and I  think those are sunflowers that I had to build a shade structure over due to the incredible sun. This year, rain, clouds and low temperatures befitting of Spring and not Summer.

No sunflower seeds left but that's okay, got radishes and carrots in the raised bed that I think will do much better than last year. Crossing fingers.

Now, as for today and what it looks like. Snails are still doing a number on the potatoes so I tossed out some orange peels from the compost bucket to hopefully lure them away.

Patches of blue sky before the next wave of rain comes through. Windy and cold of course and the ground is saturated. Which is a good thing and very welcome compared to a year ago that had scorching sun this time of year.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They're growing great but being absolutely eaten up by the snails. Best I could do is orange peels from compost and some badly eaten leaves as bait. Might boil some eggs later and crush up the shells to sprinkle around.

The hard rain early this morning certainly splattered mud everywhere. No rain predicted but cloudy and eventually warming up to the low 70's in another week and a half. This is good, perfect spring weather, nice slow warming trend rather than the light switch to 80's.

This is why you keep a garden journal. If you think it wasn't like this last year, go back through your posts/ notes and check. The electronic age is a boon to record keeping especially for gardeners.

 

Rigging and meeting garden neighbor

 It is a wonderfully glorious clear (ish) day today. Got out at my usual time with the compost bucket and checked things out. First, put the seedlings in the window for some air and better light. Noticed a root or two showing under the mesh.

The iris looking plants I think are Dutch Iris that come up every year, I remember yellow flowers on this clump last year. Hoping they bloom better this year but it's not tended very well and spreading every year. Not my garden, not going to say anything.

As I expected, the radish didn't make it so I pulled it out and tossed it on the compost. Not much to be done other than that, though the lettuce is coming out with enough leaves I may have to snip some either today or tomorrow. We're expecting rain Wednesday/Thursday so not going to worry about watering. 

Seeing the peas struggling to reach far enough for the next rung on the trellis I decided to string some of the green wire in a zigzag patter as far as I could go. Didn't bring my gloves so hands got all dusty orange on them. That was about when Layla, the garden neighbor came in to check on her beds.

The gophers have ravaged her bed of fenugreek and whatever else she had planted. She pointed out they were even under the lemon bush. I told her the lemon will survive, it has a lot of heavy roots. She has a thick Spanish (not Mexican) or Middle Eastern accent so it's difficult to have a conversation. She is upset rightly so and said she bought some containers to grow her plants in now.

 They pulled a lot of her plants down just in a few hours from when she checked it this morning to when she came back. I know the pain, believe me. She got a couple of 3 gallon pots and started digging up dirt to put in them. Whatever, gotta make do with what you have. The Fenugreek seemed to do just fine with it so not going to tell her otherwise. Again, so thankful I have the raised bed and am hoping to figure something out after the potatoes are done to grow the tomatoes and maybe some other things there. 

I only have two panels left from the raised bed and that's not enough. I would have to dig a huge trench somehow to use those in some way. Will look at the poultry netting again or maybe gopher baskets (which is just as much digging honestly). I would need a 5 gallon size basket for each tomato. If I'm planting more than one, it makes sense to just do a trench. I have more room in the north bed than I did for the south bed and in doing s a little research gophers do come out at night (again not going far from their hole) and that's how one of my marigolds and peas got eaten above ground. Good thing I left a few inches above ground with the netting in the south bed.

 So that's the next project I guess, planning a 2x4 foot trench and line it with poultry netting to plant tomatoes. As soon as those potatoes are done, the digging shall commence!

Another one down, another tunnel plugged

 Weather continues the same, the garden... I had a dream that another marigold would be gone and remember yelling and trying to pull it away from a gopher. 

 

 It wasn't completely eaten but enough of the roots were gone that it wouldn't have survived. ::insert many rude words:: Both tunnels are now blocked and I shoved the trowel into another soft spot. I also ran water in the new hole and sure enough it didn't fill up for at least a minute. I shoved that log in there and it only blocked it a little, made sure it was good and tight though.

Cucumber is starting to grow faster thankfully, watered everything really well and then planted cucumbers in the south bed. But, I noticed something when I went to do that.

 

 A seedling of something is coming up. Not sure if it's cucumber, bean or sunflower. Where the heck was that when I was digging things up? Either my memory is getting really bad and don't remember planting after I flooded it or it survived and came to the surface enough to sprout.

 Well, good things do happen oddly enough, you lose one another grows to take it's place.

 

 

 

I put in three or four cucumber seeds as evenly spaced as I could. I originally dropped three seeds but then used a stick to poke them in and hit one with a snap so I was going to hedge my bets and say I broke that seed and put another one in the same spot. If they both come up, one will either get moved or will keep them both there.

You think I would markup the photo at the time or put sticks or something to show where they are but nooooo, not that smart because it's hot and I'm in the sun and holding a hose that's spraying water and all that. Can hardly see my phone screen in the sun so I'm lucky to get good photos what I'm doing (and yes I have brightness all the way up, it's the glare).

Anyway, in other places around the complex, the tree is being taken care of and I found where the gopher was following the wall to the garden. I will not likely be here when that clump of trees gets big enough to be a problem. Not my plant, not my garden, not my problem.

We shall see how things develop, just wish there was an easier way of keeping those damn gophers from eating my plants.