A Sunday planting and harvest

I added four, four foot rows, one row each,
Red Oakleaf lettuce
Baby bok choy
Bloomsdale Long Standing spinach
and Spring broccoli rabe

I have been harvesting Tyee spinach, Purple Top turnip greens,  Dwarf Blue Curled, Vate's Strain kale and lobed leaf arugula.

Interesting about my new one shelf seed nursery, the tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, shasta daisys, pansies and basil seem to love it.  They look great.  The tomatillos, burnet, and thunbergias grew way too leggy and they are now on my kitchen counter! It is definitely spring here.

Sunday in the Garden

So much done this weekend.  I beefed up one of my 4x8 beds.  The tomatoes ate so much soil last year.  I added 12 cubic feet of soil and compost mix to bring the up level to normal. I put in a four ft row of peas from Franchi called Telefono.  The pods should have about ten peas in them!  In two or three weeks I'll put another row in front of them.  At right angles I put in a row each of several other seeds.  Starting along the edge I put in Jolly Jester marigolds.  Next Champion radishes, followed by Early Wonder beets and lastly Little Finger carrots.  There is room for succession rows of each food stuff.  I put two horseradish roots into a large pot  sitting at the corner of this bed.

I fed the citrus and the blueberries and a few other shrubs. 

Planted two hebe ochracea James Stirling (juniper like leaves) and tassel ferns (polystichum setosum) in the front shade garden. The bed is almost done with the plantings.  There is room for some flowers or hostas but mostly we just need to wait and see how it develops.

Along the NW side  where we put the sekel pear last month I transplanted most of my kitchen herbs, thyme, taragon, chives and sage. The oregano still needs to be moved.  I also put in two sets of deep red cactus dahlia bulbs (Chat Noir).

Near this, on the patio, I started a pot with French Fingerling potatoes.  I planted potatoes and carrots in my childhood garden.  It will be such fun to watch how these do and to, hopefully, eat them!  I have two more varieties to put in over the next couple of months.

Along the SE fence I put in a hardinbergia vine and a red leptospermum, the names of which are still outside on the pots!

Great time in the garden!

My new seed nursery

Ah, my sweetheart built me a spot in the garage to start my seeds with a sun lamp and foil sides and top!  It holds three flats. 

Two weeks ago I planted tomatoes, Brandywine, Sweet One Hundreds, and San Marzanos as well as poblano peppers, little sweet cherry red peppers, Japanese Soyu cucumbers, and thunbergias or black eyed susan vine.  They have been living  on my bookshelf under grow light.  So, today, they moved into their nursery.  I then added to my nursery garden by planting tomatillos, basil, both garden grown and saved and Sicilian, chives, burnet, Victorian pansies, Shasta daisies and early Jersey Wakefield cabbages (from Monticello).  Happy day!




 

Plantings added

One day maybe I will find the day to day time to write - week to week would be nice, how about even monthly!

Anyway, I have a number of things in the garden and as I go through my inbox, which includes plant tags, I'll write them  in today.

I just found the tag for the Liberty apple.  "Disease-resistant, cold hard apple. Resists scab, rust, mildew, fireblight. Solid red even in  hot climate. Crisp, rich sprightly flavor. Fresh or cooked.  Early fall harvest...Self fruitful.  And that's why I chose it.

Summer garden step two

Today the Zucchini San Pasquale went in.  I have grown this three years now and just love the flavor.  The vines don't run, but that is not to say the plants are small.  I planted an Italian melon, melon rampicante zuccherino. The melons are 2 to 2.5 pounds and are said to taste great with parma or other hams.  Yum!  I put two short rows of of cucumber beth alpha.  These are a thin  skin, burpless early cuke.   And lastly I planted two short rows of bush bean, Tavera, a french filet type. 

The favas are almost done.  They have stopped flowering.  The snap peas are coming in just on time.  Good luck there.  There was a second fava bed.  They came up from a winter cover crop.  I pulled them this weekend.  The beans were no where like my saved seed.  The pods were small and tough. They will make great compost.

Love working in the garden this weekend.  Loved it.

Transplants and more seeds

I transplanted my starts Saturday. I put in the Basque peppers, the Genovese basil, white ribbed chard and the white eggplants  (seeds from Monticello) as well as the flower, Salpiglosis.  I also purchased and transplanted 4 common sage and a rosemary officinalis named Tuscany. 

