September 10, 2015

We've been going through a typical Bay Area September heat wave this week with local temperatures reaching the 90's the past few days. The high that's caused it is slowly moving east so that it will come back down to normal in a couple of days. However since the high kept the humidity down so low and the ocean temperatures have dipped below 60°F for the first time in months, the early morning temperatures have been quite a bit cooler, mostly in the mid to high 50's.


Box 1

I planted a 6 pack of broccolini plants that are growing well. However one of them, on the southwest corner, has been plagued with aphids. As a result, the leaves started to curl in where the aphids were congregated. I soaped the leaves which seemed to stall or kill the aphids with a light spraying to remove them. The leaves seem to have rebounded.

The new seedlings are progressing nicely: lettuce, mesclun, beets, raddichio, arugula, radish, chard, and kale. Following the instructions on the seed packets, instead of sowing the raddichio and kale seedlings in a row I sowed them in spaced clumps; should be interesting to see how these turn out.

Box 2

The squashes didn't do all that well and are ready to go kaput now. As I mentioned, my watering technique with the drip irrigation was a learning exercise, as with the tomatoes and beans. Next year I should have a much better handle on growing summer vegetables. Also noted is that the Romano beans hit their peak very quickly. Leaving them on the vine too long results in thick pods with full beans that make them too fibrous to eat. And they pretty much mature out of view. I really need to keep an eye on them as they come out much more quickly than I anticipate.

Box 3

Ah, the tomatoes. The plum and Genovese have done not too badly everything considered. The Dirty Girl, Sun Gold, and the Siberian tomatoes have been big disappointments. The Cherokee Purple yielded a few good fruits but the plant hasn't held up too well.

Box 4

Some of the herbs have been doing surprisingly well: the Mexican oregano, basil, sage, thyme, and marjoram have all been healthy. The oreganos are still struggling, the parsley, cilantro, and dill are so-so but still going.

Box 5

In the photos, the summer sun has dipped back down behind the house in the morning. The lettuces I seeded have all germinated, the previous ones have done very well. The fennel seedlings have germinated, the peppers are doing ok as are the carrots and basil. Water is the key.

Citrus

Using the new water bags have really helped to resuscitate the persimmon and lime trees. The lime has even been producing blooms and now considerable growth. Looking now like the lime will eventually thrive, especially if we get anything close to normal precipitation this winter. 

August 22, 2015

Status quo from the last post. In general I think I'm starting to get the hang of the new layout, the raised beds and drip irrigation.

Box 1

I 'rebooted' Box 1. Once I harvested the remaining garlic, I harvested what was useable of the beets, arugula, and greens. I planted the greens (mesclun and lettuce) too close to the arugula so they never really had a chance to thrive much. The arugula had pretty much bolted but there was still enough to salvage for a few salads.

After completely turning over all of the soil in the bed, amending it with more Local Hero, and top dressing with steer manure, I planted several broccolini from plants. I also seeded beets, arugula, lettuce, mesclun, radishes, rainbow chard, and Lacinato kale. I was careful to moisten the soil ahead of time and follow package direction on depth and distance for the seeds. I reused a previous 12" width of drip line after clearing it out. However I plan to hand-water the bed until things get established and will eyeball the progress of the seedlings before letting the drip take over. It looks like there are some indications of early rains and I'm hopeful of the El Niño projections helping to steer some storms this way this Autumn so maybe the drip won't be as crucial this winter as it was last year.

Box 2

Beans are starting to yield pretty well. The squash is meh though. We've gotten some but overall rather disappointing. Probably the same issue with my being unfamiliar with the drip and how to make best use of it.

Box 3

The tomatoes, feh.

Box 4

The herbs have been doing well, with extra hand-watering the thyme and oreganos are coming back and starting to thrive.

Box 5

With the early morning temperatures continuing to consistently bottom out above 60°F, the peppers have had a chance to do well. We've had a couple of harvests of padróns and the sweet Italians are reaching full size. I separated out the Jimmy Nardello seedlings but it's probably too late for them to rebound. The chard and beets never really grew but the two rows of lettuces have done well. I just added a row of fennel seeds to perhaps have something from them by Thanksgiving. Carrots and basil continue to thrive.

