Sunday, April 22, 2012

Happy Earth Day to YOU!

Well, today is Earth Day, and in San Diego, that means the San Diego Earth Fair in Balboa Park!  Check out one of San Diego's biggest public events, San Diego Earth Fair.  Today was awesome!  We got tips on everything from gopher control to seed swaps to workshops and classes and getting credits from the water department for rain collection systems like the one we built in our back yard!  Did you know that you can actually get a one time credit for up to $250 for installing a rain collection system in San Diego County?  How cool is that?!  For more information, check out San Diego Water Conservation.  In all, we came back with tons of great information and tips, and lots of great connections in the local community that we didn't know about before!  We are looking forward to putting some of this great networking to work in the Spring and Summer.

Our big project this week was replacing the peas and corn and building a bird defense system.  We took a week to sprout ahead with our peas and replant in the back garden.


With a little work and some more bird netting and other supplies, we successfully placed a barrier over the in ground garden to keep our winged freeloaders out.  Sorry guys, you have free run of the bird feeder, but the corn and pea seedlings are now off limits!  We also took time to plant a new crop of butterbean edamame which were just irresistable not to try growing!



For Earth Day, I just had to put to use a suggestion I read about recently from my gift subscription of Urban Farm Magazine (Thank you Joe McCarty, I absolutely LOVE this magazine!)... an herbal tea planter garden!  All of the herbs were purchased either at our local farmers market or our favorite local nursery, Walter Andersen.  Just completed getting everything in the planters by sun down.  We now have everything from Sweet Lavender and 4 kinds of Mint to German Chamomile and Lemon Verbena to Stevia and Bergamot!  Can't wait to get these to harvest and start making my own herbal tea blends here at home, so much fun!


Just for fun, check out what we saw growing in one of our neighbors front yards here in San Diego!  Those are Papaya folks!  How cool to find these growing in your neighborhood?  Can't wait to sign up for fruit and veggie trade with these neighbors!


That's all for this week folks!  Stay posted!  Those tomatoes will be ready to be placed in the ground in no time!  Happy Farming!

Monday, April 16, 2012

the great tomato rescue of 2012

Starting off with some good news, we have plenty of things coming up in the garden this week!


Yup!  The taters are up!  Something so cool about having potato plants growing, I don't really even know how to explain it.  We have all small and fingerling varieties that I seeded from actual spuds I bought at our local Farmers Market, put in a paper bag in the dark for a couple weeks until we got eyes growing, sliced up and put in the dirt and here's what you get after a few weeks of patience...


May not look like much right now, but trust me when I say we have big plans for these taters!  Check out this awesome article that I got from my buddy Beverly on how to get huge yield on potatoes!  We just added some peruvian blue potatoes to another couple of barrels out back to grow along with our other varieties.  Look at these beauties!


corn
Just in front of these, we have onions coming up in three different varieties, as well as a few other things in the yard garden.

onions

Squash
Dragon Tongue Beans


















We even have things growing indoors now!  Remember growin these on the window sill in the kitchen as a kid for salads and stir fry?

mung bean sprouts
We have been having a little trouble with the birds in the yard garden, so we will be attempting this same technique with the peas to give them a bit of a head start before giving them a protective little cage out in the mounds.  Who knew mocking birds loved pea seedlings to much!

Which brings us to our next big repair effort... the great tomato rescue.  Our seedlings didn't fare too well in our high tech greenhouses.  2 weeks after seeding, this is what we have...



That would be dirt and cow poop in falling apart egg cartons.  Lovely eh?  So, we had to get a little more fancy.  Turns out, those little peat pellets in the covered plastic trays really are the best way to go, along with a cool little device we found at our local nursery...

look how happy!

The 'Matenater 2000
24 hours after getting this setup together and the seeds in the peat, we already have sprouts!  How cool is that!  So, for tomato fans out there, trust me, the $40 you'll spend on this setup for your tomatoes and eggplants... completely worth the investment!

Last but not least... I of course got a few last minute seed packets in the mail over the past couple of weeks... trade from buddies way back home in Colorado and a few varieties of other plants I just couldn't resist... like watermelon radishes, honey bear winter squash and butterbean edamame!  Do you think Chad will be okay with finding another 6 by 12 foot plot plowed up and planted in the back yard when he returns from Michigan the second week of May?  :)  Surprise!!  Grass is so over rated anyhow.  Give me kale!!  And maybe one other variety of watermelon so he can't stay mad.  ;)

Monday, April 2, 2012

taking stock

Some have you have written asking just what all we have growing in our various gardens, planter boxes, pots and property here at the house.  So, to catalog it all for you, and for us, here is all that we have along with links to more information on each of our fruits and veggies that we are growing.  I hadn't realized we have so much!

Citrus, Tree Fruit and Berries
Buddha Hand Citron
http://www.citrusvariety.ucr.edu/citrus/buddha.html







Pacific Trailing Blackberry
http://www.fruit-crops.com/rubus.html




Melon Boule d’Or “Golden Perfection”
http://rareseeds.com/boule-d-or-melon.html

Melon Rich Sweetness “Tigger”
http://rareseeds.com/tigger-melon.html



Small Tomatoes
Tomatillo Ground Cherry “Strawberry Husk”
http://rareseeds.com/ground-cherry.html






Medium Tomatoes
Tomato Heirloom Green Zebra
http://www.seedsavers.org/Details.aspx?itemNo=443





Large Tomatoes
Tomato Orange King
http://www.territorialseed.com/product/1213/92






Potatoes, Carrots and other Root Vegetables
Potato Swedish Peanut Fingerling
http://www.cooksgarden.com/vegetables/potatoes/potato-swedish-peanut-fingerling-prod000458.html


















Legumes
Snow Pea Oregon Sugar Pod II
http://www.territorialseed.com/product/1016/393






















Late Spring/Early Summer Planting
Squash Table Queen
http://www.seedsavers.org/Details.aspx?itemNo=244





Late Summer/Fall Planting
Parsnip Harris Model
http://sustainableseedco.com/Harris-Model-Parsnip.html