The Waiting Game

All the hard work is done. I prepped the beds with worm and chicken poo. Tilled last years mulch under. Cleared out all the old dead plants from last year and thew them into the new hot compost pile. And laid the seed for my winter crop. Planted about 15 different patches of vegetables altogether.

It's been awfully warm around these parts, we have not had a cold or wet winter at all. Although my water bill does not appreciate this, it also makes for rapid seed germination. It's the waiting game at this point.

Ready. Set. Grow.

Most of the seed packs I used for Winter, not including potatoes, onions, peas and beans

Swiss chard

Pea trellis

Pea sprouts

Baby Carrots

Kohlrabi

Stella Bell the Duck

Radish

New gardening station/germination sun table for this warm winter. Germinating tomatoes for March transplant. 

Artichoke

New compost hot pile this year: All food scraps but meat and dairy, Stella's straw soiled bedding and grass clippings

Photobomb.

Side bed, arugula seedlings at base

Back yard raised bed

5 Elephant garlic, used the ones I grew last year to propagate new ones for this season

Red Onions, 60 of 'em

Good 'ol Yukon Potatoes 

4th of July on the Urban Farm

It's been really hot in the Bay Area the last couple of weeks, with the exception of a cloud burst system which made a cameo mid-last-week. When I say hot for the Bay Area, that is anything above 80 degrees. This is hot even for plants and can damage them sometimes if it gets too hot, especially if you are not diligent with watering. I seem to have an issue with "blossom drop", a common symptom of the plant overheating in the summertime. Simply put, the blossoms drop off at the elbow, instead of turning into tomatoes. Unfortunately, there is not a whole hell of a lot you can do about this since we can't control the weather.

My mulch has been proving helpful in retaining soil moisture, although I haven't been able to mulch the rest of my seedlings, because they aren't big enough. As a result,  some of them are drying out because they are so tiny and fragile, only the strong shall survive.

Here are a few pictures of the property and how far it's come since we've moved in. We finally sank Stella's pond into the ground and got a filter, fountain and some pond plants. The best part of my day is looking out our kitchen window to watch our duck get in her new pond and take a nice afternoon bird bath.

Side yard

Stella pond+side yard+garage+house

Stella's duck house, and today's egg

4th of July Stella egg

My beautiful sunflower that a squirrel planted for me

Yummy Strawberries coming into season

Pond and duck house

Side yard beds

Wilted radishes in the afternoon sun, they come back to life every night.

Daryl brought home the kiddie pool, I didn't complain.

New Beds

Over the weekend I got super ambitious. I came straight home from work on Friday and tore up the entire right side of the property against the fence to put in my full sun veggie plot. I basically tilled about a foot deep, 3 feet wide and about 25 feet long for the new plot. Its super easy to weed when you are just going to till anyway. I just tilled first, and then broke up all the dirt with the shovel and the weeds fall right off.

Stage 1: Tilled the ground up to a foot deep and removed all grass and weeds
Stage 2: Removed bricks and dug raised bed trenches.
Stage 3: Installed wood to make raised beds (6$ total at Urban Ore)
Stage 4: Raked, swept and evened out dirt.

Stage 1

Stage1

Stage 2

Stage 2

Stage 3

Stage 4 and Stella LOVING the worms and bugs I dug up for her

I have backyard dreams...

...and as one of my favorite fortune cookies once said (somewhat recently), "Goals are dreams with a plan and a time-line." How inspiring. When I look at my new, large back yard, all I can think is this place has so much potential.


My plan: to turn the back, right side of the lot into a new plot of veggies. I might leave the dirt flat and just put a little border to avoid erosion, or do raised beds either by stacking bricks that are already there, or by going to Urban Ore to pick up some salvage wood for cheap. You can get anything there from claw foot bathtubs and sinks, to antique furniture and wood salvage. It's a recyclers dream.
My time-line: July 31st, 2011

Not only do I dream of raised beds, but we will be getting a Vizsla Dog in about 2 months, and so I am going to have to build a duck run for Stella. Until we can be sure that she is secure all day, you can never be too safe. I'm thinking about building something like this.