Food for Thought

While the summer harvest has ended, it's time to look forward to fall. Our grapevine above is showing signs of impending dormancy. After the leaves fall, I'll remove the critter netting.

This picture shows a branch of the guava tree, hanging perilously close to the ground. It's because it is weighted down with fruit.

We've got hundreds of fruit, like this pair, that will be ready soon.

This nice size example will probably be first.

Our citrus will provide another mediocre crop this year. The tangelo is starting to show some color. We'll be eating this around Christmas.

I've got a few tomatoes to eat this week...

...and we literally cannot keep up with the massive productions of chiles we have this year. Here's a plate we're drying out on the patio.  A lot are just falling to the ground because we just can't pick 'em or eat 'em fast enough. 

That's a problem I'd like to have on all of our food plants.

Darryl
Copyright 2013 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

More Fall Follies...

Still getting some rose bloom here just before Halloween. That's Peace, up above. We don't know the name of the yellow one below.

I'm still ripping and tearing up my lawn, getting ready for the big reseeding next month. That's a huge chore and is a lot of work. I'm just about done with the aeration, next will be the ultra-short mow and the overseeding.

My fall zucchini is coming along fine. Actually, three plants have popped up but I think this will be the one to give me fruit.

You can see some buds coming up from the middle. Hope to see flowers and gourds here soon.

More cymibiums are setting flower spikes.

Finally, it looks like our begonia is getting ready to bloom.

Darryl
Copyright 2013 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

The Fall Harvest Preview

Look at that...just look at that! A home-grown tomato! Finally, at the Cheapskate's garden, it looks like we'll get some full-size tomatoes from our garden.

We've also got a good bloom of Dragon fruit flower. As you can see, the ants really like it. So do the bees. Hope to have some fruit soon.

The orchid bench will soon be the focus of our efforts.

This cymbidium is showing the first flower spike of the season.

This kalanchoe daigremontiana is our best volunteer. It's coming out of it's host again.

That host? It's this Christmas cactus that will have another spectacular display for the holidays.

Darryl
Copyright 2013 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

The Days of Wine and Roses

While we break open a nice red for these crisp fall days, the roses are giving us their last hurrah.

At the top is Peace, which we grow as a tree rose.

Here's Julie Newmar with one last flush of yellow before the end of the season.

As of September 30, the roses are on their own. No more deadheading, no more fertilizer. Now, it's up to the plants to store food in their rose hips to get themselves over the cold weather of November and December.

Soon, they'll all look just like this Angel Face and go just a bit semi-dormant until pruning in January.

 

Darryl
Copyright 2013 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved.

Falling for a Speckled Lettuce...and Spinach too!

My next fall project is to make a salad. I planted some lettuce last spring but the local wildlife gobbled it up as soon as the first tender shoots broke ground.

I've also had my share of tomato problems but I'm not ready to throw in the towel on my home-grown salad yet.

I've got some cool weather heirloom lettuce and spinach that I'm going to plant for fall. It's a slightly less than 2 months from sowing-to-harvest variety so maybe I can have that salad for Thanksgiving.

I'm putting the soil into the seeding tray. Funny how the hardware store doesn't sell them with drain holes in them already, first I had to take a nail and poke a bunch of holes in the bottom.

I'm putting the lettuce on one side and the spinach on the other. After sowing and covering up the seeds with soil, I tuck the top of each seed packet into the side of the tray so I can remember which side is which.

Water in...

...and cover with cling wrap (more to keep the animals out than anything else). Once I've got some good, healthy little plants, I'll transplant into the space that the onions and bell peppers were growing in during the summer.

Darryl
Copyright 2013 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

My Languishing Lawn

In the valleys of Southern California, it regularly tops 100 degrees in summer. In my particular micro-climate, pushed right up against the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, the hills trap and intensify that heat so that we also have several days of better than 110 degrees.

It's hot, plain and simple, and not all of the greenery can take it.

My lawn is one. It's St. Augustine grass. It used to look good for around 6 months of the year, and then die back because of the heat or winter dormancy.

We also used to have a big ash tree that shaded much of it but the city, fearing it might have termites, removed it and the shade it provided (when we asked for a replacement, the reply was "we don't have a budget for that"). 

While I missed the shade, I didn't miss raking up all those leaves so I didn't make a fuss about it.

Until I found the other insidious effect...without the shade, my lawn is severely scorched from this blistering summer sun (see the picture at the top).

So, this fall, my big project is the rehabilitation of my lawn. Since I'm the Cheapskate, I've got to find a way to do it that's not going to cost an arm and a leg.

I looked into renting an aerator. Minimum of $45 for three hours...not too bad...but the guys at the rental shop are scaring me saying you better know what you're doing with it and that it's a real bear to operate.  "A gardener can do it for around the same price," I'm told.

Approaching my neighbor's gardener, he tells us at least $800 and that doesn't include the cost of the aerator rental. He'd rather install sprinklers and a new lawn for a cost of several thousand dollars.

My middle and last name might be "Urban Gardener," but he's not quiet getting the first name...

So here's my plan...I'm going to overseed with drought resistant grass.  First, to aerate the lawn, I'm going to wet down the ground real good.

Then I'm getting a metal rake/fork and gouging the ground to aerate and break up the roots.

Some of those clumps are pretty darn tough...look what it did.

Here's today's results. I'm going to do a little bit each day until I'm done. Then, I've got a 10-day trip coming up where I can seed, set the timer on the sprinkler to water everyday, no one will be here to bother it, and - hopefully - that can give it the time and moisture it needs for some quality germination.

Wish me luck!

Darryl
Copyright 2013 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

Cherry Falls

No, that's not one of my punny titles, that's the actual variety name of the cherry tomatoes that I planted in a hanging basket outside of our kitchen window.

My travails with the regular tomatoes have been well documented here this season, although that could also be having a happy ending soon, but the cherry tomatoes have done a decent job.

Starting off in April, I selected a suitable basket and lined it with coco fiber. Next, I repurpose a plastic shopping bag so I can slow down and direct the drainage by poking a hole in the bottom. This will let the water spread out and pool for a minute or two before draining out getting the soil nice and moist evenly around the roots. Then, some potting soil for the plants to grow in.

The seed go in and are watered in before hanging.

I hang the basket outside, put a drip emitter over it, and the timer waters it for 5 minutes everyday.

A month later, a healthy seedling emerges.

In July, I get my first fruit on the biggest stem. It will repeat this act about every two weeks for the rest of the season. I can't wait to get some more stems, more fruit, and have more of a "tomato" fall effect.

Now, according to the picture where I bought it, the plant should look like this.

Unfortunately, none of the other stems (three in all) feel like producing. Fortunately, the one that does is a reliable producer and is still giving us great salad ingredients to this day...I picked those ripe ones a the top this morning.

Darryl
Copyright 2013 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved