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.

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.

We didn’t want to plant everything outside as early as we did, but we didn’t have much choice. We went out of the country for a few weeks. Having the plants outside was the only way they would get watered. Unfortunately, it seems they also got hailed, snowed, and frozen out there. One of these years Mother Nature may actually be kind to us, but this isn’t the year.

We have started planting replacements for some of the plants that died in the cold and the seeds that still haven’t sprouted. Unfortunately, that’s a lot of replacing. It’s been extremely rough, even on the pepper plants that managed to survive the storms. They all look like they went back in time a couple weeks. The tomato plants did a little better than the peppers; most of them seem like they were just on pause for a few weeks. The only plants that really thrived in the winter of May 2011 were the peas. It looks like it’s going to be another great year for peas. I suggested to Charmaine that we just plant the whole yard with peas next year.

The blogging hasn’t been a priority lately, but the garden is still moving along. Last week we were in San Francisco for the weekend, so we didn’t even take pictures. When we got back, we knew it was time to move things outside. One of the Serrano Pepper plants was 22 inches tall. Not only is that amazing, it’s also too tall to fit on our racks.

This week has been filled with crazy gardening. I start a new job on Monday, so there won’t be much time to play in the garden the way I have been able to the past year or so. I spent a day tilling everything, then a day raking squash hills together, then a day moving copious amounts of dirt to make 12 raised beds in the main garden area, etc. I ran out of steam about half way through making the raised beds, but Charmaine jumped in and finished it up. It looks really good.

Yesterday we transplanted almost all the peppers to the main garden area. We’re working on getting the tomatoes transplanted. After that, we’ll plant a few beds with some fun things like beets, radishes, onions, leeks, etc. We did get a lot of stuff planted this week in addition to the transplanting.

Planted this week:
– Fava Beans
– Soy Beans
– Rattlesnake Beans
– Zucchini
– Crookneck Squash
– Acorn Squash
– Buttercup Squash
– Butternut Squash
– Spaghetti Squash
– Jack-Be-Little Pumpkins
– Connecticut Field Pumpkins
– Atlantic Giant Pumpkin

Of course, today, the day after putting things into the ground, the wind is crazy. We have a “severe wind warning” until 9pm tonight. So far the gusts haven’t been much more than about 40 mph, but that’s way more wind than a newly transplanted pepper wants to have. We’ve already had a tomatillo or two get snapped off. We’re definitely going to need more support poles.

So it’s beenmore than a week since we planted a few things, and nothing has sprouted yet. That’s somewhat disappointing, but it’s also confirmation of the need to start these things early. My current working thesis for the lack of sprouts is that the soil (and the air in my house) is too cold to convince them to start. We put a heating mat under the pots today, so hopefully that will help speed things along. We also went to a few more stores and found some of the seeds we’ve been looking for, like Cayenne Pepper and Black Beauty (Fat) Eggplant.

Planted in 2-inch starter disks:
18 x Roma Tomato
12 x Brandywine Tomato
12 x California Wonder Pepper
12 x Early Girl Tomato
12 x Jalapeno Pepper
12 x Poblano Pepper
12 x Sweet Banana Pepper
12 x Sweet Red Pepper
6 x Anaheim Pepper
6 x Big Jim Pepper
6 x Habanero Pepper
6 x Limon Pepper
6 x Mini Belle Mix
6 x Serrano Pepper
6 x Tomatillo

Planted in 4-inch pots:
6 x Roma Tomato
6 x Early Girl Tomato
6 x Eggplant (Black Beauty)
6 x Cayenne Pepper
2 x Cilantro
2 x Rosemary
1 x Basil
1 x Cumin
1 x Dill
1 x Tarragon
1 x Thyme

It’s almost time to bring up the second rack!