California - What are you doing this month?

This is what I woke up to this morning:  West neighbor's tree being cut down.

Gone:
I have regained 10 square feet of winter squash beds. Plus, space for 3-4 tomato buckets and more sunshine for the cantaloupes!

So did you run over there and give them a giant smoochie kiss?!!!!  Whooooooo hood hoooooooooo!

Strained relationship - sigh. I did think of making cookies. . . I'll just share some bounty.

I think I will just direct sow the winter squashes and cantaloupes in the boxes rather than try starting in pots, this late. I have 6 tomatoes in the 2' x 8' TT and 4 in buckets and 1 in a large pot. Several more in seedling pots waiting for me to make up my mind where to put them. Remember last summer, the Summer of No Tomatoes? Keeping my fingers crossed.

The Zucchini seeds arrived today, I'm going to direct sow them tomorrow.  Thank you so much!!!  

Fingers crossed for the tomatoes

wow you guys are having really high temps!

sanderson great news that you have more sunshine now that the neighbors tree is gone!

Audry.jeanne..... you take it easy and not over due it!! you need to keep on the mend

What is with our postal service??  They took a week to get up the hill?  I hope they are viable after the PO mangled them.  I still have to plant your spinach seeds!

Only 3 of the 12 okra seeds I planted have sprouted.  They were dated for 2013, so maybe they are just too old.  I bought some Martha Stewart replacements.  I can't believe that none of the other companies at HD carried them.  There is still structural work to be done where our tree was removed.  I'm just going to pile a thick layer of Kellogg, compost and coffee grounds over the leveled area and plant some of my flowers seedlings.  DH put legs on an existing nice 1' x 4' box that just didn't get enough sun and it is now with the other TTs.  Sort of a keyhole arrangement, like a sofa, love seat and easy chair.  It will be an herb box.  I got the tall trellises out and started repairing them for the winter squash and cantaloups, now that the neighbor's tree is gone and I know their area will get sun.  Need to make "Camp trellises" with string for the Rattlesnakes.  

The slugs have been eating the Rattlesnake beans!  Cursed slugs.  I sprinkled Sluggo Plus around their boxes.  I emptied the 1' x 4' box so DH could attach legs to it, and the underside had like 30 slugs!  Ugh.  I'm going to need the large economy size of SP.  I think with all the wood chips I am spreading around I will have a harder battle against them.  I can't wait to get them all spread and take photos.  The hybrid compost from the green leaves and chippings with manure are around the shrubs and orange tree and the chips from the tree we had removed are being spread like isles around the boxes.  Should really help with the mud when it rains!  California made the news about drought.  How 80-90% (was passing by the TV and didn't catch the exact percentage, but it was huge) of the country's produce in grown here and the drought here affects everyone.

Here I am rambling.  You must be feeling a little better now??

I'm getting better, by Monday I think I'll be mostly good as new.  I'm being really good :-)  I did plant the zucchini.  

My 4 x 8 is already looking like a jungle   Spring has sprung around here.

I'm all better now, thank goodness!  We were gone to So Cal for the weekend and our friend that watches our animals and gardens helped herself to 5, gallon bags of lettuce and you can barely see she was here!  

Things are really beginning to take off.  The strawberries I planted on the hillside are growing nicely.  My kale, both old and new have gotten huge in the last week.  Volunteer tomatoes everywhere as well as squash.  I'll have to get out and take some pictures.

We have a pair of young boys from our community that are weed whacking my hillsides.  Their dad is bringing them over each evening for an hour or two of work.  I love that they are learning young that earning money for themselves is a good idea!

How about everyone else?

The Forum has been quite active.  We have had quite a few new members and the regulars are crawling out of their dens and shaking the snow off.

It's been 4 days since I wrote anything.  Can't believe it's been that long.  DH left for Texas this morning for his GD wedding.  I will be going to Sac while he's gone for my GGD 2nd birthday party.  Before he left, he helped me outside to move some heavy things around in the garden so I can keep working and cleaning while he is gone.  He replaced some of the 4 x 4 treated wood that was around the tree we had removed and I will continue building up some soil for that area for flowers.  Today, I made MM and filled 5 more buckets with more tomatoes.  I made little perlite bottoms for the buckets to make sure the soil doesn't go septic in these deep containers.  Ken drilled these 3/4" holes before he left.  
I lined the bottoms with weed fabric, poured 1" of perlite, then another layer of weed fabric and then filled with MM.
The nice thing about the buckets is that I can keep filling with more MM as the plants get taller.  Hoping this will help with more roots.  I have 8 tomatoes in the beds: Ark Traveler, a black tomato, Cherokee Purple, 2 Roma, 2 San Marzano, and Snow Fairy.  There are 11 in buckets or very large pots: Abu Rawan, Amish Paste, Atkinson, Basrawya, Brandywine, Beefsteak, Gypsy, Orange tomato, Rutgers,  and 2 Yellow Pears.  Fingers crossed.

