First, we had hail, which shredded the leaves of my uncloched plants-- so I added more cloches.
Then, we had a three-day heat wave with temperatures into the 90s, which scorched leaves on the cloched zucchini and tomatoes-- so I took the cloches off.
Then it went back to normal Pacific NorthWET weather, and the birds hit my uncloched plants again, killing one of my Roma tomatoes. So I put the cloches back on.
The birds have now moved on to the uncloched marigolds. :-/
That said, all is well in the garden. I took a day to put a stone edging around the perimeter using tiles the previous owners had left behind:
It's kinda crooked.
In the garden itself, we've set out beer traps for the slugs, but going out in the early morning to pick them out of the beds seems to be the best solution so far. I've got nasturtiums coming up from a direct seeding almost a month ago, and dahlias (four varieties just purchased) are coming up as well. I'm harvesting three or four stalks of rhubarb each week, then washing, slicing, and freezing them. We've also picked our first tiny Quinault strawberry, and the arugula is growing like crazy since the overcast weather set in again-- which is great, because I love arugula!
Some of the zucchini and tomato plants have outgrown their pop cloches, so I'm on to a new solution, bamboo stakes and Ziplocs:
And finally, a sample of what's growing:
Clockwise from top left: eggplant, snow peas, arugula, savoy cabbage.
Summer usually hits us in mid-to-late June, so I'm prepping for big growth spurts on the summer veggies... my tomato cages are ready and waiting!
16 comments:
your garden has been though a lot! couldn't win with the cloches, eh? but you're garden is looking fantastic! i'm really jealous over the arugula - i bought a seedling at the farmer's market, but the stalk just grew and it never got leafy. =( bummer. most of my herbs manage to be surviving - i hope to be able to use some of them very soon.
sorry to hear about the Roma tomatoes...have you heard of a variety called the San Mozzano(? can't remember for sure - it was San Maz-something...) had it in a sauce at a dinner party that R and i went to at the home of one of the doctors he works with...it was very good!
great job on the stone border! again, your garden is looking fab!
All your hard work really seems to be paying off!
I love the Ziploc cloche. I guess necessity, not laziness, is the mother of invention afterall.
Yoko and I now have copies of the You Grow Girl book (btw - how the heck do you underline, bold, etc text in this thing???). Well, Yoko will as soon as I give it to her. The B. Dalton in Cerritos mall is closing, so everything was half off and they had a few good copies left. I think Yoko can use the book for her mini herb garden. For me, I'm hoping it'll help reduce my black thumb should I ever be able to afford a house w/ a yard. :oP
Sillyduckie: San Marzano tomatoes!!! :-D I'm dying to try them next year, since I used up the last of my Roma seed packet this year. They're supposed to be some of the best sauce tomatoes ever.
I wish I could send you some arugula... it's really going nuts in our WA weather. It was really easy to grow from seed, and one packet goes a long way-- this is my second year sowing from the same packet and I haven't even gone through half of it yet. If you're interested, I have a spare packet for you!
Otomayim: Oh, man, what a lucky sale find! I haven't picked up the book yet but I thumbed through it while passing through Portland in April. Maybe this week, since I'll be in the vicinity of a Barnes & Noble.
You can use <b> (text) </b> for bold text, <u> (text) </u> for underline... I hope that displays right when I post this...
Woot, it came out right =)
Thanks T!
Thanks T!
Hey! My previous post cloned itself!!
yes, yes, San Marzano tomatoes! that's it! i'm going to keep an eye out for them next time i'm shopping so i can make sauce from scratch...haven't done that in ages! i've also been dying to try Jamie's (as in Jamie Oliver) simple tomato sauce, but haven't done that either. soon...soon...
ummmm...arugula...if you don't mind sending me a few seeds...that would be awesome! maybe it's still early enough for me to get it into the soil?
LOL, Otomayim :-)
Sillyduckie: Seeds sent! They might want to bolt really fast in L.A. summer weather, so just try to keep any plants that come up in a cool spot. If they don't work well over the summer, I bet they'd love So. California fall & winter...
oh thanks for the seeds! you ROCK! maybe i'll try a couple of seeds when i get them, and if there's enough i can wait for the late fall to plant them...arugula pesto!
You guys make me feel soooooooooooo unsophisticated!!!!! I'm like, "Tomatoes for tomato sauce, hmmm...Prego sounds like a good choice! Let's see...need some salad, here's Fresh Express bag-o-salad...make sure not to get the one with the fuzzy lettuce that tastes bitter..think it's the purple bag... gotta love that preservative taste in my salad!" We do buy a tomato and a pepper plant to plant each year from Roots Amish Market... we just pick either YELLOW or RED. (rolling my eyes and walking away in shame)
R - at least you cook, I just go to Lomeli's or Y's. ;) AND you have two very cute, very energetic, and rambunctious kids to chase around and occupy your time. Somehow I think bagged salad and canned tomato sauce might work their way into T's and Y's futures (at least once in awhile) if/when the babies start arriving!! :)
if? when? oh my...to be quite honest it might happen, but who's to say what the future holds?
feel better C & R...more often than not my salads come from a bag! but i LOVE the spring mix...or the lafeyette...not the same 'ol boring iceberg! you know, the kind of mix where most guys happen to think contain weeds. jar sauce we use quite often...it's super when you're tired from work and want to make a quick meal! rest assured that every meal is not from scratch!
It's pure garden geekery rather than sophistication on my part... besides which, I'm hopeless with kids and couldn't make anything out of glass to save my life, so we'll call it even!
And we use salad-in-a-bag and pasta-sauce-in-a-jar, too. In fact, we hardly eat any fresh tomatoes here, even when I buy them, so it's actually kind of silly that I have more than one plant... let alone eight.
Doh!
"Garden geekery" -lol- that's one I've never heard before.
T - I think once you starts seeing the fruits of your labor, literally :), you'll be more inclined to cook from scratch!
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