August Garden

 The garden has really taken off, and as pretty much every year, it's just beyond anything I would have imagined.  Mostly what's in this picture are all the wild flowers Kirsty planted, and of course the dahlias Gary shared with us.  He needed to thin out his bulb clusters, and Kirsty had them in the garage for weeks if not months.  I thought nothing would come of them, and low and behold, boom.  She stuck them in all sorts of places, and pretty much, they all grew, bigtime.  So many bees, and hummingbirds and everything enjoying it.

 These are more of the wild flowers interspersed with the grasses that were part of the original landscaping.  

 Here you can see the thyme we planted between the stepping stones is really filling in.  It's pretty exciting to see everything growing so well this time of year.

We have a rose bush for each kid.  We had to move two of them, and didn't do it in the best way.  They were dormant for quite a while, and are now showing lots of growth.  Some branches will need to be trimmed back, but yay!! They survived!

 Amazing, the backyard is so filled in with so many flowers and stuff.

 Below the flowers, I have 3 tiers of vegetable garden.  I've got to do a better job with the planning, we just get starts, and seeds, and throw them in, and now, it's non-stop, coming up everywhere.  The big thing now is all the squash, zucchini and so on.  I'm also getting cucumbers, Japanese and yellows.  Both are really tasty, and not bitter like I've had before.  Oh, the green beans are coming in fast, and so is the chard and basil.  I just can't keep up.  I need to pass more out.

 

I've been getting both white and red chard like crazy.  I really like growing this.  It's huge, super tasty, and you cut it, and it keeps growing.  Behind it is a bunch of arugula I planted.  It took off and I had so much, but it was so spicy hot.  I think it's more of a winter item.  I've been cutting it way back, and it keeps coming up fresh.  I hope I'll get some out of it later in the season.  Also have lots of basil going.  It tastes pretty good, but it's sort of washed out color, not the deep green you want.  Not sure what to do about that.

Here's the green beans.  They've been delicious.  I need to put up some recipes.

 Okay, year 2 for the pear tree.  Nothing last year.  Earlier this year I saw about 7-8 pears set.  I just looked and only see 2 left.  Not sure what's up with that...  

 Here's my newest tier to the garden.  See the pumpkins?!!!  Sweet!! 

Italian Zucchini and Summer Squash

The harvest is coming in.  I haven't been around much so things got away from me.  I've been catching up, including cooking huge batches of white and red Chard and all the squash.  Love summer mmmm. 
Jib jab
Note Italian zucchini is so much better than the dark green we are used to. Its got a mild nutty flavor.  Great small and even huge. You can identify it by the variegated green skin and it is ribbed

Summer Harvest

Enjoying the garden and the kids.  Hard to believe its July but the garden doesn't lie. Moira and Christian enjoying their last summer pre-college. Patrick turns 16 in 2 weeks

Kicking It Up a Notch in the Garden

The landscaping is really taking shape.  Here you can see the patio and the new stepping stone path and many of the new plants in and ready to go in.  I hate to say it, but I think we've been in some sort of construction on the garden on and off for about a year!  Okay, fine, 12 years.  If you would have asked me back then, I would have never guessed we would have ended up here.  Each little phase was more than I had hoped, and we've had easily 5 phases.  That said, I've been really happy with the results of each, so I guess I can use that overused phrase, it's all good.

The nectarine finally grew some leaves, and just budded here.  Do you think I'll get any fruit the first year?!?  We'll see.

Anyways, we've been very busy in the garden.  What's to come:
Moving roses, what not to do (and we did it anyway).
Clearing the weeds in the lower terrace
Nursery plants in
Drip and spray irrigation
Stepping stone path
Veggies in
Herbs
Lighting
steps
retaining walls
plans and matrix

Identify this caterpillar on my new Fuji apple tree.

Identify this moss on my concrete block retaining wall.

Summer squash in my new lowest terrace.

Ellie guarding the hot peppers

This is the first tier of veggies.  Ellie is now in the 'landscape' area.  I lost some square footage to landscaping, but gained a bunch in the lowest tier, where all the trees are.  Shown in the foreground are hot peppers, medium hot cherries.  Further back, top are radishes, coming in fast.  To the left of them are rocket salad.  Further back and taller are basil bushes.  I planted one of those guys from Whole Foods.  Trader Joe's sells them too.  They went sort of pale in the planting process.  Not sure how to avoid that.  Behind them, you can't see the strawberries.  In the foreground, you may be able to see a couple strawberries too.  On the lower tier, you can see some tomato cages.

