Cardiff Garden Blog

My watermelon vine is growing very large.  I'd say it's beyond 30 ft in length. I've already reaped a few melons from the vine.  It's funny how sometimes the shapes just don't come out like they are supposed to. Like this watermelon with growing pains. I still holding out hope that it's upper body will fill in.

I call it. A day's pick.  Seen in photo: Habanero, Anaheim, chili, thai, green and others.

As I wrote in my previous post I had this problem with a subterranean rodent that was destroying the roots of my plants. One of the plants affected by the monster is this pepper plant. He chewed away the roots and I quickly noticed it wilting and dying.  I uprooted the plant with what little roots it had left (you can see in the upper pic) and wedged it into my fence. See the peppers on the plant were all still green and weren't ripe enough yet. So I figured I'd let nature do the rest. Very cool.

Anaheim peppers tend to be mild. They grow to be about 6 inches in size or more. You can see one growing here that isn't quite ripe yet. They grow to be a nice cone shaped pepper great for stuffing.  Just picked two from this plant the other day.

This plant was stunted and never grew beyond 8 inches or so. I suspect due to the rodent chewing roots below all my plants for so long. But I had a chance to get even and haven't seen my subterranean friend in some time. And I suspect I won't ever see him again (If you get my drift). So since then, this plant has been making a comeback along with all the other plants in the box. I feel like all the peppers are all going to ripen the exact same time. Can see some garlic that just sprouted a few days ago in the background of the shot.

I've planted so many different plants and rarely remember exactly what and when I planted. I need to get better about documenting what I plant. Maybe I thought that is what this blog would do for me. Anyway I know this plant to be something in the squash family.  This is growing in my alley box which gets a ton of sunlight and seems to have the best soil of the boxes. In the background you can see an artichoke plant. Now last year I tried growing Artichoke and one of the most valuable lessons I learned was to give it plenty of space.  Now I heard that last year and ignored it because often times every plant will say a lot of space and not really need/use it.  But in this case you do need to give it it's space. Probably about 3 feet.

Just planted more garlic. I actually used a lot of the garlic I've harvested to replant the next crop.  All you need to grow garlic is soil and some garlic cloves. You can buy them either at the garden store or use the ones you buy at the supermarket.  Simply using your thumb push a garlic glove pointy side up into the soil a few inches. That's pretty much all the work you'll need to do.  Some say it's good to cut the flowers off so that more energy its given to the garlic itself.  These have been in the soil a few weeks. When they first sprout they look simply like a thick green weed coming in. When the plant begins to dry naturally it's close to harvest and stop watering plant.   There is no right or wrong time to harvest garlic. You can eat it right away or let it dry out. It comes upon preference.  When harvesting remember to dig up bulbs and not to yank out like weeds. This ensure you get a full clove.

So I had limited success with producing a viable grape crop this year. But I was able to produce raisins. I know that's not a super difficult accomplishment but an accomplishment none the less. I think I ended up watering the grapevine too much this year producing a crop that would split the grapes before getting fully ripened. I picked this small bundle of grapes and then let them dry in the sun.  These raisins didn't turn out half bad.  Had a few the other day..Still really juicy. Very cool to know it was that easy to make them.

Thanks to apple's new software update I am able to capture cool shots like this of my garden. This was shot using the panorama function on an iphone. This is my grapevine from the alley viewpoint.

I think it's about time to pick this guy. I have had more success this year with the crop of watermelons. I believe I chose a different type of melon this year and the vine itself has spread both north and south in the alley. I've pulled a few runts from the vine but this one looks to be a keeper. I have probably 3 more on the vine at varying stages of maturity. I'll try to takes some shots of it when I cut it up.

I wanted to take some pics of my colorful spicy bowl of peppers. I find that I cannot use them fast enough. 

My girlfriend snapped this one the other day... love the contrast and color

just a shot of the garden plot as of end of July 2012.  On the right on the fence is the grapevine.  Most of the plants in the picture are peppers and tomatoes. As well as some pumpkin & squash vines.

These are just a few heads of garlic I picked the other day.  With these the portion of the plant above the soil was already dead or about to be dead. I couldn't just yank these by the above the soil part of the plant. Instead I dug them out by hand from under the surface. I still have a few heartier plants in the ground. Those left in the ground are still green and I expect that they are still growing.  I'll wait until I notice them dying off before I uproot. After removing from soil I washed them off under the sink and placed on the window sill to dry them out. 

