Tag: celery

Next bed done, now with bonus celery!

~ Homo neanderthalensis ~ 1 Comment

Today was a real San Francisco special, which is to say in the morning was so windy I had to wear two sweaters but by 2pm it was nearly 75.

Yay October!

Stupid weather tricks aside, I had work to do.

That bed is kinda a mess even with all the beans pulled out, so it was time for the loam builder.

That stuff reeks! It’s like 50% chicken manure though which is what you need for a depleted bed.

I also mixed in a box of kelp meal.

Largely because it was time the celery went into the bed. They’ve been struggling in their pots and they need more space for their roots. Celery are heavier feeders then brassicas so I’m not taking any chances.

Then it was a matter of filling in my army of kohlrabi and some more bok choy.

This isn’y my usual type, this is win-win not joi choi, so we’ll see how it performs. I also have way too many for this one bed…

But I did have some room where I’ve been picking the Joi’s…

Eh it’ll do.

Still have some left, but as I pick the big ones I’ll have the room to plant these.

Anyways, after a good mulch the bed is complete.

The weather is set to be kinda wild again this week, with tomorrow nearly 80 but possibly rain in a week. So I’m trying to get as much in the ground as possible before it starts reliably pouring.

You’re always working against the clock gardening out here.

Captain’s log: October 9th 2019

~ Homo neanderthalensis ~ 1 Comment

Been a while, and this one’s largely going to be a good news/bad news post because I have a lot of that going on right now.

October is a good month.

So good news first! The second brassica bed is doing great. Sprouts are sprouting, kohlrabi is rabi-ing- good news all around.

My next project isn’t really good news or bad news, it’s just an empty bed.

The bad news is…

Due to some delays the brassicas for that bed got a little wilty. We’ll see how many of them I can salvage.

It’s also time to put my celery into a bed, they’re both chafing at being in pots.

The whitefly traps are certainly killing the whitefly!

Chayote still looks rough though. Lots of damaged leaves at the bottom. The tops are pretty vigorous though so I’m cautious but not overly concerned.

The powdery mildew has returned to the zucchini, which is bad news but not unexpected news. It’s just what happens when the fall fog comes in.

The apple tree is producing like crazy which is nice. The apples are super tasty this year too, great for baking.

And the falling leaves make great mulch for the onion plot.

Back to bad news. The garden wide scale problem continues, and I’ll have to send my chocolate peppermint back to mint rehab.

Annoyingly my baby ginger mints are also damaged. I really have to get a handle on the ants out here, which are spreading the scale.

In good news, the Roman mint looks fantastic. Still some slight whitefly issues, but as mentioned previously, whitefly is more cosmetic than anything else, and only really bad when it’s everywhere.

My corn is sort of both good news and bad news. The ones I put on the edge of the bed were largely duds… But the big ones in the back…

Looks like I might get a couple of ears after all!

Back to bad news. This one really stings. The carrots look beautiful, nice sized roots, not to big, the right orange color… And they are bitter and tasteless. Looks like from a bed that was over-enriched which was the problem last year, I went to a bed that was very nutrient depleted and therefore the carrots are inedible.

I’ll have to pull everything, mix in compost and re-seed. What a pain.

It looks like my new Marjoram and Oregano are doing great though, maybe those humic acids are the key to nutrient uptake after all!

In good news that means a lot of prickly work, the blackberry vines are doing what blackberry vines do- grow like crazy.

I’ve got to strap on my gloves and tie up this sucker. I can already feel the wounds on my hands!

The arugula that reseeded itself is almost pickable. No such thing as too much arugula.

The thyme forest needs to be hacked back again, as it often does.

And finally in really really really good news, it turns out the confetti cilantro does breed true, and all that lovely coriander I got from the last plant is now two pots worth of more cilantro- and I still have seed left over!

I really have to get moving, the rains will come soon and then garden work will be very difficult. But October is a good month for planting, since there’s no frost or snow to worry about.

