Starting to Wither - Late August

It's been a while since I posted because we have added a new addition to the farm. 'Captain' the Vizsla puppy has joined us and has settled in quite nicely. He's high maintenance and I have had to watch him closely in the yard, but so far, he has not torn up any of my pants, or Stella. He did make it behind the tomato vines once, but that was a fluke.

The garden is looking ok. The heat of the summer got the best of some of my younger plants, while the BLASTED WHITE FLY and Potato/Tomato Psyllids (Nymphs) enjoyed destroying some of the foliage on my 8 foot 7 inch tomato vines this August.

There is significant damage to the tomatoes, starting from the bottom, up. The vines are still surviving and producing the sweetest fruit though. At first, we used the Neem Oil, diluted with water and a little dish soap to keep it mixed up. After my homemade remedy proved to be less than perfect in the height of the infestation (it was gross) we went for a concoction that was store bought. I had been growing these flipping plants for 9 months! I was dammed if I was going to lose them now, right at harvest. We still went with an organic pesticide, Captain Jacks Bedbug Brew, ironically, my dogs name. After applying an entire 8$ bottle to our plants, it seems to have halted the infestation. I still see some flys kickin' it, but for the most part, the plant seems to be healthier. I hate bugs. Bees are cool.

New Addition: 'Captain',  garden dog

We have been getting lots of cucumbers from our vines. I've been pickling them in Vlassic brine and making the most wonderful crispy pickles. This is my new favorite thing to do this year. We are actually growing the pickling cucumber variety so it works out perfectly.

 2 zucchinis (left), 2 pickling cucumbers (right)

Here is a glimpse of what's been going on in the garden.

Standing on a standard height chair, measuring the Tomato vines @ 8 feet, 7 Inches tall

Largely still healthy, with the exception of the lower interior of the plant. Almost 9 feet tall!

My Brandywine Heirloom got over the blossom drop and started making LOTS of tomato

Visible pest damage from white flies and tomato nymphs - they eat the leaf, not the fruit

8 feet 7 Inches!!!! Healthier at the top

New sunflowers getting munched

Brandywine Heirloom (from seed)

Perfect crop to grow with tomatoes, just need a cow to make cheese

Lettuce gone to seed

Yummy sugar snap peas

The FIRST Brandywine Heirloom of the season, I ate it like an apple

Red onion from seed

Watermelon Vines

Pumpkin Patch, I dunno about this one, not seen one Pumpkin yet!

Captain enjoying his garden

Filling in the holes

The patches of dirt left bare between the seedlings are beginning to fill with new life as the baby plants stretch out their new arms to compete for the sunlight. Watching a garden grow is such a rewarding experience for me. Every morning, I walk down my back steps, let Stella out, and examine all the growth that took place the night before. Then I go to work. When I return, I water the plants that look stressed from the heat of that day using Stella's pond water and examine the changes that took place that day. Maybe over the course of the week visitors may see some differences, but to the gardener, we see them every day and night. 

 The Zucchini plant is healthy and has gotten huge. I had to take down the little white picket fence aka "duck barrier" in front of the plant because this huge Zucchini grew right into it. Technically, you should not let your zucchinis get this big because they become fibrous and woody, less juicy and not as sweet, however, we are going to let this one go, and go, and go, and see how big we can get it. We might make zucchini bread, or a roasted zucchini boat out of it. We have plenty of others that we will be eating. It was a good thing I tool the picket fence down when I did, because it's been growing an inch a day.

The zucchini leaves get bigger every day

Remember the first pics of it??

Watermelon vines

Flowering cucumbers and summer squash

 I don't really know what is going on with the leaf at the very bottom on the pic below. It seems to be a healthy green leaf, but the veins are turning white. To me this indicates a deficiency, a disease, or a pest. I'm going to do more research to find out what it is. We did just have a heat wave, so I'm hoping it was just the result of extreme heat, but it might be low in iron or something.

Cucumbers, one with white vein (bottom)

Kohlrabi

There are a lot of advantages to successive planting. Unfortunately I do not do it as often as I would like. The nice thing about successive gardening or planting, is that not all your crops mature at the same time. It is the best way for a home gardener to have a continual harvest, its just hard to remember. I also have a hard time hold back on seeding my entire plot!

Below is a pic of my radish crop that I am successively seeding. I planted some 1 month ago, and the others 1 week ago, and I still have some fallow dirt.

Successive planting of radishes 

My worm bin, started last year sometime

My little red friends

More worms in the bin

My pumpkin patch 

Stella loving her new pond, she gets in herself 

Midget melon flowering, can't wait for this one

Huge tomato vines

Like, huge, like probably 5 feet

GARLIC!!!

Laura's red onions

Bolting lettuce. I need to eat this stuff.

Peas Starting to climb

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.

Three weeks after compost tea: before and after pics

Before and After Compost tea:

Week of transplant; 6 weeks ago

Before Compost tea - 3 weeks growth

AFTER: grew about 1 1/2 - 2  feet in 3 weeks!!!!

AFTER COMPOST TEA and a little pruning