Week 3 in the Lunado Garden

The hot weather last week really jump started the seedlings. They survived the heat and look a good 2 inches taller. Kids grow up so fast...Anywho, lettuce really shot up and I can almost make a baby greens salad for 1.



A few squash seeds from last years crop have starting popping up unannounced. They are NOT in my garden plan but I can't just pull them out. What to do? I don't have enough room and couldn't even tell you what type they were. I do need to start thinning out the onions and leeks. I've never done that before so keep your fingers crossed.



I did complete a garden project by painting an ugly white garage sale table a nice Pear Green.



The Snowball tree is finally in bloom. It's a short show but one worth the wait.

looking leekish

It took a long time coming, but these gangly green shoots are FINALLY starting to sport the tell-tale fan geometry that separates these from the kids, er, spring onions. Because these are LEEKS, baby! LEEKS!

:::

they grow up so fast!

Next thing you know, they'll be asking for the keys to the lawnmower.

::

And Then It Was Cold

BBBBBBBBBBRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!

considering smudge pots.

:::

What a difference a 91 degree day in SF makes

Dang...hurried home after work to check on the beds and found lots of sad looking seedlings. Even though I watered the night before, the sun was too much. Basil is burnt and tomatoe leaves look bleached out. Squash has burnt leaves and small white spots. Everything looked plump and bright green the day before. Not sure what I could have done. If I covered everything, wouldn't it have become too hot? Ugh, I'm hoping things will still make it but we have another hot one today and I'm at work so can't cover them with my body like a good mother would.

when the going gets hot...

Make sun tea!

mucho seedlings!

These looked about ready for transplant, and I figured a nice hot weekend was just the ticket! I seeded 9 per (but not all were productive) of: broccoli rabe, micro-greens salad mix, beets, leeks and arugula. Transplanted 2/3 in the community garden, the rest in the backyard garden - a little experiment to see which do better where. We'll see!

:::

The difference a day makes

Siberian Iris in bloom.

Greens under screens

The backyard garden has a particular challenge - not shade, soil issues nor snails - but CAT. My 10-yr old tabby finds a freshly tilled veggie bed just plain irresistible as a Litter Box From Heaven, and we have to go through some hoops to ensure that she doesn't taint our harvest. I guess I should say we makes sure she DOESN'T go through hoops - half-round bamboo shoot hoops, that is, cut from our own clump of dwarf bamboo along the southern fence. I placed the bamboo shoots freshly-cut, while still pliant, and then draped it all with bird netting. I still have to tack down the edges between the hoops because that cat's middle name is McGuyver, and she'll head-butt pert'near anything to get where she wants to go.



:::

Other Pretties in the Yard

Things are in bloom!

if you aren't starting your OWN garden...

... this movie just might motivate you to do so...

"King Corn is a documentary about two friends, one acre of corn, and the subsidized crop that drives our fast-food nation. In King Corn, Ian Cheeney and Curt Ellis, best friends from college on the east coast, move to the heartland to learn where their food comes from. With the help of friendly neighbors, genetically modified seeds, nitrogen fertilizers, and powerful herbicides, they plant and grow a bumper crop of America's most-productive, most-subsidized grain on one acre of Iowa soil. But when they try to follow their pile of corn into the food system, what they find raises troubling questions about how we eat - and how we farm."

We can't leave it up to Big Business to source our nutrients. Take it (and a garden hoe) into your own hands!

:::

Lunado Garden - Week One

This is going to be the year I harvest a tomatoe from my very own garden. I live in the Sunset District of San Francisco i.e. Fog Belt. Since moving from Sonoma County where each year I had healthy happy heavy-producing gardens, I have been trying to grow tomatoes with no luck. Last year my husband and I kept looking over into our neighbors garden that on sunny days got lots of sun. Hum...either we convince them to put in a pool or we convince them to put in a veggie garden. Well, we now have 3 raised beds to play with. Last year we started a little late but things were moving along nicely until the Summer of Fog hit us. Alas, no tomatoes. Squash did great but nothing else really made it. This year, we got started much earlier. We tilled the soil and filled each bed with very stinky chicken manure on April 11. TIP Do not invite people for an outdoor cocktail party the evening you put manure in your garden. Anyway, had a lovely day picking seedlings at Flowercraft. I went a little nuts in the tomatoe department. Due to my bad luck in the past, I've decided to mostly do cherry tomatoes. I also purchased leeks, onions, lettuce, basil, squash, thyme, oregano and lots of marigolds to protect from pests. Everything went in on April 13. I then found Grow Better Veggies blog and realised I am doing it all wrong. Cynthia puts fishheads, eggshells, aspirin (aspirin?), bonemeal, fertilizer and worm castings under each new plant. Egads! I thought I was being pretty smart with my chicken manure and compost. Do I pull them out and start over? Where to get fishheads? Now I'm nervous. Anyway, here are some pics of the new garden. ~K

Winter garden bounty

1. radiccio, 2. garden bounty, 3. broccoli

:::

Before and After

1. WinterGarden, 2. SpringPrep

Prepping the beds

The weekend was a culmination of bed-prepping, both in the backyard and at the community garden. A summary of tasks completed:

Backyard:
Added a row of keystones to build up the raised bed height to a more comfortable level (also helps as a deterrent to the cat). Amended in ~160 lbs of organic compost and vermaculite, then transplanted 3 types of lettuce/salad greens and basil. In a side planter I put the wildcards: a cherry tomato and a - wait for it! - watermelon! Yes, I’m getting all wild/wacky, but I need to verify for myself that these aren’t feasible in our swath of fog-belt.

Community Garden:
As most of the prep work had been completed 2 w/es ago, this week was easy-peasy, just transplanting in the 3 tomato (see above wildcard comment), 2 summer squash, 1 hot pepper. Aerated the soil and lightly remulched. Checked on the sprouting seedlings in the greenhouse, and augmented the cells where nothing ‘took’. They’re about 1” tall now, so I see some of them going in the ground as early as next w/e, and a 3 week rotation with the ‘new recruits’ after that!