Summer Garden

Now that the sunflowers are blooming in the backyard, I'm not at home to see them. Luckily someone took a photo of them so I can at least see that.  I won't be home for another 2 weeks.

The big successes of the awful garden this year were the yellow tomatoes which just got ripe (also while I was gone) and the portulaca (moss rose) that is blooming like crazy, and the snake gourds that are now setting fruit. The volunteer sunflower bloomed like crazy and grew to about 6' tall.

Sadly the 2 gourd plants in the Zen garden totally got chomped by something.  We don't know what because they were surrounded by chicken wire. Their growth was so stunted I doubt they would have grown fruit anyway. Next year we'll  do better I hope.

Better Boy Tomatoes Planted

Today I took the big tub we repurposed from the old washing machine and used it to plant Better Boy tomatoes in. I filled it with about 6” of gravel for drainage, and then mixed 2 bags of potting soil and sand together leaving plenty of space at the top to hold water for the tomatoes. I made sure I placed it where I wanted it first because it is going to be way too heavy to move. Previous tenants had horses, so the whole yard is pretty much full of decomposed manure which should help the garden immensely.

I can hear the baby birds that have hatched over the light fixture on my porch. 

The lizards have also come out to play. These are bigger lizards than the ones I’ve seen here so far. But they are so fast I’ve yet to get a photo.

In front of the porch, I pulled out a bedding plant that was killed by the frost and replaced it with a yellow pear tomato. I visualize sitting on the porch in late summer munching on tiny yellow tomatoes.

I refilled the hummingbird feeder. And I ordered the hummingbird feeding tubes from Ebay yesterday so I can make my own feeders from soda bottles. I got some red silk flowers at the Dollar Tree to put on the end of the glass tubes to make them prettier and to attract hummingbirds. I need to finish the hummingbird feeder so it is ready for the tubes when they get here.

When I was watering the pepper plants, one looked funny. Its been in the ground one day and something ate the top half of it off. Meh. 

Gardening requires a lot of faith. Sometimes I succeed beyond my wildest dreams. Other times it is a fail, but almost always I come out way ahead overall. 

First successful seedlings at my new home.

Sunflower Seedlings

Nasturtiums Gone Wild

Some plants thrive on neglect. Case in point, my nasturtiums.  They are blooming their little heads off this year. The only water they got was rainfall and dew. The brown eyed Susan vine is also thriving. I've tried planting nasturtiums in the front yard, but the gardeners think they are weeds and always rip them out. Maybe in Mexico they are weeds.

My rose bush was a riot of blooms as well. Every year I look forward to this one blooming. This year it outdid itself. Not bad for a $5 bargain from the local swap meet.

Finally Got the Garden Going

I finally corraled my boyfriend into taking me to a nursery where I got 4 varieties of tomatoes, an Anaheim pepper, and soybean and flower seeds. Weeds were already growing in the spot I cleared for the tomato plants so it took me another hour to clear it, clean up debris and get 4 of the tomatoes planted. Two of the tomatoes are supposed to be pink so this should be interesting. I still have about half the garden to clear.

I'm pretty worried that my boyfriend is going to lose his job, and then we'll have to move and I'll lose the garden, but I'm going to go ahead and plant it as an act of faith, because we can only live in the present, not the future.

Year of the Spider

Photo: This spider seems to be missing a few legs.

In Asian countries I'm not sure what animal year it is, but in my backyard it is definitely the year of the spider. I went out to clean away the dead vines and plants from the summer's garden and there were spiders of every variety and size out there. Every time I saw a big brown spider I thought of the brown recluse horror stories we've all heard, including one my friend in TX told me last week. While I was keeping an eye out, I picked up a white paper plate that had found it's way into my garden and when I flipped it over it had a black widow on it. I jumped, flailed my arms and launched it off the plate and into the air and I know not where it landed.

