Is it spring yet?

So I’ve been a little bit busy and gardening has not fallen by the wayside but my blogging about it has.  I had quals in December so all my spare time went into prepping for that.  Its over though so now I can hopefully get back into regular garden blogging. Thanks to Paige for the reminder 😉 My last post was in September so I guess I should try to summarize the last 4 months. .. I grew lots of tomatoes and made some really bland sauce.  I think it needed more herbs or something.  I also grew a pumpkin that didn’t ripen until about Thanksgiving.  Its still sitting in my kitchen.  Its not a pie pumpkin but I can’t bear to throw it away.  For the winter I planted peas, broccoli, garlic, green onions and beets.  Still waiting on the peas to make peas. They got a little frost bitten and have been slow to recover.  The broccoli, onions and beets have been very yummy and easy. Last year I had a big problem with aphids in the broccoli. This year I companion planted with garlic and mint and it seems to have done the trick.  No aphids!

OK, now for future plans! I have decided to dedicate the back fourth of my garden to herbs and flowers.  Thus far I have oregano, peppermint, parsley, cilantro, rosemary and in the future there will be basil.  I may also companion plant some basil in the with tomatoes.  I also want to put some wildflower mix back there to attract pollinators.  RIght now I have daffodil and freesia bulbs poking through.  As for the veggies, I have seeds for San Marzano tomatoes, some yellow watermelon, cantaloupe, green pole beans, black beans, corn, sunflowers, bell peppers and maybe some other stuff that I forgot.  I am going to try to grow with beans with the corn as the ‘pole’. Last year they were next to eachother and the beans on the edge climbed up the corn so I decided that might be a good way to save some space and the corn probably appreciates the extra nitrogen from the beans.  Hmm.. I think thats it for now! I need to get my tomato seeds started..

Newest garden pest

So as if it’s not enough to be fighting squirrels, rabbits, bugs, slugs and everything else, our community garden’s newest pest is people. I had a watermelon disappear earlier in the week. My neighbor has had several stolen. I also noticed footprints in my beds. I think that’s what irks me most- I can sort of justify the watermelon- maybe they were homeless and hungry. But if your going to steal my stuff and least respect the space. This also suggests that it is not a fellow gardener because they would know to stay on the path. Argh. Ok I’m done ranting now.

No poo for me

So I have given up normal shampoo and conditioner as described here. I am finishing up on week 2. I have been washing on Wednesdays and then sometime over the weekend. That first wed-sat was really greasy but since it has been better. Since my last ‘shampoo’ I have gone swimming, running and been outside in the 101 degree heat with just slight greasiness. We even got our church directory portraits done Thursday night 🙂 My favorite thing about ‘no poo for me’ is that my shower on non-hair-washing days takes like 2 minutes. More sleep for me!

Phone test

I’m doing a test post from my phone. There should be some pics at the bottom.

Compost Tumbler- Grubs!!

So I have been feeding my compost tumbler and it seems to be doing pretty well. Things are turning brown and the volume has decreased and it doesn’t smell too bad.  My only concern is that I have grub/maggot things in there.  They seem to be going to town on my corn cobs and my general feel from my internet searching is that they are good for the compost bin.  My only concern is putting them in the garden. Will they eat my plants/roots?  I am hoping them will die/go away before the compost is ready but if they don’t is it OK to put maggot-y compost in the garden?

Notes to Self

1. Chard is pretty but we don’t eat it – don’t grow next year
2. One cucumber plant is plenty
3. Tomatoes need more than 1 square foot of space (more like 2×2)
4. Don’t be lazy and neglect to pinch off suckers on tomato plants
5. Pole beans are better than bush beans but they need poles (easy)
6. Corn and sunflowers grow well together but put sunflowers in the front or they will face away from the garden.
7. Watermelons like to take over the world; give them space to do so.
8. Calendula needs more than 1 square foot (more like 2×2)
9. Marigolds are awesome
10. I am too busy to water potted plants every day.  Don’t bother planting in the summer time
11. Potatoes are easy; plant more
12. Ocra seems unhappy.. not really sure why.  The small harvest I’ve gotten has been very tasty

New Toy

I finally broke down and got a compost tumbler.  The worms were too hard, they always smelled and had mites.  So anyway, here it is!

Its a ComposTumbler.  So far so good.  I put a bunch of shredded paper in there last weekend and have been gradually adding food and garden scraps as I get them.  I also dumped the remains of the worm bin in there.   I don’t think theres enough green stuff in there yet to do anything spectacular.  I will keep you posted on how things go.

Harvest

This week has been very exciting! I have harvested corn, a pepper, cucumbers, potatoes and onions.

That bottom one is pretty pathetic.  Only like 20 of the kernels got pollinated.  Since then I have harvested several more ears that have looked much nicer. They got eaten so fast I didn’t even get pictures.

Cucumbers!  This is the first of two so far.  It was yummy.

