Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Overall Garden Update

Since yesterday's post was kind of a downer, I thought I'd follow it with a garden update that's a little more upbeat.  When I initially posted my question about pests to Facebook and Twitter (pre-blog post), several people suggested surrounding the at-risk plants with ash. Apparently snails do not like ash, and won't cross the borders? We just happened to have a bit of ash in our fire "pit" outside, so I scooped up a bucketfull and began to distribute it.

Ring around the rainbow chard.
Reminds me of that scene in Hocus Pocus,
where the kids make a ring of salt to protect
themselves from the witches.
Smaller ring around the spinach, and one
around the only pepper plant that's been
eaten. I'm sure I'll have to do the others
eventually as well.
The kale is doing great! Pests don't seem to
like it much! Hooray for us!
And say hello to that little Nasturtium poking
through the fence - these guys are everywhere!
We've already lost one sunflower (out of 12),
and I think we're about to lose two or three
more. Not exactly sure why, since the others
seem to be doing ok. We started with 12
though, so I'm not too concerned. 
The whole garden, as it stands now.

And now, a garden progress breakdown:

Along the back wall: 
sweet peas (mostly doing ok, though they're not growing much)
climbing beans (growing a bit, they look leafier!)

Directly in front of those:
basil (not growing super fast, but not dying either)
cherry tomatoes (3 varieties, 4 plants, look like they're doing ok?)

Directly in front of those:
parsley (surprisingly doing ok, I thought for sure it'd be dead)
marigold (no flowers yet, but it looks strong)
strawberry (plant looks good, but we're going to have to fight the squirrels for the berries)

Directly in front of those:
lemon cucumber (leaves look fine, no growth yet)
zucchini (leaves look fine, no growth yet)
crookneck squash (leaves look fine, no growth yet)
spinach (looks like death; see pictures above, and previous post, for a taste of how deathly...it looks worse in person. I'm hoping that once the pests leave them alone they'll get a surge of healthy growth)

Front row:
rainbow chard (see above, and previous post, sigh)
kale (awesome possum!)
peppers (lookin' good, aside from the one that was starting to get eaten; it now has an ash ring)

Along the right side:
sunflowers (see above; they look taller, but no flowers yet of course)
lemon tree (looks super much happier since we staked it with bamboo and it's standing upright! I guess it likes not having droopy branches)
anise and poppies (not pictured, but they seem to be doing well!

Sunlight Report:
According to the SunCalc, which I placed in an area of the veggie garden that I thought was the least likely to be getting awesome sun (near the chard and cucumber), we have Partial Shade.  Not as good as Full Sun or even Partial Sun, but I've heard tell of Bay Area gardeners having luck with these types of plants in Partial Shade. Plus, the other half of the garden gets better light. I'm going to test the other side (closer to the spinach) tomorrow or later this week, depending on which day I get out of bed early enough to get a good reading.

Things have grown quite a bit since the first pictures were taken two weeks ago!

15 comments:

  1. The garden looks amazing! Good luck with the pest control -- the ash/coffee grounds rings have worked wonders for our garden :)

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  2. Good to hear! That is encouraging news :) And thanks! I think it looks pretty pretty myself!

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  3. I'll recommend the ask idea to my family.

    Hm...you are not trying Disqus 2012?

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  4. Thanks for the catch, MHazell  :) D12 was turned on for use while I was honeymooning in Europe, and I just hadn't gotten around to flipping the switch on my blog yet (it's been a busy 3 weeks!). Tis done now though! 

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  5. Can you forward to the Disqus team that there is some layout issues with Opera desktop?

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  6. I notice that the background images for the elements in Disqus 2012 also use a little bit of transparency, like Houdini did with the .dsq-comment-header

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  7. I would also suggest that you use CSS remove the Post Comments (Atom) link, as it is for Blogger's native system. Maybe the Disqus team can integrate that into Disqus by using a display:none rule, and then replacing it with one for Disqus, like the rest of the Blogger widget currently does.

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  8. Kim's Kitchen Sink Can I be added to the recommended reading column? My site is Techman's World.

    http://techmansworld.blogspot.com

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  9. The Recommended Reading column is super outdated, and something I'm getting rid of soon (it used to be a space for me to share my friends' blogs, but I set it up to autofill from Google Reader, and I added too many things to the folder, yadda yadda yadda). I'm hoping to do a total blog redesign this summer, so that will be going away in the near future. Sorry!

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  10. wow, it looks SO GOOD. i am so impressed with your gardening skills & dedication.

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  11. Thanks! I think it looks pretty good, myself :) It looks a little worse now that I've plucked off all the potentially diseased leaves, but still, things are growing! In the ground!

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  12. Kristen N GilmoreJune 6, 2012 at 6:34 AM

    I know it looks worse, but it should help. At least you don't have London's problem, whereby come late summer we all have to run out to our tomatoes with fungus sprays, powders, and talismans after every rain to save them from the blight spores that blow in from Kentish potato farms like clouds of locusts. In late July I'm spraying regularly and keeping a vigilant eye out for sick vines; by August I'm pulling and destroying pink tomatoes that never ripen; by October the fruits emerge shrivelled, grey and sad. Last year fungal death came late and fast, which was better than before, when it came gradually and I ignorantly tried to save them.

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  13. Yeah, I'm hoping it helps. That spore fungus stuff sounds awfully awful! London sucks! JK! I bet it's awesome there because I've seen pictures of your garden, so even though it kind of sucks a little, you are still awesome in my eyes? Yeah!


    Also: discovery! Tiny green caterpillars munching on my leaves. I WATCHED THEM DO IT. I may or may not have said "A-HA! I CAUGHT YOU, YOU LITTLE ADORABLE ASSHOLES!" (I definitely did say that). And then I sprayed every leaf in the garden with vegetable-friendly bug spray.

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