I've tried growing squash in the past and had limited success. This year they seemed to be doing better in the alley box that get the best amount of sun. These squash are growing outside the box on the sandy soil. The vines roots are in the good soil in the box but the vine itself doesn't need to be on top of the best soil.  I suspect these squash need a few more days to fully ripen. Anyone got any good recipes?

Really love how cool the onion flower looks. This flower is from the onion that a neighbro planted in my garden.  I have since planted my own guerrilla onion in another box. And by that I mean an onion that was chopped and used for cooking. The remaining half of the onion was stored in my fridge in a plastic baggie. After about a week or so the moisture from the bag helped the onion to start growing inside the fridge. So like this plant, I took the half onion (sprouting) and dug it into the soil a few inches. After about a week I am already seeing the sprouts coming up.  I think this was even easier than from seed.  I'm gonna have to use this method more often with leftover food scraps. This flower is also serving a purpose other than just being pretty to look at.. I've noticed a number of bees frequenting it.  Which we all know as a good thing for plants.

Everyday I am more and more impressed with how much grapes grow in size daily and weekly.  This bundle here is probably the furthest along.  The bundle above this growing over the open alley. I can't imagine I'll have to wait too much longer for my first taste of patience.  I feel like I've been really lucky with the lack of bugs and critters attacking my crops. The birds haven't paid much notice to the vine nor have they paid much attention to my boysenberry vine. Here's hoping the continue to ignore it all.

One of my favorite things about having a garden is how it helps to me to explore new foods. Before I started gardening I never really enjoyed tomatillos, boysenberries, turnips, chard, and the list goes on. I love the reward of eating something you helped nurtured along.. Kinda cannibalistic if you think about it. hahaha.  But this was my first time growing Artichoke. And to be honest the only time I've eaten Artichoke was in spinach and Artichoke dip. Not very brave I know. But last night I got to enjoy this sucker and he was delicious. Can't wait for more. Hopefully we'll have the barbeque going by the time I pick the next one. 

I think its about time to pick this guy. I still can't believe how great this has grown. I never in my wildest dreams thought it would be these easy to grow these.  Now just have to figure out what I want to do with it.. Dip... or maybe something else.

So every year I've been trying to keep plants surviving longer and longer. It seems like I cannot get a plant to last more than a season. Peppers in particular. Regardless of how large the plant was the previous season, I've struggled to get that plant to produce a product the next season. Grapevine and boysenberries being exempt from this discussion. But this pepper plant is proving me wrong. The plant was much larger last season and produced quite a bit. In the winter the plant sort of died off but not completely. And then this spring I started noticing a resurgence of life. The plant looks really healthy and already has large peppers on it. Lots of flowers as well. I don't know what I did but it seems to be working. And I hope it keeps working.

So last year I had limited success with pumpkins and watermelon. I had just a few vines that produced limited product. I was happy with what I got but wanted more.  So this year I've decided to go nuts on planting both pumpkin and watermelon in the alley box. This box has the most open direct sun and room around the box.  All my other boxes are hampered by space constraints like fences and other boxes nearby.  My hopes are that this box will shoot runner vines well into the alley to soak up the sun and green up an area that is usually pretty drab during the summer season. I've gone with seed and store bought plants. Obviously the store boughts are larger and further along than the fresh new start ups that just arrived this past week. Also can see some garlic off to the center right of this pic. I have a feeling that is going to be a huge hunk of garlic.

Now normally I'm against caging my tomatoes.  I like the plant to reach its largest potential and somehow I don't think caging it in will help that. But in this instance I am caging because the lack of support for the plant in the alley. I won't have anything to stabilize the plant with so I decided lets see how I do.  I do have other tomatoes plants growing free range.  This plant looks to be doing fine for the moment. We'll see how it gets when it grows beyond the cage.

 So I'm finding more and more of these on my grapevine. Which has me super stoked. Obviously these are the beginnings to something tasty I've been patiently waiting for some time now (over 5 years to be exact). It appears my patience is being rewarded this summer.  The vine has also spread well across the alley and into the neighbors yard. (they don't mind already asked) Besides who wouldn't want free grapes.  These will be the eating kind and not the wine kind. Concorde to be exact. Seedless.