I made a chicken wire lined bed for root crops.  Yesterday I dug up everything in there.   That strange looking thing on the bottom left is a carrot.  It got smooshed up against the chicken wire and looks like a mutant.  A couple of the potatoes were giants- even bigger than the originals.  We ate them last night for dinner 🙂  I love the color of the onions- haven’t tasted those yet though.

I am impatiently waiting for my tomatoes to ripen.   There are like 5 billion green tomatoes but none of them are ripening! boo.

Park and B&B Reviews

We visited a lot of parks this week so I thought I would give a little review of each one for anyone who is interested.

Pinnacles National Park- REALLY REALLY REALLY HOT! During the day at least. There are two sets of caves, but only one was open when we went – Balconies. We hiked there and it was really cool. There are also lots of places to climb for those who are into climbing. The campsite was also decent. There are bathrooms, 6-minute hot showers, although mine still seemed quite cold at 6am. There is also a pool that looked pretty nice but we didn’t swim.

Big Sur- So there are 3 different parks in the Big Sur area: Andrew Molero SP, Pfieffer Big Sur SP and Julia Pfieffer SP. I will review them separately.

Andew Molero State Park- We only hiked here but it was beautiful. There is a cove area with a beach which is popular with the surfers. You have to cross over the river (wade) to get to it though. You can also hike out to the point which gives you a nice view of the cove and the ocean. This is actually the largest of the three parks, but also the least developed

Julia Pfieffer- the main attraction here is the beautiful cove with waterfall and crystal blue water. The area was donated by a lady who used to live up the hill with the condition that there be no access to the beach. So you can’t touch it but the view is fantastic. Its only about a 5 min walk from the parking lot. There are other hikes back into the mountains but we didn’t go.

Pfieffer Big Sur- This is the main park of the three and the one people commonly refer to as Big Sur. This is where we camped. I wasn’t particularly impressed with the hikes. We went up to Pfieffer Falls (decent waterfall) and Valley view (totally not worth the uphill haul). I was also quite tired and cranky this day so that might have biased my experience.

Hearst Castle National Monument (or something)- this isn’t technically a park but it is owned by the park system so I’ll count it. This is incredible. Our tour guide was superb and the ‘castle’ is beautiful. A little pricey on the tickets but worth it in my opinion.

Montana de Oro State Park- This park was really pretty, lots of beach area, eucalyptus groves, etc. But we had the hardest time trying to figure out where we were supposed to go for camping. We went to the visitors center but it was closed (at 3:30pm). It had sign telling us to go somewhere else, that place said to go somewhere else, etc. We eventually figured it out with enough time to take a picnic out to the beach before we had to hike our gear in. This was our only night without showers but also the most peaceful. We were the only ones in the 1 of 2 campgrounds in the area. We had E-camp #2 which was in the eucalyptus grove but we could here the waves down the hill as well.

Point Mugu State Park- We didn’t do much here besides camp and putter around on the beach for about 20 minutes. There were showers but you had to feed it quarters to get any hot water. Well worth it in my opinion 🙂 You could also hear the beach from our tent.

Malibu Creek State Park- My least favorite park. Hot hot hot, bugs bugs bugs. Loud french people. Thats all I have to say about that.

Secret Garden B&B, LA, CA- After an entire week of camping we thought we had died and gone to heaven. There was a bed with lots of pillows and someone to fix us yummy breakfast that wasn’t from a box. The owners were friendly but not too in your face, which we appreciated. We also got upgraded to the cottage (separate building in the back) for free! There is a nice garden with a waterfall and birds (like lots of them, in cages) that almost drown out the traffic (its LA, what do you expect). Overall, very pleasant, would stay again.

Vacation Itinerary

Derrick and I drove south down the coast to LA, camping and site seeing along the way.

Day 1- Drive to Pinnacles NP, hike to Balconies Cave, camp.  The caves were pretty awesome, some parts were pitch dark and it was hard to tell which way to go even with a head lamp.

Day 2- Drive to Andrew Molero SP, hike to the beach;  Drive to Juila Pfeiffer SP, see awesome waterfall/cove thing; Drive to Pfieffer Big Sur SP, hike a bit, camp

Day 3- Drive to Hearst Castle, tour; Drive to Montana de Oro SP, pinic at the beach, hike in to campsite

Day 4- Drive to Santa Barbara, go to the beach, Mission, and a big fig tree; Drive to Point Mugu, hike a wee bit, camp

Day 5- Drive to Malibu, go to the beach and out to lunch for my b-day; drive to Santa Monica Pier and then to the Getty museum; Drive back to Malibu Creek SP to camp

Day 6- Drive to LA farmer’s market, eat brunch; Drive to Griffith Observatory; Drive to Bed and Breakfast in West Hollywood

Day 7- Wander around Hollywood in the blazing heat, Chinese theatre, El Capitan to see Prince Caspian

Day 8- Drive home!

Pictures can be found here.