California - What are you doing this month?

That is a BRILLIANT idea.  I'm not sure how many there are but that would solve making them deeper.  2x 6 wouldn't be deep enough for the soil and the thick mulch we need.  

Clever clever girl  

I'm off to Sacramento for 2 grandkids' BD parties, 16 and 3. Universal green for the teenager and tot scooter for the 3 year old. I hate to leave my garden and TTs without mulch or drips installed in some areas. DH will cat and garden sit, but you know, not the same.

Have a great time!  We're headed for a day trip to Bakersfield to visit our middle daughter.

Enjoy, and drive carefully.

Back home after 3 days with kids, kiddies, grand kiddie and pets.  The great thing is that they now all live within one large visiting zone.

When I got home, I found the first ripe cantaloupe on the ground.  I've already posted that photo.  But I also found this:  ??  I don't have any seeds that are suppose to look like this.

I also found this volunteer:  Considering I lost 21 tomato plants to disease, I will welcome any variety.  It's growing in a pot to which I added homemade compost at the end of 2013 growing season:

I took this photo because there are 5 cantaloupe and 10 squash in this small area.  For anyone with limited square footage, they should consider vertically training anything that can be trained:

Lemon squash is easy to grow vertically.

Also, found the first 6 Purple Podded beans at the top of an 8' trellis.  These plants were terribly devastated by spider mites and then cabbage worms but have really bounced back with treatment to the point they are producing:

I've written before that I should go away more often!   

Audrey, How was your trip to Bakersfield?  How is everyone's garden doing in this varied California Region?  Any photos?  Yardslave, I told my kids that garlic is no longer being grown in Gilroy and you would have thought the world ended.

We just had a nice break (90 & 99*F) from the heat.  Now we are back in the triple digits of around 103*F.  Sunday night in Sacramento it actually rained!  Dang.  Wish some would hit the valley.

Only in California:  $500 fine to go into affect for wasting water.     Bet it doesn't apply to properties owned/operated by the State, Counties or Cities.  Oh, the City is cutting residential watering days from 3x week down to 2x week.  I just ordered 200' of 6" drip line from Drip Works for the non-veggie flower beds/shrubs/ patio trees.  Just in case I need to sneak in some extra watering.  

I hope to get some corn, dragon tongues, soy beans and okra direct seeded in the new table tops.  I've been tweaking the drip irrigation before putting anything in them.  Also, bought a bolt of 72" tulle from Joann's with a 40% off coupon.

I found some raw cow's milk at Kristina's for the garden. I'm starting "The Great Experiment" with the front lawn and the fungus. Can't hurt. Half sprayed with raw milk, maybe molasses one or 2 times, the other half without either. DH has tried everything on the dead areas of Fescue.

What are the rest of you up to?

PS: Someone posted that they got 1" of rain, and my husband said, "That's 50% of last year's annual rain."

My veggies are on life support...water rates here are 3X the average for ANY water municipality in the state. ( We are not on a municipal, but a private water company that is posting a 30% return to investors- they're selling less water for more $$ !!) I currently have my beds in mini-1/4" soaker tubing that's been on for about 3+ years and it's having flow problems because of the hardness of the water, so I'm going to have to switch the system over to drip tubing. It's a lot of work, but I'll do practically anything to avoid another $998 August water bill again       I now have to do supplemental hand watering because of the heat wave- tomatoes are drooping and showing signs of stress- whiteflies are starting in on the tomatoes and the squash plants, taking advantage of the stressed plants.

Yardslave wrote:My veggies are on life support...water rates here are 3X the average for ANY water municipality in the state.  I'm going to have to switch the system over to drip tubing. It's a lot of work, but I'll do practically anything to avoid another $998 August water bill again       .

You've got to be kidding!!  $998 for water??     That's a nice mortgage payment.  I really, really feel for you. I hope you have a thick layer of wood chips down.

$998 was last August, the year before the tab for watering was $996! If the drought gets any worse, California will have to change the state flower from the Golden Poppy to Gramma's dusty, plastic livingroom flowers!

Yardslave wrote: If the drought gets any worse, California will have to change the state flower from the Golden Poppy to Gramma's dusty, plastic livingroom flowers!

    How true!

That's crazy.

So much for privatizing always making things cheaper. Another so called law of the universe that turns out to be no less a human construct than any other.

I got up at 6 AM to beat the heat.  I needed to fine tune the new drip system and set up the grids.  I planted Silver Queen, Dragon Tongue and soy beans in half of the squares.  I'll get the Woodchips on tonight.

I'm inside for the rest of the day until late evening/night.  I need to turn the Berkeley pile and remove the soldier fly larva from the worm bin.  I stumbled upon a clever way to scoop out the larva: place some fresh cantaloupe rinds, tomatoes and cucumber peelings in the corner.  They all came out of hiding and are now swarming the meal.

Sanderson - I just love your TT's.   I am going to build some that size next year or after I retire in 13 months and counting.  I have a question about the drip lines in theses boxes.   My question is,

It looks like there are tubes running down the length of the long sides.  Are these 1/4 inch solid tubes.  Also, are these tubes running down the length of both sides.

I assume the tubes going across the width are 1/4 inch drip tubes with drips every 6 inches.  Are these tubes connected to the tubes running down both of the long sides of the box.  Are they connected at both sides.

It looks like the tubes going across the width of the boxes are 6 inches apart.  Is this correct.  Two tubes per square.

I am going to eventually convert all my boxes to no more than 2 feet wide.  I am tired of looking thru a jungle of vines to pick my peas and beans.  I would like to get at them from each side.

Those look gorgeous, sanderson. You sure manage to get a lot of squares into a small space.

