California - What are you doing this month?

Mellen wrote: Your chuckle for the day?  Planted some seeds in a box but got distracted before I labeled it?  I have NO IDEA what is in there.  I keep looking at my seed packets trying to remember which one I was in to.  Not happening.  Sigh....age is shooting down my memory. Whatever it is is happily producing little green shoots.  

Haha...I can laugh about that coz I do it a lot.  I keep thinking that after planting, when I get back into the house I'll write it down.  I get back in and oops...nada.

Mellen wrote:
A question to everyone?...something is putting holes in my basil.  It's not slugs or snails, so what is it?

Happy gardening!

In my neck of the woods those are flea beetles.  They are so tiny but if you sneak up on and shake the plant you may see them jumping off like fleas.
But you may not have those in your region, lucky ducks.

CC

Wind expected on Thursday in the Valley. Then, back to warm again. What weather is everyone else having? I got some planting, frame construction, worm dividing and feeding, drip irrigation repaired and installed over the last 2 days.

sanderson wrote:Wind expected on Thursday in the Valley.    Then, back to warm again.  What weather is everyone else having?  I got some planting, frame construction, worm dividing and feeding, drip irrigation repaired and installed over the last 2 days.

STUPID WEATHER! Actually, it's not the weather, it's the forecasting. It was only supposed to get down to 46 last night in Redding, but when I woke up this morning, the heat was on and it was 40 out. If I had known, I would have brought in my little melon, cuke, & pepper starts. The last time this happened, I thought they'd never forgive me.

Who says you can't complain about the weather. I hope these patterns get back to "normal" soon, I've got a few peppers that have sprouted, and the tomatoes I planted are setting fruit- they survived a morning frost, but I don't want to see them subjected to any more high 30's, low 40's nights. They are blossoming, and they need some even heat to keep the fruit from dropping.

Yardslave wrote:Who says you can't complain about the weather. I hope these patterns get back to "normal" soon, I've got a few peppers that have sprouted, and the tomatoes I planted are setting fruit- they survived a morning frost, but I don't want to see them subjected to any more high 30's, low 40's nights. They are blossoming, and they need some even heat to keep the fruit from dropping.

I really shouldn't complain about the weather, after seeing all the horrible weather they've been having back east. A wilted cantaloupe plant doesn't compare to hail the size of softballs.  Anyway, it's my own stupid fault. This has happened before. They seem to have a lot more difficulty predicting the night temps. Fool me once, shame on them. Fool me twice, shame on me.   Tonight, I'm bringing in my babies fer shure!

This is where we save wide mouthed plastic containers that we get mixed nuts in from Costco.  When temps are going to drop to 40 or below I grab them and cover my smaller seedlings.  Earlier in March, I plant seeds and leave them over the top of them like mini greenhouses.  They warm the soil and keep the cold and most bugs away as well.

audrey.jeanne.roberts wrote:This is where we save wide mouthed plastic containers that we get mixed nuts in from Costco.  When temps are going to drop to 40 or below I grab them and cover my smaller seedlings.  Earlier in March, I plant seeds and leave them over the top of them like mini greenhouses.  They warm the soil and keep the cold and most bugs away as well.

Good idea -- especially when it's this windy, too. A rock on top should keep them from blowing off and the babies inside would be totally protected.

sanderson wrote:Thanks all.

I thought you said you had a SMALL garden.

Mellen, I missed your question. Snow Fairy tomatoes. They are a low growing tomato that can keep producing into the fall. They were the most successful of my varieties last year so I wanted to plant it this year for sure.

KJ, I have a small lot (1/8 acre) , a small back yard and an encroaching SFG!

Snow Fairy tomato,  I will try to over winter it plus some peppers.

I finally caught up on the Forum and will end the evening with what is up in the garden.  Opps, a pun.  My midnight stroll (and trips) through the back yard revealed huge snails on the onion leaves and one cucumber.  So I sprinkled some Sluggo Plus in those boxes.  Saturday I pruned the southern neighbor's trees on my side to get some sun on the KY Wonder bean boxes.  I covered the frame with plastic to prevent failing branches from damaging the sprouting beans. Balancing on the fence rail was a real act. I'd get up there, do somecutting, then drop the tool. Get down, get back up. Repeat.

The big thing today was the Eco chipper, which is on the shredder thread.  I starting shredding the branches and podacarpus leaves.  Adding bay laurel branches and leaves makes such a wonderful smelling mulch which will go in the front yard color spot.  Today I also soaked the 5-gallon tomato buckets in a cement pan to get the lower Mix wet.  I dug down a bit and it was barely moist.  So the soaking should help.  Okra seeds are sprouting this year.  Last year was a bust.  Still have 5 beds to clean and amend and get planted.  6 squares of Rattlesnake pole beans, 8 for 6 butternut squash, 4 of something needing trellising, 8 of cantaloupe.  Plus  some herbs in the herb bed.  Forgot that one.  That's all for now.  Daughter is coming home for a night so I don't know how much work or Forum attention I will get done.

I forgot to mention the weather last night. 70s and 80s, with Palm Dessert even in the 90'. Rain forecast on Friday in No Cal.

I'm so impressed!  You're off to the races.  

I'm watering my hillside for the first time today - it's been dry enough to finally need it (after being a mud bog all winter long!)