Just the possibility of a deluge!

Nuking it from orbit

~ Homo neanderthalensis ~ 1 Comment

The it of course being my tree collard. The nuke of course…

It’s not like I love the usual red and green aphids, they’re the worst. It’s just that grey and black aphids are the extra worst.

And those damn grey aphids are on the tree collard, and I killed a few black ones on my new baby celery.

So, in the dead of night, my weapon of many little beetles was deployed.

And in the morning at least a few remained!

Some migrated a little off course…

But the few I tipped into the baby celery were still there. In ripping out the awful potted tomatoes I kinda decimated my ladybug colonies. So in order to make sure I have enough eggs in late fall to overwinter, I’m probably going to have to keep topping up the ranks every month or two months until we stop selling them around November.

It’s always better to use a natural method of pest control, even over organics like neem and insecticidal soap.

You’ll pry my B.t. out of my cold dead hands though, as it’s the only thing I’ve ever done against caterpillars that actually works.

I’m a land of contrasts.

August work part three: putting things in pots and looking ahead

~ Homo neanderthalensis ~ 3 Comments

The absolutely wild weather continues, but we had a break in the rain and fog so I could pot up a few plants and contemplate future actions.

I have no idea where the celery is going to end up in the end. Probably in its own larger pot but for now it’s in a one gallon grow pot with a good handful of bio fish fertilizer. Celery is a bit of a heavy feeder and you got to take care of it.

I HAD three fennel- now I have two, because when I looked at the forming bulbs, two were fine, and one (not pictured) had little bugs living inside the bulb. This one was ok though.

Now while the celery will probably have to graduate to a bigger pot, Mr and Mrs Fennel can probably stay here till I’m ready to eat them. Fennel is funny- put them in the same pot and they’ll go to seed instead of produce a bulb. You have to either space them a foot apart in a bed- not ideal for an urban garden- or give them their own little pot to live in. As tasty as their fronds are- I like to cook with the bulb!

Unfortunately the logistics of my oregano is getting complicated. It should go in the sun herb bed where the sun herbs live- but something is wrong with that bed. I think the soil has gotten really compacted because it’s draining really poorly. It, along with my 4×4 shade herb bed is the oldest bed in my garden, and I think it needs to be dug out. I don’t want to lose most of the herbs in it though, so it would be a real project- I’d have to dig out all the herbs I want to keep and keep the root balls wet while I heavily tilled and amended the dirt… anyways so the oregano is going to stay in it’s pot for a while while I contemplate matters.

I ripped out my gigantic flowering dill weed, and next week I’ll re-sow the dill. I’m trying to figure out if I have the right dill seeds for my needs however, so I’m also waiting til next week.

And of course I still have four cells worth of onion starts. Arg that is too many onions! Which is a nice problem to have.

This area which has only a lone romaine can house some of them. I’ll probably have to break out another fabric pot for the rest. I’m trying to tilt the garden into more perennials and longer growing root veggies anyways, so I suppose I’ll figure it out.

The dill isn’t the only thing that needs re-seeding- I have to go into the beet bed and the carrot bed and the leek pot and re-seed what I’ve picked and what never popped up in the case of the leek pot.

So while I have more work to do in the garden- I suppose August has gotten off to a great start.

Now I just have to figure out if I can save my potted tomatoes or not.

Many tears are going to be shed over that I’ll tell you.

Gearing up for some work

~ Homo neanderthalensis ~ 1 Comment

It’s always good to be busy. And i’m going to be busy.

My plan to turn the back bed into onion land continues. You might also spy another oregano back there, as well as a celery. I’ve never grown celery before, I hear it’s hard.

Got some soil, and a mystery plant.

Got a trellis for the chayote finally!

I got a pot for the mystery plant!

And finally, I got my bird bath! Which is more of a bee bath really. Anyways, I have quite a bit of work to do. Always good to be busy!