Kirsty Ellie Moira Fig Peach

This is looking the other way on the lowest terrace.  For reference, the wood retaining wall to the right is 3 feet tall in the corner where the girls are.  You can see the slope of the hill beyond my garden.  It's about 12 feet wide at the end, and about 60 feet across the back, and about 5 feet wide at the narrow end. 

This is looking South.  You can almost see all 7 fruit trees lined up on the left.

Saturday workout PCC

This was the 3rd Saturday morning workout at PCC Master's.  I swam the one prior, at 7:15am in lane 6, the farthest right.  It's my least favorite due to the wall, along over half our lane.  It's not forgiving, if you drift in your lane a bit.

It was a fast fun day.  I even kept up in the 2:50 200M  and the 100 M at the end of the workout, I held a good 1:20 pace, without draft.  A nice workout!  And, great to see Damon and Bill in the pool.  Damon's not been swimming much, but still had good speed, at least compared to me.

Jib Jab
I have been missing the Saturday workouts.  Mostly 'letting myself off' instead of having something else going on.  Bill said he's working on improving his speed too, and said adding 5000M on Saturday is helping.  I'm going to give it a try, although I got in about 3300M today.

PCC new landscaping

Finally, we are re-landscaping our backyard, so I've been trying to notice gardens I like.  This one is subtle, but nice.  I like it.  Why?  I am not totally sure.  It's simple.  Nice vegetation.  Not over filled or sparse.  Contrasting colors.  I like the spiky guys, and the little variegated bush.  It's got a little purple flower on it now.

New Apple, Fig, Peach and Nectarine trees

'Bare Root' Fruit Trees

Here's a sneak peek of our new fruit trees.  Lots of people ask me, do you have a lot of space?  No, I don't.  So, what am I doing with 6 new trees.  Well, guess what?  I've already got 5 fruit trees.  Meyer lemon, produces like crazy, twice a year.  It's not only dwarf, but a bush.  You can barely see it behind the table in the back of the picture.  There's another one way in the back there too.  Just to the left of the concrete.  It's a pear.  Along with those 2, there are 2 more cherries up top, along with a apricot, and down below, a plum.  At least 3 of the new ones will go down below.

So what's new?
Apples:  Gravenstien , Fuji, Dorsett
Peach, Nectarine, Fig

What can I tell you about them?
- Arctic Star White Nectarine  Earliest to ripen.   Rave reviews in trial tastings.  Ripens mid June.  Low winter chilling requirement, about 300 hours.  Self-fruitful.

- White Genoa Fig  Old variety, a favorite in cool coastal areas.  Also excellent inland.  Prune to any shape.  100 hours, Self-fruitful.  Greenish yellow skin, amber flesh, distinctive flavor.

- Fuji - From Japan, California's favorite.  Ripe mid September.  Excellent pollenizer for other apples.  Less than 500 hours chilling requirement.

- Bonita Peach - An excellent peach which bears well in milder and coastal climates.
Medium to large, Elberta type peach. Red blushed skin. Yellow flesh, fine flavor. Freestone.
Ripens: Late July. Requires 250 hours of chilling below 45º F.

- Gravenstein Apple - Large fruit.  Skin bright green with red striped skin. Crisp and juicy. Keeps well, good for shipping.  A cooking and eating apple.  Needs pollination with any self-fertile variety such as Jonathan, Red or Yellow Delicious. Requires 700 hours chilling below 45degF.

- Dorsett Golden Apple Medium to large. Yellow skin with orange-red blush. Firm, smooth, crisp flesh with sweet-tart flavor.  Does well in mild winter areas.  Good pollinizer for the Anna. Requires 250 hours of chill below 45EF. Ripens: Mid-June to Early July.

Jib Jab
A few things to keep in mind when you get fruit trees.  I went to Half Moon Bay Nurseries.  They are huge.  Awesome product, and selection.  Great help.  Very knowledgeable.  Maybe a bit expensive.

- How to pick a Nursery
Big selection, knowledgeable, helpful staff.  HMB Nursery passes bigtime in both categories.

