the productive day

Spent the morning picking the biggest rhubarb I've ever seen! this variety produces massive stalks - I must find out what kind it is! Then I squished all the black aphids I could see infiltrating the quinoa plants, which are just producing seed heads - I had planted some calendula at their base to hopefully attract the aphids, but they obviously prefer the quinoa - it was surprisingly satisfying rubbing the aphids off the leaves. I then weeded the carrots and tomatoes, picked the last of the spinach before it goes bolting, planted out some brussel sprouts plants, then came back into the kitchen to make a big crisp with the rhubarb. It has been a productive day - And, to top it all off, 2 books came in for me from the library: "Small Plot, High-Yield Gardening" by Sal Gilbertie & Larry Sheehan, and "My Empire of Dirt" (A Cautionary Tale)" by Manny Howard. So you know what I'll be doing later on - eating rhubarb crisp and spinach salad and reading gardening books - blissful. Here are some pictures of the productive day: poppy seed heads and purple pods of King Tut peas fattening in the sunshine bees love the newly opened squash blossoms Yellow zucchinis long pods on the Brugmansia waiting for a hot day to unfurl These are photos of Craspedia globosa aka billy buttons native to Australia and New Zealand - my cat likes to play with the ball at the end of the long stalk This little cactus is from Saturna Island- (a native variety) very slowww growing - but it has 3 new pads forming! lemon cucumbers Abutilon in bloom I really like this mesclun mix from West Coast Seeds: Oriental Salad beautiful rhubarb and the crisp just out of the oven: smells divine!

it's a lemon

I can't get over how lemon-like these cucumbers are ~ you could fool your guests and place a plate of them on the table and then snarf them up. "yum, I love lemons!" These plants are prolific, too, producing numerous lemon yellow spheres.

Farm City

Novella Carpenter is my hero. Fearless Urban Farmer, she unhesitatingly enters empty lots and begins to transform them into urban oases. Her writing is educational, humourous, and touching. Armed with just a few books to guide her, and her partner Bill for encouragement, her forays into heritage watermelon growing, meat-bird raising and apiary inspire me to experiment with my own yard space. She doesn't even own hers!That is what makes her dedication to her craft all the more inspiring - she never knows when it will all be taken out by a backhoe, but she does it all the same because it's her passion. http://farmcity.wordpress.com/

crop failure

It is tragic - our garlic crop is dead - it seemed to be doing very well up until late Spring, when the stem just coming out of the bulb started rotting. I am assuming the soil was too wet. In any case, only one bulb formed to any size, all of the others were stunted. We have had a bad infestation of slugs, too - and they really enjoy bean shoots. I've had to put out some safer's bug bait. We also put in some barrier plants such as mint, chives, red lettuce, red cabbage, sage, sunflower, fennel, foxglove, chicory & endive. Plant them around the perimeter of your garden to keep slugs from infiltrating. I have also had trouble with the daikon radishes - not only did the roots get devoured by cutworms, but the sudden heat brought them to bolt early - But, happily, the snow peas, brassicas, basil, peas and beets are all doing great! Can't win them all