Early Winter 2011-2012

Feh, hardly any rain this month and, save for perhaps a few sprinkles later this week, there doesn't seem to be any on the horizon at all, certainly nothing like the storms we depend on here to get us through the year water-wise.
This is a real departure from the past several years in that rains have tended to last well into spring. Even though we can water our gardens through a dry winter, I've noticed from other dry years, especially back in the 80's, that no matter how much one waters, there is no substitute for several inches of real rain.
Hopefully things will turn and the second part of winter turns the tap on from the Pacific.

Late Fall 2011 Update

Checking in with a snapshot of the garden as we get closer to Winter. The garlic has been in the ground for a while and doesn't seem to be doing as well as it has in previous years. I've also planted them in rows 18" apart which now that's it's sprouted seems to be too large a width. Of the 3 varieties planted, one is hardly doing anything; I think that I may have planted them too deeply. I may go out tomorrow, look at those rows and then consider planting a few more between the rows as I've only planted so far half of what I have.

The parsley is still holding up well in the pots. It seems to help that I've been keeping them watered when it hasn't been raining (the past few weeks have been cold and dry - not a drop of rain for a while now and not much on the immediate horizon).

I may have left too many of the Brussels sprouts plants when thinning them after planting. I'll leave these as they are to see how they do and adjust spacing next time if I think it's warranted.

Sprouts are starting, we'll see how they develop.

This is the first I've seen of flowering on the satsuma since we planted it in March 2009. Hopefully a good harbinger as we had no fruiting at all in 2011.

We've gotten quite a few limes coming out now. I'd been unaware that Bearss limes tend to turn yellow and look something like lemons when they mature. They certainly taste like limes! Very nice flavor.

First Garlic Shoot

First garlic sprout, a true harbinger of winter in the Bay Area! This is one of those husky Russian cloves coming up to the light of the November sun in the garlic bed. The other two varieties are lagging somewhat but a couple of them are making their appearance just prior to the wet weather predicted for tonight and on Thanksgiving later this week.

Brussels Sprouts

I planted these Brussels sprouts last month from seedlings I'd started in August. I think that may have been a little late as the advice I see from Pam Peirce is to start them in July but nonetheless they seem to be doing pretty well. I had previously used this bed to grow the garlic last winter and then fingerling potatoes the summer prior to that. Although I thought I was pretty thorough in ridding any remaining potatoes there are still occasional volunteers that I've been pulling out.

We've had a couple of significant rains in the past few weeks so that hasn't hurt at all.

I finally got around to pulling the last of the baby carrots and beets from one of the beds yesterday. Laura's going to roast the beets over the next couple of weeks and pickle the carrots. Both should come in handy for Thanksgiving dinner next week.

Here is the seed garlic I purchased online and planted last Sunday, Nov 6. In the 4'x8' bed I have two rows of each of the 3 varieties 18" apart, 6 in all, with the cloves planted about 4" apart at depth of 1-2". In addition to the steer manure I worked into the entire bed I also added blood meal and bone meal to each row just prior to planting. I then fenced in the bed but the next morning found that something had worked its way into it. I'm not sure but I think whoever it was had themself a meal of a few of the Russian cloves as they are huge. I didn't want to dig everything up so I'll wait a couple of weeks to see what comes up before I make an effort to replace them as I've only used about half of what I purchased.

Planted left to right

Back to the Gardening Blog

Apologies for not keeping this up the past few months but I've been paying more attention to the cooking blog, still working the 9-5 gig (but only until Feb 2012!), and the past summer here was probably even colder than Mark Twain's summer in SF - I think it only reached 70 degrees once during all of August!
As a result the summer veggies didn't do so well, even with all of the promise they showed in July. We finally got some tomatoes but they were extremely reticent to come out and I can't blame them. And we got enough basil to make pesto a couple of times.

However...
I just planted some Brussels sprouts that I started from seed and planted the garlic for the winter. I'll post photos when they start to show. I also hope to get some salad greens started, we'll see how that goes.

Summer Vegetables progression

The latest photos:

Tomatoes. Some are almost ready for harvesting

Beans:

Fennel, beets, carrots and squash

Here's the first harvest: some beans and tomatoes:

Green Beans, Tomatoes, Harvested Garlic

Latest photos:

Beans flowering now, should be getting some pods soon.

Squashes starting to flower now too.

Carrots, beets and fennel.

Tomatoes. Lots of fruiting but nothing edible yet.

Finally the harvested garlic. Letting these 'ripen' on the porch before we braid them and start using them.

These are sorted to the 3 types of cloves I planted back last November.

L to R: Organic Purple Glazer, Organic Music, and Organic Georgian Fire.

Spring, Summer Vegetables, seedlings

Parsley getting there, I should be able to offload the seedlings to their own pots soon.

Beans progressing, I just planted a second batch of seeds in the open area of the box.

Closeups of the squash plants.

 Fennel, beets, carrots. (and plenty of purslane volunteers)

And here are how the tomatoes are looking now. The high temperatures of the early part of the week seemed to have kicked the fruiting into gear now.

The arugula is about to seed but some good lettuce heads still available for picking. Time to start harvesting the kale and chard.

Garden Status

I just took these.
Here are the beans.

From bottom: fennel, beets, carrots.

From top, greens, kale, chard and basil.

The tomatoes. Although not a normal year, it's still considerably better than last year. We've had a lot of rain this spring, but not nearly as much cold weather as in 2010.

Finally the garlic. Some the ones in the back may have rotted from the rains but most of them in the front seem to be fine, should be pulling them out within the next 3 weeks or so.

Spring 2011

Here are the latest photos of the garden. The weather has been unseasonably cool again this year but not nearly as cold and wet as last spring. Although not ideal it's been nice enough to not completely hamper the tomatoes' growth.

May 15

May 28

Unlike a lot of home gardeners I've talked to I don't ever use the stakes sold at garden stores for my tomatoes but use steel-reinforcing wire cages fashioned from mesh I got back in the 80's. I simply put them around each plant when I first plant them in the spring and train them to stay within the perimeters.

May 28

 I work well-rotted manure into the soil box prior to planting and water the plants about 3 times a week very deeply. As the raised beds are on top the soil, the roots are able to go well into the ground as the plants grow and the deep watering gets to their depths. I've had very good success with tomatoes the past 30 years even in our fairly foggy summer climate so it seems like a good system.

This bed contains lettuce, arugula, radishes, mesclun, lacinato kale, chard, beets and basil all growing from direct seeding. I do a light watering every day or so.

May 15

May 28

I started this bed with bean plants a couple of weeks, a mix of french beans and kentucky wonders.

I'm growing fennel on the left (not up yet) and more beets here. On the other end of the box will go one or two zucchini plants within the next week or so.

Greek oregano from last year that's returned in this barrel.

My old thyme pot and another Greek oregano plant.

Garlic planted last Fall just starting to brown for harvest.

The Bearss lime tree we planted in 2009 is finally starting to deliver. Hopefully it will reliably produce within the next couple of years for some Mexican dishes.

The Satsuma mandarin tree here left some fruit this past winter but way too bitter to eat. My hope is that it was either due to the abnormally cool weather in 2010 and/or due to the fact that it is still a youngster.

Since the rains in 2010 our lemon tree has gone bazonkers (as Regis Philbin might put it) and has been great for all kinds of lemony goodness in our cooking.

Last but not least for this week, the parsley seedlings have yet to show themselves. I've had good luck with seeding parsley since using a technique of soaking the seeds overnight in lukewarm water prior to planting. Can never have enough parsley around!