California - What are you doing this month?

Here is a picture of the rolling Gwennifer's Table Top DH made for my oldest son.  Son and I assembled at his house, and with the help of older grandson, filled it with some of my Mel's Mix.  It looks a mess because it was a training session, installing poles with plumber's tape, draping with tulle material, draping with 4 mil plastic, making a grid with sticks and bamboo.  The PVC poles are my vented pipes for compost pile.

Report from Son:  "Hi, Mom..Planted all of the seeds except tomato . . . Something for the Forum:  if garden is a children's project, small seeds may not be appropriate.  All seeds should be . . .large . . .Or planting should be left out and just the tending and harvesting  (as) pay off (for) the small child participation. . . (Older GS) planted 4 seeds. . . (younger GS) grabbed the spade and dug half the seeds up when my back was turned.  Seeds the size of ping pong balls would work for the under 5 crowd."

LOL!  Some wisdom in your son's thoughts and ideas!  I can save my avocado pits for the "seeds the size of ping pong balls!"

There you go, avocado seeds.  Actually, son has planted fruit pits and seeds and has some potted up.  Question for you in our area.  I was given some used storage totes and was thinking for sweet potatoes.  Can I plant these half sweet potatoes without removing the slips?  Or should I wait a couple weeks and break off the slips and plant those?  How many slips or 1/2 potatoes would you plant per tote?

Good job Grandsons!
Happy memories of little kids planting stuff...  My living room used to have an avocado tree and 2 citrus trees and various apple trees, all planted by my kids when they were 3 or so.  It got a little crowded in here and I was really glad when the avocado broke and I could declare it done.  They liked helping to plant peas, beans, corn, squash.  And I would let them pick out a pony pack at the nursery for some instant gratification. 

Sanderson, that sure is a cute set up, and cute young men.

I don't know what you're supposed to do with the sweet potatoes, but I threw mine out into the garden last year as one giant whole potato about 8 inches long. It was when I had to leave home for a month to take care of my dad after surgery so it certainly didn't get any babying! It had started growing in my pantry and I decided to plant it in an isolated area so if there were any issues with disease or anything it wouldn't really matter.

That one potato produced over 30-35 lbs of sweet potatoes for us. It was amazing!!!

Turan, The funny thing is that it was built for my son! Peas, beans, corn and squash. Good idea. Need to build another, or five, 2 x 4 beds for him.

Audrey, thanks for your SP info.

sanderson wrote:Turan,  The funny thing is that it was built for my son!  Peas, beans, corn and squash.  Good idea.  Need to build another, or five, 2 x 4 beds for him.

Audrey, thanks for your SP info.  

Not sure that's HOW YOU'RE SUPPOSED to do SPs but that's what we did, LOL! Lucked out.

That's not how... geesh Audrey, read your posts before hitting the button ;-)

Audrey, I went to Joann's today but they were all sold out of 108" white tulle.  But I found it on sale at Hancock Fabrics for $2.07 with another 25% coupon.  I can't wait to dress the boxes!  Praying for the rain this weekend. It's the Pineapple express so it shouldn't be real cold.

Yup, we've gotten 5" rain in the last 12 hours.  With daylight I see the trees are still standing! So is the greenhouse and yurt!  So all is good.

I set up the grow station this week.  6 grow lights and a heat mat.  I was 'gifted' the lights and heat mat from a neighbor who had a rental that was turned into a grow house.  So bonus for me!  Boo for her!  They trashed the house.

Also starting my high school exploring careers class on their seed choices and after this downpour ends we'll head out to the garen next week.

Finally the fencing for the new Farm to Table School Garden I will manage adjacent to our high school cafiteria will be erected in a couple weeks.  We'll have a dedicated space 100 X 90 feet.  So looks like I'll be busy this summer!

Lynn, Lucky you, unlucky neighbor. I bet the house was a bear to get it rehabed and de-odorized to rent again. 5" would take us from super-drought to regular drought, especially if the snow pack really increased! Your school involvement is wonderful.

sanderson wrote:Lynn,  Lucky you, unlucky neighbor.  I bet the house was a bear to get it rehabed and de-odorized to rent again.  5" would take us from super-drought to regular drought, especially if the snow pack really increased!  Your school involvement is wonderful.

Agree with unlucky neighbor. A friend of mine had an eight-plex building and one of his tenants did a moonlight flit, but leaving all the lights on, the hot water running, the heat on high and the cooker burners on.  It was lucky the whole place did not go up in flames as it was an older building. 

From super drought to regular drought if the snow pack increased?  That really tells me how bad it is in Ca. If you were able to get it to normal in one year you would need Noah's Ark.

I hope this year is the year California gets turned around, otherwise the price of vegetables and fruit will sky-rocket and so many farmers will fail.

Meanwhile here we have rain all this week.  Although we have had some snow there has been nowhere near enough so far to stay in the mountains and trickle down to us in the summer.  I have a feeling we are going to have very dry conditions this summer and more forest fires. I believe some of the ski resorts are packing up early.

I'm making MM today in prep for the rainy weekend. I will be setting up the lights and planting seedling cups indoors. Found that Fresno Ag really, really does carry coarse vermiculite, 4 cu. ft. for $35.99 plus tax.

