http://www.andtheplotthickens.net/best-practices/timing/

Fun Fact: I still have seeds to give away if anyone’se interested.

Anyway, thanks for your interest.

Also, we have more common chives than we know what to do with.  Gotta give ‘em away or mow em!  If you’re in the Hayward/Castro Valley area and want some, let me know; I’ll pot up a couple for ya.

Fun Fact: I’ll probably be doing this with chamomile, “royal carpet” sweet alyssum, borage and other seeds pretty quick here.

It appears that people have been visiting all of a sudden.  Don’t know who of why, but hey, I’m just glad this ol’ thing ain’t dead.

Gotta go put in new bunching onions, brassicae and other winter crops after trucking in the last of the old dirt, but can post this taken 2 days ago:

Those maters are 6 feet tall, which added to the beds mean they tower 8 feet up. They are also shoving the fencing down… argh.  Better fencing next year.   The fennel behind them is 10 feet up.  

Yeah, I gotta get out there and deal with all that stuff.  Most of the zukes have been ripped up, but three are still going strong.  Lettuce and winter stuff will go in where the zukes were.  That soil is pretty lacking in N, so will be putting in legumes this winter and whacking them down when blossoms are mostly out (that’s when most of the N is available).  Also, going to lay down a covercrop of clover as permanent understory.

I love that purple bee balm, and so do the hummingbirds.  Maybe I can save seed from that too!

Currently self-seeding: chamomile (like a fiend!), nasturtiums

Fun Fact: looks like we’ll finally be putting the chicken coop in this fall!  Yeayyyyy!!!!

The garden’s soil was delivered and it was very poor.  Weed-ridden, completley lacking in Nitrogen, and totally anaerobic.  At least the lack of Nitrogen kept the weeds from showing for a while.  By the time I figured out that the beds needed N, the plants had already been stunted.  I felt so bad!  So then we had stunted plants… and the weeds were coming in.  Argh.  

Add onto that the horrible weather.  We officially have the wettest, coldest May and June on record. No wonder all my summer plants are sulking.  I used to live in the Urban Island: warm, not much wind, Summer is nice and wide and fat in eight months of glorious mild warmth.  Now I’m 500ft higher, and the winds sweeping in from the Golden Gate mean that it gets FREAKING COLD and VERY WET.  No more ripe tomatoes in May.  Now the tomato plants should be freakin’ planted in may.  *sad sigh*

I took on all the guilt for how bad my garden was.  But it was the soil and the weather and, frankly, the fact that I was a newbie.  Now that I understand the weather better, and have fixed the soil, I can get over being butthurt about that.   If I can keep from planting summer plants in wet, cold April and other similar stupid mistakes, I can get over being an idiot noob. 

I’m used to being a dork.

I started this blog to be about the best products and techniques… and then I read Mini Farming: Self-Sufficiency on 1/4 Acre.  Guess what?  Someone kinda did most of the work already.

So, um, until I get a better idea, this blog will be a chronicle of how I worked to change this barren plot into an oasis.  When I get a break in the unceasing To-Do list, I will try to fill in what Mini Farming did not have answers for.  But until then, I have peas to stake up!

Fun Fact for today: Adiabatic Lifting means if there’s anything more than a 20% chance of rain, we’re getting drenched.  *sigh*

Fortunately, the little black fuzzy dog’s barking scared him off.  16 lb dog VS 100 lb deer… that’s got to be good for a canine’s self-esteem. 

Fun Fact: now that the deer are down from the hills cuz there’s nothing else green to eat, it’s definetly time to fence up the orchard.

…drumroll please!…

our first homegrown meal.

WHOO HOOOOOOO!!!!

Fun Fact: the bees love to come by and drink from the water on the leaves: dew in the morning and beads after I transplant.

Fun Fact: Uh… I can’t think of one.  Uh.  Um.  Total brainfart.  Uhhhh… bananas and peanut butter is a tasty breakfast?  And banana peels compost GREAT?  Okay, yeah, that’ll do.

Had to have been lovely, beautiful stuff, right?  Well, IT SMELLED LIKE POO.  

It was anaerobic, full of fungus gnats, and so lacking in nitrogen that now everything is refusing to grow.  I’m trying to remedy the situation, but this is ridiculous.  I’ll be making my own beds from now on, thank you. 

*grumble grumble grumble*

Still happy to play in the dirt, though.

Fun Fact: Asparagus and celery and other bog plants like water, so put them downslope of your garden (in well-draining soil) and they’ll happily us up any runoff so you won’t have to water so much.

I made labels.  They faded in the sun.

Then I started more seeds so I overwrote the useless blank labels, and went to buy more labels and made more of them and it was expensive and they faded too. 

So I got disgusted with the whole idea and made diagrams.  That’s not working, either.  You’re looking at a tray of stuff.  One of the cells is barren.   What’s that?  Why isn’t it sprouting?  Where’s the diagram?  (20 minutes later) I found it!  Okay!  Uh… which end is up?

Dammit!

So now I’m making a Veg Taxonomy list.  Every plant gets a number, all markers are METAL with NUMBERS and can be reused, and the Master List will get put somewhere very secure.

*swoons with delight*

Fun Fact: Bee pollen is collected by attaching a cubby-hole-screen for the bees to crawl through.  The pollen falls off their back legs and into a collecting box.  The bees will then work even harder to get pollen.