Worm castings to fruit trees. White fly.

 Our worm bin wasn't draining well, so we did an impromptu clean out of it. We had a lot of tea all at once, which we put on the back fruit trees (peach and pomegranate). We used the worm castings on the front fruit trees (citrus and apple). The back trees have been the happy recipients of extra buckets of water this summer. These are the buckets that we fill while running hot water to start a shower. This is prompted a lot of new growth in the peach with it's first ever, most progressed fruit. There is one single peach on it, that we're hoping we (and not a squirrel or rat) gets to eat. There's also a yucca near the peach that is having a growth spurt, but that's more problematic as it is so tall now that it's top leaves are in danger of shredding the awning over the back window. Also, it is near a walkway which the sharp leaves are now too near. It is a very odd place for this yucca, but it was here when we moved in. Soon, I may have to saw off large branches of it. My mom, a avid desert gardener, tells me that the terminal end should root well but she does not think the proximal end will regrow unless it is already at a self-proclaimed branch. I'm keep this in mind when I get out the saw. For now, it is too darn hot to consider stressing out the yucca like this. California is having a record heat wave, plus wildfires (thankfully none immediately near us), plus the coronavirus pandemic. 2020 is a rough year. 

We keep harvesting tomatoes and kale every weekend and are enjoying them quite a bit, although the tomatoes are petering out now.

I recently saw the white fly is back on the valencia orange. I think they don't mind the heat. When it is a little cooler, I'll pay more attention to that issue.

White fly update, Compost, Citrus Fertilized, COVID19, Social Distancing, Remote work/learning

To update on the white fly I'd been battling last fall on the citrus...  I continued to apply worm tea to the affected citrus, pouring some over the leaves, but mostly putting on the surrounding soil. I also rubbed the white fly off the leaves 1-3 times per week. Then came winter, if you can call it that in San Diego, and the problem has resolved (for now.)  This is about what I recall happening when I had white fly on an ornamental potted plant near our front door a few years ago. I'm calling it a success.

With the COVID19 pandemic, our work, school, and sports lives have been drastically altered. Last weekend seemed like an excellent time to work in the garden, giving us exercise and fresh air.  Our neighbors had the same idea, so we even had some social time, at an appropriate distance, of course.

We rotated the worm bin, harvesting the bottom layer and spreading it on the fruit trees and some potted plants. Next we harvested the compost from the regular compost bin, which we'd stopped adding to about a month ago in anticipation of this. We spread this on the fruit trees as well. This time we fully emptied the bin because we had to move its location in preparation for redoing the back retaining wall that separates our garden from the canyon. Once in its new location, we added back larger compost pieces that needed more time from the sifting and added the contents of the trash can that had been serving as a temporary compost receptacle. So we're ready for the next compost cycle.

Those worms are funny. It is hard to tell how many are in there until you really move the contents. This time we were pulling up handfuls of worms!

Both last week and this have been rainy, which will be helpful for working the compost and fertilizer down into the soil a bit.  The canyon is looking green.

We also added citrus fertilizer to those trees. We're all ready for a bountiful 2020 fruit harvest!

For fun, here are some other spring garden pictures.

I haven't planted the vegetables I'd have liked to at the community garden yet. When the rain pauses, I hope to go to both harvest and plant. With trying to space out grocery trips due to "social distancing" measures (there's a new term that has now become mainstream), I'll be grateful for whatever vegetables I can produce.  Food supply and the ability to access it are a concern to me. Stores have empty shelves due to the sudden demand.  And going to stores with the crowds wishing to get food is risky due to how very crowded they are. My last outing was on Friday 3/13 for food and the stores were nuts. Trader Joe's freezer section was so empty that I took a picture.

I'm thinking about how to extend the food we have to minimize trips to the store. We will run low on produce, meats and dairy first. We've been eating more beans to supplement our meats in the protein arena. Thankfully, we have a lot of beans.

In the meantime, DH. is working remotely from home and the kids are doing optional class assignments from home. This large house suddenly feels smaller with all of us here full time and trying to do tasks that sometimes require a quiet atmosphere, yet each needing to talk, too (like with DH's many audio/video calls). Funny tidbits from that include one power-career colleague in his wife's craft shed taking calls from a stool and another on a sofa next to an enormous teddy bear that dwarfed her.

DD, in 5th grade, is receiving daily emails from her teacher with suggested activities. There's a google doc where students are reporting to each other and the teacher about what they're doing. They've also been encouraged to email the teacher (journal style) about their day, to keep them writing. Some of the emails to parents have suggestions for schedules and multitudes of daily tasks, but so far they feel scattered and we don't have one cohesive plan. Which of course is difficult to do when things seem to change by the hour. 3/13/20 Friday is when they announced our schools we begin a 3 week closure on Monday 3/16/20, so this is only beginning. We receive daily updates from the district. Last night's said there'd been hints from the governor that schools may be closed for the duration of the school year. I wonder if they will get true remote classrooms in place. Some students do not have devices or wifi. The devices could be checked out. But how to get wifi to everyone? I know some cities have wifi networks all around town. This shows a weakness of our not having such a network. Public libraries are, of course, closed, so there went the default public internet access option.

DS, in 9th grade, has received an avalanche of suggested activities from his English teacher and about nothing from Math, Spanish or PE. On our own, we found an app to help teach Spanish, which both kids have been playing with. There is an assessment for skill level, but it placed DS in second year Spanish at the same level as DD, who is a true beginner. So the assessment isn't what you'd wish for. The big void coming from PE itself is odd, considering that DD's 5th grade teacher is "assigning" exercise to her class. Also, his PE had recently created personal fitness plans, which would be easy for the teacher to point them to. Like... how about working on your fitness plans and modify them as needed for home use?  The teacher could also easily suggest 30 minutes of exercise a day and ask the kids to email in what they did.

White Fly Continued

I get the feeling, this will not resolve quickly, but I'm still after it.  We added more worm tea to the Mandarin and Valencia and rubbed some white fly off each.  We found a couple leaves that I think we'd missed before due to the density plus a few repopulated sites.

Worm castings and tea for white fly

I added more worm tea to the Mandarin, worm castings under both the Mandarin and Valencia, and rubbed some white fly off each.  There was much less today, but I'd just done a lot of physical removal 2 days ago.

White fly on the mandarin

This afternoon I notices a bunch of white fly covering the undersides of leaves on the mandarin tree, which is still very small. Some growth new this autumn was curling and unhealthy. There were small patches of white fly also on the nearby valencia. Daughter and I spent most of an hour rubbing off white fly by hand and rinsing the leaves. When we finished, I poured worm tea over the entire tree and into the soil. Hopefully this helps turn the tide.

Harvested Worm Castings

At home, we harvested the worm castings from our vermicomposter.  I used the castings in a pot near the front door that had some white fly problems, plus gave some to the roses, apple tree, valencia, and peach.  Giving the worm tea regularly to the roses seems to keep at bay the bugs that want to eat it.  I also gave a good dose of fish emulsion to the struggling bougainvillea on the west side.

At the community garden, I continue to harvest kale, tomatoes, yellow crookneck squash, and green beans.  I really should remove the tomatoes to make room for fall planting, but I hate to do it when I'm still getting fruit off them.  Having put in more chicken manure, steer manure, and bags of coffee grounds recently really gave things a second wind.  The yellow crookneck was from a mixed seed pack that in theory had zucchini and pattypan as well, but none of those came up.

Worm Bin

DH turned over the worm bin this weekend, putting the worm castings in the two mandarins, the back lemon, and in the North garden bed.  The smaller mandarin isn't looking too happy.  I need to check its water.