A Garden in May

May 1, 2013 by Summer

So it’s the first of the month (rabbit, rabbit, rabbit!) and I thought I would start it off with a peek at what’s happening (or not happening) in the garden. We are off to a slow start this year. A new space to grow things, a new climate and an almost nine month old baby are just the beginnings of what is slowing us down. Every day I want to get out there and plant or dig but there just is not enough time and Jeff has not had a chance to finish any more raised beds for us to plant in.

We have a little tray of chandler strawberries we bought as tiny seedlings from a lady at the farmers market. They seem to be doing well, except for a little white dog who enjoys munching on the berries and pulling the plants out of the box, dragging them all over the yard. These poor things have had to be replanted a few times before I finally got wise and stuck the whole thing on top of a chair. We shall see if I ever get to taste a strawberry.

This is another farmers market seedling that seems to be growing nicely in this box. It’s a black pear tomato and already has a little flower. Looking forward to homegrown tomatoes for lunch.

These are our tomatoes we grew from seed that are still waiting for a planter. I’m hoping they will survive in these larger yogurt containers for a wee bit longer while Jeff finishes their tomato planter up. I’d like to plant these all in the same box with basil beneath each of them.

We have some freshly planted parsley. Hoping to grow more of this too, but lost a whole bunch to I believe white fly? The bugs here in Ventura are killing me! All new issues we never had with our balcony garden in Orange County. I’m a novice when it comes to bugs.

We did get some beautiful heads of broccoli in our raised bed. Still combatting the aphids throughout the bed but I’m trying to cut broccoli heads away as soon as they look ready.

I’m not quite sure what’s happening with our Brussel sprouts. It seems as if some of them may be growing correctly while others seem stunted by either not enough sun or the growing aphid population. I ended up pulling one of them entirely but I think I will give this one a chance and keep spraying it with garlic spray to stave off the aphids. Anyone out there with tips? I’m all ears.

As well as broccoli heads, I have a ton of broccoli that suddenly flowered. I guess I didn’t get to it in time. We also have a few broccoli plants that are being munched on by snails once again. The bugs, the bugs!

Some snap peas that never get much taller than this. We get a couple every few months so I’m not quite sure what I’m doing wrong here either. Maybe I will try to put them in their own box all together?

So there you have it. Our May 2013 garden so far. Indeed a work in progress. We have so many plans but we seem to be moving at a snails pace. (Although the way the snails in our garden eat, we’d have a giant garden by now if we moved like they do). How is your garden growing?

Release The Lady Bugs

April 11, 2013 by Summer

We have a serious aphid problem in the garden. My brussel sprouts which were growing beautifully are all of a sudden covered in aphids. I was debating cutting them all down but thought I should try bringing in the troops first. We’ve had some luck before with ladybugs and our balcony garden in Orange County. This seems like a bigger job but I thought I’d give it a try before doing anything rash like chopping everything down. Ellie and I went to the garden store and picked up a bag o’ ladybug as well as some praying mantis eggs (hoping they hatch and start munching away on the bad bugs soon). I released the lady bugs that morning and it was certainly a sight to see. I love watching them do their thing. I’m sure our neighbors think I’m quite strange rooting on the ladybugs as they find and devour those nasty green aphids that are destroying my garden. We shall see in a few days if the lady bugs were bug enough to take on such a feat as my garden… for now, I leave you with lady bug pictures!

Out In the Winter Garden

February 13, 2013 by Summer

The winter garden is growing ever so slowly. Maybe too slow. We are keeping the snails at bay with freshly crushed and baked eggshells throughout the garden but with the random hot weather and very cold weather that keeps cycling through, I think the plants are confused. We have herbs growing inside and some spring time seedlings as well. I’m excited to get them planted outside but the weather has been so hot. Our lemons are waning but the orange tree seems to be continuously producing. We have so many oranges we have run out of ideas on what to do with them. Do you have any orange recipes? What’s happening in your garden?

A New Garden

January 15, 2013 by Summer

I’ve been growing food for a couple of years now. However, it’s always been on a balcony garden and my yield has always been very small. In this new house we have a pretty decent sized yard. So, this is the first time I’ll have enough space to grow more than a couple handfuls of tomatoes and herbs. I’ve been so excited about gardening I just couldn’t wait till spring. And since this is California, Jeff and I went to the local nursery and picked up a few plants to tide me over through the winter and also until he could make me my raised bed I’ve always wanted.

We have some containers filled with chard and cabbage (container cabbage- who knew there was such a thing?) as well as a little container of lemon thyme, winter peas and celery.

Everything has been doing very well except for some snail damage to some lettuce and our cabbage but we’re trying to keep them at bay with crushed egg shells and salt and any other snail tricks we read about.

The past two months or so, my wonderful husband has been hard at work building me a raised bed. He finally completed it this weekend and I got to finish planting my winter garden.

The finished raised bed! We would have loved to fill it up with composted soil from the worm bin Jeff built a few years back but we have yet to get that up and running. It’s on the to do list! So, we filled it up with some organic soil from the nursery and I went ahead and planted what we had left. Some brussel sprouts, lettuce, broccoli and more beans. We shall see how it turns out with it being our first go at this raised bed thing and the fact that we are attempting to grow things in the dead of winter but I had success last year on my balcony in Irvine, so what’s the harm in trying. Here’s to growing in 2013!

The Orange Tree

January 14, 2013 by Summer

When we first saw this house and saw that it had an orange tree in the back yard, we was sold! I had always wanted to grow a fruit tree and here we had an orange and a lemon tree already growing and producing beautiful fruit! Of course we are renting, so these trees aren’t really ours, but we are doing our best to care for them, love them and eat from them often! This past weekend I noticed the branches were becoming very heavy with fruit and so armed with my fruit picker (Jeff bought one the day we moved in), I picked some fragrant armloads of oranges. We have a lot of fruit! Not only have we been eating them and cooking with them, but we are giving bags of them away to family and friends. For some reason, giving this fruit away tickles me so and leaves behind a warm feeling. I love the gift of homegrown food (okay, I didn’t really grow this tree, but I’m tending to it). I love that on our walks we see plenty other fruit trees in our neighbors yards. It’s good that we finally live in a place where growing one’s own food is accepted practice. And I think we’re just going to have to make friends with some of our fruit tree neighbors so that we can acquire some more produce- like those mandarins and avocados I’ve been eyeing from outside our window.