I've sold my compost tumbler

Remember my green compost tumbler?....well, I've sold it. It was difficult letting go at first because it was a really nice one. The bin worked really well, and I thought it was cute too, except the compost it produced looked like turds ...anyways that's not why I sold it. It was just not big enough. I ended up buying two more soilsaver bins from Sam's club for 39dollars each. They were a great deal. I'm very happy with the one I already have. It is difficult to turn the contents in them once the bin starts getting full...I just aerate it with the aerating tool and make sure it's moist enough....after that I don't do anything else to it. Three years is enough time to let the compost decompose enough.

On the left is an artichoke seedling. This one is going to planted in the border that travels around the patio. I've decided to incorporate perennial vegetables in the landscape whenever I can since I don't have enough raised beds.

I have some radishes, onions, leeks,mache lettuce, curly mustard, sweet peas and echinacea in my coldframe.

Despite the temperatures dropping into the twenties at night and cloudy days, the seeds are still sprouting and growing...just at a much slower rate.

Tulips in the patio bed. I had to place a small wire border to keep Coco out of the tulip bed. I amended the soil with sheep manure and bonemeal last fall.

Left overs from Fall

Last fall I planted some cool season vegetables for my fall garden and they never really got to full size, I know I started them too late(late August)....and so by the time winter came around I also didn't bother covering them with a hoop. I thought the wind would probably blow the plastic away(we get 80mph winds)....so why bother, I thought. After so many snow storms I went outside to assess the damage....and most of the greens were dead.... brown...goners...and so I left them in their grave yard for a couple of months(It was much to cold for me to deal with them at the time)...and then I started seeing some growth. I was really excited about that.
So I cleaned off all the dead stuff and debris and covered two of the boxes with plastic....and here are some pics:

Here is one of my lolla rosas. It's still growing. The spinach in the background doesn't look good and I was thinking about leaving them in so that I may collect the seeds but then again, you want to collect seeds from healthy looking plants. So next time I get out there...they'll be gone.

The swiss chard in the background have perked up and look really good. I can't wait to taste them. They should have a nice salty flavor thanks to the cold temperatures.

The beets are also thriving...some of the roots are almost two inches across.

A picture of a tree that produces baby pinecones. I love to collect them. I like to place them in decorative bowls for the winter.

This picture is of the Fairytale Town garden across from the Sacramento Zoo. The kale in the background box are like little trees. When I first saw the vegetables in the boxes, I thought they were fake b/c they looked so vibrant in color. My daughter was like...no mom... they are real.

That is all for today and thank you for stopping by. Till next time.

Resurfacing

Hello my fellow bloggers and readers. I'm back again. For awhile there I thought I was done with the blogging business. I would check every once in a while to see if the blog was even there. I thought it might have even been deleted by now from inactivity. I just wasn't ready to get back. Writing has never come naturally to me....getting my thoughts down in a flowing and natural manner....well, has always been a struggle for me, but never the less I have a need to share what has been happening in my own backyard , along with my desires and dreams for it.

Some new stuff:

I have a new camera... a Canon rebel xs 10 pixel...quite the step up from my previous 2.o megapixel ...along with a canon compact-macro lens. I wanted this lens so that I can take close-up pictures of flowers and food...it also does awesome portrait pics. I'm delighted with it. I just need to use it more often. My problem is that my laptop is now ancient and doesn't have the memory to handle all this data. Uploading pics is a hassle because I have to delete stuff off my computer so that I can make room for pics. So I haven't bothered with the process. Hopefully a friend might be able to help me out with that. I'll keep my fingers crossed so that I may be able to enhance the experience of this blog.


I've also doubled the size of my garden(I'll have to wait till I can post some pics to show you.) So that is all I'm going to mention in that department.

Last night I went to Whole Foods and attended a seminar by Full Circle Compost on one of their products, Soil Essence elite 1:9. Everyone that attended walked away with a complimentary bag. Thank you! This fertilizer not only has all the good stuff but it also has rock dust, something I've recently learned about. Individuals involved on the edge of organic farming are trying to remineralize the earth with rock dust and are getting great results. So I'm excited about incorporating this product into my garden.
The owner of the company(also a gardener) brought along many seeds to share with everyone. I picked up some brandywine tomato seeds from his own tomatoes. You shoud have seen how big his tomato plants were....10ft tall and the tomatoes were massive. I have seeds from his tomatoes so hopefully I'll be blessed with a better crop this year.

