An Ode to Rain – New Episode! July 18th it rained in Los Angeles. This rain broke the one-month rainfall record going back 130 years! It never has rained in July, August or September in the Late Bloomer garden, so it was an occasion to celebrate, and also scramble to capture as much rainwater as […]
Collective Farm Woman is a Keeper! In spite of powdery mildew devastating my two Collective Farm Woman melon plants (see “Cutting My Losses”), I will be planting them again next year. Why? Because they are quick to ripen (80-85 days), and there’s no guesswork when they are ready. They simply let go of the vine […]
Cutting My Losses with Melons and Beans – It seems the garden was healthy and lush for way too brief a time this July. The start of the month was stupendous and I was filled with expectation of two months of production before issues took over. In spite of all that I have learned in […]
The ultimate seed swap took place in the late bloomer garden last Saturday thanks to the world wide web. A young Philippine gardener, daughter of a farmer, found Late Bloomer online and subscribed. We communicated a couple of times, and a few weeks ago she wrote to say her mother was coming to visit her brother and wife […]
The best way to eat a fig is with a hunk of goat cheese, draped in prosciutto, drizzled with extra virgin olive oil and sprinkled with cracked pepper! Especially tantalizing if it’s a fig from your own tree! Sliced in half or quartered makes a perfect mouthful! I planted my second fig tree this spring, after […]
Summer Solstice Garden Update – New Episode! Kaye capitalizes on a rare sunny morning, the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year, to give you an update of the front yard food garden. First off, a stunning slideshow of flowers with music. Next a visit to the native garden mini-meadow where Princess Flower, “Purple Haze” […]
Good help is hard to find, I was telling myself two weeks ago after a handyman I’d hired for a few hours left the premises. This story is really about my peppers and how hard I’ve worked on them. This year, I wound up with 26 peppers in pots, started from seed, and several at […]
When you know you’ve got it bad (for beans) is after you put in five hours from 7AM till noon, mostly maintenance at this point, since everything for summer is planted (can one ever say that definitively?), and you wrap it up (2 or 3 times), come in and eat breakfast, which you never got […]
Morning impressions at sunrise on pest roundup. Click here for 18 photos shot this morning from 6:31 to 7:33AM. Everything looks better at sunrise (except maybe pests, LOL). Late Bloomer Lesson: Be Observant You can only manage what you can see, so take a good look early in the morning. There were at least seven snails […]
Extreme Garden Makeover Day 2 picks up where Extreme Garden Makeover Day 1 leaves off. Kaye runs through the improvements and plantings for the summer garden, plus has an off-camera conversation with a neighbor concerned about sprinklers running a day after a rain. With the water shortage in California, this is a no-no. Hang in there for […]
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