Almost perfect

I like this

red noodle blossom

Homey, Red Noodle

Red noodle showed up while I was away, finally!  Not only do they produce beautiful flowers, but the beans are really cool looking.  So far I have a couple that are ~18" long and about 1/4" diameter and the widest.  The flavor is nothing amazing, beanny... vegetabally...  They are green on the inside and apparently green when you cook them.

I noticed ants all over the plants and blossoms but I can't see that they are doing anything wrong.  Then again I didn't suspect the pill bugs at first either, and look how that turned out.

The results are in

Didn't start at 5am, I forgot that I was going to drive my Dad to LAX for a flight to China at 1am, I didn't get home until 2 and there was no way I was getting up in 3 hours to measure water in dirt.  However, I did get up at 7:30 (that's about as late as I can sleep) and set out to begin the test.
I grabbed a 1" diameter pipe, marked an 8" line, drove down with a twisting motion into a bed and then......... couldn't get the dirt out.  Complete failure.  I tried to ram it out with a large dowel, I tried tapping to loosen the dirt, I tried everything I could think of but that dirt was staying.  To the Unisaw to rip a 6" gash down a length  of PVC pipe so I could spread the "drill" to release the core within and this is when I checked myself.  Overkill, all of this.... complete overkill.  I light up with a technical challenge, it get's me going and I realized the focus had left the dead plants and shifted to creating a custom tool to take perfect soil samples!
After putting away my tools I got started with plan B which is to use a simple trowel to get to the stuff down 6-7".  Here's the stuff:

1. 8:30 am (EW2) - 6" down and bone dry (this is bad)  Evidence of dried leaves and the soil had that great texture soil gets when worms have done their job.  Still, it was dry.
2. 8:42 am (EW2) - proceeded to manually water for 10 solid minutes, walking back and forth down the row watering as evenly as possible.  I'm thinking "This shit is wet" I mean I really soaked it, I almost felt guilty as if I had done something really wrong, it was that much water.  But I needed data, I needed to know water was getting down there.
3. 9:30 am (EW2) - 6" deep sample taken and STILL dry, only the top 1-1/2" was wet!  I still can't explain this, the water went somewhere.  It wasn't running down the sides of the bed, it (mostly) stayed on the bed and soaked in.  This is still odd, but I can say the dirt was dry.
4. 9:35 am (EW2) - cultivated with the single tine cultivator (great tool) to break up the surface.  This resulted in some soil spreading down and out from the edges which I then quickly dragged back up the bed creating a short lip that would serve to ensure the water stays ON the bed.
5. 9:40 am (EW2) - another 10 minutes of soaking, same thing
6. 11:30 am (EW2) - still visually wet on top despite the warm temperature.  6" deep sample shows that the soil is thoroughly saturated (finally)
7. Went to work, then mountain biking after work so I didn't test anymore.  I'll take a sample tomorrow AM and see what the water has done.

No relevant photos, just Chui

So I left for awhile

The area is irrigated because it's soon to be
another block of corn.  All that water and no
shade makes for a weed invasion!

I took off to the mountains to get away for awhile, catch up on some work and get some hiking in.  My family has a house up there and I've set it up with a workstation, nice monitor and can basically do what I do "down the hill" just as effectively up there.  With the added bonus that I'm not in suburban hell.  I returned this past Saturday evening which means my garden was without a captain for 11 days.
When I left I really didn't care too terribly much what happened to the garden, I was (and am still) pissed about the tomato failure.  I'm not losing sleep over it but it did take a good portion of the wind out of my sails - maybe some time away was just what I needed?

blossom end rot - about 50% of current toms' suffer from it
I'm assuming it's from the heat spell, but it can be caused by
a few different things

Upon returning I encountered pretty much what I expected; still living but not thriving plants, tomatoes that look like shit, arugula that bolted, red orach that continues to be devasted by pests, corn doing pretty good (happy if you give it water!) and my good little beans with their work finished, waiting to die.  So my sprinklers work.  The yard looked terrible with sick or dead plants and weeds everywhere, I knew that cleaning things up would be a good start and I planned on doing just that on Sunday.

stupid arugula, hate you...

Sunday came and the yard was cleaned up, dead and very sick plants pulled.  I watered everything real good and gave my compost operation some much needed attention.  Didn't spend the full day, I didn't have the heart for it and ended up wrapping after about 5 hours of work.

big zucchini ≠ good zucchini
This was chopped and composted

much better

Tonight I was surprised (should I still be??) to find the beds dry!  I watered HEAVILY yesterday morning, I mean I really went for it and soaked the beds but they are dry, dry, dry.  I dug down about 8" and dry.  This actually gives me a little buzz because maybe, just maybe the terrible performance of the crops are due to the chronic under watering?  Maybe the soil composition in the beds is just incapable of storing water?  If you've followed this blog at all you know what a schizo I am about watering ("I over water!" "No, I'm under watering!" "mulch is good" "No, mulch is bad and rots the stems!!") 

bolted arugula gone - I like dirt more than 
sick or bolting plants

Tomorrow I plan to get scientific on it's ass, here's the plan:

1. Water HEAVYILY in the early AM (5ish)
2. Take core sample to determine water penetration depth (2 or 3 sample should suffice)
3. Every hour I will take a core sample to a depth of 8" and track the progression down (if any) as well as the drying

If I can prove that this soil just won't hold water then I can begin to take steps to correct the problem.  See, I just 180'ed in a single blog post!

