Well I do have a bed to fill- and it’s time for winter herbs.
I may have gone a tad overboard but a substantial employee discount will do that to you.
I got something I’ve never grown- edible chrysanthemum greens- also known as shungiku. Along with the komatsuna, I’m looking forward to some winter hot pot.
It’s finally time.
I’m gonna eat well this winter!
Well it’s been busy and it’s going to get busier.
That my friends, is a baby pumpkin! It looks like October pumpkins might be a thing. Or August pumpkins if I’m lucky.
The vine is… going the wrong way. But who am I to tell a pumpkin vine where it can or cannot go. I’m just going to have to accommodate the darn thing as it meanders around my garden.
I’m trying not to make the same mistake I made with my big pot tomatoes- and I’m diligently trimming off the bottom stems of the new guys.
The reason this is a problem is what’s happening with the Black Krim.
This is a beautiful baby tomato- and it’s on a sucker stem. So I am concerned that the weight of the growing fruit is going to knock off the whole branch and lose me a bunch of fruit and flowers. I might have to put a stake in the ground next to the pot and tie that branch to that for support. So it’s going to need a Neanderthal level Gerry-rig, but it is what it is.
Lastly- my one big Roma is ripening nicely. It’s been cool-ish, but on the warm side of cool-ish, and this baby tomato lived through the heat wave so it looks quite nice.
And more ladybug larvae are makes their little cocoons so I’m about to have more voracious aphid killers- which suits me just fine.
It turned out way more spaghetti squash germinated then I needed- so I hope some of my friends want some seedlings. Only a couple of the scallop squashes came up, but I only wanted a couple of them anyways.
This is some lovely oak leaf lettuce that has been patiently awaiting harvest.
Oak leaf is a good choice for warmer climes as it doesn’t get that bitter in warmer weather. The seed packet I got was a mix of red and green oak leaf- and the one that turned up red has not been growing as well as the green. But that’s sometimes the case- red varieties of any vegetable don’t photosynthesize as well as their green counterparts.
The blue lake beans are quite vigorous- here’s one that has escaped its trellis and is starting up the cucumber trellis. Which reminds me- my next day off I have a real project on my hands tying up the cucumbers- they’ve gotten real messy.
But they have lots of little flowers and baby cucumbers so I’ve got that going for me.
Speaking of trellis failures my purple peas are so vigorous- and so top heavy, that they’ve sort of half fallen over the color bed. They’re still producing- I keep bringing up snap peas for dad to munch on, it’s just very precarious. I expect I’ll get peas into August- the vine is just going to be a bit of a mess.
Still have some leeks growing. Also, as evidenced by the soil, still have some very frustrated gophers. Ha ha you rodent bastards- all my plants are in raised beds and pots! I’m an evolved hominid, I can outthink you furry jerks!
Sorry.
Not all my animal visitors are feral cats and hungry rodents. Some are quite welcome. This is a California Towhee. They’re prolific grub hunters. They were chased out of the garden by the cats- but I haven’t seen my feline friends lately, and the birds have returned.
I don’t believe my tree collard is going to make it. It could very well be that my “ingenious” solution to the cabbage maggot problem was the collard’s downfall. Surprise! Aluminum foil rings around the tops of roots probably don’t allow for good root growth. I’m going to try to cut out the foil and use some root growth fertilizer as a last attempt but I’m not too hopeful. Turns out you can’t collar a collard.
Oh god that pun was terrible I’m so sorry.
Here’s a bit of cock-eyed optimism to make up for that pun.
I bought some sweet corn.
Now my parents grew corn when I was a child- it can be done. I’m anticipating a hot summer and fall…
And there’s some room in the 4×4 bed…
If I sort of curl the stalks around the squash the wind *should* pollenated them…
And multiple indigenous groups in America grew squash and corn together so it’s a good soil pairing…
It’s a lot of shoulds.
But I’m gonna do it!
I told you it was going to get busier!
It’s been sunny and clear for several days thankfully, and it will continue to be clear for a while yet. (Fingers crossed!)
Unfortunately while it has stopped raining, it has not stopped wind-ing.
Ha ha oops. There goes the garlic chives! My fault for using that old plastic pot I guess- I had gambled that the weight of the soil would be enough but apparently it was not!
