California - What are you doing this month?

Did you get rain last night?  We had huge drops off and on along with thunder this morning.  I don't know how much, but every drop matters!

I wondered if you got any rain. The clouds over the mountains looked so ominous. Zero down here.

Bummer!  We need rain EVERYWHERE including for you guys in the valley.  The rain started as we were headed out to a home group for our church.  I got utterly soaked just opening and closing the gate.  The rain continued on and off during the 3 hours we were gone and our sidewalk at home was drenched.  I don't know what the total was.

Weeding this morning the ground isn't exactly soaked but it is moist.

audrey.jeanne.roberts wrote:Bummer!  The rain started as we were headed out.    I don't know what the total was.

This is a test - my reply abilities seem to have a glitch.

I see your reply - that one worked.

I pulled up two white beets today and we're having them for dinner.  The grew amazingly well and fast in my newest SFG beds.  Everything is doing well in them except my pole beans are a little yellowed with their veins greener than the inside of the leaves.  Looking it up online they said if the PH was off it could do that, but my ph is around 7 with my garden tester tool (all depends on how accurate a home tool might be).  

Any ideas?

I wish I new. Remember, I'm a new kid at gardening. I look to you for answers. The lower leaves turn yellow and fall off. But I don't know about green veins and yellow leaves.

Now, about your recipe?

Really basic... I peel them, slice them thickly and put them in a corning ware container with lid and about 1/2" of water.  Cook for about an hour.  Add butter, salt and pepper.

They were nummy!

I'm sure the beans are nummy.  I meant the Bonner's soap recipe! I started reading the recipe so you can imagine it didn't make sense until I realized you were talking about cooking.

I asked for the recipe at the bottom of the prior page, after I posted the 4 photos of my backyard.

IT'S RAINING!

Edit: I only posted 3 photos and I must have asked for your recipe under another topic.

I should make it clearer.  The Bonner soap with a bit of dish soap that you used on the aphids.    

Side note, the parsnips finally came up, 7 out of 8.  The French breakfast radishes are really coming along.  I actually like those compared to other radishes.  They seem to be juicier.  Oh, and I found a volunteer tomato camouflaged between coriander cilantro (which is 2' tall) and a vigorous parsley.  The 4 herbs were planted in half squares with the rest of the bed in 8 peppers.  (bed is 4' x 2 1/2') I just have to keep it for a while and see what type it is

Bye for now, I'm off to Sacramento.

sanderson wrote:I should make it clearer.  The Bonner soap with a bit of dish soap that you used on the aphids.    

Side note, the parsnips finally came up, 7 out of 8.  The French breakfast radishes are really coming along.  I actually like those compared to other radishes.  They seem to be juicier.  Oh, and I found a volunteer tomato camouflaged between coriander cilantro (which is 2' tall) and a vigorous parsley.  The 4 herbs were planted in half squares with the rest of the bed in 8 peppers.  (bed is 4' x 2 1/2')  I just have to keep it for a while and see what type it is

Bye for now, I'm off to Sacramento.

Oh my goodness, I got such a laugh out of that!!!  

I cut up a bar of Dr. Bronner's natural soap (I don't have the label but you can find it in a lot of supermarkets) in about a 2 liter container and let it melt into the water.  That was last year.  It's been sitting all winter, but you don't need to have it sit that long.

I used 3 TBSP of that liquid and about 1TBSP of the original non-antibacterial version of blue dawn with 1 gallon of water in my sprayer.  I tested the mix first as I didn't have a recipe to work with and didn't want to damage my tender plants.  After seeing that it worked (basically on contact) and that the plants were fine.  I sprayed everything really well.  Checked back in a few minutes and every aphid that was hit was dead.  You could see a few moving where I had missed them but I didn't want to over do it on the plants so I resprayed yesterday and will continue to do so any time I see them gaining an upper hand.  

Have fun in Sac!

Thanks for the Bonner recipe.    It stopped raining in time for the bounce house to be set up for the birthday party so all the kiddies could do their thing.  Nice afternoon with predictable Delta cool (cold) evening breeze.

Today was 92*F!

The Dr. Bonner's Peppermint liquid soap worked - it killed about 90% of the aphids. For a one quart bottle, I added 2 Tablespoons of Bonners, 1 tsp of blue Dawn and 1 tsp. of oil. What a lovely fragrance, also.

Still 90*F and above this week. Bees still furiously attacking the flowering coriander plants. When a bee wants a flower, the wanna-bees rapidly exit it! Kind of comical. The Rattlesnake beans are 5-6' tall, eggplants, peppers and tomatoes all have flowers.

Husband helped me extend the PVC gable-topped cage supports for the tomatoes but the poles are dropping and bending from the Florida weave I'm trying.. So, tomorrow, if I'm perkier, we will replace with six 7' EMC poles and fittings. Yesterday and today I think I had the norovirus the grandkiddies had.

