Andrea – Page 3 – Andrea's Garden Journal

April 27, 2018

Bee Happy!

Random shots I took this evening while wandering around the yard. The bees are loving my garden this time of year. Plenty of blooms to keep them interested. And given that one of my tomato plants has it’s first fruit, it’s just not the lavender these helpful guys are interested in!

These are a hybrid grape tomato that I took a gamble on and planted far too early (March 3). We had a faux Spring and I was itching to get dirt under my fingernails. So, I threw several hybrid grapes into my front flowerbed. I buried them so that only the top two sets of leaves were above ground. Then of course, Spring left us and we had two light frosts. While stressed, the tomatoes seem to have held their own. Now, they just need to hurry up and ripen!

The roses are going insane! In close competition are the Iris:

At one point, I contemplated only growing edibles or plants with a purpose (like my Chinese Soapberry Trees). But, I just didn’t have the heart to rip out such colorful blooms. So, I combined the two! If you look closely behind the lavender, you’ll spot chives and oregano. Not pictured, but under the roses is a bed of strawberries that serve as ground cover.

And the best part of this colorful chaos? People who stop to admire the garden are often so caught up in the flashiness that they seldom look down and spot the weeds!

And did I mention how happy the bees are?

April 22, 2018April 22, 2018

April 22, 2018

A close-up of one of my lavender plants. I have several planted here and there in both the front and back yards. The bees adore them which in turn, benefits my squash and tomatoes – plenty of pollinators in my yard! Apparently, it’s a bug repellent as well and if it will keep the flies and mosquitoes at bay, I’m all in!

But the real reason I have lavender is that I love the way it looks and smells. Sure, it’s edible and I can cook with it, but I seldom do. I’ll probably collect a few bundles of flowering stems to hang in the closets and pantry to freshen them up, but that will be the extent of it’s practical use in my home.

Sorry I don’t have the scratch and sniff app on my blog because the plant in this photo is particularly fragrant! Happy Gardening!

April 22, 2018April 22, 2018

Forgotten yet Flourishing

These are two of my winter beds that have thrived on neglect! On the left is a bed of garlic (and yes, that is indeed another rogue lemon balm plant growing out of the side of the planter) and to the right is a bed of New Zealand Spinach. I planted the garlic late September 2017 and other than watering it during long dry spells and pulling a few weeds, I’ve ignored it. The New Zealand spinach is a mixed blessing. It may be the only thing growing in my yard that the snails and slugs won’t touch. It’s also pretty much a perennial here in Central California and self-seeds itself quite easily. The problem? It’s not our favorite vegetable. Eaten fresh, I usually hide it in spicy stir-frys. When it starts to grow out of it’s home (like now!), I will harvest it, clean it, blanch it, and freeze flat in quart size freezer bags. During the winter months, I’ll toss a bag into a pot of vegetable soup or use it as a filler in lasagna.

When I harvest the garlic bed, I’ll start training the New Zealand Spinach into the garlic’s former home and sow some of the seeds that I harvest. I’ve found that while the New Zealand spinach can stay in one place, the older plants tend to get tough and bitter, so I like to keep my bed rotated with younger plants. Several years ago, I had almost no time for gardening so I let the veggie beds go. I came back the following Spring to find that the New Zealand spinach had taken over all but one of the beds! Like I said, it’s a mixed blessing!

If you are having trouble locating seeds, please send me an email and I will happily send you a few seeds to get you started. My original seeds came from John Jeavon’s Bountiful Gardens in Willits, California. Unfortunately, they no longer sell seeds retail but I am happy to share. Obviously, my quantities are limited but I will put your name on a waiting list for the next seed collection if I am out of this years supply.

April 21, 2018

First squash of the year! We had a really mild, wet winter which has meant a constant attack by the slimy hoards! I have lost 4 squash plants to snails and slugs already – and you can see that more than one of the leaves has been munched upon despite the moat of Sluggo around each plant! I don’t normally have more than 2 zucchini plants growing at a time, but given the current climate, I have 6 that have survived the sluggy onslaught. What could possibly go wrong? I may be doorbell ditching bags of squash with all of the neighbors in another month! LOL

April 14, 2018April 14, 2018

First Iris of 2018

My first iris of the year popped out on Friday the 13th. They seem a bit behind this year compared to my neighbors. Hopefully the late bloomers will once again conspire with my roses to create a gaudy flash of color in the yard! (Guest appearance by Jesse the cat)

April 14, 2018

Mutant Orange!

This crazy mutant orange was the only fruit my tree produced this year! My mandarin and clementine trees were loaded with fruit, but my orange tree seemed to put all of it’s energy into producing this giant orange! I suppose I should have cut it open to see if it was normal, but I gave it away as a joke gift.

April 29, 2017

My Currants are Flowering!

The yellow splotches on the upper left side of the photo are currant flowers! I’m so excited!

