Veggie Garden

This is attempt #3 in 3 years at a veggie garden in our back yard.

History:

The first year I tried growing veggies in pots, I got a few tomatos, a miniature butternut squash, a mini watermelon, and a gigantic zuchinni, but that's it. That winter I planted Fava Beans as a cover crop in an area that I planned to make a veggie bed, and while the fava beans did very well, I failed to grow anything at all in the bed over the summer. The cover crop was not enough on it's own to make a good growing medium for the plants, and they all stayed about the size they were when I bought them in the nursery.

This year, I filled the bed with new soil, and am trying a random assortment of veggies.

The List:

• Tomato (four varieties)
• cherry tomato
• eggplant
• cucumber
• crookneck sqaush
• cantelope
• watermelon
• nasturiums
• artichoke
• corn
• snap beans
• edamame
• sunflower edible
• sunflower decorative

 

Blue-eyed Grass

I bought three little 2" pots of blue-eyes grass at a local native plant nursery last year, and planted them in a wine barrel in the front yard. They hung on through the summer, but were never more than a few little 4" tall blades of grass in the pot. but after going through the winter, early this spring they exploded into these 12" tall blades with tons of beautiful blooms! They look especially good with the orange sticky monkey flower that blooms at the same time, and the euphorbia with the bright green bracts.

 

Garden Tour

I went on a garden tour that was hosted by Bay Friendly Gardening a subset of the Alameda County sponsored program StopWaste.org.

This house in san Leandro was especially interesting because it used mostly CA native plants. The photo is of the from "lawn," which consists of wooley thyme, clumping grasses, and mazanita. All the work was professionally done by a company called four dimentions who were there at the garden and talked about CA natives for a while.

 

 

Winter Fail

Plants that did not make it through the winter:

 

 

Pentas - I'm a littlr sad about this plant dying, I thought It was very pretty - I think bringing this one inside for the winter might have saved it.

Two of my four Hibiscus - I'm not sure that they are gone forever, but they won't be blooming anytime soon.

Plumeria - I brought this plant in for the winter, and it did well until the end if winter, when I discovered that the leaces were covered in spider mites. the leaves have all fallen off, and I'm hoping it will come back.

Persian Sheild - This plant completely died. This is the second winter in a row, I must need to bring it inside for the winter, or just use it as an annual, but I never see them in the nurseries until late in the summer.

more to be listed...

 

Seed Savers

A great place to share seeds you've saved, and get seeds from others who have saved them.

http://www.seedsavers.org

Survivors

 

I planted two of these pots to put on the windowsills in the front yard last summer. I included nemisia, marigold, and lantana in them in purples and oranges. They were all supposed to perish over the winter, but to my surprise, the nemesia survived! The foliage is a little lighter, but I'm sure over the course of the summer, it will darken.

 

Here's the pot last summer:

I purchsed new Marigolds, and Purple Pansies to fill in the space left from the Marigold and Lantana from last year.

 

 

Strawberry pots

 

I got two strawberry pots from my mom, and filled one of them with starwberry plants that survived from last year (I had them in a cut-up cat litter container, which was not as visually appealing). and filled the other with a new 6-pack from the nursery. These pots had a lot of holes in them, so after I put in the six strawberries in each, I filled the remaining holes with annuals I had left over from the two pots I filled on our windowsills. On the top of each pot, I placed an herb I had purchased from a local nursery, one has a sweet woodruff, and the other a stevia plant - a natural sweetener. Then put some gravel from my driveway on top to keep the dirt moist a litle longer, and to keep to dirt from splashing out when the pot is watered.

Spring has Sprung!

Today my Apricot exploded into blooms.

 

Gardening Blog for crafty chicks

I found this blog today.

http://www.yougrowgirl.com

Crazy Plant

 

I found this at a nursery in Berkeley that got it from one of my favorite places Annies Annuals. It's like a tomato plant with purple flowers and bright orange spikes. It's called a Solanum pyracanthum. Here's the info from Annies annuals website.

"Cool and scary! This eye-opening specimen plant from Madagascar is a member of the tomato family. It grows 3’-5’ tall with pretty, actually, blue-green leaves that have prominent orange spines down the mid ribs. The stems are covered with orange fuzz. Lavender flowers are borne in a cluster. It’s a tropical guy, and so unforgettable, it’s worth protecting during the winter. Full Sun, DEER RESISTANT, Perennial, USDA zones 9-11"

Cape Honeysuckle

Here it is December, and the Cape Honeysuckle I bought this year is blooming! It's doing pretty well, but needs to be repotted since it's still in the 1 gallon container I bought it in, and it needed to be watered every day.

Shrimp Plant

I bought this shrimp plant in July and it was doing well until it got a little chilly then it started getting a little leggy. I read that it's range is zone 9-10 but in the colder end of it's range will die back at a hard freeze and then come back... I've decided to try bringing it indoors for the winter...we'll see if that's too dry an environment for it.

 

October