Jewish philanthropist accuses black pastor of anti-Semitism | Community Briefs | Jewish Journal

Jewish philanthropist accuses black pastor of anti-Semitism | Community Briefs | Jewish Journal

Great Tips from Great Readers

Great Tips from Great Readers

Back again and still Optomistic

I've been away from this blog for as long while so Google closed it down and I now have it back online once again. This past summer I had loads of tomatoes from the previous years' plants but I have not been happy with them.  I wish I know which tomatoes are best for growing in the San Fernando Valley.  My soil is really bad and I have to continually add compost and whatever to it.  We have little or no rain in the summer and it garden has to be hand watered.  I try to keep it as organic as possible and encourage birds to come and eat the bugs and other critters.  Back to the tomatoes--I have not liked the way any of them tasted--either too sour or too thick skinned.  All very disappointing. I have not tried growing any in the greenhouse this winter.  Maybe I will next year if I can decide on a good variety. I would be very happy if I could get a good crop of tomatoes and cucumbers. I hope to start them in  March or maybe earlier in the Green house.

Right now it is early January and my garlic is coming up nicely and I hope it does not get too cold for them I have quite a few beds of garlic growing-- hard neck and soft neck, early, middle and last season so I hope that they will last through the summer. I need to find out when is the best time to fertilize them.  We are having unusually cold and wet weather here so I don't know how this affects garlic plants.  I did notice that some of the leaves are getting a bit  yellow so that is bothering me.

My Onions are Bolting

Do I Harvest Onions Now When Some Are Bolting?

My onions are not falling over yet so they are not actually ready to be harvested, except if  I want some giant scallions, which is what the look like now.  Giant white and giant red scallions.  But they are beginning to flower which is not a good sign. I suspect that this is the result of the strange mix of hot and cold weather that has been confusing all of here here in the San Fernando Valley. It has been suggested that a different variety of onions perhaps should be planted.  I wouldn't have the faintest idea which varieties would be better or if any other would perform better with these weather fluctations.

 Maybe the flowers will provide me with more seeds for this next year.  I hear that some varieties actually have flowers that have little bulbs.  That would be fun to see.

Winter Gardening

 Too Cold to Save the Cucumbers

Cucumbers, tomatoes and all the rest were doing well and in this climate should have survived to give us a nice crop.  Unfortunately, weather patterns have been changing and not necessarily for the better. It's either too hot, too cold, too dry or too wet.  Something is wrong here. Don't you think?
Well, anyway we had a couple of  nights of cold and frost here killing off the cucumbers and tomato plants.  Strawberries, lettuce, cabbage, onions and garlic seem to be okay but the lost cucumbers really hurt.  The ones we had this summer were so very delicious and we were hoping to get more. Those cucumbers brought back memories of days when fresh vegetables abounded and were bursting with taste.  We don't find those veggies anymore. Wish we could remember which seed packet gave us those special cucs. Now we start new plants, this time in the greenhouse.

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?