He brought some books that he recommended: Seed to Seed by by Suzanne Ashworth. On how to harvest and save seeds. Another one is How to Grow World Record Tomatoes by Charles Wilber. The presenters tomato plants were as big as the one in the book by Charles Wilber, no kidding....and he uses organic methods.

Overall it was an informative and enjoyable evening...I even ran into a friend there. Full Circle will be having another seminar next month. Not sure what their topic will be but you can look it up on their website or the Local Whole Foods website.

Well that is all for today. Thank you for reading and sorry there's no pics.
Have a great day.

Update on my garden

Hello everyone...I hope you are enjoying your summer as much as I've been. I've been busy with other things in my life...always meaning to get back to my blog, but not quite making it.
One of things I've done is visit a friends garden....it was so bountiful....and I thought I was doing well. Yes I have lots of tomatoes, but most of them are cherry tomatoes...small. I musn't be so hard on myself....I know. I am realistic and realize that my soil is not up to par with the years of sheep manure and leaf mold she has on me. I will get there. So...two days later after visiting my friend, I dragged my husband and a large bucket to the university to pick up manure. Up to this point, it had been bagged manure from the local garden shop and I believe I didn't add enough. So I added the freshly obtained manure to the compost and two days later when I checked it...it was steaming hot. Yes!
So I just want to add...that despite the lack of major abundance and some failures(cucumber plant died, poor developing corn, infested cabbage) my garden has been a source of enjoyment and education. I can now identify what an eggplant plant looks like...or what flowering zucchini bud will produce a zucchini....I've had the experience which I lacked. All that I had learned...I learned from a book and now I have been able to put it together with experience.
So here are some pictures I want to share:
My bush bean...kept from spilling over into the next square with a makeshift tepee. I've harvested some and steamed them. They were tough...too bad. I won't give up on them. It must have been something I did or didn't do.

My strawberry plant...she has produced some off springs and has a couple more flowers.

I picked up these little grape seedlings from a generous soul on freecycle. I'm going to transfer them to the coldframe when it starts getting cold. Hopefully they will make it.

I've started some broccoli and kale seedlings....ready for my fall garden.
The brown spots on the leaves are just organic fertilizer stains.

I have some swiss chard growing in the back right hand corner. In the foreground a pumpkin plant gifted to me from a friend. And in the left side, potato plants. They look like they are dying but I'm told to keep watering till they are dead....that will produce bigger potatoes.

I sowed some bok choy seeds under these mosquito covers. I would like to plant two more boxes of bok choy, but I will wait till the kale and broccoli plants bolt....if that happens.

Kale, broccoli and beets in the foreground.

Eggplant.

Another eggplant. This plant and the one pictured about came from the same packet of seeds...they must have had a couple varieties in them.

My pole beans don't look so healthy and they haven't produced. I'm wondering if I should leave them there or just pull them out and plant some fall crops there.

Lemon boy tomatoes.....these have been divine! When I make my salads, I usually add lemon, olive oil and salt. With these lemon boys you'll want to leave out the lemons...it make them to acidic tasting....just olive oil and salt is plenty.

Some swiss chard. I do treat them like cut flowers...by placing them in a jar of water till they are ready to be steamed...otherwise they wilt so quickly. Makes me think of those greens in the grocery store that look sooo perky for days. Hmmm....what's in them?

The harvest of three squarefoot boxes. Next year, God willing, I'm planning on making some sides for the squares so that I can add height and keep adding soil and increase my harvest. I had had too many projects going on this spring for me to do this year.

The largest potato I harvested...it weighed one pound.

My beets....they were small yet delicious.

Thank you for stopping by. Have a great day!

Daisy

dehyrating some herbs

This potted tomato plant was a sucker on one of my plants. I had failed to spot it growing out from the soil, no wonder the main branch wasn't growing as quickly. Usually I kept my eye on the area between the mainstem and the side shoots ready to pinch off those suckers, but this one ecaped my sight and I'm glad it did. I rooted and planted it and now my friend has a yellow pear tomato plant of her own.

Last evening my child harvested some vegetables for dinner. The one swiss chard leaf was hers. I asked her if she wanted more than one...shes like no mom... ones enough. So I steamed it and sprinkled it with olive oil, lemon and salt. She said it was her favorite.

