Cardiff Garden Blog

The best part of a garden and giving aways fruits and vegetables is when the person makes something with those fruit/vegetables and brings it for you to enjoy.  In this case I gave a bag of Tomatillos to a co-worker and they made some amazing Salsa Verde. 

So the peppers are finally here. Not exactly ripe yet but coming in nicely. Below is a shot of Serrano peppers. Below that Cayenne peppers which are nice and spicy. And below that is Jalapeno peppers. Also I have Anaheim, chile, habanero, and green peppers growing throughout the garden.

 I felt like my squash plants weren't producing enough vegetables so I planted a bunch of seeds two weeks ago hoping that it wasn't too late. Also planted some pumpkin seeds. I guess I wasn't too late. These guys popped up rather quickly. I guess the great summer weather helps as well. Sometimes the "June Gloom" here in San Diego isn't kind to young plants.   I will continue to update you on how these plants are doing.

Snapped this shot this morning after watering. The sunflowers add a great splash of color to the garden. Off to the right you can see my pumpkins are still turning orange.

The time had come to chop Sal's head off. If you don't know that's the name I have given to my giant sunflower. Anything this large deserves a name. Anyway this is by far my biggest sunflower I've ever grown and or harvested. I excited to have a friend that will be roasting the seeds and hopefully giving me a sample.  The aroma coming off this flower now is amazing. Rich nutty smell. I placed it on the scale and it weighs in at 7.2 lbs. Quite a hefty flower if you ask me.  I had to chop it down with a hatchet.  And you can see in the picture that the stalk is just behind me a bit to the left. It's still well over 7ft tall even without its head and a foot of stalk that I chopped with it. I figured I'd show a few younger pictures of Sal to give you some perspective to his growth.

 This tomato plant was totally a runt. It started growing from under surfboard bags and under my deck. With a little help and some water it's now almost 6ft tall and stretching its limbs. I've used some old clothesline to help it reach out to the sun. I've already picked a few tomatoes (cherry) and they were delicious.  Great for something I didn't even plant. I think it may grow even taller.

 So this is my pumpkin harvest from the one vine I had going strong. I believe these to be jack-o-lantern pumpkins or something similar to that. They didn't really get a chance to grow larger because the vine died off too soon. That doesn't mean there is anything wrong with these little guys. They will still turn orange and be normal pumpkins.     Now this guy to the left is a Atlantic Giant and it's already surpassed the size of all my other pumpkins I've grown this season. I'm hoping this guy gets massive.  It's funny how this pumpkin doesn't grow as a green and turn to orange. So far I've only noticed two yellow pumpkins on this vine but it's vine looks promising spreading out quickly in the alley. I've also planted some Max pumpkin seeds throughout the garden. Hopefully it won't be too late for them to grow.

 Sunflowers are like snowflakes in that two sunflowers are never alike. Each one unique in it's own way. Take these two giants. Hard to sense the scale of their size but the one to the left is bigger than a basketball in diameter. When it's ready to chop I will have to take a pic of me holding it up so that you have some sense of scale. I've taken a roof shot of what the sunflower jungle looks like.

I know I've spent a lot of time talking about sunflowers and posting pics of them but this guy just fascinates me. The overall massive size of this flower just gets me everytime. I think it's produced all the seeds it's going to produce and it on the end of it's lifecycle.  I wanna let the bees have more fun with it before I chop it's head off.  I wonder how many seeds are in there. It's funny it looks like a shower head or a street light pointing towards the ground. It's so heavy that it can't hold its head up anymore.

But I guess I was wrong. It appears that most of the pumpkin vine has gotten powdery mildew and died off. That's not to say that this pumpkin isn't salvagable. But it will not grow any larger than this. As you can see it is already starting to turn orange. I do have other pumpkin vines growing currently and plan to plant more. I really enjoy how little maintainence they require usually and very little garden real estate because you can allow the vine to leave the box and grow where ever. I guess I'll focus my attention on my Giant Atlantic pumpkin vine which is growing in the skateboard box at an incredible pace.

Sal the Sunflower shows his face . I wonder how many seeds are there?  It's already brought in plenty of bees and I'm sure there will be more to visit my other 50 or so sunflowers. Sal is well over 8ft now.

Each day the amount of Boysenberries to pick has been increasing.. It has also become more difficult to find them all under their branches. After thorough search I found about a bowl full. I'm sure I missed a bunch still.