Summer in the Garden - Part I

The summer solstice was a couple of weeks ago so I thought is was finally time from a little update from the garden. We have had some success as you can see above but a few misses as well (see below). Though our beet and carrot harvest has been nice, our bush beans have not been going as well as planned. Though we had some success in the beginning, the plants have just withered and died. So, this being southern California, I'm going to try again and plant another round. It's nice to live in a place where you have a year-round growing season.

Speaking of hits and misses, some of our tomatoes are doing well, especially the Isis Candy above. However, we had a few casualties with these as well. And, I had to replace 5 plants in our tomato bed. Now all of the tomatoes are at different stages of growth so it'll be interesting seeing what matures when. I have a feeling that we could be harvesting some into September or even October. We're just hoping that most of the plants survive.

If nothing else, the mint is growing like crazy. Yes, it is safely confined to a container so it doesn't go crazy and take over the yard. I've seen that happen to other people and it's not pretty.

When things don't grow as planned, you can start over. This is what I spent a few hours on yesterday. Tearing out two of our raised beds and prepping them for new plants and seed was a lot of work. A number of the plants, like the kale, arugula and snap peas just bolted and you cannot salvage them once that happens. Then the other bed had the carrots and beets so those got harvested. 

So, the bed that gets the most hours of sun got the heat loving plants. Those would be red bell peppers, jalapenos, eggplants and a couple of more tomatoes (Romas). I will be working on the other bed today. That one is going to be lettuces, snap peas, radishes and may be, some more carrots.

No, that is not a sunflower, it's a Black-Eyed Susan. I wish I could say I grew it but I didn't. I bought the plant at the nursery. I tried growing some sunflowers this year but the seeds never germinated. I was very sad about that. So I got these instead since they make me smile.

Last Day of February

It's the last day of the month and I couldn't be more thrilled. I know that this is weird but I'm just not a huge fan of February. For that matter, I'm not too keen about January either. I am not really sure why but I have been this way all my life. I love the other 10 months but not those two. They just seem rather dull to me. Post holidays and pre-spring, there just doesn't seem much to them.

But, I digress, this is really about today's end-of-the-month harvest. Sure it won't exactly feed the family for a week but it is something. We finally got more arugula, three beets, five radishes and two carrots (damn...they take forever to grow). At least with the beets, you also get the beet greens and not just the roots.

And, sadly, our arugula bolted. So, I spent some time today tearing it out and sowing new seeds. Fortunately, arugula is a fast grower so we are hoping to have new crop making its first appearance within the next week or so. We may even be able to harvest some baby arugula by the end of March. And, I also sowed more seeds for the radishes, beets and the chard. Oh, the chard, how it mocks me. It just won't grow more than a couple of inches before it just stops, I cannot figure out why. But, I'm going to keep trying for another few months. Just not ready to throw in the towel yet on this veggie.

Just a few more weeks till the official start (March 20) of spring...can't wait.