Living on a 1/4 acre lot that contains house, swimming pool, and three car garage/driveway, doesn’t leave as much room as I would like for growing things. As a result, I’m a bit ruthless. If plants don’t flourish or serve a purpose, I pass them on to a new home or compost them. I’m also forced to grow things a bit closer together than most would consider ideal. But as a student of the John Jeavon’s Bio-intensive method of gardening, I also know that traditional spacing of plants are not always ideal for my triple-digit, dry summer climate. In fact, “crowding” my plantings can create beneficial micro-climates that help hold the moisture in the soil. That’s my reasoning, and I’m sticking to it, unless of course, it doesn’t work!

I’m lousy with logging dates of plantings (which is why this website exists!), but I believe I started my elderberries and currants from seeds in 2007. My seed source was www.bountifulgardens.org and I highly recommend them as a source of sometimes difficult to find herbs and vegetables.

Elderberries and currants aren’t common crops here in California’s Central Valley and I wasn’t at all sure they would make it. But guess what? They are flourishing! I’m on my third year of elderberry harvest and this is the first year my currants have flowered! I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I might get some actual currants from them this year! In the picture below, you will see just how closely I push my plantings! You will also notice how tall the plants are. Due to family medical issues, I wasn’t able to prune this bed over the winter. What does this mean? I’m going to need an extremely tall ladder to harvest my berries! I should also note that although you can’t see them in this picture, I also have groundnuts growing. They vine up the elderberries wonderfully well and have the same watering requirements – definitely a successful match-up. And of course, if you look close enough, you will notice the peppermint and lemon balm attempting world domination. Don’t worry – my dehydrators are at the ready and I foresee a couple of gallons of dried mint leaves in my very near future!

In this small bed, I have elderberry, currants, and ground nuts living in harmony. And of course, lemon balm and peppermint have also somehow magically appeared!

April 22, 2017

Redneck Grey Water System

Until this year, California has been in a severe drought. Watering has been severely limited. So, while I was willing to let what little lawn I still have left go brown, I needed to come up with a system to capture the grey water from my washing machine to keep my roses, iris, and redwood trees alive. This is a post I made on another forum in 2015:

Okay, after several hours of contemplation, measuring, and more research, I decided to follow the KISS plan. The upside is that my laundry room will only look like crap when I’m doing laundry instead of having a plastic flexible pipe running along the wall into the bathroom and out the bathroom window. Although I got the most darling little wall hooks to hold the flexible tubing with . . .

I just have to find out where our spade drill bits are. Dh used them last and they weren’t put back where they usually go. In the meantime, my elaborate plans ran up a hardware bill of almost $90 in parts. My new plan will cost $25.78 and while not a permanent set up, it sets up and tears down very quickly and will ultimately be more user friendly without making our house look any more redneck than it already does!

I’m following these plans:’
http://www.instructables.com/id/Simp…ywater-System/

and I’m mostly following the warnings from this site:’
http://oasisdesign.net/greywater/misinfo/

The one exception being is that I will be draining directly onto my backyard grass, which I know is a “no-no” but I have three large redwood trees and I’ve always deep watered them by flooding the lawn. I’ll take the necessary precautions and I’m not overly worried about safety hazards in that area. Most of the water will go into my rose & iris beds and my potted ornamentals. I’ve got to get this done. I promised myself that I wouldn’t do anymore laundry until I finished this project and I’m almost out of clean underwear!

This is my elegant set-up! It ended up leaking when the barrel was full, but not when I filled it partially full for my test run. Since then, I’ve fixed it with a bit of silicon. The hose runs through the garage to the front yard or I run it out the back door to the back yard. Not the least bit elegant but fully functional and I did it all by myself! (I am not a handywoman) I’m thinking that if I really get into this, I can put a diverter valve under the laundry room sink and hook up my hose directly under the sink. But that will take a bit of plumbing know how, which I don’t have!

Update: This system has worked well for me and is still going strong two years later. I have to confess that during exceptionally busy times in my life, I don’t bother with this set-up. But I really like the Oasis laundry soap and use it regularly. I think it important to use bio-compatible soap whether you’re watering your plants or flushing it into the sewer.

April 21, 2017April 22, 2017

Why an Online Journal?

I’m not the most organized of individuals. Sometimes I feel like a juggler with far too many spinning plates in the air: mom, caregiver to elderly parents, teacher, musician, avid reader, and then there’s my gardening interest. Okay, gardening passion. Okay, OKAY, gardening addiction! I love to be out in the yard growing things. But it’s not necessarily about the kale, which is not my favorite vegetable but it grows really well and it’s extremely nutritious so I plant and eat it.

Gardening allows me a bit of alone time. I can plug into a podcast or play some music and mindlessly weed the cabbages. But on other days, I can mindfully work out a personal issue while dead heading the roses. Gardening is my “me” time. And of course, my garden will often reflect just how little me time I sometimes get.

This isn’t one of those immaculately kept garden blogs or gardens. This is here so that I can track my favorite recipes or look back to see what month did I plant my bush beans last year. When I post pictures, you’ll probably be able to spot a few weeds and if I’ve done my job, they are edible weeds! This is here because I’ve posted thousands of posts on various boards only to have them disappear and I’ve had to start my research over.

So, welcome to my messy mind, my messy journal, and my wonderfully messy and edible garden!