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.

July 10, 2015

The past few weeks have a bit more normal for the area - inland spots have been up in the 80's-100's and high 60's-low 70's around here. Nighttime temperatures are now hovering in the high 50's-low 60's. It's still breezy most days but it seems to have calmed down considerably overall.

Now I think that the tomatoes having done rather poorly is due to overwatering on my part in addition to the cooler temps in May and June. Since this is the first time I've used drip irrigation I had not realized just how wet the settings I had was getting the soil for that bed. The winter crops all depended upon the tubing but I used emitters with shrubler ends to deliver water to the tomato plants and way too much at that. I've backed off from 3 days@20 minutes to 1 day. I still want to deep water them but I guess I need to let the soil more time to dry out. Between the warmer temperatures and the cutback of watering frequency, the plants seems to be reviving. A lesson for next year.

Box 1

The garlic is still a bit green, I guess softneck varieties take longer to die back. Due to the consistency in the watering, I've only come across one bloom. The heads seem to have reached a pretty good size from what I can tell. 

As for the greens, it seems that I hadn't prepared the soil for the seeds well enough. This time I watered it thoroughly before seeding and covered them with bird netting. When I misted before I didn't realize that the water was only going down a very little. When keeping it moist now, I make sure that the water has really penetrated. This works a lot better.

Box 2

I think I may have been overwatering the squash as well. I've cut back on it and am keeping better track of the soil moisture. The beans are using the tubing and are starting to get in gear also after a slow start. I've staggered the seeding over 3 times 3 weeks apart but they all are coming up more or less together anyway.

Box 3

We're getting fruit but as mentioned above, it's not nearly what we've had the past two years. We'll see how it goes.

Box 4

 The tarragon was doing ok but starting to get straggly and somewhat used to its corner. Since I really don't use much and the plant in the container was doing well, I pulled it and moved it into its own pot.
I also potted the second chives all to make room for parsley which I use a lot. I also seeded more cilantro and dill which is already starting to come up. The oregano really doesn't seem to like this box although the marjoram is doing fine. Maybe also overwatering? I'm keeping an eye on them, maybe it just takes a while for it to adapt.

Box 5

I pulled the remaining chard and kale and seeded lettuce, mesclun, and radishes. The peppers seem to have really felt the cool temps this spring and the summer is nowhere near as warm as the past two were so back to normal for them. Maybe they will rebound if the summer and autumn warm up. The basil and carrots are doing fine though seem to be moving slower than I would have expected them to.

Citrus

The lime, although still alive, really is not looking well at all. Maybe it takes some time for it to adapt to the space. The lemon is thriving with a lot of fruit and the mandarin seems to be doing well. I really hope we get some decent rain this coming winter.

Containers

June 13, 2015

May kept to form the entire month with much cooler temperatures than normal and sustained breezes of 10-20mph just about every day, not the best conditions for growing summer vegetables, especially tomatoes and peppers. We even had measurable rain the past week, about .1-.2" on Wednesday. I guess I was rather spoiled from the past two summers when the tomato plants had already been well established and busting out of their cages by this point, photos below illustrating the comparison to this year. Back then we had calm winds with consistently warm daytime and nighttime temperatures, almost an entirely different climate. Such is the life of an urban farmer.

It looks like things are about to turn around though with temps into the 80s most of the coming week. Hopefully the plants can perk up from the warmth.

Box 1

The lettuce, mesclun, beets, and radish seeds I planted last month have germinated only sporadically and I think I've determined why. First it might be that the cats, Isis especially, in their zeal to get over to the garlic so that they sleep in them, may have trampled them as the pattern would suggest it. It may have also been due to birds and/or the fact that the ground wasn't moist enough, either during seeding or germination, to support growth. I added a bird net formatted like a cage on stakes to handle cats and birds, moistened the soil well, and have been keeping it moist but not too wet which seems to be yielding better results now. Hopefully by next post the photos will show a row of crops here.

The garlic is getting close to maturity. Once the tops have completely died back I'll harvest them, probably the first or second week of July. And no flower stalks have appeared either, which is testament to the regular watering, I think.

Box 2

I removed the remaining beets and we got a very nice yield, very tasty in salads now that we've roasted them all. The first planting of beans are coming up and one shoot has already appeared from the second planting, which was Tuesday June 9. The squash are doing ok, we've pulled three of the Romescos for dinner last week. I plan to keep on them so as to not let any get to the size of baseball bats and basically inedible. 

I'm curious to see how I can handle the large growth in one of these larger beds this year.

Box 3

above, tomato plants today in 2015

below, tomato plants on June 7, 2013

As the photos show, 2013 had superior growth by the beginning of June which held up to an amazing yield by time of harvest. This was also the case in 2014 which yielded even more fruit. Hopefully a change in the weather can save the guys this year as we go into summer. A visual demonstration of how a cold May (high 50's-low 60's daytime, high 40's-low 50's night) can stifle tomatoes. Peppers have been hurting as well.

Box 4

The herbs are doing ok. I've trimmed back the oregano, marjoram, and thyme flowers, drying them in bunches. The next seeding of cilantro and dill seem to be taking considerably longer to grow than the ones I planted in January had taken. I'll have plenty soon enough but it's looking like January had much better growing conditions this year than May had - strange, very strange.
Neither of the two parsley plants growing now have never really taken off, it may be that they've been too crowded. I'm going to remove the extra chives plant and see if that helps one of them. Maybe fertilize them a bit too.

Box 5

I pulled the celery. They'd done well but just grew too much and got too old to be of much use. We just don't use enough celery and it takes up too much space to make it feasible for growing. It was an interesting experiment, though. 

The peppers are hurting for the same reasons as the tomatoes are, just too damn cold this Spring. The beets have done very well, the carrots are growing, and it looks like the basil should do fine with a bit more warmth.

Containers

Still getting away with only one watering a week. I'll probably have to increase that if the average temperatures start to rise.

Persimmon tree

We've determined that the soil for the persimmon is fine - they like 6.5 to 7.5 pH and the soil it sits in is just a tad over 7.0. The lighter leaves at the top are not necessarily a bad sign as apparently that is rather common for new growth. As long as the fruit stays on, we should be good there. 

The tree has been taking a lot of buffeting from the persistent winds, though. It sounds like that will help strengthen the tree over the long term, we'll see. 

Lemon tree

The lemon tree is doing very well - a large amount of good-sized fruit. The lime tree by my office is quite weak though. I'll stay with it through next winter and see if it ever gets established. It's not in a premium location, though, so if I have to replace it, I may re-think where it should go.