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

The Cherries are in!

Alright, sneaking a picture of Ellie at her finest. She loves the sun.



So, good news! We got the cherry trees in. The one at the top of the hill is the Stella and the lower one is the Bada Bing. They were both bare root trees with some potting soil on them so we could keep them in the pot until now. We weren't expecting it, but as soon as we pulled them out of the pot, all the soil fell off. This caused a few seconds of panic, but then we remembered what the nursery guy had told us...they are bare root, but he put them in soil so they would last. They did, about a month or more in the pot. We even saw some healthy new white roots growing in the pot. Hope these take off nicely!

Spring is in the air

Okay, it's a beautiful day, and we decided to plant a tree or two. Okay, so the lower trees are going to require a fence, so those will be a little extra work...okay a lot of extra work, so instead we will do the ones inside the fence. We are thinking continue
with the cherries inside the fence.

The second picture is probably more like what we will have. None of these are specifically Bada Bing cherries, so not sure where we will end up there in regards to looks.

Skiing in California

Okay, it's been a bit long since the last post...not from lack of activities, so let's catch up. First, Matt and I had a great day on the mountain...it was special for a couple reasons;
- first ski day in 2009!
- really nice weather, snow was reasonably good...we found some really nice runs
- first time skiing with Matt, since we last saw each other about 30 years ago at CCHS
- rented a really nice pair of skis, which if I were to buy a pair, these would be a nice pair...
Salomon Tornado XWing i think....178 cm
- We went to Squaw Valley

The photo is from lunch the week before...our first rendezvous after 30 plus years...now we both live in the greater San Francisco area.