Noisier day 2-Almost all gone.

While I was looking for other photos I found one that I had taken from the west end of the fence that showed all the trees. It had to have been three or four years ago, I cannot for the life of me find that photo. I've looked through all the photo folders and possible places and just cannot find that photo. Sigh. And again, apologies for the quality of the photos, dirty screen on window and windows are filthy. Second story windows are a pain to clean.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Because two cars were not moved in time the trucks parked literally right under our window for the first half hour. Prime viewing spot for the construction/big machine aficionado, he said it was better than anything on tv this morning.

 Just after they started actual work I  noticed a cup sitting on one of the fence posts and had to take a picture. All that wood dust and debris flying, that better be an empty cup buddy.

I keep seeing birds flying by right now as it's sunset and feel very sad for the doves and other birds that might have had nests or a roosting spot.

All gone. Except for the saplings from the Melia and one trunk of the pepper that's still there on the far, far right. If they don't get rid of those too, they'll be coming back for sure. It's really unnerving to not see any trees there. Very depressing.

But there are still good things in the garden. Both lilies are open and my strawberry is coloring up nicely! Definitely keeping it there and not planting where any of the pill bugs and snails can get at it. 

I gave up on the tomatillos. They were getting more and more yellow, one had lost a leaf and a half due to bugs, they are really early, early season plants and heavy feeders. 

I pulled the last carrot and cut the cauliflower as the head is loosening due to the heat. Ah well, tomatoes and peppers are almost ready to put out.

See that red circle? I thought at first it was maybe something from the cauliflower given the leaves felt kind of waxy. I tried to pull it and the dirt moved aside and I saw a silly little red potato! Maybe it's from the bigger plant so that area now has to get covered with more soil. That was supposed to be my pepper and tomatillo bed! The tomatillos in the south bed seem to be doing okay, the bigger one is better than the smaller one. It seems they have a minimum age limit on when to transplant them for survival.

I watered everything today because of how warm it's been and continuing through the rest of the  month. Summer temperatures are here finally.... bleh. It feels hot because we had to close up everything for a few hours. It was maybe 80 outside but now with the trees gone it's going to be a lot warmer with the sun reflecting off the roof and walls of the duplex right into our window.

Sigh.... 

Sad and noisy day 1

 The big eucalyptus is gone and so is most of the Melia next to it. I'll have full pictures of the aftermath tomorrow when the pepper is taken down.

Gone in a matter of hours. I feel sorry for the hawks and crows that used it, the birds that used it for a perch, the parrots are going to be confused as well when they return in a few months. 

Apparently some sort of maintenance had to be done before they started up the chipper. I just had very morbid humor taking a picture of the feet of this guy sticking out of the danger end of the chipper. This was RIGHT outside my window this morning so you can imagine when they fired that up we had to close the bedroom window and everything else then ended up turning the ac on. Didn't realize when they left because we were all locked up and watching Star Wars for lunch.

I'm going to miss the hawks and parrots and doves that used those trees. They had to go though, the Eucalyptus was pushing against the fence, the pepper constantly is a mess just the other day when it was really really windy I saw a small branch of leaves fly off the euc and land on the roof of the duplex. they do have a habit of dropping branches unexpectedly. As evidenced by the one that dropped in the park.

 I deleted those pictures but still have the one of the funky branch three years ago.  

Meanwhile in my garden, again not much happening as I'm still waiting for the peppers and tomatoes to get big. I was looking for other pictures and going through the timeline, by August of last year I had mountains of tomatoes, cucumbers coming on and did I mention a few tomatoes? We also had a torrential downpour in August and pictures of roses from the gardens here.

All of these from a year ago. I was going to plant beans on the trellis, had cilantro in about the same stage as I have now, four tomatoes going already and onions being picked much too soon. Lettuce was growing also and I can't seem to get it going this time. I still need to pick up more onion seeds. Maybe I'll let the two in the west bed go to flower if I can keep my dang hands off them.

Something is still eating the plant in the raised bed. I  might go put a pot over it for the night because I watered again. I am having very lackluster results for the tomatillos and suspect it is likely due to lack of fertilizer. The peppers and tomatoes are coming along nicely and I should have a strawberry ready to pick by July. Peppers and tomatoes should be ready to plant out by then as well. Dangit, I made some plant labels with a pen and popsicle stick (literally popsicles I bought) and keep forgetting to take them down with me. I didn't get a picture but I'm going to be cutting the cauliflower before it's big enough. The florets are starting to spread out which means it's not going to be a uniform head in another day or two. Oh well. Will try and plan for that earlier in the season. Like late summer. I started mine in November and had eight, with only two surviving and one that I can harvest. So will try and do more indoor starting this year for winter/spring.

Hard to believe this was March of this year.  Just a few months ago and seems like years. Romaine and potatoes, radishes and carrots. Now....

But I still have a garden and it's working, just hard to get used to it changing all the time.

 

Watered, moved another plant

We are supposed to get into the 80's this week. Triple digits in the desert which we are not far from and that is not good for the cauliflower. Weather app says 73 but in the sun, it feels a lot warmer.

Still not much going on in the garden, I watered last night and the soil surface in the raised bed was dry but still very wet underneath. The two tomatillos do not look good and the larger cauliflower is looking a bit loose. I had to tie it up again because one of the short leaves had popped out on the left.

Still not close to full size on it so I want to wait as long as possible but the weather may force an early cutting.

 It seems tomatillos are not liking the full blasting sun. All of them are yellowing except the one I transplanted to the south bed that gets partial shade. I decided to plant the next tallest one still in a container in the south bed and also sprinkled some cilantro seed along the shade line behind them and then a few behind the cilantro in the west bed. Didn't bother watering but may go back and sprinkle tonight.