An hour later I saw another one, hourglass side up, smashed on the sidewalk. Then as I was pulling out an agressive asparagus fern from around the water spigot, I almost set my hand on another black widow that was sitting there on the greenery. In general I don't mind spiders, but with so many everywhere I turned I was starting to get freaked out. So that's enough gardening for one day.

Working in the yard

The problem with working in the yard is the task tends to expand to fill the time. The more I did, the more I saw that needed doing. I swept and bagged leaves, pulled weeds, repotted plants, made 2 dish gardens, threw away junk, moved the workbench, tidied up the shelves, moved a bunch of gourds, and I still have enough work to fill another day. Thank goodness its getting dark because I'm pooped! It feels so good to shower when I am all muddy though.

Never turn your back on your squash

Kentucky Pole Beans, zucchini, summer squash and lemon cucumbers grown in Anaheim, CA 92804.

Planting the garden

Today I got up at a quarter to 8 and got all my seedlings in the ground except the snapdragons. I'm out of space so those may have to go in the front yard and be at the mercy of the clowns that do the apt. complex gardening.

I meant to get three varieties of tomatoes but when I read the tags this morning I had two Big Boys and one Mr. Stripey. Oh well, I planted them anyway. I planted 6 yellow banana peppers, 2 lemon cucumbers, and and assortment of sunflower seeds.

This year I'm working smart and not hard and covering between rows with black plastic to keep the weeds down and conserve moisture. After an hour and a half of gardening this morning I was pretty much melted and hungry for breakfast. It doesn't take long for that CA sun to heat things up.

I still have to lay out another row of plastic and put up strings for the beans to climb on, but that can wait for another day.

It's almost Spring

Yesterday I decided to start getting my backyard/patio ready for the spring garden. I'm so glad I did because the rain had made a real mess of things. One of my gourd buckets was full of water and the gourds were waterlogged. So I set them out to dry. I hope they'll be okay.

Then today I swept up a ton of fallen leaves, berries, and wood shavings from my bf's bowmaking projects. I think he's thinking all those shavings can just be shoved into the garden, but that just doesn't work out. I don't have the space for a compost pile so all the shavings do is litter the garden and the patio. My 'yard' is only about 15' wide but really long. And most of it is concrete.

The other problem is the apt. dumpster is at the end of my yard in it's own brick enclosure, so when people miss the dumpster it lands in my garden. And I swear some people miss on purpose. The problem increased when the new neighbors moved upstairs. What does that tell you? Stuff from their patio is always blowing off into our yard. One day I came home to find a burning towel in my garden. They said it was their towel but had no idea how it caught on fire.

Most of the annuals I planted years ago bit it during the cold days this winter. So I have to dig all those out and plant something new. I have a volunteer ornamental asparagus growing by my water spigot which is actually doing quite nicely. My coleus all died in the last cold snap. I lost a few herbs too. I have tons of tomato plants left, but I need to get rid of most of them or I'll end up with an all tomato garden again. The beans did really well and I saved the seeds, so maybe I'll plant those again as soon as it is warm enough.

It's a jungle out there.

My problem has never been getting things to grow. It's keeping them from taking over the neighborhood. Today I had to go out and pull my gourd vine back over from my neighbor's side of the brick wall. What I thought was a wee piece of vine on the wrong side turned out to be about 12 feet long. Then I had to trim the jasmine vine off of the roses and the lantana out of the jasmine. And my 'miniature rose' is now 6' tall and tangled with another rose. It's like the thorny rose from hell so I cut that back quite a bit as well.

Note that I didn't plant any gourds this year or last, they just keep growing up by themselves. As we are midway into Oct. my striped rosebush is blooming it's head off again.

Weeds Be Gone

My weeds were ruining my life so I bought a weed whip. Today I got to learn how to use it as an edger and reclaim my patio. The concrete part was getting smaller and smaller, which annoyed my boyfriend greatly. So I used the edger and hopefully he'll be a happier man now. I still have a lot more to do, but I am limiting myself to 10 minutes a day so I don't injure my back again.