Charmaine built a custom drip system for the garden this week. She started in the back to see if it would work. It totally works. No more spraying water on the leaves (and potentially causing problems for the plants). After such a success she moved to the front yard and built an even more complex system. Both of the systems start from a regular hose bib with a timer that runs on batteries. It’s awesome. We may even be able to spend some time away from home without killing all the plants. It would be a shame to lose some of these plants now that they’re starting to produce.
We picked our first three perfect zucchinis this week (no pictures). We just cut the first one up and ate it. It was really good, but very interesting. It hint of a sour kick like a radish, but much milder. I enjoyed that a lot. The plant itself is growing like crazy. I inspect it for squash bugs every few days, but haven’t seen any signs at all so far (knock on wood).
The rest of the garden is doing really well too. The peppers are blooming and growing like crazy. The one exception has been the Poblanos. We’ve had a few blossoms, but so far no peppers. One of my favorites right now is the Thyme. I haven’t actually cut any of it yet, but I grab it and pull on it from time to time and then my hands smell good for hours.
The garden really seems to be ramping up lately. We’ll probably need to swing past the garden center to pick up some tomato cages and other hardware. In fact, it’s high time we get a drip system in place. I don’t think it’s good to keep spraying the leaves with water.
In the mean-time, there’s a zucchini, a bell pepper, and a couple tomatoes growing now. The eggplant has a bunch of flowers and even the artichoke plant is starting to grow some new leaves. On a side note, I ran past the garden of one of my neighbors the other day. They have an artichoke plant about 5 feet tall and 3 feet wide with tons of artichokes blooming. The plants are perennials and usually last 3 to 5 years here in San Jose. I’m pretty excited to see how ours does.
A few of the small Roma tomato plants have developed some kind of problem on the new growth. I can’t tell exactly what it is, but I haven’t really done much research either. For now I have removed the affected areas in case it wanted to spread to other plants. I do find it a little funny that the hybrid plants are the ones with the problems while the heirloom varieties are as healthy as ever. I hope the problem doesn’t spread.
We absolutely loved the location where we lived in San Diego, and the condo we rented was very nice, but there was no place to grow anything. After a quick stint back in Utah for winter (the worst time to be in Utah), we’re back in beautiful California. I took a job in the bay area and we live just a couple miles from my office. The best part about being here is that we have a yard big enough to grow a garden again, and that’s just what we’re doing.
The weather has been interesting. We’ve had days where it gets over 105 and then cools back down to 55 at night. It warms and cools very rapidly and that seems to be hard on some of the plants, but so far they’re all doing fine. We have only turned on the air conditioner once, because although the heat is pretty extreme in the middle of the day sometimes, it’s almost always cool in the evening again… and the house doesn’t heat up that much. We just open the windows when I get home from work and it’s nice and cool. I think San Diego weather is better, but this hasn’t been bad at all.
I haven’t written about any garden-related activity for so long that it was easy to keep putting it off, but I’m finally making some time for it. Why? Because today I noticed our first tomato on the vine. It happens to be on a tomato plant growing in the front yard, but we don’t discriminate. Fish on!
We have a bunch of tomato plants this year, a few bell peppers, a poblano pepper, a jalapeño pepper, a Japanese eggplant, a zucchini that’s growing like crazy, a few Armenian cucumbers, and a bunch of herbs. We haven’t really been all that successful growing herbs, but this may be our year. We have chives, cilantro, german thyme, sage, purple basil, rosemary, and tarragon. Oh yeah, we also picked up an artichoke, but I have serious doubts that it will actually do anything.
We’ve been going back and forth about whether or not we should plant anything this year. Early this year we decided to move to California, but now we’re not as certain. It’s still very possible, and we’re doing most things as if we will be gone very soon… with the exception of the garden. We have waited long enough now that we’re almost too late to start plants from seed, but we finally realized that it won’t really cost anything to plant a garden and see how it goes. We have a bunch of left-over seeds and potting soil from years past that are a sunk cost. The only real costs to planting a garden right now are the time and the electricity to run the lights. After realizing that, we made the decision to plant… and then wound up spending a couple bucks on some seeds that sounded interesting (purple tomatillos!).