We are expected to be at 91*F this Friday.  Yikes.  The news reported virtually zero snow pack for water content.     I still have some wood chips to spread: a 33 gallon garbage can, a tote box and 2 5-gallon buckets.  I have a dolly to help move the containers around to where they are needed.  Ken could do it in minutes what will take me an hour! I think I have planted about everything I want, and then I turn around and there are all these seedlings remaining on the used Baker rack I bought off Craig's List. The eggplants are the only thing I really need to plant in their pots. The rest are duplicates and flowers for the new bed. I realized today that I have more MM than I need. I can't believe too much MM!

Well, that is all for me. What are the rest of you in Calif doing?

Well, Summer is here. It was HOT today. Planted some more seedlings in pots. Chopped bedding hay for mulch (felt like Ruth gleaning out the wheat heads). Most of the veggies are planted and mulched. I had a low germination rate on some seeds and ended up with 2 flats worth of zero sprouting. I sowed 8 flats of seed cups, have planted 3, have 3 more to plant or toss. Man, I hate throwing away any plant that was gracious enough to sprout.

I'm going to Sacramento this week end and I sure hope the plants survive until I get back. I know I complained about all the shade from the neighbor's tree but it did provide some late afternoon/early evening shade.

Have an enjoyable and safe trip, hopefully the seedlings will be there to greet you when you get home! 

Today is a work day for us.  Time to go round up all the goodies my rural community has for me.  We need to borrow a trailer from our son-in-law's parents, grab the shovels and pitch forks and hit the road.  

We'll try to hold down the fort for you here 

Last minute pics before I leave:
You can even see some of the worm tubes.  The little red wigglers over-wintered just fine.
Area with the wood chips.  Yes, there is weed fabric underneath the boxes.

Beautiful!

I need to get my shade cloth on my greenhouse tomorrow.  We're going to remove the end panels (as they're trashed anyway) so I have flow through ventilation and it should be really good for the plants during the summer.  Come winter I'll just close up the ends with the heavy gauge plastic

I am NOT ready for summer temps - gooooo away heat!!!!

Everything looks so nice sanderson.  You have really expanded over the last few years.

Those beds look pretty nice. Thanks for sharing. This year I'm only using 1/5 of my boxes because of the water shortage; that, and the fact that our privatized municipal water company CAL AM is charging 5 times the average rate in California. I don't want to have another $1000 water bill like I received the last two summers. It's ironic that Monterey Peninsula is the lowest  water user per capita in the state and we are also the highest rate payer That's something eh? Paying more and getting less... bet you thought only the oil companies could pull something like this off

That's awful!  Can you save your grey water to use?  In that situation I might plug up the tub when taking a shower and use soap that is okay for the garden.  We haven't even had enough rain to fill rain barrels with.  

Heavy mulch has helped us a lot, but we're on a well so fortunately we are able to use what we need, but there are people around us who have had  their wells dry up

+1.  Love that setup!

Thanks guys.  2 years and 3 1/2 weeks.  Totally addicting.

It's so good to see my kiddies, but it is also so nice to be home, again.  Remember this?  The little Gwennifer Table Top that the youngest grandson unplanted?
Here it is now.  I ate a French Breakfast radish, lettuce and Chinese cabbage for lunch.
The drive up Highway 99 was depressing this time. The fresh green grass and weeds present March first are now brown. This son stated that they got less rain than Fresno, about 2".

We were out in the hills further west of us over the weekend and the valleys are green and the mountain tops are brown - that NEVER happens in that order.  The mountains are green 6 weeks longer than the valleys.  NOT GOOD 

Today is too hot! 91*F under the porch. But the tomatoes love it. They are getting flowers. I talked to someone today and they ALSO didn't get tomatoes last year. I am not alone!

A little back ground.  2014 was the year of no tomatoes due to the curly leaf disease in this area.  So, I'm very hopeful this year that I will have a successful crop.  This is a potted yellow pear, and my finger.

Here are 6 toms in the long TT, along with peppers, herbs, borage and salvia.

A long view of of a tom in a TT, 2 in 5-gal buckets, summer squash in pots and cages and Dragon Tongue beans in the second bed.  Also showing are wood chips and compost on the dirt flower bed.

At this time, 19 tomatoes of several varieties are growing. If I canned or preserved last year, I would have had zero cans for this past winter. It seems that one should can 2 years worth in case a disease or insect wipes out a crop the following year. Just a rambling thought.

I have planted just about everything from my starts.  Now I have to go back through my seeds and see if I missed anything!  

We removed the front and back panels from my greenhouse.  They are sun rotted so next fall we'll replace with professional grade 6 mil film.  Today (if the wind stays calm) we're going to put the sun shade on top so the green house will become the place to grow the things that need it a little cooler.  

I have to buy a few more seeds for my son-in-law so I'm going to buy some dragon tongue beans since you all have raved about them!  Anything else that is a "must have?!"