Summer in the Garden - Part III

Aww! It's so cute. It's the incredibly small red bell pepper. No, I'm not kidding. It is only about 3 inches in diameter and maybe 2 inches tall. At least, it's ripening. 

A couple of the Roma tomato plants are starting to fruit. Very excited about that. Not sure if we will get enough to can this year. Things are going better now in 'tomatoland.' Even with some our earlier mishaps this year, we are having more success with them than we did last year.

I am keeping a close eye on our Brown Turkey figs. They are almost full-size now and should start to ripen soon. My concern is the squirrels. Except for a couple of figs, those little furry bastards ate all of them last year. I'm hoping to beat them to it this time around. I am determined to make fig jam from our own figs. 

I could not believe my eyes the other day when I noticed that our Dwarf Meyer Lemon tree was blooming again. This is first time that we have seen it bloom twice in a year much less just a few months apart. Will this lead to more lemons? I have no idea. We already have about 16 of them on the tree. Not sure if this little dwarf tree can hold more but we would thrilled if it did.

Summer in the Garden - Part II

Things are finally starting to pickup in the garden. We have more of our Isis Candy cherry tomatoes starting to ripen. And, the new tomato plants that I planted last week are doing well and growing.

The three basil plants are doing very well. And, it feels like a miracle since we have had several basil plants in the last few months get eaten up my some mystery pest. 

The first flower on our Japanese eggplant plants. Hoping for a few more on this plant and that the other one will start flowering soon as well.

And, after several weeks of worrying, some of our winter squash and gourd seeds are starting to germinate. The seedling above is for ornamental gourds. But, we have a couple of seedlings from our Waltham Butternut Squash seeds starting to come up as well. Now, if only the acorn and pumpkin seeds would germinate. If not, I have a feeling that I may be planting some more seeds. I want to see part of our front yard overtaken by squash and pumpkin vines and I'm not ready to let go of that little dream just yet.

The Meyer Lemons are almost the size of large eggs. There are 13 of them on the tree right now.

Last but not least, one of our red bell pepper plants is starting to produce. This is the largest pepper on it so far. Which is not saying much, since it's about the size of a ping pong ball. But, we are hoping that we will have peppers we can harvest next month.

Spring in the Garden - Part III

It's still spring but just barely. In just a couple of more weeks, the solstice will bring us the beginning of summer. But, for now, we are still enjoying the spring weather. We have June gloom. It's overcast and cool in the morning and then gets sunny and warm in the afternoon. And, this weekend we are even experiencing a bit of heat wave with temps in this part of Los Angeles up into the high 80s and low 90s. The veggies are loving it. We have harvested our first little bunch of bush beans. It wasn't that many so we combined them some from the farmer's market to make a full side dish for last night's dinner.

Oh, that's not a bush bean. It's a shelling bean. Or we hope it will be shelling beans. They are Jacob's Gold. They are supposed to taste similar to Pinto Beans. We are cautiously optimistic that the plants will produce enough so that we can actually use them for chili at the end of the summer.

Our Dwarf Meyer Lemon has started producing fruit again. I've counted 10 of them so far. And, we are hoping for a few more. Unfortunately, they won't be ready to harvest till late fall or early winter but it is fun watching them grow.

And, last but not least, we are trying to grow at least 9 tomato plants this year. We did end up ordering seedlings since the ones that we have been trying to start from seed were not doing so well. So, this is a photo of an Isis Candy plant that I picked up at the farmer's market. Isis Candy is a yellow-gold cherry tomato with red marbling. They are supposed to be rich tasting and sweet. They are an indeterminate variety, so we are hoping it will produce well all season long.

And, I have good news about some our little starter seedlings, a few of them look like they are going to survive. I may even be able to start transplanting them next week. The more tomatoes the better! I dream of being able to can some my own homegrown ones.

The Last of the Meyer Lemons

I love Meyer Lemons, so it was a sad day last week when I finally harvested the last of them off of our dwarf tree. This was the first year that the little guy produced any lemons and we did pretty well with a total harvest of 19.

But as you can see, all is not lost. There are new buds on the branches and new leaves growing. We did a little spring feeding with some citrus fertilizer (E.B. Stone) and are hoping to see some little lemons starting in another month or so. But, patience is a virtue and we will have to wait till late fall or early winter for another crop. Or maybe, we will get very lucky and we will get a second crop in the summer. Time will tell.

The Last Days of Fall

Fall is my favorite season. I will be sad to see it end on the winter solstice, December 21. Because we live in Southern California, we are blessed to be able to garden all year round. So, even though we will be heading into winter soon, the garden is still flourishing.

Our Meyer Lemons are ripening up and a few should be ready to be plucked in a few days. I'm thinking that lemon shortbread cookies would be the a nice choice to use them in. And, the arugula has been growing like crazy. I will need to harvest some soon. There is even a good chance that a couple of radishes will be ready as well.

Tomorrow is supposed to bring some more and much needed rain to our drought stricken city. The garden will be grateful.

Oh, and I'm grateful, that for the moment, the squirrels have stopped digging in the lettuce bed.