Fall Planting--Onions and Garlic

It still feels like summer here in Southern California with its hot and dry weather but it is still time to plant stuff for the fall. Today we are planting garlic and onions in some brand new raised beds that Nick must made over the weekend. It doesn't really get cold in this climate but we hope that it will be chilly enough over the winter for the garlic and onions to make a good showing. We also put in a bunch of new tomato plants and hope that they will produce through the fall and perhaps over the winter.  While the greenhouse is quite big there is never enough room for all the plants that we have. The banana plants take up so much of the space that we are considering keeping some of them outdoors for the winter months.

Green and Growing

The garden is coming along nice in spite of being started so late in the season. Of course, in this climate we can grow all year long and some of the more delicate plants can be wintered in the greenhouse. Corn is pretty high now--as tall or taller than I am but the flowers haven't shown themselves yet.  I do hope we will get a good crop as corn is very popular in our household. But we really don't know the first thing about growing sweet corn.

My Tumbling Tom tomatoes, both in the greenhouse and outdoors had blossom end rot last week and I sprayed them with blossom rot spray (calcium) and they are doing fine this week.  None of the other kinds of tomatoes displayed the problem.  I wonder why?

I just ate one of the first tomatoes (didn't notice which variety) and it tasted quite good but was very watery. This seems to be a character of tomatoes grown in this area.  California tomatoes just are not as good as tomatoes grown on the East Coast.

Load of load of squash naturally!! This is a hardy species and if nothing else will grown I know that we can count on the squash and zucchini to make a dramatic appearance.  Anyone have some good recipes? Anyone? Can I send you some squash in the mail?

Tomatoes in my garden- To Prune or Not to Prune

I was very happy to find the above video on YouTube as I was very concerned about how to go about pruning my tomato plants. I have no idea which plant is determinate and which are indeterminate, designations which determine pruning or not.

I am starting to get a bunch of green tomatoes and loads of yellow flowers. I have been pollinating the flowers with an electric toothbrush to help shake the pollen lose and get the ball rolling. Let's see if this action results in loads of delicious fruits.

Heads Up

It pays to be optomistic. We have veggies. Take a look at the beauiful lettuce in the raise bed in the picture above. I can't take all the credit. Nick has been working hard and has made the garden work. We have lovely squash and cucumbers. The garden was planted late this year but we can grow al year round in this warm climate so I hope it won't make any difference.

There are lots of tomato plants but few tomatoes. One lone bee wanders through the tomatoes.

Today I used an electric tooth brush to help polinate the tomatoes. Hope it works. Tomatoes need bumble bees to polinate the flowers and the toot brush pretends to be a bumble bee. Hope we were able to fool them.

Still Optomistic

Started the veggie garden late this year. Should have begun weeks before considering the warm climate and the greenhouse. Everything is either in containers or raised bed, which are a form of container. We had a gopher expert trap the gophers and he claims that we have seen the last of the little criters. I certanly hope so.

Started some tomatoes and squash from seed in the greenhouse and they grew quite quickly. The one in the picture above seems to double in size overnight. It's amazing how big the plant has gotten so fast. I don't even know what kind of squash it is. Hope it is a good one. This year I need to pick them when they are small. Last time I had so many and they took up half of the garden and I couldn't even find them until they were huge.

Tomatoes are a problem here in the Southland. We never get good ones here but we still try. Most of out tomatoes in the markets are from Mexico. I have lots of flowers on my tomatoe plants but few tomatoes. I ordered a tomato and vegetable blossom set spray from Burpees's and am looking forward to trying it.

This year I will attempt to grow veggies in the greenhouse. When do I plant seeds for wintering? I would to have tomatoes all year.

What Can We Do About the Moles

See the picture above? I didn't what you to think that I was making up a wild story about hundreds of moles and thousands of mole holes. See them for yourself. There is about half acre of these holes making it difficult to walk without turning an ankle. They ate all my vegetables in my garden last year. Veggies just disappeared like magic. The little beasts just pulled them down into their tunnels--entire beds of onions, radishes and all my root vegetables.

Until I can the entire propery dug up and have chicken wire put down and fresh top soil trucked in I have to grow what I can in containers.

Tales From An Optimistic Gardener: Murder of the Seedlings

Tales From An Optimistic Gardener: Murder of the Seedlings