Tag: weather

Oh god this heat

~ Homo neanderthalensis ~ 3 Comments

Well after fog and rain and a lot of work, it’s officially summer I guess.

Arg my chard. Chard can grow well in the summer months but it’s really more of a fall veggie here, but I just had to have it and look what I’ve got. I managed to save it with just a ton of water- but still what a mess.

My one glorious pumpkin was also feeling the heat, as it’s leaves looked quite parched. The pumpkin itself looks marvelous though, it seems to be ripening nicely.

My lettuce also was going the way of the chard. It’s very close to the house and gets plenty of cover, but the heat and the morning sun was extremely hot. So more water in the fabric bed as well.

In good heat related news, my peppers are happy campers. They’ve been waiting for this heat, and it should mean that the peppers on the plant will ripen nicely.

Got to look on the bright side I guess.

The extraordinarily bright side of the evil hate star.

I can’t believe I’m saying this- I miss the fog!

Tomato tear out

~ Homo neanderthalensis ~ 3 Comments

So a little context to the madness that was today.

August in San Francisco! First week of the month it rains, second week of the month it’s hotter than fucking Hades. Oh and I’m 90% sure it was actually hotter than this- as the home thermometer was higher- this is just what the weather app said.

WHEEEEEE.

Anyways, today I had a task to do. Besides the task of watering everything that disagreed with the heat- my task was to harvest all the viable tomatoes, and then rip out the plants in pots.

Because just look at them!

Just a mess. The constant damp that was not in evidence today had really messed with the health of the vines. Not so much the ones in the beds, but the ones in the pots were draining so poorly they were practically falling over. (And in some cases, literally falling over.)

First things first I had to pick the good ones.

Eh not bad. You’ll note how many of those were sungolds, I’ll get back to that.

So my first victim was the Black Krim, which gave me a handful of really nice tomatoes, before succumbing to the damp. Will grow next year for sure- but in a bed. I had to chip away at the soil in the root ball to try to save as much dirt as I could, as I intend to use these pots as soon as possible. (No wasted space in my garden!) Still, I encountered another problem.

That’s a very full compost bin. I realized at this point I only had room for two dead tomatoes in my green can. So the tomato tear out has become a multi-week affair.

So that’s a defunct Black Krim and a defunct sweet100 down, two to go.

I’ll have to rip out the Fog and the Roma either tomorrow or next week.

BUT!

I’m going to make one last attempt to save the sungold. It’s just such a nice tasting tomato- and even through everything, the aphids and the weather- it stayed producing. maybe if I try to tie it up better? Maybe if I aggressively trim it? I’m going to make at least an attempt. I watered it well in today’s heat, and I’ll try to hit it with a little fertilizer tomorrow. Where there’s life, there’s hope!

But it’s not all doom and gloom in tomato-land.

These tomatoes are doing great. On the left is my lemon boy, and on the right is my “dancing with smurfs”, and because they’re in a well draining bed with afternoon sun, they’re thriving where the pot tomatoes are not.

So it’s not that I’m cursed- it’s just that once again, San Francisco weather is inconsistent and capricious and can hurt you as much as it helps you.

And maybe if I’m a little dizzy today it’s because ripping out tomato plants in 85 degree weather at 11 am is just about the craziest thing I’ve done all year.

Time to drink my weight in water and pass out in front of mom’s air conditioner.

After I eat some tomatoes of course!

August work part two: onion interlude

~ Homo neanderthalensis ~ 2 Comments

In warmer weather I could have gotten away with the back squash patch. We have not had warmer weather. Therefore the back squash patch was basically a mildew factory.

So I ripped it out, added some more soil and put down some neem seed meal fertilizer.

And put in some onion sets!

California reds and walla wallas. I’m fairly confident with the walla wallas as you can grow them year round here. I also like red onions and I suspect an onion with California in the name will grow well here- just a hunch.

The real question of course is- will they bulb? I think so. I hope so.

Anyways there is one problem.

Turns out I have more onion sets then I know what to do with!

I might have to start a fabric pot just for onions or put some in the front fabric bed… Anyways, too many onions is a good problem to have. And if they don’t bulb right I’ll just have fancy scallions, which is another good problem to have.

If the weather isn’t what you want, don’t curse the weather, just start growing other vegetables.

I mean, I curse the weather too- but maybe also grow other vegetables alongside the cursing.

The point is don’t just curse.

Except this day. This day was entirely curses. When you can’t see ten feet down the road because of fog in August and you wake up to a soaked garden because of rain in August- It’s curses all the way down.

Ah San Francisco weather. Can’t live with it- can’t live without it?

I could live without it.

