California - What are you doing this month?

4 inch pipe - large enough for me to put my arm down into and simply scoop up the castings.  It doesn't needs to be screened or anything else as I am simply scattering it into the bed it came from, or a bed that I want to spread worms to. I spread a small handful on each plant in the box on top of the soil/mulch and it will water down into the mix.   

If I didn't want the worms to go with the castings I would put them on a newspaper or something similar on top of the soil in my box and the worms would quickly disappear down into the soil leaving behind the castings.  

Hope that makes sense!

Who turned off the heat?? We are catching the bottom of the cold front. Low 80's during the day with 60*F at night.

My allergies went nuts yesterday. My head is a barometer, the minute the pressure drops I'm a mess. I "felt" the low pressure coming from mid-afternoon. YUCK!

The worst is the first low pressure after the long, hot, dry, high pressure summer. Can't wait until my head adjusts, I love the temps though!

My allergies flared yesterday with the wind. I take Allegra as the seasons require and I still was sneezy. Everything is coated with the sticky pollution and dust. I need to wash off the house, hardscape and ornamentals, but not until the protective frames and covers are finished. Probably finish today. Plus turn the pile since I didn't do it last night.

sanderson wrote:My allergies flared yesterday with the wind.  I take Allegra as the seasons require and I still was sneezy.  Everything is coated with the sticky pollution and dust.  I need to wash off the house, hardscape and ornamentals, but not until the protective frames and covers are finished.  Probably finish today.  Plus turn the pile since I didn't do it last night.

Yeah, I took a Zyrtec this morning along with 2, four hour sudafed.

My system is ridiculously sensitive to any stimulants so I can't take Sudafed after about 2 in the afternoon (or caffeine) or I'll be awake twitching all night. Same with 12 hours of almost anything, something they put in them to make the time-released triggers the same effect. The only long release product that doesn't seem to bother me is the Zyrtec.

We had RAIN last night!     I'm guessing 1/10 - 3/10 of an inch.  I didn't expect it so a few items and containers were open and need to be dried.  Small price to pay!

The more abundant rain in Northern Cal helped the stall the raging forest fire near Sacramento -Lake Tahoe so the firefighters have a better chance to control it.

I feel like I'm cheating. Went to the local nursery and bought kales, cabbage, chard and Spanish yellow onion starts. Took about 30 minutes to plant. Presto, instant garden.

I'm only planting in 3 of the larger TTs for a of total 22 sq ft (greens, lettuce, carrots, parsnips, onions, garlic, and turnips) and 2 of the 1 x 3s (snow peas). Winter flowers are going in the front color spot tomorrow (snapdragons, diathus and pansies in pink, purple and white.

Yay, for cheating if it has your garden started. Way ahead of me!!! I am behind even though I started thinking about things well, well in advance *deep sigh*

I need to plant tomorrow. I have 3 containers ready to go to plant the seed in, I just need to carry them out to my greenhouse to plant, LOL! Big task

I did another 4 x 8 section of garden with 3-4 inches of horse manure and hay fines and 6 inches of wood chips. They will "simmer" together over the fall and winter and break down into beautiful soil for planting in Feb. It's taking me about 1-2 hours per 4 x 8, not bad actually.

The 4 x 8 is a BTE area, correct? Sounds delicious for larger things like squash, corn, anything that likes to spread or take up room for little produce.

I love the TTs for veggies that aren't cooked (lettuce, strawberries, smoothie greens) because nasty things (slugs, neighbor cats) can't get into them. I can't believe how the MM is changing with each addition of home made compost.

I started working on the dirt in the front flower beds. Added peat moss and vermiculite, Ecoscraps compost, all topped with Kelloggs blue stripe bag of mix as a mulch (and to hide the drip lines from the water patrol). The front color spot just roared this summer (including a volunteer yellow tomato plant!).

I pooped out and didn't do the final turning tonight. Tomorrow!

Yes, big garden area under the cottonwood tree (that is stealing the water and nutrients... grrrrr!) It didn't do that last year, I think it's mostly related to the drought. So I'm working really hard to build up that soil intensively. When we moved here almost 4 years ago, the hillside literally wept water into the summer. The property to the south of us is vacant land that slopes uphill and then our back hill is the cut of our pad. The water level normally makes that area even smell musty damp most of the year. Boy do we need RAIN and lots of it.

I am going to be removing my strawberries from one of my table tops and put them in that area. The TT I put them in is too shaded, it will be perfect for my lettuce next summer as it's the coolest spot on the property. The compost I'm working on now is for this purpose. These TTs are in the final process of rebalancing the MM which had double the peat in the original mix.

I'll add a little more vermiculite with the compost and raise the soil levels in them while I'm at it.

