Growing vegetables and more

COF and carrots

Mixed up 4 batches of Complete Organic Fertilizer (COF) today, here are some notes about yields:

• 20lb bag of Down to Earth brand cottonseed meal
• 10lb (2, 5lb boxes) of "Searbird Guano" (high phosphate)
• 5lb box kelp meal (with leftovers)

I should be buying all this in larger quantities as a batch will treat 100 sq ft and my 4 beds are 150 sq feet.

Added COF and compost to NW4, worked it in well then forked the entire bed to break it up and prepare for carrots, which I planted 3-4' of in 6" spaced rows.

Covered the new seeds with towels to prevent them from drying out.

Winter greens

Sowed two verities of spinach, arugula and swiss chard. Sown perpendicular to the row. Some of the seeds are quite old and may not be viable.

1/2" a rain and promising carrots

Winter stuffs

Sowed spinach, leeks, beets, carrots, kale, chard and arugula.

More carrots, more paths, more mulch

Last carrot sowings failed due to heat wave (95+ in Nov!) And lack of mulch. Trying again...

Well shit. Maybe ill fertilize...

My garden just sucks. I've weak plants for probably two years now and the only thing I can think is that my once fertile, regularly amended with compost soil has gone dead. I don't have the time to stay up on composting so I decided to fertilize. Inspired by Steve Solomon's Complete Organic Fertilizer I bought the materials and will be applying later tonight. $70 for the ingredients in 5&6 lb quantities. If it works I'll bump to 25# or 50# quantities next time.

- 6 quarts cottonseed meal, 6-2-1
- 3 cups #65 dolomite lime
- 3 cups gypsum
- 1 quart high phosphate guano (note: ran out, should have been 6 cups)
-

Winter carrots and a pea experiment

Sowed 5' of danvers and Nantes in the new bed. Nice loose, friable bed that should be great for carrots.

Also doing an experiment to try to learn why my last 2 pea sowings have yielded such terrible results. Doing side by side sowings of Johnny's (98% germ rate!) And the who-knows-what botanical interests from local nursery.

Hasty spinach and chard

Hasty spinach and chard

Sowed some old and new seed. Hastily... too busy with work but need to get something growing g for Cal!

First fall/winter crops emerging

Kale seedlings

Broccoli

Carrots under mulch pads to keep them from drying...

Dave G. Helped out last Saturday and sowed 2 kale varieties, 2 broccoli varieties, peas, beans and carrots- thanks Dave!

So far the kale is making a solid arrival and some of the broccoli is pushing through as well.

I also sowed 2 rows of Swiss chard in the new North/South bed.

Data...

• SodaDB - Maybe the new version of Grubba?
• Grubba - Hmmm. Closest Google Base substitute I can find
• WuFoo which sounds great, but they wants $14.95/mo once you have more that 100 rows.
• ZoHo also looks nice, but $5/mo. Which is fair, don't get me wrong, but free would be better
• FormLogix Too expensive at $12/mo w/ annual commitment

Hmm, but maybe Grubba is no more...

What in the world?...

New Bed Orientation for 2016

Finally realized that having east-west oriented beds isn't a great idea due to the shade from my neighbor and the trees. I chewed up EW-1 and EW-2 and used the soil to extend and widen NS-1 and NS-2, now known as NS-4 and NS-5. I created a new bed, NS-3 that is nice and wide. All of these beds are basically the same length (~20'). In creating NS-3 I chewed into EW-3 as well, which is fine as it was always odd with it's bend. I'll add a photo or drawing later.

Planting Plan

Quickly and hastily sowed some old seeds in some available bed patches to use up my old seed stock so I can stop mentally tripping over them. I also tried creating a planting plan the night before in the hopes that when I walked into the yard I could execute efficiently rather than walk around over analyzing everything and in the end, accomplishing nothing. Well shit-howdy, what do you know?! - it worked! All sowing done in 30 minutes, fast and efficient.


For my records, here's what I did:

We just had a bunch of rain, soil was soaked. I roughly trowl leveled small areas, then with the trowl edge formed apprpriate sized furrows. Laid seed and covered with aged compost, patted firm and watered lightly. It's cold right now, I will likely have some seed rot and poor germination but these are bumper crops.

• Raised Bed: 8 sowings of Sugar Snap peas on tomato cages. Double sown, 8-10 holes per cage and topped with compost.
• Raised Bed: 2, 7' rows of mixed carrots. Trowled furrows, topped with compost. Expectations low.
• [NEW]NS-4: Filled in some mixed carrots in areas that failed to germinate well from a couple months ago. Trowled furrow, compost topper and light watering
• [NEW]NS-5: Filled in swiss chard in area that failed to germinate well from a couple months ago. Trowled furrow, compost topper and light watering
• [NEW]NS-5: Some red russian kale at the North end where the Siberian kale was weak. This was just kind of random...Trowled furrow, compost topper and light watering

More spinach

We're using the spinach like crazy, I've harvested at least 5 times now for probably 5lbs or more of spinach. The little plants are getting tired and I decided to sow a bunch more.

For my records, here's what I did:

[NEW]NS-5: 3 rows of two types (red kitten and another that I can't remember). Each row about 4-5' long. Topped with compost.

Confirmed

Fish Guts

1/18/16 Steve:

"Do you think I could get some fish carcasses or waste from Anne's brother? I'm interested in occasionally getting my hands on 20-40 lbs of waste (heads, guts, tails, scale, etc.) raw, fresh and wild caught. For free."

Blueberry Addition and some other stuff

"Jewel" early-mid blueberry

I picked up my early-mid blueberry solution in the form of a "Jewel" grown by "L.E. Cooke Co" and sold by Gary at Laguna Hills Nursery. I now have very early, early, early-mid and mid. Next up will be mid-late and late. I still need a pot solution.

Also today:

1. Fertilized seedlings with fish emulsion
2. The second sowing of Kale has emerged
3. My chard and carrot crops are so pathetic I may start over :(
4. Did a bit of light weeding before seed heads show up, composted

Spinach looking very healthy, need to thin soon

Snap peas also looking great, don't plan to thin.
Hopefully the fish emulsion will kick them into a growing/climbing pattern

Pump Hole

Sounds dirty...