I have a little plot at the community garden near where I work. I go there to tend to it on my lunch break so the trick is to get as much done in the limited time I have. I must say it’s a practice in efficiency and I’ve learned a few things while doing it. One of my successes this year was my potato harvest!
Harvesting these potatoes took me no more than five minutes!
I have to brag about how nice my salad bowl lettuce is this season. I think I can attribute this to two things that make it so. One is the raised beds that have no contact with the ground so no chance of little creatures from the ground. And the other is the addition of the mosquito netting on the cage that surrounds the lettuce as you can see from the picture. This netting I bought from Amazon and I like it because I can see through it and it look really pretty when the sunlight hits it. There are no white flies which have been a problem in the past. From what I have heard even if they do get in there the white netting actually blinds them so they don’t stay. I am not sure if that is true but they aren’t there!
I was sooo excited about my big swan neck gourds that were developing only to be let down by the sudden appearance of fluffy ugly white patches on the bottom leaves of my plant. It’s right now in the heart of a hot August in dry California – it’s just a given that my plants are going to get it.
I instantly cut the leaves off only to find many more the next day. At that rate I wasn’t going to have a plant left!
From what I read powdery mildew thrives in hot windy dry conditions. From my reading this is one of those times that overhead watering is ok. This will slow the spread of the white patches. Before this I had only been soaking the soil with soaker hoses below and no water was getting on the leaves.
Ants in addition to wind spread the powdery mildew and when the ground is dry it’s more susceptible to an ant invasion – which I also had. If ants are on the soil after you water cover the soil with cinnamon. This acts as a repellent and they will go elsewhere. Which still left me with dealing with the powdery mildew that already took hold. Read more
Happy to see my little babies sprouting!!! I have 100 percent germination. The next picture is of the same trees but they are only three years old. You can see horse pens in the background to give a sense of scale. I have read many articles of people who are against these trees for a myriad of reasons and I don’t subscribe to any of it. This is a wonderful tree providing privacy, shade, love of nature with the wind its leave and a wonderful sent. I have read they are trying to eradicate these trees in the parks along the coast which makes me want to plant these trees all the more.
Woo hoo! I managed to snag a picture of this little guy. My friend Steve told me some settings on the camera to get this. Mainly a flash sync speed of 1/250 sec so you can stop them and still get a little motion blur in the wings. I have a lot learn as I think this could be sharper but for now I am happy to finally see hummers out here. We’ve never had them before. They seem to like the bottle brush plant that is newly planted and in bloom now.