DH is also getting Kelloggs for the potato cage and bins. I'll add vermiculite, a little peat accordingly, Ecoscraps compost and chicken or cow manure. I'll be adding homemade compost as it becomes available so in a year, it should be good stuff with the wood pieces fully compost/broken down. Anything to get going on the SP and potatoes. Off to work outside.

Have fun, I have to make a fast trip into town to get fitted for glasses. They didn't have the frames I wanted and had to order them from another Costco, so I get to make 4 trips for one pair of glasses (eye doctors for prescription, trip to find and order glasses, second trip once glasses arrive and then to pick up the finished glasses). That only adds about $50-60 dollars to the cost with fuel costs dropping but geesh!

Finished the rolling potato bin. Not very pretty but the caging and heavy weed fabric were free. The potatoes are from a bag that started sprouting. I cut one sprouting section from 4 spuds.


I also made some MM to fill seedling cups and pony packs enough to fill 5 trays. Hopefully, I will seed everything tomorrow while I watch the 1/2" of rain!!

Nice!!!

Susan and I are creating two new sfg beds.  She does the heavy work.  

We have just planted lots of cauliflower, broccoli and kale next to the onions.  We have to be diligent with water as we are not having much rain down here in  the lowlands, although lots in Koke`e (our hills at about 3500')..

Picking a bit of that wonderful asparagus and a fair amount of lettuce for dinners. Our starts are doing well and we are looking for friends and neighbors to share them with.

Please also copy and post in your new Hawaii topic.

It has been 71*F this morning and 60*F on the upper 2" of the sunny boxes.  The clouds are moving in so it should cool down a bit.  This Pineapple Express is a nice "warm" rain.  No more excuses, I'm going to start seedling the pots now.  We got the PVC frames set up for the lights in the formal dining room.  I may need a couple 2-3' ones (T8) to complete the set up this year.  I will direct sow beans, okra so that frees up some cells for more flowers!

Where I stored that last summer compost in the beds?  Piled it up high?  Well, the little worms have multiplied like mad.  I was afraid  they might drown being captive in raised beds with the rain but they found the perfect temp and moisture at 1-2".  I also checked the free range box (open bottom) box and they have been making castings during my neglect.  Some have migrated to the nearby orange tree mish mash / bte top dressing!! 

I sat outside yesterday, barefoot and in a short sleeved shirt and had a phone conversation with a dear friend.  She lives in Washington state and was wearing her ugg boots indoors while we talked, LOL!  Needless to say she was jealous It was downright balmy!  

My first lettuce seedlings are popping their little heads up.  My Chinese cabbage that were planted last fall are starting to form heads and have reached around 6 inches high once I covered them with tulle.  They were being eaten to death before that.  

My very first bed (that is now inside my greenhouse) had probably 6 inches of wood chips at one time and it still looks like there is a layer, but when you move it back all you see is what you might think are "coffee grounds" but it's the worm castings!  I'm going to have to mulch it again as my little worm factories have digested it all and mixed it into the soil.  That bed was pre-Mel's mix it was purchased bedding soil from a local nursery and it was heavy on the sand in the mix so it always dried out too easily.  It's now developed into a really nice loamy mix. 

I can't wait to get more plants peeking their heads up.  Last year our last frost date was Feb 1, this year we only had one week of freeze and a few light frosts.  It's been so crazy warm I feel like I moved back to San Diego!

reply.  I went to correct a spelling and it disappeared.  I'll do that manually from now on.  

Audrey - what a treasure those worm castings. Gonna do worm tubes some day soon.

Today we planted 7 squares of lettuces and broccoli and noticed white cauliflower heads.  Our first.  Have tulle if the bugs come.

kauairosina, I put tulle over my winter cabbages, kales and chard as a preventive measure.

Audrey, Yes, yesterday was downright balmy. Even the rain was the kind that the kids would play in. Warmish. Today is glorious. We got 0.42" which brings the season total up to 3.82".

I managed to seed 2 flats of seed cups. Mainly tomatoes and peppers (2 cups for each variety). Then I realized that I still wanted paprika pepper, so i opened the Baker catalog. Well, you can guess the rest of the story. By the time I logged off, it was $40 worth of seeds. The Devil made me do it! Today I will seed the herbs and some of the flowers. The sweet potatoes in the cups are doing nicely. I still need to scrub the free totes for them. A couple of hot soapy washes in the shower with the hose attachment. Last thing I need is any of the "residue" from the prior product in my potatoes!! Hey, they were free, so I couldn't pass them up!

I don't know how much rain we got, but last night I had my ear plugs firmly in place (defense against hubbies snoring, LOL!) and sat up in bed, took them out and couldn't believe how hard it was raining. CRAZY hard.

I have learned the benefits of tulle now - I agree with Sanderson, preventatively is best. I still have not been able to grow cauliflower, so congrats on your heads forming. I'm trying my third year, fingers crossed!

I have avoided seed catalogs. Once I organized my seeds I just didn't have anything I could say to rationalize needing one more thing

Fresno got Zero rain last night. Go figure.

I went through my seeds a few days ago and actually tossed the ones I knew I would never grow or never grow again. Then, yesterday while seeding, I realized I didn't have the pepper for making paprika, or spearmint, and was low on Dragon Tongues. I bought 17 packs in all. Another 4 veggies, 5 herbs, 3 flowers, Hungarian poppy for seeds, and pimiento pepper.

I've never tried Dragon tongue beans and might want to order some of them, but if I crack the catalog I just don't trust myself, LOL!