Here in the backyard, everything is starting to take off. But, there have been lots of lessons over the past months.
These tomatoes look beautiful after transplanting the seedlings in the middle of April. But my attempts at starting my own seeds were once again disappointing. The tomatoes seedlings that I started, all of them, rotted at the soil level in the transplant pots. I don’t quite know why, but I must not be watering correctly.
My peppers did better, but these took a long time to grow to maturity. I am not worried about the timing, the growing season is so long here, but it might help to have the transplants in the ground earlier. The pepper plant in the cage I purchased and it is doing well. These plants are wilting every day in the hot weather and then bounce back in the evening. I am going to add some grass clippings as a mulch this weekend, to help the soil retain more moisture. (The cage around the large pepper plant, is really just keeping the tomato plant from growing over the pepper.)
I picked a cucumber today. This is a Chinese variety called Suyo Long, the spiny ribs help to repel pests. You can rub it with a towel to remove the spines, or peel it. It is supposed to grow well in hot climates, so I might keep it in the ground, but I was planning to pull it out when these watermelon plants take over the space. I just learned that if you trellis this cucumber, they will grow straight hanging from the vine.
I made my favorite cucumber salad with red onion, rice vinegar, red chili flakes, salt and a sprinkle of sugar.
I was hoping to have sunflowers below on the right, but some are being eaten by slugs and snails. Some are surviving, so hopefully, we will have a few and can try again next year. It’s interesting to me that the ones that are getting eaten are the plants that get the less sun. I recently read, that pests don’t attack the strong plants, and this might be evidence of this. The theory is that the pests are always in the garden, they just go after the weak. An active display of survival of the fittest.
I am not using any slug treatment, just my beer traps. You can see one by the cucumber and watermelon in the middle. I usually take a 16 ounce plastic container and dig a hole to fit the container, so that the top is at ground level. Then I fill it with a beer, Coors Light works well enough. The snails, slugs and some other bugs like rolly pollies are attracted to the beer and climb in and drown. It has been working well enough, but I might need to get more serious in order to protect these tender seedlings.
My popcorn looks beautiful in the “Three Sisters” garden square. I am worried that I didn’t plant the beans soon enough, but they are growing. Also, none of my pumpkin seeds germinated. I was really surprised that it was this bad. I knew all the seeds were at least 3-4 years old, but I did not expect a complete failure. I bought two pumpkin plants at the nursery, and we will see how they do. My concern with the beans and squash is that there is now too much shade from the corn for them to get started properly.
This is my garlic. I planted it last October and I have just seen a few plants forming scapes, which is the seed head. I am not sure what is going on, it might be that the variety just takes a long time or needs a certain day length that we have not had yet. The immature garlic is completely edible, but the plants that haven’t produced their seed flower, are not growing into a bulb of garlic cloves.
This white pot has chives growing. I took the picture, because I completely cut it back to about 3 inches in early May and it has come back to give me more than I can use.
Next to the chives is aloe vera that I transplanted from an old, larger plant. This plant sends out little baby shoots all the time that you can replant. After replanting, they look like they are dying for about a month and then suddenly become green again like the one on the left. It is already starting to produce new shoots that will fill the pot.
My pole beans are finally getting the right amount of sun and water in this odd south facing corner of my house, between the porch and the lemon tree. I am excited once again to take advantage of a vertical growing plant. I have just cooked the first batch of beans this week.
The jalapeño pepper looks great.
It’s hard to tell in this picture below, because what I am taking a picture of is missing, but this plant is missing its blueberries. We have a rat that took up residence in our shed this past winter and he found a new treat.
So, I have gotten serious in the fight. I wish it would not have to come to this, and I can write a post on how we have messed up our ecosystem so much that this is the only way to solve the problem. With some pests the answer might be just to share the harvest, but it’s hard to sacrifice all the hard work.
On a better note, my lime tree is doing great, even though we just transplanted it last winter.
I’m not sure what the black dots are on the leaves in the top left. Ignorance is sometimes better. Water it, feed it and see what happens.