New Sowings

In the lower garden, last week I planted some Cannas (Cannae?) that had unfortunately sprouted in the (costco) bag. So we'll see how they do. I also sowed nasturtiums in groups, and liberally sprinkled Nigella and California poppy seed around. In the background, and here and there, I sowed some borage.
The general idea is to get some color in the lower area, while having it as trouble-free as possible (drought-resistant) and ideally, attracting insects to the garden that can pollinate the veggies. For the same reason, I'm growing herbs in the "lawn" immediately in front of the veggie plot. The theory with the herbs is that they can be mown in the winter, when they wont mind the haircut, and then in the summer, when the "grass" (largely weeds) goes brown, they will spring up forming an insect-attracting border for the veggies. Of course, I need reasonably invasive herbs for this that can compete with the weeds - Oregano, Chives, Thyme, Lemon Balm and so on.
I finally got my T&M broad bean seeds yesterday (I ordered them on the 11th and complained twice about the delay, the second time when they converted it to a "rush" order to be delivered "during the first part of march"), but as usual, the squeaky wheel finally gets the service. Expecting weather, I levelled the bed and put in 2 rows ASAP, and before 10 minutes, the rain had started! Perfect timing. The bad news is that the storms broke a few pea stalks near the top, as the winds were gusting fierce.

Today I threw a few cress seeds where I had planted the broad bean seeds, to get a but of an intercrop and maybe deter slugs. These invaders have been decapitating some of the broccoli I sowed this month. More iron phosphate, methinks.

The picture at the top is some tranplanted mesclun mix taken on Feb 10. Its grown since, and I'll post a new picture for comparison shortly.

Garden Cress and Broccoli Rabe sown

Sowed a couple of rows of Broccoli Rabe today, with a line of garden Cress between them. Did what I could to even up the soil surface, added a little bought compost to make the seed bed that bit more cosy, and added the seeds. Instead of a single line of seeds, in both cases, I sprinkled the seed thinly about about a 4-inch wide strip. Then, I gently tussled the seed in a little, sprinkled a light dusting of compost on top, and gave a quick, gentle spray of water to settle things in.

"Alaska"

Here is an image of my first pea, taken today. You can see the pea pod at bottom center. The variety is Perry Morse, "Alaska". Its supposed to be "wilt resistant", but I bought it as "one of the earliest peas", "Days to Harvest" 58. Frankly, if I had known they'd be doing so well, I would have planted half the bed in this.

First Peas

I broke new ground this year, in an area that I know is largely shaded in summer by a large tree, and dried out by its roots, but when youre limited to where you can dig, you do the best with what you have. The area used to be a vegetable plot, many years ago, presumably when the trees were smaller, so thats where my landlady wanted me to use. First, I deep dug the bed, cutting out roots and incorporating any vegetable matter I could get my hands on to about 1.5-2 feet down, and as I did this after the first rains had softened up the soil a little, it wasnt too hard. When I was finished, the surface was a couple of inches higher than previously. Into this, I planted:
16% radishes, then 16% carrots, then 16% mesclun. On the remaining 50%, a row of peas, a row of spinach and a row of lima beans. (I had wanted to use fava beans, but couldnt find any seed at the time). That was about Christmas.

Radishes (Cherry Belle): Grew great, some good roots, some useful only as salad and soup leaves.
Carrots: Miserable. Today, they are still small, about an inch high. Other carrots, including come colored ones, sown elsewhere earlier are bigger, so I'm leaving these in for now in hope. I'm not convinced these are best started in midwinter though.
Mesclun: Doing great; have had a few haircut harvests already, and expecting more. I'm being careful to cut off flowerheads that are appearing on the rocket and a spiky green. I have also transplanted some lettuces and rocket from here to another bed where they will have more room to develop.

Peas: Doing fantastic. Grew very well in the warm, sunny weather at the start of Jan, and are now flowering heavily. The first pea appeared this week, and has grown from 0.5 cm to 1.5 cm in just a few days.
Lima beans: Disaster; nothing came up. More than likely way too cold for germination.
Spinach; growing very slowly; about the size of corn salad now. Hopefully this will provide a decent crop in spring though.

Because of the failure of the Lima beans, I have transplanted some of the mesclun here, and stuffed in a line of garlic cloves; these are all doing well.

One useful point of note: In the winter, there is no shortage of light in this plot as the leaves are off the trees, and there is plenty of moisture from the rain. I can expand this area usefully, at least for winter crops.

The image above shows the pea half of the bed; To the right are the peas, then in the fallen leaves, some tiny spinach, then the line of garlic (the grassy leaves) together with some large mesclun plants, and you can see a kohlrabi plant I stuck in at lower left (a vegetable I bought but didnt use in time, so I stuck it in outside to regrow).

New Garden Blog

OK, I've been meaning to begin this blog for a few weeks now, so its finally time to get around to it. Last year, I kept my notes on scraps of paper, which wasnt really that useful.

This blog is to record my successes and failures in gardening in the Almaden Valley, San Jose, so that myself and others can hopefully benefit from understanding this microclimate (hot) and pest environment. For example, even if you find the book on vegetable growing in the Bay Area (yes, there is one), youre still stuck because it talks more about it being too cold for tomatoes than too hot, as it is here. More on that later; yes, they will grow, and well, but you need to be on the lookout for heat stress, not cold stress.

The garden itself is not large; I am a tenant, and so am limited to some areas here and there where the owner doesnt mind me working, largely against fences and under trees, but the central grass area is out (even though it dies in summer due to lack of water).

* The soil isnt great, (pH is around 7, not too bad, alluvial soil, not too bad, but few nutrients and not too much organic matter)

* I'm not going to spend a lot of money, largely because the land isnt mine, and secondly because I dont have vast quantities at the moment - so I see this as a budgetary assist, not an expensive hobby

* None of the areas available, save one baked piece of poor soil, gets direct light from 10 am to 6 pm

* I believe in working organically where possible (I'm not going to be religious about this), and in limiting water use to the absolute minimum.

So those are the parameters of the garden and this blog.

If youre interested, follow along and see where we get to!