Leeks!

It's never fun smooshing the slimy bodies of paralyzed green aphids off of the undersides of greens, but, alas, I was doing it again this evening, washing the mustard greens. I think the most dreaded part of gardening is spending the back-breaking hours washing produce.

And I learned my lesson with the leeks. Today I pulled ten FAT, LONG, WHITE leeks from the ground (every other one in the front bed, so that the others could continue to expand)! They are truly a success, and I owe part of their success to my friend S who gave me the babies. But I did learn my lesson in "hilling up" and making sure to avoid dirt in between the leaves. I should have hilled them up even more. The remaining ones are scrawnier and even more dirty.

Year-Round Calendar

I'm working on a year-round calendar, for year-round vegetable gardening. There are a number of books, publications, and notes from classes that I've compiled, and in determining what I have to do each month in the garden, I always have to reference EVERYTHING. It gets confusing and difficult. I always miss something.

So I now have all the reference material covering our kitchen table, in an attempt to create the perfect year-round calendar for OUR garden. It's a daunting task. Perhaps when I am done, I will post it here (not that it will be of any use to anyone but us...).

Canning 2009!

A friend of mine instructed a few of us on some basic canning/jam making.

For a while now, I have wanted to can and preserve fresh fruits and vegetables so that we can use all that our trees provide, as well as span out our fresh fruit into the winter months (without relying on strawberries from Mexico or Chile...).

There are a number of places on the web that have lots of information, but there's nothing like getting a first-hand instruction, and there's nothing like trying it yourself.

This Summer and Fall we made plum jam, applesauce, and dill pickles! I still have figs and mulberries in the freezer in order to make more jam. Here are some photos from the process.

Pictures from Summer and Fall

Below is one of the new beds I made out of chunks of cement we had in the yard. We are still growing chard, kale, Brussel's sprouts, and broccoli in these beds. The lettuce is all done. I wanted to keep some lettuce going for the winter, but never got to it - you have to enclose it here somehow to keep the heavy rains off, and it was just too much for me to tackle.


Above you can see the lettuce growing in the shade of the hardier Fall plants, a technique I plan to use more of next year! Below is a little immature green bell pepper! We had a handful of them this year and they did surprisingly well in both the ground and in the black pots.
Below is an area in which I am trying to inspire the herbs to grow! Basically, I had an odd assortment of herbs that were not doing well in pots; I also had echinacea and rosemary that were already established in the area. So I planted everything else here, and we will see how Darwin's theory functions come next Spring. I have basil, thyme, sorrel, borage, mint, parsely, and cilantro... plus some leeks that are doing well to the side of the area (you can see their young stalks in the background).
Here is one of the cement beds with a lot of kale in it. The kale had some aphids this year, but did very very well and is still thriving. I hope to keep harvesting from it winter-long.
Below is part of the backyard, where I had everything in containers except for one cucumber and three tomato plants. Here you can see basil, tomato, and rosemary. You can also see my nasturtium that FINALLY grew in the foreground - of course, it will probably not last through our cold, rainy winter. Nasturtium grows like a weed in California and I miss it up here.
Here are the leeks in the front bed, still doing strong:
And here are the front beds, this past Summer. The tomato plants and the chicory are gone, but the rest remains:
Here is the cucumber plant, that we got ONE cucumber from at the end of the Summer. It was very very tasty, and hopefully we can grow more next year!



And above is the front bed that is not doing so well right now. Here was its promising beginning - the beets, and other hardy Fall plants (cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli...), but my lack of attention to this bed brought aphids (even with row cover) and dry, parched soil for too long. Only a few of these plants are thriving, sadly. I pulled up a handful of the beets and some of the broccoli and planted garlic bulbs three weeks ago, mulching them with leaves from the trees. Hopefully we will have a better garlic crop come next Summer!

Something is Eating the Leeks!

And it looks like this (someone else's image). We don't have rabbits here (not that I know of!) so it must be a squirrel, cat, dog, raccoon... that is really all I can think of. Hmm... only a few have been chomped on, but it's a mystery that needs to be solved, considering I am planning on eating every single leek I have.

Hello, Winter Gardening!

It's been a while since I made a post here. We've been busy with guests, travelling, and with a lot in the garden. What I've been doing in the garden:

-Pulled all the tomato, pepper, and eggplant plants (all the hot weather plants). I salvaged the remaining 8 tomatoes and one of the pepper plants that still had mature-ish peppers on it is now drying in the kitchen.

-Winter-pruned all our fruit trees. I did some of the pruning myself on the smaller trees, and then we HAD some pruners (they'd say they were arborists, not "pruners", which they were, in all fairness), come and prune the plum, and the fig. The fig tree got massively cut down which is very very exciting. They were cool guys who came by and were very willing to tell me how to prune correctly and why certain trees can be massively hacked and others can not; they also demonstrated orchard style pruning versus "ornamental" pruning or pruning for general care. I learned a lot! They also took out the two eucalyptus trees, sadly, that needed to go.

-Planted garlic and shallots! This year I decided not to accidentally plant the garlic in the shade, like I did the year before. So hopefully it will grow big and strong this year. Not sure if I mentioned, but last year I planted it in a little pocket of dirt that was mostly in shade. I'm STILL not sure what to do with the mini bulbs that appeared. Probably have to toss them at this point. Over the garlic and shallots, I put a layer of leaves that had fallen from the trees. Apparently, the leaves act as a very good mulch for these bulbs as they break down.

-Mulched the yard with the pruned clippings. Well, I should say my sister, who was visiting did all of this! Prepared areas for wildflower planting in the front area by the street. I am almost ready to plant wildflowers, just waiting for someone named Sam to come get the extra mulch that is sitting by the curb.

Otherwise, I generally assessed the garden and did some cleaning up. We have leeks, chard, four kinds of kale, collards, mustard greens,, mizuna, brussel's sprouts, broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower all doing well. The brassicas have been very heavily attacked by aphids, to which I've counter attacked with various oils; but the plants still seem healthy. (My row covers were not that well monitored so I suspect this was the cause!)

The lettuce and spinach we have eaten and I again did not plant successively as I should have, so we won't have more until early spring.

The beets - same seed that did so well in spring - are very sad. I am sure it is because I watered too infrequently this summer when we had those heat waves! (D was learning to run and liked to practice this every time we went out by the front of the house, so that is my excuse.) I had to pull the golden variety entirely and the Bull's Blood crop is looking oh so sad. And I was SO looking forward to beets this winter!!