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?

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.

Plague of the Grasshoppers

Once again I will try to grow some veggies and perhaps some posies before the flying hopping critters get to them. Previously I grew a fantastic crop of green lace. I had spent the winter in the greenhouse starting an entire vegetable farm from seed. My results were close to miraculous considering that due to apartment dwelling I hadn't touched a seed catalog for decades. All my seedlings were set out in their peat pots to grow happily in the garden. My little green wards grew and thrived until the enemy divisions arrived. They came in full force with horrific appetites.

My gorgeous artichokes were so laden with ants that they were not eatable. Neither boiling water, nor heavy shaking could rid these beautiful vegetables of the little black critters. I had to let the plants go to seed. They were only good for decorating the garden.

Then came hordes of grasshoppers. They ate everything in sight. Not a leaf was untouched. Everything became green lace. And there was no way to get rid of the creatures. I put out a birdbath trying to seduce our feathered friends to come to the rescue. No luck. I wished for a flock of seagulls but they didn't want to come 12 miles inland.

Plants roots were delicately nibbled by thousands of grubs that had found their way under the beds. And you know what came next---swarms of gofers. They do love those grubs. Now the garden is like a mine field --- but with ankle breaking holes instead of exploding devices.

I took the next summer off to recover. In the meantime weeds in the garden have grown taller than I am. Now I am getting back into the battle-- but am growing mostly in raised beds and pots--can't face that garden yet.