June Gardening Update

June has been a rough gardening month. A week of temps in the 100's and I just can't water 3 times a day. The only sunflower that has done really well was a volunteer wild sunflower with multiple buds on it right now.

The gourds are finally making progress. My garden would be fine if I had big bucks to throw into it, but I don't. I could do a lot with about 20 extra large bags of potting mix and about a mile of new hoses including soak hoses and enough wood to make raised beds like I wanted to do in the first place. I about cried when the local farmer's market guy suggested putting all my plants in containers. I was finally glad to have a huge yard and get out of the city so I could grow things in the ground! I had enough container gardening in Anaheim.  And I'm sure I sounded exasperated when I told him I was trying to get away from container gardening.

On the good side, my portulaca just bloomed. The first flower was yellow, and came and went before I got a photo of it. But there are more buds. The pepper has one fruit on it. The best growing tomato bush has new yellow flowers. I think it's the small yellow pear tomatoes on that one. But I moved them so many times to protect them from the rabbits that I've lost track.

So, I made some ant posters. At least the insects, which come in great varieties, have been entertaining.

Teamwork

Guy putting up an awning before we melt.

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

Seeds and More

My boyfriend got the gardening bug (for now anyway) and bought us some more seeds and 2 Anaheim pepper plants. So I planted the two plants in the pot in the front where the ranunculus bulbs failed to sprout. I was sure tired of watering them, and when I dug around in there I couldn't even find any bulbs. So they either disintegrated or something ate them. In the other pot I planted beet seeds and moss rose seeds, which are teeny tiny.

I've given up on raised beds this year. We just don't have the money and everything needs to be planted NOW. The seasons don't wait for procrastinators. That also means if it freezes again in May, we'll lose it all. But I waited as long as I dared to get a full growing season. I see I need a greenhouse, even if I just jerry rig one together. All my succulents died over the winter. Even the ones I brought up from Anaheim. And I love succulents, so something must be done. The swap meet in Huntington Beach has a great inexpensive collection of succulents, so next time we are down there I'll stock up.

Labor Day and I'm Weeding

Since my last update, all my tomatoes have died. It even killed the two or three plants that were two years old. So I'm thinking where did the virus come from? I didn't have it two years ago or last year. Did I bring it in with some of the plants from the nursery in their potting soil?

Today I gave my neighbors some lemon cupcakes and they gave me 3 beautiful tomatoes. I told them my dilemma and they said spray the plants and soil with a mixture of 1/2 vinegar and 1/2 water.  Please note I haven't tried this yet. I have no plants left alive to try it on.

Even my sunflowers were wimpy compared to the glorious ones I've grown in the past.They are already going to seed and are about half as big in diameter as the previous ones.

Maybe my soil has lost all its umph.  Anyway, I did an hour of weeding today.  I'm glad I stopped after an hour because I'm sore already and my hands are almost too tired to type.

Sunflower Seeds

I'm really excited because many of my sunflower and marigold seeds have sprouted. I'm so glad I bought new sunflower seeds. Looks like I got a good batch this time. Now if I can just fend the snails and birds off until the seedlings get strong enough to survive.

I have a bunch of almost ripe tomatoes to pick too. I dug up the deader plant after harvesting it's last 2 fruits. I'm going to let the ground rest a bit before putting another plant in that spot. We also swept up a lot of debris today so it's more fun to be out there. The hummingbird is busy and eating out of my feeder again. She got a bit agitated when my cat was sitting in the window.

Bye Bye Jasmine Vine

Yesterday I girded my loins and tackled the root of that jasmine vine. I soaked it a good 20 minutes and then took a clipper and shovel to what was left of it. I got a good bit of it cleared away and filled  3/4 of the dumpster with vines and branches. I'm still not done with the big clean up but at least now I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

There was a ripe tomato with a little slug fest going on, so I cut off the bad part and put the rest in a salad and it tasted great. No point wasting a good tomato just because a bug got there first.

Tomato Vine

 

Cilantro / Coriander

I reseeded the cilantro. As you can see in the photos, it's at the end of it's lifespan. 
The radishes are getting bigger. So far so good. I'm still tossing out a lot of snails, trying to race them to my prime plants. I'm also seeing a lot of earthworms, which is a good thing. I just wish I had a compost pile. Stupid tiny yards...mutter, mutter, mutter. I need a quarter of an acre.

Tomatoes

Like I suspected nearly all the tomatoes got ripe at once.

Mostly Roses

It was such a perfect weather day I couldn't resist taking some photos of my roses and tomatoes to share.
My brown eyed susans have also sprouted so I'm crossing my fingers that they will survive their infancy.

tomatoes love summer

While I was out of town the tomatoes were going insane. I went to pick them today and the basket was so heavy I almost dropped it twice.
And I was surprised to find a zucchini. The white mildew has about wiped them out.

Tomatoes and Peppers oh my.

Last time I was at Home Depot buying plants, I thought I got 3 varieties of tomatoes. When I planted them, I found out I only got 2, because one had the wrong label on the shelf.
But I had seen some black tomatoes there and went to get one of those. I got a variety called Black Prince. My boyfriend grabbed him a Serrano Pepper plant. So today I got them planted, and grabbed the tags to make a blog post. Both tags had black plants on the photo, and I was pretty sure Serrano Peppers aren't black. So I read the fine print and what he had grabbed from the Serrano shelf was a Purple Bell Sweet Pepper. So learn from our mistake and check the tag right next to the stem, not the shelf label. And even so tags fall out and people stick them in any old plant, so I guess I will have to wait and see just what these tomatoes and peppers turn out to be.

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.