Worked alone today.

I worked alone today and I must say, as much as I love gardening with the other artists, I don't mind a day or two by myself in the garden. It's so peaceful and meditative.

I planted cilantro, Italian parsley and thyme in the herb garden. Then I tied up more of the tomato plants and thinned out the arugula. I also had an amazingly delicious arugula salad for lunch. Want to know the recipe:

Arugula (torn into bite size pieces), dried cranberries, pine nuts, shaved parmesan, olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper. That's it. You could also substitute strawberries for cranberries.

Friday

Foliar fed all the vegetables this evening. The garden is finally getting back to some sort of controllable shape. It looked like a jungle out there.

Must remember to foliar feed in 2 weeks. Lots of green tomatoes. Can't wait for them to turn red!

Out of town for 2 weeks

When I came back, everything was so big and wild looking. Many of the vegetables had bolted. No, that doesn't mean they ran away. It means they started to flower and then to make seed. It also means the vegetables better be harvested soon or they won't be any good. What bolted? Mustard greens, arugula, Daikon radishes, red radishes, spinach and bok choy.

Worked the last 2 days in trying to get the garden back in shape. Pruning the tomatoes and tying them up to the supports, feeding them Tomatoes Alive. I also pulled out the bolted spinach, and cut off the flowers on the mustard greens and arugula.

Juna came today and helped me plant more radishes, spinach, lettuce, bok choy, carrots. We took compost from the compost pile, after sifting it to remove large uncomposted pieces, and added this compost to the newly seeded areas. Then we watered well.

Wednesday gardening was very meditative. I worked alone, pulling out the center stakes on the tomatoes, now that they are surrounded by a triangle shaped support made of redwood. I also enlarged the wells around the tomatoes and filled them twice with water. It's been hot the past few days (85, 88, 87) and the tomatoes just drink up the water.

I also watered everything else in the garden, weeded, etc. Tuesday, I foliar fed all the vegetables and herbs with Spray N Gro and Bill's Fertlizer. More later.

A hot Saturday in July! But a great harvest!

It was a hot one, but we got a lot done. First off Ken, a new gardener, put up all the stakes and supports for the tomato plants. They are not quite big enough to need them yet, but they soon will be. Michiko and Alitash helped water, seed, weed and harvest. Lots of greens today: kale, bok choy, spinach, red radishes, white Daikon radishes, arugula, mint, oregano. Can't wait for the peppers and tomatoes.

Can't believe I haven't posted since the 18th. The garden is looking great! Today I put in the big stakes by the tomato plants. They are all about 2 feet tall except for the cherry tomato plant which is about 3 1/2 feet tall. Two gardeners came today-Barbara and Romaine. They cultivated the soil around the tomatoes and peppers and created wells around each. The we filled the wells with water. The tomatoes are beginning to flower and need lots and lots of water. Oh my water bill. Prices go up the middle of the month.

Only one leek came up so I dug up the soil and planted more leek seeds. We harvested kale, bok choy, Swiss chard, arugula, red radishes, Daikon radishes, peas, rosemary and oregano. All in all, not a bad day!

I worked alone today, but got a lot done. First I fed the 2 avocado trees. They're so tall they each needed 14 cups of the fertilizer. Then I mixed up some fish emulsion with water and fed the plum tree (which I recently sprayed with copper to fight off peach curl) and the fig and nectarine trees. I planted more lettuce along the border of Garden #1 and filled in between the spinach plants. You need a lot of spinach if you are going to steam or saute it. It shrivels down to nothing. I also planted more French marigolds in the corner of Garden #1. None of the ones I planted several weeks ago came up.

The zucchini and squash are looking fabulous. I will spray with organic fungicide this week to keep away powdery mildew and any other problems. I also spread some Escar-go around the raspberry bush, the new little sunflowers coming up and around the other plants I didn't get to the other day.