Gardening! Summer 2013 Edition!

Before we could garden we had to clean up...
Before we could garden we had to clean up…

Our new place has its problems, we’ll talk about those some other time, but it does have a nice backyard with multiple garden beds. But before the backyard was nice we had to clean it up. I think the previous tenants only used the backyard for drinking booze and the beds for ashtrays. So, nature had been allowed to do its own thing. Meaning the beds were full of weeds as was most of the landscaping… It took a good 12 to 20 hours cleaning up the yard before we could begin planting grass and vegetables.

Just a small sample of the weeds that had to be pulled and dug up before we could get started.
Just a small sample of the weeds that had to be pulled and dug up before we could get started.

This garden is almost solely the work of D. She has spent the past week working on the yard and beds while I was at work. But, the work has really paid off the backyard looks amazing and the beds look great as well. (Thanks D!)

Turning over the soil in the other bed
Turning over and working in new soil in the one bed
The bed with vegetables planted
The bed with vegetables planted
IMG_5297
The other bed with vegetables planted. Also note along the fence more vegetables

We’ve got banana peppers, jalapenos, summer squash, eggplants, green beans, melon, tomatoes, and okra. We’re hoping to get some pumpkin in as well. Our big worry right now is that this week it’s supposed to get up to 110 degrees Fahrenheit this week. That is not typical for this time of year in Davis and our transplants might not survive the heat… We’re doing everything we can to try and mitigate the heat. Including watering up to three times a day and covering the beds in straw to reduce evaporation.

We’re keeping our fingers crossed!

Spring Garden 2012: All Done

Bye, bye garden!

Last week we said goodbye to our garden. We didn’t pull it all out as the tenants moving in wanted to have a garden and they’ll be lucky enough to harvest even more cucumbers, tomatoes, and basil if the weather stays nice and they water and tend to it. Sadly, the beans were over run by the cucumbers. Our lone heirloom tomato plant has also started growing fruit, though all of it is still green. The last few weeks have been tough with packing and getting ready for the big move; they weren’t easy on the garden either an aphid and white fly infestation choked out our zucchini plants:

The looked worse when they were in the ground!

Luckily, the aphids and white flies restricted themselves to the zucchini; the tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplant, cucumbers, and basil are all doing fine:

Cucumbers climb up the eggplant cage

In fact, three to four times a week we’re harvesting four or five lemon cucumbers, an english cucumber, and a handful of cherry tomatoes

What are last few harvests looked like. In the end we were giving lemon cucumbers away to everyone we knew!

We’re going to miss gardening while we’re here in San Diego but it gives us something to look forward to once D’s work is done here and we move on!

2012 Harvest:

Zucchini: 20
Tomatoes: 70+
Bush Beans: 12
Cucumbers: 30+
Eggplant: 3
Basil: 60+ leaves

Spring Garden 2012: Wrapping Up?

Zucchini has peaked and now the tomatoes are on the rise!

As you can see one of the zucchini plants has grown too far outside of the box and has fallen over. This happened last year as well but when it did I had to pull the plant up as the fall destroyed most of it. That didn’t happen this time and the zucchini plant still has blooms on it. I’ll keep watering it as long as it keeps producing.  The other big change you can see in this picture is the tomato plants. They keep getting bigger and bigger. I thought about cutting them back or weaning them off of water in the hopes that they’d spend more energy making fruit and less energy growing. But D says we have plenty of tomatoes as it is, if we had more we wouldn’t know what to do with them!

Lemon cucumber grows up the plant guard
The lemon cucumbers seem happy

The cucumbers are doing really well. We’ve harvested fifteen of them so far, thirteen of those have been lemon cucumbers! The English cukes are just starting to come in I seen three or four tiny ones on the vine right now.

This is about 1/3 of what we are getting out of the garden every week.

D and I only have another month at this location, which means we’ll be giving up our tiny garden box. I’ve learned a lot from the whole experiment and had a lot of fun. I’m going to miss it, but here it to hoping that once everything is settled in our new home, and I find a job, we can start up a new garden!

2012 Harvest to date:

Zucchini: 18
Tomatoes: 53
Bush Beans:
Cucumbers: 15
Eggplant: 3
Basil: 40+ leaves

Spring Garden 2012 Harvest Update

Mario wishes he was a farmer!

2012 Harvest to date:

Zucchini: 14
Tomatoes: 17 (There would be more but Jake ate a handful or so)
Bush Beans: 19
Cucumbers: 3
Eggplant: 1 (2 more on the way)
Basil: 20+ leaves

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