Well that’s the advantage of seed packets- I had plenty more. But I scooped the soil into a new heavy pottery pot and re-sowed.
Small- but heavy.
There’s a reason I prefer the larger terra-cotta and glazed clay pots, it’s partially an aesthetic thing of course but it’s also because the backyard can be really really windy. Weighty pots are safer.
Owl down! Owl down!
The other problem is that the clear sunny skies are drying out the soil really quick, despite the fact that a week ago it was practically flooding.
But there’s an easy solution for that- mulch!
There’s my leeks, all lovingly swaddled with redwood bark. I also mulched the romaine and the green onions in the 4×4 bed.
Now there are only a few green onions that sprouted largely because of how wet and cold it was, so I decided to put up a few more for later transplant.
If I just keep putting out more scallions in the seedling cells I’ll have plenty to transplant all over the garden.
It’s fairly easy to tuck scallions wherever you have space for them, they’re super skinny and you don’t even need to thin them as long as you space them right. Dad eats a lot of green onions so I’d really like to grow a ton of them. So I guess every week or so I’ll put 12 more seeds out. Accounting for a few dud seeds I should have plenty in the ground by late April.
Now it’s just a matter of waiting til Friday- soil day!
I’m so excited!
Today was clear and cool. Very cool, under 50 degrees. One of those things that made me glad the only warm weather plant out back was my wonderful pepper, which will be the subject of another post.
Everything was so well watered from the heavens opening up I didn’t have to do anything except take pictures of beautiful plants.
The amazing surprise garlic is just thriving in the wet. Which is good data to have if I grow garlic this year intentionally- maybe time it in order to take advantage of the winter rains.
In other allium news- the baby leeks are growing well. I mean I assume as much, as I have zero experience growing leeks. It’s interesting how much the baby leeks look like the baby green onions and baby chives. The chives of course stayed little, the green onions will hopefully get bigger than chives, and the leeks will hopefully get even bigger than that.
Alliums!
There seems to be a distinct winner in the battle that is mint thunderdome. After a while where the mint plants were bare twigs the Roman mint has joyfully rebounded into leaf. There are some scattered growth from the orange and chocolate mints- but Roman mint is the clear winner of the thunderdome.
The hyssop has also responded well to the deluge- turning bushy and thick. Not sure if I’ll ever use this herb culinarily but it smells real nice and flowers are good for the bees in the summer.
I swear I could fill this blog to the brim with just glamor shots of turnips. They’re so lovely and green but with yellow touches- and I love their leaf pattern.
Arugula! So much arugula! I just picked some and it’s almost all grown back which is nice. It’s also super weedy. The plants grew together because I sowed the seed rather thickly- which with arugula you can totally get away with. But it is problematic when it comes time to weed. I have to get in there, but I only had a little time outside today, and we have another straight week of rain coming.
The dill is growing so well- which is wonderful considering how long it took me to realize that dill was a seed herb not a transplant herb. It’ll probably be another month before I can pick some for pickling though.
Why… why is the rosemary flowering in February? I’m not upset- just confused.
Might as well make lemonade with rosemary flower lemons!
That’s… a weird metaphor I apologize.
What I mean is that I picked some of the flowery rosemary and some Mitsuba and made a bouquet for my lemon pitcher. It’s a nice table decoration that won’t make me sneeze like real flowers will. It also, as my dad might say, stinks the house up real pretty.
Here’s to rainy days!
Sounds like the start of an English nursery rhyme. But I have in fact sowed leeks in what was a carrot pot.
Yeah. Not too exciting to look at.
I’ve actually never grown leeks! I’ve heard it’s easier to grow leeks then real deal bulb onions- but they said it was hard to grow carrots and they were very wrong about that so… we’ll see!
Nice heirloom variety- should get quite a few leeks from a 18 inch diameter pot. And I have plenty of seeds so if one or two just don’t come up, I can always re-sow.
It just really occurred to me in the middle of the lettuce mess that the advantage of San Francisco gardening is no frost. So there are a lot of things that out here have a long long growing season.
So why not leeks!
I had moved the ex-carrot pot to the top of the bench shed after I’d picked the last carrots, and it seems I accidentally pick up a hitchhiker.
Luckily with all the rain my little worm buddy was still alive!
So I moved them to the new 4×4 bed and dig a little hole for it. Hope worm buddy enjoys it’s new home!