 

 

Captain’s log: July 12th 2019

~ Homo neanderthalensis ~ 4 Comments

I went out this morning before work, expecting to have to water a few things.

Mother nature seems to have done that for me in the night. In July.

God I love San Francisco weather. Even when it screws me. I’ve got powdery mildew on nearly everything, and lord only knows what this will do to my tomatoes but hey, I got some nice pictures of water on my plants.

Here’s some raindrops on my corn. The corn is growing well, and corn can always use more water so I’m not very concerned at all.

My tree collard has rebounded, perhaps wrapping the roots in tin foil wasn’t so stupid, as it shows no sign of maggot infestation. It also looks pretty drenched.

It seems my succulent pot is hosting a spider convention, judging from the dewy spiderwebs. Oh well, they live in the back too.

The dill is growing well, and can use the water. So far this dill plant has been fairly successful, so my bad streak of failed dill plants has finally ended.

The sage has been a bit curious. That whole bed has been curious, as one of the newer Greek oregano’s beefed it, the blue basil in the bed isn’t doing as well as the one in the pot, and the sage is sprouting a ton of new growth from underneath, while having yellowing leaves up top.

The rain on top looks like snow, and well, maybe some extra water will be good for the bed.

It was time to water the potted tomatoes anyways so I’ll just hit them with some fertilizer tomorrow and call it a day. Too much water on the plant is only going to encourage the aphids, but if that’s going to happen, it’s going to happen.

Cucumber’s are thirsty thirsty plants so while the dreaded powdery mildew might strike the leaves, the cucumbers themselves are probably thrilled. I see you little Boston pickle, you’ll get picked soon, wait your turn!

California poppies are the honey badger of flowers. They don’t give a fuck. Too much water? Fine. Not enough water? Fine. No worries here.

Alas the pea plant is a bit of a mess. The really wet fog, to say nothing of the rain, has impacted not only the leaves but the pods, with the latest harvest being covered in powdery mildew. I had to scrub it off the pods, and soak them in a slight vinegar solution before I rinsed and stored them. Still edible! But very ugly. Nothing I can do though, except take a very pretty picture of a wet pea flower.

AH San Francisco- never change.

Late June plantings

~ Homo neanderthalensis ~ 2 Comments

The real advantage of gardening in San Francisco is that planting season rules are a lot like the pirate code.

Guidelines.

Guidelines that I cheerfully ignore. Sure I might get a failure or two (or three or four) but due to the weird late fall hot weather I might get some wild successes.

There are a few tricks with corn, and I know them from my parent’s wild corn successes when I was a kid.

One- corn is wind pollinated. This means that corn needs to be fairly densely planted so that it can pollinate it’s neighbors when it’s windy out.

Two- once the corn has been pollinated, it needs to be as warm as possible for the ears of corn to grow to full size and ripen fully.

The invisible point three is that they need a fair amount of water. The reason my parents stopped growing corn was that when I was around 8 we went into a drought. But our winter this year was so abysmally wet we were still having rain earlier *THIS MONTH* so I think I can get away with corn this year.

I think the late planting might actually work heavily in my favor as to point two.

Traditionally in San Francisco our hottest month was around August or September. Used to be it was a week or two we’d call “Indian Summer”. We’d have a mild early summer, and a hot late summer/early fall.

Then the last few years have gotten hotter and hotter. And last year we had sustained heat with only a few foggy days from mid-August to goddamn early November.

So yeah, climate change is real, and San Francisco’s weather patterns have definitely been altered.

That’s… really not a good sign for the overall health of the planet- but I’m growing vegetables in the climate I have not the climate I wish I had.

I can take advantage of this. I’ve already rolled the dice on late season tomatoes-now it’s corns turn.

Gardening is gambling.

If the last two years are any indicator my corn will be ripening this year at the best time.

As for it getting pollinated- I clustered one type of corn in a clump and the other type of corn in a right angle around the edge of the bed. The wind will do the rest, and as my garden is so windy I have to put all my herbs in ceramic pots so they don’t fall over- I think Mother Nature has that one covered.

Pictured, my rapidly growing apple mint, transplanted from a cruddy plastic pot that I had to wedge in between other pots to prevent a spill, into a proper ceramic pot that laughs in the face of wind.

In other less technically fraught planting news, I transplanted my green onion starts into their new home. This is a former pepper pot that now houses the dirt I saved from the potato bag I harvested. Got to save your good dirt! I figured since I seem to be all in on tomatoes this year and not into peppers, I might as well put the scallions here. I’ll probably seed another few six-packs tomorrow so I can just have perpetual green onions. One of the best things about San Francisco weather is that things like scallions can basically be grown year round.

