Sunday, June 20, 2010

The 1st Nectarine



Today I picked the first of 2 nectarines growing on my tiny Nectazee tree I planted earlier this year. (When I say tiny, I mean TINY. It stands only about 2 feet tall. It will grow, at most, 6 - 8 feet). It had some color to it, so I thought it might be ripe. Well, it was partially there. Where there was a red color on the skin, the fruit was deliciously sweet. Where it was still green, the fruit was incredibly sour. So I will keep an eye on the other one and wait till it is completely red (or almost there). How exciting! My first Nectarine!

Monday, June 7, 2010

things accomplished...

Just thought I'd keep tabs on what has been done since the weekend...

- WEEDing: baby weeds are starting to sprout, so I am going to keep on top of that.

- Use home-made compost: I top-dressed most of my fruit trees with what I had.

- Harvest: strawberries. I wanted to harvest the two almonds that I have been watching for the past month, but some dirtbag varmints beat me to it! (#*#(!*@)#($!@#$&%*!!!)) sorry, I digress...

- Sluggo: sluggo the suckas!!! *composure* (hey, this stuff works!!)

- Water: well, I usually water seeds every day or every other day and the rest of the veggie plants every 3 - 4 days. I also decided to deeply water my trees.

- Seeds: Since a lot of my bean seeds are old (2 yrs old), I've been only getting about 50% germination. and on top of that, snails have been mowing down a few that I've missed lining with sluggo. ugh! it is so frustrating to put so much love and effort into the germination of seed, and to see all that hard work swiped down by mean snails and slugs! WAH! So, I've been germinating a lot more bean plants. For beans, I usually wrap the seeds in a very damp paper towel, put seeds and paper towel in a shallow container and put it on a slightly sunny windowsill. Roots usually appear in 1 - 2 days, after which I transplant in pots. Beans I am growing - Tendergreen, slenderette, blue lake bush, dragon langerie, royal burgundy, garbanzo, black jet soy bean, shironomai soy bean, and envy soy bean.

- transplant: my corn seedlings were getting too big for the pots that they were in and i also planted 5 corns in one small pot, so I had to separate them out.

- trim: plum tree and almond tree have been getting way out of hand with new growth. I am trying to keep them around 6 feet tall so I can easily handle them and harvest as well. So far so good.

- watch: most of the garden has been planted. so right now its all about enjoying the growth of the garden and waiting for the day of harvesting. i will eventually have to find homes for my seedlings, but Im not worried about that now.

- turn the compost pile: next time will be about 3 weeks or so.

What I need to do in the upcoming week/weekend:

- harvest: garlic. leaves are starting to turn yellow.

- weed: this is a never-ending job of the gardener.

- placement: tomato cages need to be put in place.

- fertilize: everything! last time i fertilized was back in March.

Saturday, June 5, 2010

Pictures - Part One

So here are the pictures I promised a couple of weeks ago. I'll try to post more pics as the days roll forward. (These pics are about a week old).



Seedlings...various plants - broccoli, cukes, corn, beans, etc.

Pictures - Part Two





Corn seedlings on the left, and recently planted flower seeds on the right (various flowers).






Home-made compost on the left, pot of recently planted seeds - mostly zucchini and cukes. (yes, I am lazy when it comes to labeling).





Onions - self-sewn last year. It is an open pollinated species (old australian yellow), so it should be okay.

Pictures - Part Three

South Garden







Onion patch on the left, garlic patch (somewhere in the middle) on the right. This garlic was something I bought from the supermarket. it was labeled as garlic grown in Gilroy so I thought it could do well here (i was too late in ordering garlic to grow from seed companies (in February)). It grew the average 5 - 8 leaves, but the plants are kinda small. I should've given them more room (less plants around it). The leaves are starting to turn yellow, so its probably time to dig them out. I should get other varieties later this summer to plant in october or so.






"Flower" patch on the left, south garden area being used for cover cropping this season on the right.



Mint.

Pictures - Part Four





South garden overview on the left, 4-species cherry tree and corn/melon patch on the right (east garden)






more of the melon (Charantais) and corn (golden bantam) patch



Grapes - Merlot (which I plan to dig up and replace with table grapes) and concord grape.

Pictures - Part Five





The zucchini and cucumber bed (east garden), to the right of the grapes.






Sweet pepper patch and the almond tree at the very end (east garden) on the left, overview of the north garden on the right.



Tomato/pepper patch up close.

Pictures - Part Six






Tomatoes (I am growing a type of cherry tomato and san marzano tomatoes), and strawberries (everbearing - Sequoia and another one that starts with a "Q" - the name eludes me...)







Zinnia, marigolds and alyssums border the tomato/pepper patch in the north garden.


Beautiful calendula flowers - self-sown.

Pictures - Part Seven








Lavender and Calendula flowers (north garden). Beautiful combo.







Apples (Early Summer) growing on a 4-species apple tree, and a European plum (I've been waiting for fruit on this tree for 2 years!). Update: I actually found that I have two (!) plums growin on that tree...I can't wait to see how it tastes!




Overview of the apple (far left), dwarf nectarine (nectazee, middle), and european plum (right) in the north garden. (cherry tree, far right - technically in the east garden).

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

tada..

forgive the pulled out woody herbs to the right...

more images to come as time allows.



(feel free to click on the image above to view a larger version).

Note: I grow my veggies/trees/flowers/plants on the outer edges. Since we have a child, we would like to keep our lawn space for play space for now. But I do have an eye on that space as raised bed areas....