- How to pick a tree
First, what do you want?  Where do you put it?  What conditions does it like?  The good news is, pretty much everything they sell is specific to the area.  They don't sell it if it doesn't grow well here.  Having said that, I still wanted to ask.  HMB climate is significantly different than mine, for example.  That said, here's the next consideration.  When does it fruit?

I tried to pick varieties where I would fill up the summer and fall with fruit.  Not sure how well I did.  I know I have summer and fall harvest, so we will see.

How much do they fruit?
I wanted a lot.  I think most of those I purchased meet that requirement, but not 100% sure.  I also wanted super tasty fruit, more than anything.  Again, I think I have that.  I wonder a tiny bit about the fig.  He's a green one.  I am sure he will be good.

Dwarf or not?
I asked the guy we were working with.  He sounded like he had about 100 trees at his farm.  Basically, he said, you can trim any of them to be any size you want.  Nuf said.  He explained, I would need about a 4-5 foot radius on each trunk for space.  Okay, not too bad!  He also said he tops all his trees, so he can pick without a ladder.  So, dwarf is nice, but not necessary if you don't mind trimming.

How to pick from the stock?
He picked for us.  Essentially he looked for something, I forget the name, but, you want a tree with branches evenly distributed radially, in particular, every 120 degrees.  They will fill out best.

What about planting?
Dig a hole twice the size of the tree container.  Fill with good dirt, and the container dirt.  Water and firm up in soil.  Trim extra branches.  He suggested a bunch get cut.  I know, first thought is don't.  I am going to try it though.

Watering?  Trimming?
Do not water for a month after the initial water.  He said why, I forget.  After that, once a month is best.  Less after a year or two.  They may grow without, but water will help.  Trim in winter.  Now, Feb/March is a good time to do it.  Cut off extra branches.  Keep to the 120 degrees.

Cutting instructions

cutting instructions

cutting instructions

Ellie and fruit trees

Farmer's Market, Belmont, CA Sun 9-1pm

Happy Father's Day~
Sarah is very much into the farmer's market thing(okay, so am I), so we looked up what's going on today.  We didn't start till noon, so we lucked out to find Belmont is open until 1pm.  The ultimate time to shop is right at closing time, and this is really true at this market.  In San Carlos, the prices start coming down about an hour before closing, and here it's more like 5-10 minutes before closing.  All said, awesome selection here, but veggies, mushrooms (they were sold out by the time we started looking to purchase), fruit, including lots of berries.

Farmer's Market, El Camino at Ralston(ish)
Belmont, CA
Free range, organic, happy chicken eggs, really tasty cherry tomatoes, see all that bok choy?  Non-stop
raspberries and strawberries and blueberries.  All organic.  All incredibly tasty.

Go-effer cages
Okay, on a separate note, we are finally getting our garden in.  We created little gofo-ker cages.  After we made them, I went on line.  Others sell them.  Mine are stainless steel, and a tighter weave... We used the paint can to make the basic shape.  Hope it works.  Tired of sharing with the go-effers.  Pog, thanks for helping.

Blueberries

I am determined to get my blueberries planted today.  Yes, I should be out there now, but if I commit to my blog, hopefully, I will get it done.  I bought my first blueberry start about a month ago.  Maybe more.  I got it in a small tube, just a stick with a plastic bag of dirt around it.  I got it at Whole Foods of all places.  It was like $6.99 and I thought, wow, cool.  I am getting it, and then go to the Nursery to get some more.  So, a few weeks after that, I finally get to the Nursery, and they don't have any.  I go to another, and yes, they do.  $27.00 each (now they are in 2 gal pots).  Mine in the little tube has since sprouted a huge set of leaves.  I got 2 others from the nursery too.  Here's what comes into play with blueberries:

1)  they like acid soil
2) they need something like 600 hours of cold or up to a lot more per winter (somehow, that's not freezing, but the hours of cold make a difference)
3) they have varieties that apparently grow in Northern California
4) they need to be planted together, at least two plants, preferably 3 different ones.

So, I have 3.  They are a early, mid and late season plant.  Hopefully I can find the types.
One is a berkeley.  I forget the other two but will check into it.