I'm not ready for the heat    I have to get some shade cloth for my two 4x8 raised beds, they dry out so darn fast in our heat.

I'm pulling weeds around my beds and serving eviction notices to a few gophers that have taken up residency beneath my raised beds. I'm so glad I lined the bottoms of the boxes with hardware cloth. I have 3 artichoke plants that were in wire baskets and it looks like the gophers are "circling the wagons" trying to find a way in. As it is, they've root pruned the 'chokes, so that's it for this years crop. I think that I'll re-plant them next season, so they can chow down on Mel's mix and not get their toes chewed by gophers. "DEATH TO THE VARMINT CONG"

Too hot to work in the mid day! I need to get the shade cloth up and work on some expansion of it. I mulched some more once I had some late afternoon shade. Total of five 5-gallons of fine green mulch. I hope I can try out the shredder on dry leaves and then clean it and put it away. I had to look at Jimmy's photos to figure out why I couldn't take the feeder part off! I think the prior owner rode it hard and put it up wet! I'd like to get spare blades and have the Y-blade sharpened some time.

YS - So the gophers air pruned the artichokes. Do you think they can recover or is the "basket" too small for sufficient root space? Fresh artichokes! Love them

sanderson wrote:  T

.......YS - So the gophers air pruned the artichokes.  Do you think they can recover or is the "basket" too small for sufficient root space?  Fresh artichokes!  Love them

The chokes will probably make it. I've collapsed the tunnels around the baskets, so there's soil to help any roots that survived beyond the baskets. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, that the severe, early heat doesn't send them to an early compost pile. If it weren't for the heat and the rationed water, I'd clip back more leaves to help the plants survive, but this morning I noticed that the plants must have read my mind and are sacrificing their lower branches to conserve strength.

Well, so much for the rain that was forecast for Friday. Maybe some of you in the Sac and north areas will get some. Today I added what I call the flower bed compost to the front color spot. It was a cold pile from left over manure, leaves, city compost, coffee grounds, veggies and it was loaded with worms. I felt so bad taking them out of their perfect home and putting them out in the hot color spot. They will survive under the mulch but still. Planted hot pink and dark purple petunias among the few dianthus I left in. Then topped with 3 1/2 5-gal buckets of the new shredded material.

In the garden, I got two 4' wide trellises set up in a 2' x 4' bed that now gets some dappled sun since I pruned those darn trees. Then I made runners from green twine in the middle. Photos tomorrow. I will do the same for the cucumber 2' x 4' tomorrow (today). Then pull the onions and amend that 2' x 4' for cantaloupe, and amend another 2' x 4' for butternut squash starts. That bed will have three 2' wide 8' trellises. The cantaloupe and winter squash beds will have a sun shade cover. more photos when it's up. I actually made a list of things to do the next 2 days. There is still so much to do.

Oh, I ordered 7" wide 6 mil poly tubing to store PVC frames when they are not in use. I got the idea when we had 2 replacement honeycomb shades installed. The men were gathering up the trash and I looked at the plastic sleeves, and as a member of this Forum, I thought, hmmm, I know what I can do with those sleeves. So I put the green house frames in the 2 bags and decided to order some more tubing off eBay. I have different frames for different uses and I wanted a clean way to store them in an organized manner, including the fittings. It took some searching but I found it! They had a cut roll with 200 ft left and they gave me a perfect deal. It's shipping from Indiana and should be here on Saturday!!

I'm so sorry you didn't get any rain. We had a nice little storm this morning with more on the way. Now we have a good excuse to take a much-needed day off.

Sounds like you've been a busy girl. Looking forward to pics.

It's cloudy and windy, but only 35% chance of rain. The poly tubing was delivered today! It fell out of the box like a slippy snake, all 200' of it. I knew it was a remnant but thought it would be on a roll. Nevertheless, it was what I wanted and husband said he would roll it up for me, all 200'.

There was a slight chance of rain predicted for Friday, but it's pouring  I have 6 ultra-hot Aji pepper seedlings and 3 Basal plants that will have to be put in the beds soon. They are under grow lights waiting. With the rain, I just noticed the snalis coming out from hiding and looking for a new patch to graze on- better put on my old garden shoes and give them a tap dancing lesson.

We got a down pour also. It was cloudy and windy so I didn't have any guilt about napping. Woke up to the noisy rain. Tomatoes are at diagonals but that was probably due to the wind.

sanderson wrote:We got a down pour also.  It was cloudy and windy so I didn't have any guilt about napping.  Woke up to the noisy rain.  Tomatoes are at diagonals but that was probably due to the wind.

Yay on the rain! (Tomatoes will get over themselves. )

Oh, no!  I left my new toy, the yellow shredder out in the rain  So much for bagging dry PVC frames in the plastic sleeves I received today.  They are all wet.

WE GOT 2.76" OF RAIN! It also got down to 43 degrees last night and gonna do that again on Monday night, so I won't be planting any more seeds until Tuesday, which is probably a good thing because getting this SFG ready is exhausting, so now we can ease up a bit.

Strawberries and raspberries came yesterday, so I will be planting those today. 

That rain had to help the drought situation! Seems like (fingers and toes crossed) you might have turned the corner on the extreme drought?