The peppers and tomatoes are finally getting some size. Still too small to put in the raised bed as I don't trust those pernicious little invertebrates and mollusks.  Maybe another week or so and will put a couple of the peppers out. Still saving the trellis for at least one tomato as I remember the chore it was to try and reach the other side so it'll have to be to the left side again. 

 

I was going to pull that cilantro out but then saw an actual bee and then a white butterfly in the vicinity. I also noticed that plant is more yellow green than the one by the compost that's more blue green. I got a closer look at that one and it may well be mildew on the leaves. I didn't bother using any leaves from that when I needed some cilantro. Hopefully the seeds I just planted will come up and at least grow a bit for me to use later.

I decided last night to toss the compost around a bit, there were a number of earwigs, a few worms and some darkling beetles. All good in the compost of course but don't want the earwigs near my plants. They love flowers. I emptied the one bucket but it was such a chore to get it all back in I only dumped part of the second one. Compost on the bottom was really compacted so kind of hard to do anything. I really need a tarp or larger container and then....... I saw the crate I'm not using. It's got slots and holes just big enough for aeration and sifting. Will consider that tomorrow or this evening, it would certainly help sifting for sure.

Pictures seem to be uploading just fine today thankfully. Sorry for the poor quality of this photo though, took it on my ipad through our exceedingly dirty window screen of the big pepper tree that may not be there tomorrow. I was told by the manager they'll be 'trimming' them but someone else talked to 'Mike' who said they'll be taking both trees down. I hope not. That big euc is home to the hawks and if they keep that trash tree I'll be a bit put out. 

They were doing prep work for the pepper tree taking out the perpendicular fence just to the right of the tree and used a weed whacker to take down the weeds in that mostly empty lot. It's going to be noisy tomorrow and Thursday. Poor Rocky. We'll be home tomorrow but Thursday have to leave early for last day of school shuttle.

Yay for pictures loading and last week of school. Boo for the warm weather that is days away.

Some plant movements

 Clouds lingered longer today than previously but still on the warm and windy end of weather. About the only birds that I hear these days is the Bewicks Wren, crows and occasional dove. Hawks are all done with nesting, all that's left are the smaller birds now. Which reminds me it was almost a weird dreamlike situation sitting at my desk and a crow almost flew right into the window. I don't know how I could have forgotten such an odd thing happening. Not like the window reflects anything as dirty as it is and under the eaves. Must have been drunk and I must have been not feeling well to almost blank it from my brain.

(Photo uploads are working again, cross my fingers) That is the color of the sky today. Not grey just a very dusty light blue and the Easter Lily in full bloom. from yesterday.

 

The neglected and ancient cactus in the other patio has put out a flower. I  have no idea what the name of it is at this point but will try and Google Lens it (Aloe nobilis). Oh and the trumpet vine on the other side is blooming, forgot it was the scarlet one but it doesn't have as many flowers as last year so far.

 I was concerned about the celery not growing very much and then noticed it had started producing flower buds when it's really tiny. I tugged on it and it just popped out. Mostly rotted base, or eaten as the center was hollow. I dug down into the soil but didn't encounter any tunnel but no base to it either. Oh well, compost fodder for sure.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 I then decided to plant the largest tomatillo given the roots showing and its size. At first I just said, 'puck it' and was going to plant it between the potato and the cilantro, then realized how little soil there is actually in that bed when I dug in with my trowel. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Biiiig difference between raised bed and west bed.! I planted the tomatillo in the bar back corner of the raised bed near the trellis. That way it would have support, I then realized with the celery gone I could use that bed so I dug it up gently and plopped it close to the middle of the south bed.

 

And photos are working again. Sigh. so yeah, planted it in the south bed about at the shadow line and put the chicken wire over it again just in case.

I dumped a little of the potting soil in the south bed before planting but everything needs fertilizer right now and I have bills to pay.

Yay for cauliflower, they both seem to be growing fine, no evidence of molluskular or invertebrate chewing so far. Opened them for the picture then tied them up again and hope the weather stays mild for them to grow into comfortably large heads. The bigger one is about the size of my fist or a bit bigger, and the little one about the size of a ping pong ball.

Okay enough frustration for that right now.  On and off again with  the photo up loading is not helping with continuity.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another test post....

 Let's see if this works now. If not, it's going to be a boring text only blog post until further notice. I can load photos from my computer just fine, this one is from two years ago when I first started the garden.

This is from July of last year. I am so far behind is just crazy scary.

So, still no help on getting photos to load. Seems it's a common problem now and there doesn't seem to be any viable and useful way of fixing it at this point. 

There's nothing really going on in the garden, nothing has died yet, I pulled the smaller carrot in the west bed next to the cilantro just because I wasn't going to wait any longer. Not sure if I'll be able to get any fertilizer again. Just not a lot of wiggle room in the budget for anything other than necessities.

Someone trimmed off all but two of the Tiffany rose flowers, I suspect it may have been my downstairs neighbor or someone else to welcome her home. I hope that's the reason and not just because someone wanted them all for themself. I took 1. One flower and left the others to enjoy,  people are selfish when they remove almost all of them if they aren't completely spent.

I watered today, seedlings all seem to be doing alright and I think the tomatoes benefitted from the little cone protector I put on them. I didn't get out today until almost 3 due to having shopping and getting a late start. Shade was already hitting the west bed by the time I got out so I suspect there might be an invasion of pill bugs with the wet soil in the evening.

Whatever, I'll see about going through the hassle of uploading my photos to my computer and get them to show that way until this is fixed.

Been a mildly frustrating day today so not in a mood to fuss with it.