Another vegetable that has an elongated growing season is any squash. These little beauties are spaghetti squash- which oddly I’ve never grown before. I’ve been growing them from seed, and now they’re going in opposite the pumpkin. As long as it isn’t raining you can grow squash here- they don’t like their leaves getting wet.

And lastly I potted one of my Roman mints. This was taken as a cutting from the dying thunderdome, and lovingly grown in a series of plastic pots. It has now graduated to a ceramic pot of its own. This means the mint thunderdome no longer serves a purpose and I can compost the twigs and re-purpose the pot. The mint thunderdome was an interesting experiment, but the roots of the mint plants are basically suffocating each other and its time has come.

Speaking of pirates- I have some new feline invaders. This is a lovely tuxedo cat that comes around from time to time, and is apparently female, not a tom as previously assumed, as she’s toting around two fat little kittens that were too fast to photograph from my window. I nearly tripped over them today while watering, and they cartoonishly flung themselves over the fence to get away from me.

Kitten season. Oh joy. If I can impart any lesson to my readers it’s this. Please spay and neuter your outdoor cats!

I’d rather not spend my time outdoors sneezing my head off.

Cauliflower woes

~ Homo neanderthalensis ~ 1 Comment

I had to pull another cauliflower today- and yeah, maggots on the roots. The plant came up really quickly too- like it was barely alive.

And that’s not even the only bug on the plants.

Ah good old cabbage moth. Or cabbage moth caterpillar anyways. They’re hard to see most of the time- this was the first one I managed to kill this year.

It gets worse.

In the folds of the leaves were an absolute mountain of aphids. I smushed what I could- and I’ll spray some horticultural oil in the morning.

Honestly after pulling the weakest one, I thought I’d just pull them all, and just chalk it up, maybe sow some spaghetti squash.

Only… the largest cauliflowers weren’t so weak rooted. A light tug was all it took to uproot the dying ones, but the big boys are firmly rooted.

I’m not stupid, I know there has to be maggots on these roots too- but maybe the neem oil pours I did last week worked in reducing their numbers? One or two maggots don’t hurt the plant- a zillion do. I just pulled a few of the Bok Choy for tonight’s supper and there was one maggot between them. So they’re around but not causing too many problems, except what they did to my turnips and what they’re doing to my cauliflowers.

I’m hoping with all the other cabbage family crops in the garden that this is the worst of it.

But they remaining cauliflowers do look good- if buggy.

Now the problem is… it’s going to rain again. Which might bring out more flies and more maggots.

Ah San Francisco. Growing things here is so tricky sometimes.

Making hay while the sun shines, or planting while I’m not being rained on

~ Homo neanderthalensis ~ 5 Comments

It’s super sunny today. Which is super weird, but I’m not looking a gift horse in the mouth- it’s time to work.

Look at those blue skies! It was incredible. I suppose spring has sprung. I posted earlier about my seedling disaster/adventures, but I had more work to do then just that.

Before I could even re-pot the seedlings I had to haul in the soil I got yesterday. It started raining so while it was dry enough for me to go to the garden center- it was wet enough for me to abandon the soil to the trunk of the car overnight because I didn’t want to get poured on.

Also gotten at the garden center yesterday was a packet of garlic chive seeds. I… love these and I’ve never seen seeds for them so I’m super happy I can grow them for myself now.

Boom. Garlic chive pot. It’s in the position for some sun, around where I put most of my full sun pot herbs. Such as my dill.

Look at that fab dill! Looks nice in the sun for sure.

Considering the break in the rain I also gambled on some early green beans.

These were my favorites from last year. I sowed 8 or so in the back bed behind the turnips.

I’m hoping they’ll take- the soil temperature is warm enough- these will be my early green beans if they sprout.

The salad greens in the old tomato pot are finally growing well- be a while to harvest of course and only a few seeds took- but I’ll get at least one salad before I put a tomato in for May.

Now here’s a mystery. There is some kind of funny mushroom/fungal fruiting body growing amongst my Swiss chard. It has a texture like pebbles. No doubt it’s growing because of all the rain- I’ll just have to rip it out when I rip out the chard.

I picked a few small carrots but the main harvest was this last big Joi Choi. The outer leaves went right to the compost pile, they were super slug eaten, but it was still a lot of Bok Choy for eating. I’m hoping it really is clear for a week plus- if it isn’t I’ll have to move the seedlings and maybe the garlic chive pot indoors for a bit.

There was some fun and games with a rogue earwig that hitchhiked inside on the Choy but I’m still trying to forget that.

I have a lot of weeding to do this week- got to take advantage of the dry weather. It’s probably gonna rain again late March and sprinkle into April, but hopefully it will be sprinkles not absolute pouring driving rain.

Spring seems to be here!