Wet Garden
We received a little rain last night, enough to completely cover the surface of the garden. Before the sun comes out (it always does) and dries it all off, I captured this wide shot.
Kaye’s Wet Garden, Wide View
As you can see, I’m way behind on fall planting. Thankfully, we are in Southern California, so, there’s a good chance I can still get 100 day cauliflower before it gets hot next spring. Those are six celery plants bottom right, with two Stupice Heirloom Tomato plants behind the celery. They are producing small, but perfect tomatoes, at least for now. It’s pretty cold for here.
Reworked Watermelon Patch
This is what I have worked on a few hours the last two days. I reset the log border after pulling out the tomato vines, as I learned the orange tree suffers from anything tall surrounding it. It’s exploding with blooms. From now on, it will be lettuces and herbs only at the base. I dug up the watermelon bed, pulled and trimmed all but two vines with three 5″ melons growing, and began to lay it out for cabbage, peas and cauliflower. I will put some wildflowers right by the sidewalk.
Sweet Pea Trellis
It took a couple of hours last night to dig down about 8″ through the rock hard clay soil, bypassing existing sprinkler irrigation pipes, to sink in these metal stakes for climbing peas. I had to do it with a hand trowel, so my hand and wrist took a beating. With an 8″ hole, all I had to do was pound them in with my sledge hammer another 4 to 5 inches, then pack in more soil in the hole, and tie up the nylon mesh. I am trying to utilize the space the best I can. The tall peas will only shadow the driveway as the sun goes over. It was after dark when I stopped, just short of putting in the first row of Super Sugar Snap pea seeds. Oh, I wish I had kept going by lamplight, because the rain would have given them a great start, but my hand was tired of trying to shove a trowel through the rocky clay soil.
Lemons are finally ripening, and look almost ready to pick with the leftover raindrops.
Raindrops on Meyer Lemons
My spinach leaves are coming along. I could pinch these off for a salad tonight, if I had anything to go with it! Well, I do have pineapple guavas! But, I’d like to wait to see if they will get a little bigger. So far, the bugs have not eaten too much.
Raindrops on Young Spinach Leaves
I am immensely honored to have been nominated for a blog award, which I will tell you about in the next post. I have been working hard setting up a completely new “Late Bloomer” site, which will be much more user friendly. I will unveil it before Thanksgiving! Thanks for stopping by! – Kaye
Category: Cool Season, Grow Veggies
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Enviably lush, tidy, and beautiful!
Thank you, Catherine! I’m going out now to get really dirty! I love dirt!
Thank you! Not so tidy last night before cleaning up all the mud, but, I didn’t want to touch my camera till after I had a shower, ha!
constantly in awe of all you do
Thank you, Pat! I just wore myself out working in a light sprinkling rain all afternoon. I was determined to get my fall planting down this weekend. Got half done!
looks lovely, so much work and yet so rewarding! I must confess to a bit of envy about how extended your growing season is. Ours only lasts a little over 100 days.
What about green houses? Is that possible?
my neighbour, up the road, did very well with his last year. am keeping an eye on his set up!
You mean, his greenhouse, right? Yes, please let me know how that goes. My neighbor was setting up a greenhouse, worked so hard on it, but he’s 83 now and he had some health problems and ran out of steam. – Kaye
Gorgeous garden, Kaye. I too am envious of your seemingly endless growing season. Looking out at my vegetable garden just makes me long for spring again as dried maple leaves blow across the yard.
Looking forward to checking out your new site! -Melissa
Thank you! There’s something to be said for the seasons, though, Melissa. I miss a real fall, and wish my birch tree would drop all their leaves, so I could get more sun on my vegetables! 🙂 – Kaye
Everything looks so fresh
When kissed by rain 🙂
Yes, and it happens so rarely here, which is why I was determined to get that whole section planted in the rain today. Check out the photo on LBS Facebook. 🙂 Am planting kale in the parkway tomorrow. – Kaye
Southern Cal must be like living in the tropics… there’s no planting going on here. Enjoy the sunshine!
Carolyn, no, Florida is like living in the tropics. I lived in Florida. It’s not like that at all here. We are semi-desert, but plants from Australia and South America do well here. I am in the coastal microclimate, so some days it’s fogged in all day, and you drive 5 miles or less inland and it’s hot and dry. A real challenge to grow food in your front yard when you don’t have a lot of sun! Vegetables need sun, who knew? 🙂 – Kaye
It’s looking really good, Kaye
Thanks, Dallas!
Kaye, you have been growing so much along with your garden. I admire your passion and hard work. But I have to admit that I’m relieved that Jersey has done dormant for the winter–don’t think I could work year round.
Mary
Thanks, Mary, yeah, I am quite sore today, and have so much more than the garden to tend to, ha! But, I’m determined to get the kale in.
I am in envy…. I move into an apartment soon… am curious about ‘pot’ gardening. My thumbs are quite brown; but am hopeful to have them green up before long 🙂
Nora, you absolutely can be a pot gardener. There are many books and online videos. Give it a try. Even herbs in the window is empowering! 🙂 If you get something planted, post a photo on https://www.facebook.com/LateBloomerShow Let’s get the garden conversation started! – Kaye
Oh thanks Kaye; I will! 🙂 As soon as life calm a wee bit (it never seems to calm completely lol). Thanks for the encouragement… NLP