Most of my greens are in my greenhouse. I planted a giant Kale last year that's still thriving along with Swiss chard. I just keep cutting them and they just keep growing and growing!

sanderson wrote:I love the TTs for veggies that aren't cooked (lettuce, strawberries, smoothie greens) because nasty things (slugs, neighbor cats) can't get into them.

Oh, slugs can get into them all right. We used to have slugs and snails climbing up and over our four or five foot high corrugated plastic fencing.

Oh, true. But I have Sluggo Plus sprinkled around the legs. When the boxes were on the grounds, the slugs lived under the bottoms of the wood.

Day off from gardening today, except to take 2 sections of tulle to alterations to have them sewn together for the long box.  It was housekeepers day so DH and I went to lunch while the ladies did their magic.  So nice to come home to a clean, shiny house.  Then went to the dermatologist for a fast growing something on my leg that turned from itchy to painful.  Turns out it was an infection (not the big C).  After lancing and cleaning, she told me not to take the compression bandage (a bleeder) off until tomorrow or get it wet.  So I chilled inside today.  Tomorrow I need to turn that compost pile and do more winter prepping.

Next week, DH and I will be starting repairs, painting, carpet, etc. on the second rental so we can sell it, also.  I won't have much time to tend to the veggies and outdoor chores once we start.

Glad to hear it wasn't anything worse than an infection - take it easy as that's healing :-)

Me too. I got in within 24 hours because of the rapid change. I'm glad I went while it was only 5 mm and not too deep. It got hot to the touch and I thought maybe even MRSA? It should heal fast now that it's lanced and I'm on antibiotics. I'll take good care of it.

The darn lancing healed up within 24 hours because of the compression bandage.  It swelled and broke on its own yesterday, so it's taking a little longer to heal from the inside.

Meanwhile, the clean-up is slowly moving forward.  Finding places to hang and store everything has been a challenge for this little back yard.  The tenants need another day for moving so I have all day tomorrow for my last efforts.  Then we start rehabbing the rental for sale.  When we bought the 2 side-by-side houses 7 years ago, we had no idea what we were in for.  Took a year to remodel, repair and update the 2 houses.  We were lucky that both had only one set of tenants from the day they were ready to occupy to the day we wanted to get them ready for sale.

I checked out a small corn with brown silks.  When I opened it, the silks were white inside.  But, it looks like good pollination.  Just needed a little more time for size and sweetness.


Okra is such a fun plant with striking flowers.  Still producing.  So are the 13 pots of peppers that I will over winter in the green house.  The micro greens tray is still alive in this heat.  I planted some potatoes in buckets and covered with chopped hay.  The snow peas are sprouting on the east side in 1 x 3' boxes and are also covered with straw.  Thank you for the idea, Audrey.

Update on the tulle covered nursery plants.  Every day is currently spent on the rental house so I am glad I "cheated" and then covered with tulle.

Cabbage patch:

Kale and Chard (so far):


Audrey,  The chopped straw over the snow pea seeds is working perfectly.  They are strong little seedlings and just work their way straight up through the straw.  Thanks for the idea.

Gorgeous weather right now.

I saw this book at Lowes today.  I'd like to take more time to "review" this book for some ideas of varieties of for CA.

Looking forward to your review.

Today my task is to work on getting our greenhouse ready for the winter and to start some more lettuce seedlings for it.  This will be the third set of lettuce I've planted.  The first two have bolted with the heat that won't go away!!! 

I just transplanted my Chinese Cabbage and they're looking vigorous and gorgeous.  By the way I have tons of seeds if anyone would like any.  I do not know the origin of the seed other than they were plants I bought at the nursery that went to seed last spring because of our early heat waves.  If anyone wants any just PM me with your address.

audrey.jeanne.roberts wrote:Looking forward to your review.

You'll have to wait until November when we will be finished with the rental house!

How did everyone hold up under the wind? The onion sets fell over (is thast why everyone tops the sprouted sets before planting?) but the kale, chard and cabbages did surprisingly good. The first garlic are only 2-3" tall so they are fine. The dirt from bare lots was unpleasant, and I wonder what happened on the West Side will all the fallow (drought) fields.

Welp, off to paint the rental. Should be ready to put on the market by Thursday or Friday. Fingers crossed.

I spent the day on the sofa with a terrific sinus headache - certainly triggered by the wind as we were out in it last night. YUCK!

Other than that no issues up here. They weren't that strong just gusty.

I'm sorry. I should have commiserated with you on the sinus headache. I have only had one but it was miserable.

We are supposed to get an 1" of rain starting 5 pm Friday. I need to get 2 bed covers out for the frames in case there is hard rain.

We have things we need to get cleaned up in our yard to be ready - I'm so excited that there's rain. We need it so much!!!!!

Tonight should be a great night to sleep with the rain pattering on the windows