I then started some more seeds, one set is a new pepper that a friend gave me, Padron peppers.  These are a pepper that is sauteed and served with salt as a tapas dish. I am hoping enough will come up to grow some for myself and to give her for her garden when she returns from travels. I also planted flat leaf parsley, borage, chives, and a columbine variety, Mrs. Scott Elliott.  I also tucked a few Detroit Red beet seeds directly into the bed with peas and carrots.  It was a lovely day!

Picking favas and lot's to learn about posting photos....

Picked my first big harvest of favas on Saturday!  Oh, so much work to get on the table and oh, so worth it!

I think I will post photos one at a time for now on; look at all that empty space on my iris posting below!  I couldn't figure out how to manipulate the imagines and the language.  There are only so many hours in the day!

Just for you Kathleen!

After the rain on Kathleen's birthday. She gave me these iris on her first visit here. She thought she brought me two varieties but it was Four! One for sure is from Uncle Ray's garden.  One is from Alma's garden. 

So much for lists

Uh, March 22nd I was going to start listing plants I have put in my garden. Well, my propensity for not following through in any journal is still the same as it has always been, poor! But it is a rainy day and I will be at my desk most of it so onward, to desk organization and garden lists! If only the card in my camera hadn't self destructed I would post a few pictures as well.

Just lists

I am going to try to just post all the names of the plants I have been putting in the garden.  I moved into the Road House in June of 2008.  And I just work too many hours to have the time to plant, care for, harvest, cook, and then live my life to have the time for me to write very often.  Maybe, just maybe, if I catch up....I can send a bit of time in writing rather than listing.

Peter's b-day gift from Donna

Planted in the front garden, Acer Palmatum 'Fireglow"

seeds under my new grow ight

today's seed planting:
cherries jubilee tomatoes
bandy wine tomato (only one in the seed packet!)
Saint Pierre tomato, an old French variety that is beefsteak like
tomato fiaschetto di manduria, an Italian plum tomato
white eggplant
basque peppers
salpiglosis "stained glass"
basil napoletano
common sage

transplanted english peas "coral'

New Shrubs In My Shady Spot

We have planted two Mahonia lamarifolia or Chinese Holly-Grape. Prickly, prehistoric looking.  Tall and wide full grown.  The 'grapes' make good jam, I've read. Looks like one of them will have to be moved!

Weekend plantings

This weekend I put in favas, shallots and garlic in a 4X8 bed. All three are the first saved seeds/bulbs from my Santa Barbara Road garden.  The favas were from plants grown in Benicia.  There is a Portuguese fellow there who grows favas and saves seeds for his next year's planting. My plants last year were from his harvest.  I am fascinated with the idea of watching these seeds becoming Santa Barbara Road favas over the years.  Will they drift genetically from Benicia favas? 

The garlic is mostly white skinned with some pale purple.  It was store bought last year and I grew this year's crop from them.  They grew small/medium sized heads with good sized cloves.  I was  pleasantly surprised at the size of the heads. Garlic from my Berkeley garden did not get very big, small heads and small cloves.  These taste so sharp and garlicy. Very tasty! I have sacrificed two heads for this planting and they are now in snug in the garden.

The shallots were purchased for growing in the garden last year. I harvested them too soon and ended up woth bulb-lets rather than bulbs.  I only had a couple of good sized shallots (those I missed when harvesting early).  These too early bulb-lets are what I have planted for next summers crop.  There is one bonus from last year's shallots left in the ground.  They set seed.  So I have planted both the bulb-lets and the seed.  The seed has gone directly in the ground.  We shall see if I have shallots that want to grow in my garden.  I sure hope so.

Friday's Harvest

Things seem as though they are just starting to wind down in my first summer veggie garden here on Santa Barbara Road. There's a lot left to harvest but it feels as if fall is right around the corner. My french red pumpkins are beginning to really look beautiful.

I harvested enough wonderful goodies today to make gazpacho and a zucchini/eggplant bread spread for dinner tonight. Fresh, fully ripe veggies can't be beat. It is so satisfying to have grown all the fresh veggies and herbs used in my dinner.