Harvest Monday 10/31

First harvest of the greens.  Three different kinds of red lettuce as well as oak.  Four different types of basil.  TWF made some killer pesto.  Weather has been warm in the 90's for the past few days.  However, things should be cooling down soon,

Below is the problem, asked some of the local nurseries, and they said spider mite?  Not sure.  If you know please help!  To the left is my newest toy.  I have been spraying the trees with neem oil, we'll see.  The oil is supposed to get rid of the ants that are attacking the natural predators of the mites that produce the white fluff on the leaves of the citrus.

Maggie Dog

Quick update.

Just a couple of pics of the garden from the past few weeks.  Fall wants to start, but the summer heat just keeps on keepin on.

I didn't have the heart to tell this guy that things aren't going to end well. 

Ahhh, nature. Gotta love it.  

   

                              

 Just got the third barrel, 150 gallons, now 250 gallons total between the 3 barrels.  Now if it would just rain! 

 Finally dug up the summer crops.  It was hard as there were still a few green tomatoes.  Planted spinach and lettuce 6 packs for some quick greens, and carrots, spinach, lettuce, radish, beat, garlic, chives, from seed.  It's still pretty warm, 95 degrees yesterday, had to water the carrot seeds twice.

Lot's of seeds, we'll see what comes up.  The radishes germinated in 2 days!  The carrots are going to take a while.  Never had much luck with the carrots, maybe I'll do better this year.  Stay tuned...

Pooptastic!

TPW was not happy that I moved this load in her car, but when all was said and done not a trace of poop remained.  The plants are going to be happy!

The waiting, is the hardest part.

Things are kind of in between seasons right now.  I find that this is the hardest time of the year for me.  The summer crops are on their way out, and it is still a little too warm to plant the winter crops and the new trees that I wat to put in.  So... I have been doing a few odd jobs around the ol farm.  This was probably my last tomato harvest, the boy seems to be caught in the tomato trance.  The sweet peppers never really got started, squash are done, pulled all cherry tomaotes, no pumpkins this year.  Only had a few female flowers appear, sadly they bit the dust.

Dug up the first bed, it was painful.  It's never the perfect time to start pulling the summer veggies, but I finally jumped in.  The picture below is the area that I took out an old diseased orange tree from.  Now what to plant...?  Grapes, blackberries, veggies, natives, another fruit tree.  I am going to have to pull the trigger on this area in the next couple of weeks.

These pomegranate are the last three.  I planted 2 trees in the fall.  Each tree had 3-4, the other one which is outside the gate lost all of it's fruit to some ^*)_% vermin.  Hopefully I can keep these 3 safe.  I have 1 milkweed plant that has literally exploded in the last few weeks, we have seeds flying around everywhere.

 Have spent the last few weeks digging up Iris, dividing them and replanting them.  I must have dug up hundreds of them, the lady that lived here before us was a card carrying Iris club member, we have them in all shades.  Spring should be interesting

More Iris's under the avo trees and the random Crape myrtle.  New plum tree in the background, I put it in last fall.

Harvest Monday 9/19/11

Not much going on in the garden, things are moving slow.  The upside down hanging tomatoes are still going strong.  The dark ones in the picture are Black Tomatoes, still getting a few smaller Watermelon, Better Boy and Rose.  Lemon Cucumber are pretty much done, a few small ones.  Figs have slowed down, but man are they sweet.  Picked a few limes just to have.  The squash are done but the peppers are doing well.  Starting to think about the winter crops, but we still have a least a month of possible heat left.  Don't want to start to early, still thinking about the trees that I want to plant this fall.

These avocados were either found on the ground, due to the squirrels, notice the marks on the one on the right, or I picked them to thin the tree a little.  By November or December I should start getting some bigger ones

Harvest Monday 9/12/11

Maggie is getting pretty big, loves helping out in the garden.  The harvest this week was rather exciting.  Not only did I get a lot of tomatoes, peppers, lemons, figs, and limes, I found these 2 heads.  I was convinced that my head bush was not going to put any fruit out.  I guess I was wrong, 2 fruits.

TPW has had to start thinking out of the box.  The freezer is already full, now the drying racks have come out.  However, they were so good that I ate them right out of the dyhydrater.  TPW was not a happy farmer.

After last time this action figure came out fighting, even with just one leg.  It was a pretty close fight, I think the guy has a mouthful of worm in this picture.  Good to know that he's got my back.

Lots of figs on the new tree as well as on the old one.  This was one of the first figs off of the new tree.  They are pretty big; in fact this Storm Trooper looked a little intimidated by this one

Harvest Monday 9/5/11

Things seem to be moving along slowly.  The tomatoes have started their second bloom, however they are a lot smaller.  The Green Zebra seem to have stopped, oh well.  The Bell Peppers sure are taking a long time, small fruit about the size of a plums, are hanging on the plants.  Figs look good, coming along, squash and zuc's doing well.  I picked about 20-25 Lisbon Lemons off the tree for TPW.  She made the most incredible lemon bars, citrus bars, even did a fig lemon bar, once again I forgot to take pictures.  TPW also got some of the sundried tomaotes out of the freezer from last year, still tasty.

The peppers seem to multiply over night, I only have 3 plants but they seem to produce more than we can handle.  Note to self: Only 2 plants next year.

The basket on the left was harvested on Wednesday, and the one on the right was harvested this morning, as you can see they are a little smaller than they were earlier this summer, but they are just as sweet.

 

 This is my project for the fall.  I have spent the summer cleaning this area up.  It was full of Vinca and Jupiter's Beard, but with a little blood, sweat and tears I have managed to clean it up.  Now what to plant?  TPW and I are having some discussion about the trees of choice.  I want an Olive or another avocado maybe a Reed avocado, but she wants something a little more decorative?  Stay tuned...  The tree on the right is an apricot that I planted last fall, the tree in the upper left is a Navel orange.

You are probably asking yourself what am I pointing at?  Well, this is a farmers worst nightmare!!.  There is a small depression, SQUIRRELS.  I have been stalking them for the past couple of months.  They have been especially active the past few weeks, I have resorted to waiting for them to emerge and then I take acrtion.  Every time that I catch one there seems to be 2 more that take their place.