Category: garden

Spring Garden 2012: Planted!

Seedlings!

The weather is still all wonky but D and I decided that we didn’t want to wait any longer to put the garden or else it would be too late. I’m a little worried that the non-existent then late winter is going to lead into a too warm summer but that is a completely different topic. We went to the Ace today and picked up some compost, manure, and some tomatoes, basil, cucumbers, zucchini, and eggplant. We had some seedlings of those but they are still very young, as you can see above, and we wanted to have some back up. Back at the house I turned the garden bed over, put in all the compost we had produced ourselves (from the composter and the worm bin) and then turned it all over.

All the plants
All the poops!

Once it was turned over we laid out where we were going to be putting everything, put in some beer plants and then planted the store bought seedlings. We left a lot of room in the bed for the seedlings still in their planters (bush beans, Japanese cucumbers, edamame, and some heirloom tomatoes). Once the plants were in we watered it all down, soaking the garden. Then we filled up the beer traps with the King of Beers, and spread out the Sluggo (damn slugs are still the biggest problem we have with the garden.)

All done! Sorta...
Zucchini!
Basil!
Lemon Cucumbers!
Our tiny, precious seedlings! Protected from birds and slugs (it's on the roof of a shed.)

This is going to be our last garden here in Davis and we’re both crossing our fingers hoping it will be our best yet!

 

Spring Garden 2012: The Beginning

D prepares the planter

When every wild tree, bush, and plant in sight is blooming you know it’s time to get started on the garden. We bought numerous seed packets at the end of the season last year and are going to try and grow our own beans and tomatoes from seed instead of buying seedlings at the local Ace.

All sorts of seeds...

We’ll be growing everything from seed this year (hopefully) except zucchini which we’ll pick up once these seeds germinate and sprout. What are we growing this year?

Cherry Tomatoes
Bush Beans
Edamame Soy Beans
Japanese and Lemon Cucumbers
Roma Tomatoes
Cantaloupe

We put everything into the planter, watered the planter, then covered the seeds with additional soil, and covered the planter with a clear plastic top. We’re hoping to have some seedling in a week or so! We also hope Jake won’t take as much interest in the garden this season as he did last…

Seeds in planter before watering, covering, and setting out
The cover is there to keep everything warm and moist and to keep pests out.

 

Garden Gone Wild! End to Fall Garden 2011

 

Arugula, Spinach, and the Lone Choy

As you know, late last year our dear dog Jake got bored one day and ate/destroyed the garden. He left behind only a lone bok choy and the arugula and spinach. After his rampage we let the garden go to seed. We thought it too late in the season to start over and decided to move on to other projects until the spring when we’d plant the new garden.

Turns out that despite our neglect the survivors have done okay for themselves. The choy is long past harvesting time but we’ve been taking in and using the arugula and spinach for salads, or fresh vegetable sides. I’m really kind of impressed how well they’ve done considering we haven’t watered them since December and this winter has been really mild with minimal rain. I almost feel bad about tearing them out in a week to put in the new garden. Oh well, circle of life and all that.

The Lone Choy Man. I wanted to try and see what it tasted like after so long. But, the missus' vetoed that idea.
I did not know arugula could get this big. It still tastes fine, too.
Obligatory Artsy Fartsy Shot of Bok Choy flowers

Update on the 2011 Winter Garden

Doesn't the cauliflower look lovely?

I haven’t talked much about the fall/winter garden much this year and that is because it hasn’t been doing very well, for several reasons. One, there hasn’t been much rain or cloud cover so it’s been dry and very, very cold; the plants don’t like that. Two, having cleared out the problem slugs the garden has been hit by some sort of caterpillar, or so the wife tells me. One that I can’t seem to find no matter when I go out there to check on things. Three, Jake got into it. The picture up top is what is left of all our just beginning to grow cauliflowers… Needless to say Jake has been in the doghouse.

That giant bare spot is where kale and chard was supposed to grow but none of the seedlings made it...

The kale and chard that we transplanted in when they were about an inch tall never made it. I don’t know if it was the cold or the pests that did them in… All I know is that they’re gone now. The broccoli just seems to be waiting around for something to happen. It has been attacked by the caterpillars too but seem to be doing okay despite that but I don’t see any hint at flowering going on. At least the bok choy and arugula are still there and seem to be doing fine. We’ve harvested and eaten two heads of bok choy which leaves us with four more and the arugula is getting to the point where we can start picking it for garnishes and small dishes. I’m hopeful that we’ll soon have enough of the green for some salads. But, with the ones this growing has gone so far I’m not holding out hope… This has been the most disappointing planting since we started over a year ago.

UPDATE: Since writing this post on Sunday (12/11/11) Jake has also eaten the cabbages at the far end of the garden and begun working on the Bok Choy. I don’t know why he is eating the Bok Choy seeing as whenever we’ve tried hand feeding it to him he spits it out… Needless to say he is even further into the Dog house now.

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