February

Discouraged at how the level of soil had sunk in the gardens, I undertook the project of lining the landscape timber beds with heavy black plastic. I dig down along the edge as deep as I can, then slide the plastic in. It should also have the effect of rearranging the soil. B is all done, and I need to do the front corners of A. That's where my cilantro and parsley are, so I need to decide how to deal with them.
I added in several bags of 'garden soil' from Home Depot. I could use a few more to fill it up better. I also planted 9 romaine plants and 9 broccolis. So far they are surviving. The cilantro suddenly grew big and lush, as if it had found the conditions it wanted. That would be...sunny, little rain, temperatures in the 70s.

December 30, 2005

The garden in winter.
We had an untimely freeze that took out my tomatoes and peppers when it was only November. Knowing it was coming, I picked all that looked useful. I still have some tomatoes turning red as they feel like it. I roasted my anaheims and froze some. Some are in the fridge where I can reach them for pizzas and tortilla soup and such.
So finally I gave up on the plants this week, and in beautiful 70 degree weather I pulled them all up.
But the garden has developed a couple of wild areas that I keep watered. One is in A, where the cilantro plant went to seed. There are dozens of tiny cilantro plants that I thin when I want some. Bill asked me would they grow bigger, or much bigger. We agreed they are nothing like you find in the store. I like it, though, that they are there and so fresh. I hope one will grow up and go to seed and start the process over.
The other is in B, which is infested with tiny lettuce plants. I must develop the habit of thinning and eating these as well.
My collard has grown big, and at intervals, worms devour it. I have cooked a couple of cuttings of it, and I plan to do it again for New Years, to go with the black-eyes.
I had one small broccoli head on the volunteer plant, but I neglected to cut it. Now it is flowers. Another stalk is growing up beside it.
And of course, I still have chives, and the new parsley I planted. Out in the compost, north of the fig tree, I planted a thyme plant, which lives in spite of the punishing heat of summer and the drought that continues. So there is a pretty good collection of fresh herbs to be had, if nothing else.

August

I never supplied the butterfly update. It emerged from its chrysalis on July 4th, in the late afternoon, after Claire and Nick had left. Emily spotted it, so I hurried the jar outside to where Ann and Casey worked in their front yard sorting out the recycling from the noon barbecue. I turned out the butterfly on my rose bush, and it ended up hanging upside down, gently moving the soft, floppy wings with their beautiful pattern of yellow, white, black. I took pictures. I went back inside before it flew--I don't know why. I asked Ann about it later. She couldn't resist trying to feed it, so when she bumped the branch, it took off flying, she said, sailing over Dennis's house across the street. Her butterfly came out the next day.
I finally gave up on the brussels sprouts and pulled them a few days ago. The cute little sprouts on the stem had hardly changed over the weeks, and they were crowding the pepper plants. So, it was an interesting experiment.
The anaheims are bearing many smallish peppers, some of which are turning red. I had one big tomato on one of the plants in A, which one day I found lying on the ground, half-eaten. I've had a couple of meals from the late collard. I get a few small tomatoes now and then.
It's rained hard several times over the last couple of weeks. I've spent more effort on landscaping of late, planting star jasmine on one side of the yard, and turk's caps and asiatic jasmine on the other. In front, I planted new english ivy where we had some once that died out. On the other side of the porch, I planted divisions from the potted fern I've had for years. And it looks great.

Brussels

Three brussels sprouts plants are left in A. They seemed to be lengthening, so I looked closely and saw that at each leaf joint a little ball is growing. This is about a month longer than I estimated from the stake that came with them. Well, more than that, as they are still not ready to harvest!

June 24, 2005

A follow-up to the caterpillar story. When I got home yesterday, the caterpillar in the jar had made a cocoon. It is greenish with some yellow spots down the back, and it is hanging from the parsley stem by a V-shaped web. When I checked on the garden I found only one well-fattened caterpillar left, so I fixed him up with a jar lest he become bird food.
As I couldn't find such detailed info in any of our books, I looked up caterpillars on the internet, and quickly found our particular spotted-striped-smooth type. They are black swallowtails! So exciting. They are described as eating only parsley or dill. How wonderfully discriminating.
I couldn't find how long they spend in the cocoon. I guess we will find that out by observation.

June 23, 2005

The garden has settled into a summer plateau already. I fed it almost 2 weeks ago with fish emulsion, and maybe a week or two before that I worked some compost into the soil. I've decided the soil is lacking, though I have added compost with every planting. When I saw Jimmy and April's tomatoes 3 weeks ago, they were huge. Every one has probably as much space as half of one of my gardens. The cherry tomato from Home Depot, the gourmet plant, has done the best, with good-sized tomatoes ripening often. The 2 plants in A have grown bigger suddenly, no tomatoes yet though. I think I have allowed the brussels to take up too much of their space. The brussels never did much, though they grew big and leafy and attracted many worms. Speaking of worms, the prettiest caterpillars have been eating the parsley. I don't mind, as the parsley is blossoming madly, and they're just chewing the stalks. They have white stripes interspersed with orange-dotted black stripes. At one point there were 7 of them. I took off one and put it in a jar to see if it would make a cocoon for me, but it hasn't yet. Yesterday only 2 caterpillars remained, still eating. I don't know if birds lunched off the others. I wonder if it is too late to plant basil. I keep forgetting. Plot A has become the volunteer garden, with, at this time, a collard, several marigolds, a leaf lettuce, and several cilantros that came up without my effort. The anaheim peppers are doing nicely. So is the arugula--the only lettuce that made from my massing plantings. Actually there are some light green leaf lettuces, but they seem a bit too bitter.

Feeding

This weekend I fed the gardens with fish emulsion. A very little rain fell this morning, just enough to moisten the surface. We haven't had a good rain in weeks.