So I came out to my garden one day to see that someone had stuffed a full size onion into the ground in one of my garden boxes. I'm assuming someone (probably someone that I share the house/yard with) had an onion they didn't want or was just not ripe enough and decided to see what would happen..  Well this is what happened. A bunch of large onions. Last year a grew a few from seed and the seed pods seen at the top of the plants spread a few good seeds to other areas of my garden and had fresh onion plants this season.  Here's hoping that happens again. And thanks to whomever planted that onion.  Also seen in this picture are some juicy red strawberries to the left and a tomatillo plant bottom right.  Artichoke behind the onion

So this being the second year that I've had the boysenberry vine, I'm finding that each picking reaps a little more. This being the height of bounty. I've never picked this many berries in one session. Granted I didn't get a chance to pick some over the weekend so there may have been a few I could have picked earlier. Still way impressed with the yield.  This photo doesn't show the 15+ berries I ate that I just thought were to delicious to make it to the bowl. Who knows how many I'll pick in the next couple days...

My Artichoke plants are coming along nicely. I've included a pic to show the progress. I've noticed 3 heads on this plant. This is my first time growing artichoke so I'm new to the stages of maturity and when to pick.

So I spent a good part of my Easter sunday weeding, picking, trimming, planting, and digging. I planted new plants like peppers, tomatillo, tomatoes, pumpkin, and watermelon.  Also added new compost to some of the boxes that needed it.  Spring is here and the garden needed the attention that comes with the warmer weather.  Here are some pics from that afternoon's labor.  

It's been sometime since I've updated the progress of the boysenberry vine. It's in full bloom for the spring. Tons of white flowers everywhere which means tons of berries. Can't wait for them.  I've already eaten a few that were early bloomers.

This area below my bedroom window was dead space. It was originally just a pile of rocks and rubble.  I've worked with the soil the past few years to try and coax life out of it.  Mostly sunflowers in the past but this blueberry bush has been surviving for a year or two now.   To the right of the bush is a freshly planted tomato plant. It will be a pseudo test to see if this area can reap actual rewards, other than birdfood.  Also can see the boysenberry vine popping up from under the sidewalk. 

This is my first year for growing artichoke and I have to say it hasn't been much of a burden. I haven't had many issues with the plants themselves. I will say I didn't expect they'd be as large as they are. If I'd had known their size I might have been a bit more careful in where I planted them.  Looking forward to seeing more from them.

  These are the early stages of carrots growing. I've planted them in empty spaces in a few of my boxes.  They take up very little room and require next to not effort.  

The Strawberry patch is alive and well.. I get a few tasty strawberries a day. Like the big one at the bottom of the picture. I ate that one just after this picture was taken. Delicious

So I had to do some restructuring of my grapevine trellis. Previously I had just propped it up with old sunflower stalks.  They worked well for about 6 months until the sun dried them out and made them brittle.  I've replaced it with a clothesline strung between the fences.  Also using one string line to help adhere the vine to the clothesline. Soon enough I imagine you won't even be able to see that line. Growing below my vine are snow peas and sugar snap peas.  Why waste unused space. I think this is the year I finally reap some grapes from the vine.  I think this pic above is evidence of early grapes. I've yet to see these in previous years and from my research on the internet it seems like this is a early grape bunch. So excited to see this. I counted atleast five of these so far. Very hard to spot amongst the fresh shades of green. More to come....

So not long ago I decided to start growing turnips. Not knowing what a turnip actually tasted like. I'm sure I've eaten them sometime earlier in my lifetime but no knowingly or they didn't make that much of a impression on me. I chose to grow turnips because it was on my list of winter crops and I like to experiment with growing new fruits and veggies.  I was really surprised to see how quickly and easily they grew with very little work.  I also learned that I bunched too closely together. I often plant too many seeds in an effort to make sure my crop is viable.  In the future I know not to plant so close together. The first few turnips I grew I gave away to friends. Some were eager to receive while others weren't so keen on the weird veggies.  I neglected to pick some for a week or two and then while weeding the other day noticed that I have some ready for harvest. Above is the picture of them after harvesting. I decided it was time to actually try them in dinne