Yuck!  Sorry to hear that, hope you're feeling peachy soon!  I think it's time for some pictures    I am on my last week of deadlines and am pretty much doing nothing but watering as needed.  I can't wait to get out and finish up the projects that need to be done before the heat.  

The shade cloth is going up on the greenhouse today or tomorrow.  I need to put up my grid wall trellis sections on my new raised boxes, which will mean pulling off the tulle.  Hopefully there's enough plant life to discourage my cats!!!

Thunderstorm and heavy rain this afternoon. I'm hearing thunder again!

Thunder and heavy rain TWICE today.    I took 10 photos so you can see I'm using restraint on posting.    Looking out the front door:
Out the back door:
Bean Alley on the east side (notice the wood chips):
Squash row on the west side:
West to east:
East to West:

Audrey, How did the wood chips hold up under the down pour today? I guess I should ask if you got rain, first. As long as we don't get hail.

I looked at my beans yesterday and thought they had more green caterpillars. Then I realized they were baby Rattlesnakes! Have you tried cutting back the beans to let them grow again? Did it work? Have you taken the update photos of your 2 new beds? I bet they are unrecognizable as the same 2 beds.

Total for Fresno rain on Thursday: 0.25." This brings the annual rain fall (Oct 1, 2014- Sept 30, 2015) to 6.12." We should have a week of 80*F.

 Thunderstorm and rain!    I got one bed that I'm trying to dry out covered last night.  Put tulle over and around the Dragon Tongues to keep them from falling over.  Applied powdered milk and Epson salt to the tomatoes with BER.  Tied back the coriander cilantro as they were falling over.  As part of redoing the front flower bed and color spot, I re-laid the bricks in part of the sidewalk from the side and got them sanded in!  Perfect timing for everything!  

Coriander cilantro tied back. Volunteer tomato!

This time you guys have gotten all the rain, we've had a few drops and nothing more so far.  The flooding pictures are crazy!  Glad all's well with your garden.

I planted some new batches of lettuce in my shadier areas today.  Planted some albino beets (they're sooooo good!) and more dragon tongue beans.  

Oh, and I'm gathering as much cow manure and hay straw as possible before they move the last of the cattle for the summer.

The rain we just had dropped 0.26" bringing the year to date to 6.38."  Last year was 4.77" so we are ahead of the game.    Weather in the Valley expected 70s and 80s for a few days.

I actually got out in the garden today. Planted cucumbers from HD. Set up and repaired their trellis. This is the last bed for planting. It's been so shaded that it wouldn't dry out enough to turn it until today. Carefully used the compost / horse manure fork to turn it over. Man, were there worms. I took two photos and one video with the iPhone but the video wouldn't download. I cleaned out the worm tube carefully replacing the worms. Tomorrow's work will be back in the front yard flower bed.

I woke up at 6 yesterday and couldn't go back to sleep so I went out into the front yard garden where we spend most of our outdoor time.  I cleaned up piles of old cut up branches, bricks and broken concrete as this area had been the "stash" section of the yard before we moved here.  

I put a simple border around my newest veggie garden there and moved my water fountain from the front door over into that section.  We will enjoy it more over there as we don't sit out in the open sun where it was.  

Today, after church, we're going to go get another trailer full of the 5 year old, fully composted goat/horse/sheep manure and bedding materials.  My strawberries and potato beds are really happy campers one week after the first load got distributed.  

Then I'm going to place some heavy timbers we have stacked up in the yard as a border for my raised beds (where the sea weed went last fall).  Then I'm going to die... 

You really have your dance card booked today.

I was originally going to post these pics in the post this morning but got pulled away and passed the time I could edit so here's the pictures:


The area past the zucchini garden is the area I cleaned out yesterday morning.  It was about 5' x 6' piled about 12 inches deep with wood, bricks, cement pavers and junk.  Further beyond it is a left over pile of wood with 2 by 4's and such that is almost used up.  I'm going to relocate that and eventually plant over to those lovely rocks in the distance.  



This is the North Eastern corner of our home and is our cool, shaded "oasis" from the heat.  To let everything grow in here, we had to install shade sails.  We had total shade in the winter as it's North and under trees, but got 100% intensive summer sun over 100 degrees.  Few plants wanted to brave those conditions!  Now we have a lovely flower garden that is in bloom 9-10 months out of the year.  



And the fountain will reside here.  It's just temporarily placed to make sure I liked it, but it's not quite level.  All the blocks to the left were to keep the dogs from running through when they're rough housing.  A 110+ dog and an 80 lb dog can do a LOT OF DAMAGE!

The composted  manure gathering is put off until tomorrow evening, there just isn't going to be enough time to do it this day!

Thank you for posting. Can you show a shot of the shade sails? I've thought of white parachute silk banners in the back yard. I need a realistic photo of shade sails. Are those railroad ties or 4x4s that I see in the lumber pile? It looks like a sloped area and the ties laid here and there could make an interesting compost/chip expansion of garden. You know the word I want to use.