Garden Update

 The seeds that I planted directly into the raised bed are going crazy. Those were all ones I'd saved from last fall (beets x 2 types, chard, lettuce) plus a newer envelope of carrots. I didn't realize they'd do so well. If I'd known, I would have planted them more sparingly.

On the other hand, the seeds that were mostly old that I planted in little pots or 6 packs aren't doing nearly as much. Fingers crossed that more come up.

Last week, I brought seeds (beets x 2, chard, lettuce, celery) first to the library for the seed library and later to the garden swap at the library. I came home with a few tomatoes and some passion fruit. Yum!

This weekend, we transplanted some nasturtium from the community garden bed (where it was overwhelming the space) to a side of our yard. We'll see if the plants survived the journey, which was actually pretty funny. Dear husband carried the long nasturtium vines slung over his shoulder for the mile hike home! We sometimes get odd looks coming back from the garden. This time we truly deserved them.

We also moved a hydrangea that a friend gave me years ago from the pot it had been in to a border area. The loquat seeds that the kids and I started from neighborhood fruit May 2023 went into the front yard. I won't hold my breath on getting any fruit from those soon. They're about 5 inches tall. We also cleared out some succulents from a bed where I didn't want so many of those. I'll give them away. When next we have time and interest, I hope we'll plant some succulents that are currently in pots in that bed. 

Southern California is getting an historic amount of rain, which is probably good for the vegetables bed and eases the transplanting but bad from some homes, etc. Son's dorm has some leaks, the hot water died, and today classes were virtual. Our home has been fine, thankfully. I hope everyone is staying safe and relatively dry.

Planting more seeds

After posting about planting asparagus on Saturday, a friend warned me to be ready to treat the asparagus for the asparagus weevil and asparagus aphids. Perhaps I’ll soon regret planting them. On the bright side, they’ve survived 2 nights without being decimated by squirrels.

Sunday was another busy planting day, as a friend came through with milkweed seeds. Thank you, friend! I planted an entire flat of those (6x6=36 starts). In 6 packs, I also started alyssum and carnations (Chabaud, Dianthus Caryophyllus), plus the poppy yesterday. In little pots, I started sunflowers, three flower mix packets that I’d been given, and some Sweet William from a friend (Dianthus barbatus). Hopefully some of these will flourish for us. I'm hoping to plant flowers in the border around our redone retaining wall.

Fertilized, planting seeds, new asparagus

 Happy 2024!

The star jasmine climbing up trellises on either side of the garage was looking a little sorry on the west side. It has done this before in winter and fertilizing seems to help, so I gave some Osmocote to them plus other flowering shrubs and potted plants in the front yard.

I've been waiting for bare root asparagus to come to the nursery to get some for our new raised bed in the backyard. The nursery flyer said they were in, so I went there with my mom this week. Sadly, they sold out fast. I was able to get 2 small potted asparagus, which I planted as the first plants in the raised bed. The tag says "Asparagus Millenium" and "Aspargus Officinalis". I put an old container, missing it's top and bottom, as a plastic tube around the plants with wire spikes coming up through them in hopes of protecting the plants from critters. Fingers crossed.

I also bought a Scented Geranium called "Sugar Plum" hoping that it might discourage squirrels in the backyard. I'm thinking it will avoid direct squirrel damage but fear it won't deter them. I'd really like some vegetables to survive in our back bed but not sure how to achieve that exactly. One way I know will work is to enclose the whole bed in hardware cloth on a wood frame, as they did at the community garden. It may come to that, but I'd prefer to avoid that. Anyway, we planted the geranium plus I took some cuttings to root some more plants from it. We've also planted some vincas from the fall to edge the back yard.

In the new bed, I buried some old pumpkins, as I do each year with that line of miniature pumpkins. The first ones I buried were from fall 2022 and had been explored by animals, so I'm not sure how they'll fare. We're still enjoying the fall 2023 harvest inside, but those will go out in the coming months.

I was going to plant some milkweed seeds to get starts to plant around the yard this year. The ones I had last year, I never planted. I had caterpillars and butterflies, and sometimes lent them to a friend for her use in a school library. They were in flats and shuffled around for a long time such that few survived. So, I need a new batch. I got the flats all ready but discovered I'm out of milkweed seeds, so that will have to wait for another day. Instead, I started a few California Poppies.

Fruit Trees, Worm Castings, Milkweed

 I finally got more fertilizer for the fruit trees today, so I applied Gro Power to all the fruit trees. We also put worm castings from our very full bin on all of them last weekend. The citrus trees also received some Citrus Grower's blend. And the little, struggling mandarin got all of that watered in with a bit of kelp extract. I removed a couple fruit from that one, so it wouldn't put too much energy into production.

Speaking of production, this was a big year for peaches on our little tree, meaning it has 8 fruit! 3 of them have fallen off in the last couple days. They're about the size of an apricot and still look green. I'm hoping they'll ripen a bit on the counter, but I'm not confident these will be the peaches of my dreams. I remember a peach tree I planted in Maryland, gave about 2 fruit it's first year, but they were delicious. This isn't looking like that.

I've been having some fun this summer with the milkweed I planted last fall from seeds a friend gave me. Due to life chaos, those poor plants are still in the little 6-pack style pots (can I call them pots?) I planted them in. I hope to get them in the actual ground someday. This hasn't put off the monarch butterflies, who find them anyway, lay eggs and the caterpillars demolish the plants to a leafless state before we start the cycle over again. I haven't found a lot of chrysalises in the garden, as a friend of mine does. I'm not sure if they're walking away further than I'm looking, if I'm bad at finding them, or what, but this is a good start. I'm hoping it will be better once the plants are in the ground.

Soil sulfur, Gro Power, fertilizer

Happy Spring! Things have been so busy, but this week I made some time to give the trees a bit of love. The citrus all got a bit of soil sulfur as I think alkaline soil/water are the source of some issues for the citrus. I also applied Gro Power Plus to all of the citrus trees before scratching it in. The ornamental flowers got some Osmocote long acting fertilizer. 

We've had some of the best chard from the garden in the last month or so. And the peach tree is blooming up a storm. It loves all of the rain we've had this year in Southern California.

Iron plus slight acidifier to mandarins

 We've had a lot of rain lately by San Diego standards, and there's a bit more to come next week. The 2 smallest mandarins are not looking happy, continuing to have the yellowed leaves with dark spots. My Mom had a good look at one and suggested iron chelate. So, I gave them each some iron chelate and a little bit of Gro-Power Plus, which has humic acid, so might continue to gently acidify the soil. 

Fertilizer and Iron to Citrus

The citrus trees look okay but not fabulous. I asked my mom to look at them. She has lots of experience growing citrus, although that was in Arizona, not California, so we're not sure how transferable her knowledge is. She suggested that I try giving some iron chelate to the trees. So I put some around each citrus today. I also gave all of the fruit trees some Gro Power plus with humic acid. Let's see how they like this.