This morning I decided to dehydrate some herbs from the garden. I filled three trays with spearmint leaves. Under a couple of leaves I found some eggs attached. I didn't kill them or dispose of them as I would have in the past. I held on to them to placed back in the same area. Hopefully when they hatch they will be insects that are beneficial to the garden.

I also harvested some basil(purple variety) and filled two trays. I hope the bushes will grow back and give me enough for a second cutting. I placed my five trays in the dehydrator and set the temp. at 105F. When they are completely dry I will transfer them to labeled mason jars and have them available for cooking. I love to make split pea soup with lots of basil, pepper and salt. Simple yet delicious.

another garden update

Lately I've been planning out my fall garden...not that I'm through with my spring/summer crops...no that is far from the truth. We've been enjoying generous helpings of kale and swiss chard....and when I felt that I couldn't even think about having them for dinner again. I would snip them off and give them to my neighbors. The lettuce...I've been most impressed with. So delicious...I couldn't think of having store bought lettuce after having fresh ones from the garden. And that is why I'm planning my fall garden. I used to think a short garden season was such downfall...oh...not true because I get to look forward to all the cool season crops.

Anyways. I'm planning to dedicate a whole box 4ftx4ft to lettuce. Yes we'll be able to have many varieties... plenty of tom thumbs, bibbs, mesclun baby greens and deer tongue red.

Everything else in the fall garden will have a 1/4 of a box dedicated to each vegetable.

Yesterday I purchased a bag of soil to start my seedlings and within the next couple of days I will be starting my broccoli.

My mesclun greens shaded with a cloth to keep from bolting.

Three corn "heads" coming through.
Tomatoes on the vine. I counted over one hundred tomatoes on the vines. We've been harvesting 2 or 3 tomatoes every couple of days. I think we'll be bursting at the seams with tomatoes here pretty soon. I'm planning on making some sun-dried tomatoes.


We'll be having the ones towards the bottom for dinner this evening.

The broccoli rabe plants I had drying by the bench have completely dried. When you shake the pods the seeds rattle inside. I harvested many to fill a small packet. I placed the dry arrangement in a vase and it's still loaded with seeds. So if any of my local neighbors would like some let me know...you can come by and get some pods.

By the way I got the template for the seed packet in the picture from a book called "You Grow Girl" by Gayla Trail. A chic modern gardening guide book with lots of gardening crafts ideas .

Summer

I've been feeling guilty again for not blogging all the work I've done in the garden. Part of the reason....I changed my password and then when I went to sign on a few days later, I realized that I had forgotten my password after a few tries. So with a few quirks here and there and some distractions ...I never made it back to my blog till now. So here I go:

Spring has gone along with my broccoli rabe and peas. The pea stems and leaves went into the compost, but the broccoli rabe has a new life for now. As you will see it is hanging upside down drying and loaded with dry seed pods which I will pass on to friends. The stalks are too pretty to discard yet...I will place them in my tall blue vase to display as a dry arrangement. For now my vase holds arugula from my friends garden that has bolted. I also plan to harvest those seeds.

I recently made a propagating pot to root cuttings. I used a small clay pot and a larger glazed one(you can use a plastic one if you like and it can have drainage holes, mine doesn't though), some vermiculite and a pencil eraser head, cuttings and water. I plugged the inner clay pot with an eraser head and it sealed it perfectly. You don't want the the water draining out of the bottom..you want it perspiring out through the pores of the clay pot. Then I add some rocks to the bottom of the bigger pot and then some vermiculite enough so that I can still place my clay pot inside it and filled the area around the clay pot with enough vermiculite. I then saturated the vermiculite with water using a watering can and made sure it was moist and I filled my clay pot with water. I added rosemary, lavender, petunia and chamomile cuttings and it's been about a week and the cuttings still look healthy. I'm very pleased with this system because I don't have to be so vigilant about watering it.

Lately I've been reading "Inner Gardening...A Seasonal Path to Inner Peace" by Diane Dreher and I must say I've been enjoying it...it's romantic and intellectual. She shares bits of her life and those around her , lessons about gardening and cultivating friendships and more, the history of gardening including poems, quotes and more. This book makes me want to reach out to my friends more often.

broccoli rabe

Arugula arrangement.

Propagating pot

my garden helper