Trees

We finally realized that neither the persimmon nor the lime ever got enough water this season so I discovered the bag method of adding extra waterings between the drip stations' schedules. In addition to the one deep watering from the ground spikes, I'm adding a filling of bags for each of them twice a week extra. There are some signs it's having a beneficial effect on them. Hopefully this can help them through to winter rains when they could really get some help.

August 7, 2015

Lessons learned this year from the new set up using the higher raised beds and drip irrigation. When I first set a schedule I just followed the schedule used by the landscape folks on the yard - 3 days at 20 minutes per station as I had no idea how to start (we had to modify that considerably once the plants had a few months to get somewhat established and once we realized how much water that used - quite a bit!). 

Having been through the growing season just over a half year now, I know now that we simply hadn't been giving the raised beds enough water overall. The old beds were only a foot above the ground level which allowed the plants with deeper roots, i.e. the tomatoes, squashes, etc., the opportunity to reach the indigenous rich, clay soil in the ground. Now that the beds are much higher off the ground, I need to supplement the soil in the beds, a sandy loam we truck in, with more nutrients and more water than what 20 minutes of drip supplies.

I've started supplementing the smaller plants like lettuce, peppers, herbs, carrots, beans, etc. with some hand watering during the week as needed and they've been responding quite well. As for the tomatoes, I've pretty much given up trying to save them as we still need to get our landscape plants established, it's too late in the year and we simply can't use more water than we already use due to the horrific drought. Hopefully we'll have at least a normal rainfall this winter. All indications (92% probability) are that a strong El Niño is coming so hopefully we'll get some relief for next year. If so, then the drought-tolerant landscape should have established once next year's growing season comes around. My plan then is to go back to the hand-watering I used to use to get an idea of how wet I need the soil to be. Once I have a good idea from that, then I'll start up the drip to emulate the conditions I've set. I'm thinking it will be considerably more than what it was this year. Since the yard will need much less water we should be able to accommodate the raised beds with more water. God help us if we have another dry or drier winter. We're already seeing significant stress on the trees around here and it's not clear how many of them will be able to survive these conditions much longer.

Given all of this, we're starting to see some nice yields finally. Evening temperatures have been pretty high over the past several weeks (lows ~62F°)with some normally warm days as well (70's).

Dirty Girl tomatoes - Romano beans

First garlic harvested

Box 1

The only garlic I could find last year was California Late White. Now I know why it's called 'late'. Although the tops have pretty much died back, the stalks are still quite green inside and the cloves have yet to completely form. The photo above shows a stalk I pulled a couple of weeks ago. When I cut the bulb off, the stalk was still green; most of the cloves set in the bulb but not all. I plan to pull some more over the next few days to see how they've progressed. 

The arugula took over the other side of the bed shading the mesclun and lettuce thereby preventing them from growing much. The beets on the end are growing but the greens have quite a bit of mildew.

Box 2

We're in the height of summer; the beans are finally starting to produce and the squash is looking a lot healthier now. The extra hand-watering seems to be paying off.

Box 3

Ah well, hopefully I'll have better luck with tomatoes next year. The Purple Cherokee at the southeast corner of the bed seems to have developed a nasty fungus with the inner stalks starting to starve out. Since this bed won't be used for tomatoes again until 2019, the fungus should die off by then.

Box 4

The herbs are responding well to the extra hand-watering, the parsley especially but even the oreganos, dill, and cilantro.

Box 5

The peppers, especially the padróns, are finally kicking in. The seeded Jimmy Nardellos never developed but they may still have a chance with some extra TLC. Basil is fine, carrots are kicking in, the latest seeding of lettuce is coming along nicely. Again it's the extra watering that seems to be helping here.

Containers 

I'm still down to watering only once a week, feeding once a month, and everything's surviving. The mint could use some pruning, the tarragon is fine as are the oreganos and sages.