The apricot tree went crazy this year. I should have taken a picture of it yesterday when the entire tree was covered with blossoms. I don’t think you could see even one ince of any branch because the blossoms were so thick. It was amazing. Of course, it only takes one hard frost between now and summer to ruin it all, but I’m cautiously optimistic.
Here’s what we’ve planted so far:
Tray 1: 12 rows of 6 small pellets
A – 6 x Pepper – Jalapeño – Ferry Morse – 2010
B – 6 x Pepper – Jalapeño – Mountain Valley – 2011
C – 6 x Pepper – Hot Lemon – Burpee – 2011
D – 6 x Pepper – Habanero – Lilly Miller – 2011
E – 6 x Pepper – Habanero Red – Burpee – 2010
F – 6 x Eggplant – Long Purple – Lilly Miller – 2011
G – 6 x Eggplant – Black Beauty – Burpee – 2011
H – 6 x Pepper – Cubanelle – Ferry Morse – 2011
I – 6 x Pepper – Poblano – Lilly Miller – 2011
J – 6 x Pepper – Poblano – Ferry Morse – 2011
K – 6 x Pepper – Anaheim – Mountain Valley – 2011
L – 6 x Pepper – Serrano – Ed Hume – 2011
Tray 2: 6 rows of 6 small pellets
A – 6 x Pepper – Mini Belle Mix – Livingston Seed Co – 2011
B – 6 x Pepper – Mini Belle Mix – Livingston Seed Co – 2011
C – 6 x Pepper – California Wonder – Lilly Miller – 2011
D – 6 x Pepper – California Wonder – Lilly Miller – 2011
E – 6 x Pepper – Sweet Banana – Ferry Morse – 2010
F – 6 x Pepper – Sweet Banana – Mountain Valley- 2011
Tray 3: 6 rows of 6 small pellets
A – 6 x Pepper – California Wonder 300 TMR – Ferry Morse – 2010
B – 6 x Pepper – Sweet Red – Mountain Valley – 2010
C – 6 x Pepper – Sweet Red – Mountain Valley – 2011
D – 6 x Pepper – Red Roaster Hybrid – Burpee – 2012
E – 6 x Pepper – Red Roaster Hybrid – Burpee – 2012
F – 6 x Pepper – Quadrato D’asti Rosso – Ferry Morse – 2012
Tray 4: 9 rows of 4 large pellets
A – 4 x Tomato – Roma – Livingston Seed Co – 2011
B – 4 x Tomato – Roma – Livingston Seed Co – 2011
C – 4 x Tomato – Roma VF – Ferry Morse – 2012
D – 4 x Tomato – Roma VF – Ferry Morse – 2012
E – 4 x Tomato – Roma VF – Ferry Morse – 2012
F – 4 x Tomato – Roma VF – Ferry Morse – 2012
G – 4 x Tomato – Brandywine Pink – Livingston Seed Co – 2011
H – 4 x Tomato – Brandywine Pink – Livingston Seed Co – 2011
I – 4 x Tomato – Cherokee Purple – Burpee – 2010
Still to be planted:
– Tomatillos (purple and green)
– Cherry Tomatoes (not too many, they grow like crazy)
– Heirloom Tomatoes
– Other Tomatoes?
– More Jalapeño Peppers?
– More California Wonder Peppers?
– Some other peppers that we previously decided against planting this year?
Who knows if we’ll actually plant anything else? For all we know, we may be living in San Diego by this time next month.
October 1st is the beginning of the new water year each year. Last year was a record year for snow. They were still skiing at Snowbird on July 4th. This year may turn out to be another record year. It’s already snowing… and not just in the mountains. It snowed at our house Wednesday night and much of the day on Thursday (October 5th and 6th). Supposedly, the “average” date for our first fall frost is October 14th. I guess we’re a little early this year. It’s not all that early for frost, but it seems really early for snow.
We thought it was the end, so we picked just about everything that was left… hundreds of tomatoes, hundreds of peppers, etc. That was several days ago and we haven’t been able to use it all or give it all away. The counter is still covered.
Surprisingly, most of the garden managed to survive and it has warmed up a little since the snow. Who knows? Maybe we’ll have another round to harvest next week.
