July 24, 2015

The weather has settled into a normal pattern for July except for warm evenings like the past couple of years and the unending, constant 12-15 MPH winds. The days are about 65-75F°, the early mornings bottoming out at about 62F°, noticeably higher than what used to be normal, about 55F° with significantly more fog.

Now, as opposed to last post, I think the tomato situation is due to under-watering them. I've still much to grasp about drip irrigation, specifically how long and how often a schedule is required to match what I'd always done with hand watering. The depth of the raised beds might have something to do with it. The old beds, being only 1' above the ground soil level, offered easy access to the rich soil indigenous to our area. Although it tends to be quite clayey, it has a lot of nutrition. In the higher beds, the plants only ever have access to the soil I've brought in - a much sandier loam with perhaps less nutrition, I'm not at all sure.

Box 1

I dug up a few garlic bulbs and to my surprise they have yet to develop cloves. Cutting into one of them showed that they are still quite green inside and they have not yet matured though the appearance of the leaves would seem to indicate that they have. I've not grown California late whites before so I guess 'late' would indicate something considerably later than I'd expected. 

The greens are still growing slowly though well.

Box 2

The squash are starting to look better. I'm not sure if they are getting enough water though. I have shrubblers on them, as with the tomatoes, but still figuring out how well that works. I may try hand-watering next year to start things in general, especially if we get anything close to a normal rainfall this coming winter.

The beans are looking not so great either so I've decided to start hand-watering them at least once a week to supplement the drip schedule of 3 times at 20 minutes.

Box 3

The plants are yielding tomatoes but they still look like shit, the yields are significantly less than normal, nothing close to the past couple of monster years. Chalking this year up to a learning curve.

Box 4

I've removed the last old parsley and cultivated the soil around the new ones. The new ones seem to not be growing all that robustly though still alive. The stalks in the center of the marjoram have died back so I pruned that all out. Apparently marjoram has higher water requirements than do oregano plants so more water for them too. The two oreganos look like crap and the thyme is staying at status quo. The one large basil, the sage, and the Mexican oregano, on the other hand, have all been doing well.

Perhaps this box needs more water than I thought also.

Box 5

The padron peppers seem to finally be feeling it. The warmer overnight temperatures have certainly not been unkind to them. The Jimmy peppers from seeds are still stalled. The carrots and basil are coming along nicely. The new greens on the west end of the box are progressing ok.

I removed the last of the beets today as they had grown as much as they were likely to and I thought the extra room for the other rows would be good.