Blueberry Bliss

My blueberries are all going through a growth spurt which is GREAT because they really need to fatten up a bit in order to support any real quantity of berries.  I just released a couple hundred ladybugs the other night to get the aphids (not pictured) in check...

Tomato Watch - Day 11

Just keeps getting worse and worse.  I pulled another 4 plants Today.  Looks like I'll have 5-6 survivors and will lose the remaining 30 or so.  I'm basing that on the fact that 5 or 6 plants are thriving, healthy and almost 6' tall; everything else sucks!

Fortex Have Arrived

Fortex on a bed of provider

My Fortex crop is finally ready for the first harvest, I've been able to pull a pound or so of 12"+ beans.  The flavor is good, different than provider, a little simpler I'd say, but still good.  They aren't as form as provider either.  I brought a bunch into work and they went over well, people tripped out over the long size - I can't wait to bring in the Red Noodle when they are ready!

Size comparison of Fortex and Provider

Tomato Watch - Day 7 (getting old...)

I'm getting tired of this, death travels slowly for tomatoes.  They continue to look beat up, sick, depressed and weak.  I have a couple that are doing terrific yet that only makes the sick look sicker.

I took the ducks back to where I purchased them.  It was sad, and I was bummed to give up on this experiment but it was the only fair thing to do.  They had a good time while they were here and hopefully they find a good new home.

Harvested about 2-1/2 lbs of "provider" beans.  These ones are much sweeter than the spring crop.  Fortex are about 10" long, twisted and wild looking.  Going to look up some bean recipes and put these to use...if I don't eat them all raw first.

Red Orach is bolting as is my arugula - can't take the heat...

Tomato Watch - Day 5

Took a day off Today

Tomato Watch - Day 4

Another hot one Today, hovered around 90 for 4-5 hours.  The soil in the EW2 bed was much more dry than I would have expected considering the thorough soaking I gave it Yesterday.  It could be that the soil in those beds just plain doesn't hold moisture very well, maybe there is too much organic material and not enough "dirt"?  - I watered again...

I've found the limit on how long guardsman bunching onions can be in the ground - the "skin" (they are hollow tubes... what would you call it?!) is starting to decay a little, not rot, but just break down a bit.  They still taste great, just don't look as nice.

Did some regular landscape work Today.  Removed some overgrown bushes, fixed sprinkler issues, trimmed some plants, etc.  While I was programming the irrigation timer I bumped the trip duration on the vegetables from 15 minutes to 30 minutes.

When these reach about 12" or so I will plow the space between the rows to mound onto the stalks while also
creating a furrow for flood watering (easier to fertilize)

This pile is ready for the shredder then the compost pile
it was a HUGE lantana and salvia "hot lips" - both planted
in my front yard.

Planted fortex seeds in the corn mounds (not pictured) and then fertilized all corn with urine fertilizer diluted ~1:8.  It was actually this planting process that made me question the water retention properties of the raised beds.  The soil in the corn mounds is un-amended "dirt" from another part of my yard.  I'm sure its deficient in nutrients and more susceptible to compaction and all the other negatives but it WAS wet when I cultivated it Today.  At least it holds water.

Severely pruned an old geranium that had been beat down by some
worms. Not sure if it will survive, or even be worth keeping after this...

Tomato Watch - Day 3

Nearly 90 Today, feels like summer finally arrived.  Had a mixed day of farm work, misc. house work and relaxing.  Split the chipper apart to sharpen the main blade and replace some missing hardware (kind of troubling that hardware would be missing considering the speed the impeller spins at!).  Ducks were hot but nothing 2-3 minutes of spray from the hose didn't fix.

Tomatoes seemed to like the heat, it's probably in my head they sure look greener to me.  I probed around with my moisture meter and concluded that I may be UNDER-WATERING everything.  I went ahead and gave all the beds a real deep watering this morning, should hold them for the following days but I'll check the soil moisture to verify.

I'm a big fan of the Fortex pole beans so far.  They are vigorous growers, haven't had any pest issues and are pushing beans all over the place.  I will be starting some more on my new corn I've got going, sort of a 2/3 of the 3 sisters.

Tomorrow I'll be removing some bushes in my front yard and running through the chipper for the compost.  I also plan on giving the compost some much needed attention, it seems to have stalled out.  Been collecting pee to fertilize the new corn I've got started.

According to supplier, the pods will reach 7-11"

Tomato - Day 2

Heat started Today with 2-3 more days on their way - maybe that will knock some of these plants out of their funk. I noticed Today that two tomatoes at the East end of EW2 were droopp and looked thirsty. Because I don't yet know how to read the plants or their moisture needs I decided to water only these two very deeply and will observe the effects.

not much noticeable change