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

Beets & succulents

Yay my beets sprouted! I counted about 20 seedlings. And I also remembered a tip for thinning. Don't pull them; clip them off with a pair of scissors. That way you don't disturb the roots or pull out more than you mean to. I should plant some lettuce, onion sets, and radishes soon.

After a week of unusually hot weather, we are back to sweater weather. We got some rain last weekend so I haven't had to water at least.

The donkey tail and epiphyllum I brought over from Nadine's old house have adjusted to growing in my back yard. After carrying for them so tenderly, I found out my boyfriend never cared for those plants anyway. But I love succulents, and always wanted a decent donkey tail plant. Everyone had them when I was a kid but ours never did well. I knocked a lot of 'beads' off this one when I moved it, but at least it's growing and looking healthy. I never thought to ask how old the plant was.

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.

King Corn

I got some seedlings to plant in my garden tomorrow. I got several varieties of tomatoes, peppers, and lemon cucumbers. Also some snapdragons to add color. Plus I want to plant some sunflowers from seeds. Plants don't last long in flats so I'm getting up early to plant them all. One of them already wilted between the time I got home and the time the sun went down.
A volunteer seed is sprouting with the squash. It's either a bean or a sunflower. I'm tempted to let it grow and see what it is.
After seeing a PBS special called King Corn tonight, I'm more determined than ever to eat less processed food and eat more home grown foodstuffs. Between corn fed cows and high fructose corn syrup in so many processed foods, it sure looks like corn is a contributing factor to diabetes and obesity. Almost all the corn grown in the U.S. either goes to feed livestock or to make high fructose corn syrup to sweeten packaged foods. Almost all the fast food in a typical meal is corn. Corn fed beef, corn oil french fries and corn syrup in the soda. Think about it...if they feed cows corn to make them fat, then we shouldn't really be surprised if all the corn in our diets is making humans fat. We just can't handle that much starch and sugar. I'm not talking about sweet corn from a farmer's market. I'm talking about altered corn that tastes so bad you can't even eat it raw. It has to be chemically processed before we can even eat it. And cows fed too long on that corn mixture die after about 6 months.
I had to laugh in a sad and painful way when they said they fatten cows by confining them to pens so they can't move and then stuff them full of corn. I sit in my apt. where I can hardly move and stuff my face all day with corn. As one farmer put it, "I know we are growing crap. It's what they (the govt.) pay us to do. Americans want cheap food."

Sprouting and hummingbird nest.

I'm happy to say the squash sprouted in 7 days, and now the beans are coming in. I get so excited just knowing the seeds are still viable.
And a hummingbird built a nest right outside my bedroom window.