I am planting Misty (from  Whole Foods)
Master Gardeners of Santa Clara County has some good information
Yes, I am planting 3 types for cross-pollination.
Some serious N Cal blueberry growers

Jib Jab
Okay, so I am thinking about this, and I do a search.  The Internet is such a cool thing.  I find a great posting by another blogger when I was looking to plant around here.   So, first, the information is great.  Some nice pictures and so on.  He, like me thought it would be cool to have blueberries here.  We picked some in Michigan, growing wild, one vacation..and they were so good, and fun.  So, anyways, I notice, dang, nice site altogether and start looking around, and notice he has over 1M visitors!!!   Okay, now I am a bit jealous.  He has all these comments on his posts, and he comments back.  It's a whole connectivity thing.  I am impressed, and admire the whole thing. 

So, I am, (after this post I hope!) over 1,000 unique visitors.  I know.  Unique has a different meaning on the Internet, but I've been growing my audience little by little.  So, I start reading around on this guy's site, who lives pretty close to me, in Sunnyvale, and he has all these topics I am interested in, like marketing, high tech, and it turns out, did you guess yet?  He is the founder of Linked-In.  Okay, fine.  Adam Nash on growing blueberries in the bay area.

It's summer

Alright, so basically the garden is what its going to be. There are vines going everywhere. Still not sure what everything is. I am sure I have a bunch of cucumbers- the Persian kind...but mostly see flowers and no veggies yet, although Sarah has found a few. Sarah did the corn and sunflowers, which look really cool right now. Both are super tall, and the sunflowers are coming out, and the corn looks like there will be corn...the ears have lots of hair coming out...almost looks fake! There's some nice looking peppers scattered around, each plant looks like it's in the wrong place, but hey, I'll take it. Not sure why the basil didn't make it...it's so nice having it... i got the first couple tomatoes. early girls...tasty!! they actually were off a branch ellie broke off, and i left it there and the tomatoes ripened. Anyways, we'll see what's next. I am bit anxious about it. Just gotta wait and see. Good things are coming.

As the garden grows

Okay, a couple updates. I'll get a couple pictures soon.
First- the watermelons turned to pumpkins! Well, that's what I thought when I saw the nice size watermelons, turning a yellow orange on the bottom. At first I am like, okay, what happened? Then I noticed they were all doing it, and finally realized, yeah, they are pumpkins...i wonder if they are carving kind or eating kind.
Second- How does Sarah keep finding the cucumbers? I looked all over. Carefully! She goes out there, in the dark, with a flashlight, with one eye and finds another one. Third time. They are those persion ones, so tasty!!
Third - green beans are coming in. they are so tasty when you get them young. sooo delicious!
Four- wow, so many vines. they take up so much room. they are really taking off. So are the sunflowers. getting lots of flowers coming in. all different kinds and colors. and the corn is so tall. maybe 7-8 feet?
Finally- i ate a couple strawberries. really flavorful, but i think i am going to pull them up. they take too much space. i think i need to make a plan for next year now, while i see how much space is being taken up by everything.

The first harvest! 7/8/09

Yahoo!! The gophers aren't the only ones loving on my garden. I am amazed that I have already been harvesting zucchinis and yellow squash! The gophers (they say in an area the size of our yard, it's only one!) are gobbling up various things. Every year they go for tomato plants, and they got a few this year, another surprise is they got a bunch of the string bean plants too...and what I really wasn't expecting is they tore down a few of the sunflowers as well(if you click on this image, and look in the corner, you can
see sunflower stalks they/he/she pulled into the hole...) Uhg, it's so demoralizing!! Attempts to get rid of them later...

So, the good news is: holy smoke, we have a volunteer watermelon from last year. We have a few already set, about the size of a small football already. We will see how they are. It's hard to tell when they are ready, and now that I think about it, the bugs got the one or two we had last year... It also looks like we have a lot of vine plants. Not sure what they all are yet, some are cucumber for sure. I hope they all aren't! It seems most of the herbs got eaten by bugs or something. I may have to get some more or plant some seeds. It's amazing how everything filled in already. It seems early yet!

Summer garden planted

Well, we waited a while to get our garden in this year. I think it was because I am getting close to trying to fix the grass area It's settled, and the border stones have come down. We need to bring in about 20 yards of dirt...It's gonna be a big project.

So, we did a total clean-up of the garden area and got most everything planted.
That means:
- corn
- hot (mild hot) peppers
- zucchini
- butternut squash
- thyme
- basil
- thai basil
- sugar pumpkins
- other stuff