Yolos -- I'm with you on boxes that aren't too wide. It can be hard enough going through a foot of densely planted peas or beans ... or even tomatoes sometimes. I really like how much easier it is when you don't have to fight through multiple layers of jungle. Especially when squatting! That gets to feel half impossible ...

Yolos,  Thank you.  I love the ease of working these boxes.  2' x 8' and 2 1/2' x 4'.  Congrats on your pending retirement!   

Each box has one solid 1/4" tube running down one side.  The 1/4" drip lines are teed off the solid line and plugged at their ends with goof plugs.  Last year I started off with a solid line down both long sides and the drip lines connected to both, making a large connected grid.  But, I couldn't move the lines out of the way if I just wanted to work on one or a few squares because it was one large grid.

The 2 lines across each square are 4" apart.  That spacing works good for 1, 4, 9, 2 (cucumbers) and 8 (pole beans or peas) spacing.  For 16, I have to spread them apart a tad, one seed on the left, one on the right and 2 in the middle, repeated 4 times.

I hope this helps. Oh, one thing I didn't do this time that I have always done before is to stretch out and pin down the tubing to get the extreme curl out. As you can see in the photo, I'm having a heck of a time getting the drip tubes to lie flat!   

Thanks Marc. I think after the 3' x 3' TT is built, that will be it. That will be over 100 squares plus the 30 something pots.

Yolos, Regarding stretching out the tubing, I meant to roll it out straight on the lawn and pin/stake it down in the sun for a day or two.

I ordered another 200' from Dripworks Wed night and I got the box this afternoon!

sanderson, do you feel when you're all set up at last, fully maxed out, you'll be well on your way to your garden paying for itself year by year, or even turning out to be a financially rewarding investment?

I'd love to hit that sweet spot myself, but I'm definitely not there yet.

Marc, I think I will break even at my age, if I look at it realistically. I figure I have 8 more summers that I will be able to garden. And, I am really looking forward to those 8 summers, especially if I can get some tomatoes next year.    I think I have spent over $1,200 (some inheritance) setting up, even with the free wood for some of the boxes and re-purposing odds and ends. PVC, EMC, fittings, 3.5 mil plastic, zip ties, weed and tulle fabrics, sea kelp, worm castings, worm tubes, trellis netting, hardware cloth, screws, bolts, plywood, stain, etc., add up. I haven't deprived myself if I really want or need something. Since I'm in a neighborhood, everything has to look decent.

I'm getting the hang of composting so I would say that I am now on the profit side of that. A cheap bale of straw a year to supplement my leaves. Replacement seeds will be way less than $100/year. I'm recording most of the harvest this year to see what the value is. If it's $200, then from here out, things should amortize nicely.

It's hard to put a value on something you have fun doing!   

Yeah, there are so many health rewards to growing your own that I think it's worth doing even if you lose money, and it's an intriguing hobby. For people with enough land, there's even the chance to sell at a farmer's market and such, which is pretty cool.

I garden in three places, and I've begun to ask myself if I should cut way back in one place or eliminate it altogether next year. It's so hard to garden there that I'm starting to ask myself just how much I'm getting back for what I put in.

I love your table tops too Sanderson!

I have been thinking about you all in the hot area's of the state with limited water (((hugs)))

happy gardening
rose

I was showing off your tt to my hubby and he wants to know what you used for the bottom and how they were attached?  

As to garden paying for itself - I had about $500 into my first year $500 into my second year and $800 into the greenhouse this year.  Guestimating but it wouldn't be more than $2,000.

Because we live so far away from groceries the less trips we make we save a lot that you can't really count.  It isn't really about to cost of veggies as much as the number of trips saved down the hill.

100 mile round trip at 16 mpg = $25 roughly
Usually 2 meals eaten out       = $60
$ of something you can't live without that you would have lived without had you not seen it?  Incalculable, LOL!

I used to have to make a trip in for groceries minimum every 2 weeks, now we can usually go a month and we're giving away enough groceries to bless 3 or 4 financially strapped families consistently. 

So, I think we win no matter what the actual $ say :-)!

Audrey, I will try to take photos of the underneath tomorrow. They will show how the 1/2" plywood bottoms are attached and supported. The Interior dimensions are true 2' x 8' and 2 1/2' x 4'.

Having a garden up there definitely makes sense. Having a large green house makes even more sense, extending the season with fresh produce. Just driving up and down the hill adds to the bill and the wear on the car.

The cost of trips to town can definitely add up. For me it's roughly five bucks per trip, but only if I don't go many places. Which of course I often do, since I'm in town, right? Even five bucks a shot adds up fairly quickly, though. Thank goodness it's not as expensive for me as it is for Audrey, though. It rarely goes as high as ten bucks, and I don't eat out.

Audrey, it sounds like you folks really will be saving some money by cutting out trips. Most of what I buy on trips to the grocery store is veggies and fruit anyway, because they're so perishable. (Most everything else, even bread, can be frozen, or, like milk, lasts for weeks.) If you can supply all or most of your own produce, I can see having to hit the supermarket far less often and saving money that way.

Hope one day I get my gardens as productive as yours!

One of the things I'm enjoying the most is my son-in-law (who hates veggies) is getting passionate about his own garden and even starting to eat what he's growing!  So fun to watch him get excited about every new thing and to be able to answer his questions.  

His garden, of course, is long on watermelon, cantaloupe and strawberries, and entirely missing anything dark green but hey, it's a start!  

He found a source for ladybugs in Mariposa or Madera (can't remember which he said) and bought 7500 for us to split between our gardens.  My ladybugs are loving it here and are eating away.  I also discovered hover flies in my greenhouse - which I never knew existed or what they did after reading about them here.  They are my new best friends!  Aphid infestation seems to be turning a corner with the addition.  

Can't wait for August to be over and to head into our productive fall season.