Mon., Nov 21

After that great rain on Sunday, the vetch is coming up like crazy. Not too much more to do. Pulled out all the tomato plants. Should dig up the soil and plant vetch where the tomato plants used to be. The soil is too wet right now. In a day or two--before Thursday's rain. Still need to do the hillside.

The garlic also looks good. The kelp feeding helped.

Thursday's blog for Wednesday, Nov 9

Can't believe I haven't written in so long. The garden is winding down. Wednesday I pulled out the last of the zucchini and beans from the hillside garden. Pulled out the stakes and trellis too. In the #1 garden I pulled out 4 cherry tomato plants, 2 eggplants and more bell pepper plants. I still have one beefsteak tomato plant with 5 green tomatoes. Also pulled out the last of the radishes. Tilled the soil and planted vetch, which I inoculated the night before. Harvested some spinach from the raised bed, tilled the soil and planted the rest of the vetch. Watered everything really well. Now all that's left are some basil plants, bell pepper and jalapeno plants and a few tomato plants. I think only the one plant has tomatoes. I just have to pull out the other ones. Should I save the roots for an art project? I've already saved 3 cherry tomato plants. Maybe I should try to save a couple of Beefsteak and Brandywine plants and roots to add to my root collection.

I still have lovely lettuce and some spinach. Thinking about planting some arugula.

Planted 26 cloves of garlic today near the potato bin. Hope I get better garlic than last year. Last year the garlic looked like green onions. I read that garlic needs phospherus. Maybe that's what they were missing. Also took soil from the hillside garden and covered the potato plants. I am not going to use the hillside garden next year. I hope to use up the soil in the rest of the garden and then take down the redwood sides.

Juna joined me in the garden today. Before she arrived I harvested some vegetables, pulled out 2 old kale plants, watered. It was 99 oF today. Hot, hot, hot!

When Juna arrived we sifted a wheelbarrow and 1/2 of compost and mixed it into the raised bed. Have to finish that soon. Must plant the garlic, more arugula and the vetch.

Harvest: Beefsteak and Brandywine tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, bok choy, spinach, green onions, radishes, 2 watermelons (the last two), kale.

Rain, rain, rain!

I was going to work on the compost pile today, sifting, adding compost to the gardens, but it's raining cats and dogs. Thank goodness I covered the pile with a tarp. It's already too wet, even though I have added lots of newspaper and cardboard. It will have to wait for another day!

Gorgeous weather today!

Worked alone again today. Spread more of my compost from the compost pile into Garden #1 today. Hope I get some help this Wednesday. It's too hard for just one person. Anyway, then I added the equivalent of 2 newspapers to the compost bin to soak up some of the moisture and feed the worms. Pulled out some dead plants and watered.

Also fed my roses with rose food and 2 large house plants with fish fertilizer. Boy that stuff stinks!

Harvested cherry tomatoes, heirloom tomatoes, bok choy. I'm going to make bok choy for the first time today. I'll saute it with olive oil and chopped garlic and then add a dash of soy sauce for more flavor. Hope it's good.

Worked alone today. Pulled out all the broccoli after harvesting whatever I could. Not too much left, meanwhile the broccoli is full of caterpillars. I hardly had any caterpillars anywhere and now all of a sudden, they are everywhere--on the broccoli and the tomatoes.

Sifted some compost and mixed it in where the broccoli used to be. Shoveled dirt from the hillside garden into a wheelbarrow to add to the potato pile. The potatoes are looking good.