fall crops!

A collard green start in my garden.

I've decided that rather than mourn the passing of summer, I will embrace the impending season change. Today, I enjoyed some almost-end-of-summer heat while planting fall crops. If all goes well, in 60-90 days, I will have:

• broccoli
• cauliflower
• Brussels sprouts
• collard greens
• baby bok choy
• spinach
• red leaf lettuce
• carrots

To improve my chances of success, I finally installed a drip line. This should help save the plants from what can otherwise be sporadic watering. If I can keep the bugs and digging squirrels away, we should have a garden full of veggies in a couple of months!

out with the watermelon; in with the broccoli

My watermelon vine yielded a grand total of one tennis-ball-sized watermelon.

I ate it today.

I'm not sure if it was my planting method (my mother informed me that melons should be planted into a dirt mound shortly after I seeded my flat garden bed - whoops!) or something about the space (not enough sun?) that the watermelon didn't like. Blossoms would come but then go away. With the exception of the one that decided it would grow into a fruit.

I might have left the vine another couple of weeks with continued hope that the heat wave we've had lately might inspire it to produce more, but fall plant starts caught my eye at the farmers' market this morning. I ripped out the watermelon vine this morning, harvesting the single fruit, to make space for my 6 new broccoli starts.

It will be "Di Cicco", an Italian broccoli variety that is apparently prized for its "cut and come again side shoots". According to the woman at the farmers' market, I should be able to report back on whether I find this prize worthy in approximately 48 days. In the meantime, I will continue to enjoy the tomatoes and carrots that the garden is producing and ponder what else I may plant for fall.

tomato harvest!

I just returned home from a week out of town to find the tomato plant covered with ripe, red tomatoes! Roma Grape Tomatoes, to be exact. The plant is growing in every direction:

These first ripe tomatoes are definitely going to make their way into today's lunchtime salad and tonight's vegetable curry. Yum!

my garden in san carlos

I've been meaning to write about my garden for quite some time. It's my first garden that's in the ground. Or, almost in the ground, I suppose. It's in an 8x4 raised bed that I built myself in the backyard of the house we bought in April. I started on the garden space before we even moved into the house - dug out sod, hauled home dirt and bark and supplies, and put it together as the inside of the house was being painted in preparation for our move.

Here's a picture recap of the progression over the past couple of months:

The garden is in full swing. It's been a little neglected, since I've been traveling for pretty much the past month straight. Here's what's been planted and how it's going so far:

Golden Midget Watermelon: I didn't realize the seeds were supposed to be planted in a hill, so they were off to a slow start, but seem to be growing (little by little).

Lemon Cucumber: Don't seem very happy. Again, not planting the seeds into a mound of dirt might be the issue...

Roma Grape Tomato: Growing like crazy. It's covered with little green tomatoes, that should start to turn red soon.

Swiss Chard: Something (slugs?) has been eating my chard. JR's dad had a good idea for an organic solution that I'm going to try.

Pak Choy: It was up one day, and bolted the next. I didn't get a chance to try it before going out of town, but JR ensures me that he ate some of it before pulling the rest up.

Carrots: I've been thinning them daily and eating the little baby ones as I do. You'll have a hard time convincing me that there is anything better than a fresh carrot from the garden.

Strawberries: I got a couple red, luscious berries from the plant in early June, but haven't seen much action from it since then. I need to consult my gardening book (or my mother).

Rouge D'Hiver Lettuce: According to the back of the seed pack, this is a read romaine heirloom variety from France. It's growing like crazy and has been the basis of many salads as of late.

This weekend, I will spend some long overdue time with my garden. The cucs (and possibly the watermelon) will probably go. Which means I'll have some free space for a few new little plants. Stay tuned to see what else will take root in my garden this year!