April in the Garden

It's been two weeks since I last saw the garden and a lot has happened since then. The harvest is growing! Three baskets worth this week.

Green onions, oregano, thyme, asparagus, parsley, snap peas, chives.

Chard!

Spinach

Besides the weeds taking over even more of the beds (one more week until the gardener's mulch the paths, I can't wait), my seeds have taken off.

Merlo Nero Spinach seedlings.

Those peas I planted back in the fall are growing tall and we're able to enjoy some snap peas off the vine. Next year, I will plant lots more snaps.

There are even tiny little figs growing on the fig tree.

This month is when the rest of the planting happens: pole beans, melons, tomatoes, peppers, and all those flowers to encourage beneficials into the garden. There are lots more pics of the new growth on my flikr site here.

The overall plan and signs of real spring

I've finally been able to sketch out an overall layout of the garden. It's wonky, it's in photoshop (which I have a love/hate relationship with), but it's done. Considering my San Francisco backyard contained just one little 4'x6' bed, this is quite a shift. The largest bed is 15' in length to give an idea of scale.

Fruit trees surround the raised bed garden area but there are more fruit trees around the rest of the property. This is only about 1/4th the area of the yard shown. It looks all neat and tidy on the plan but I don't do something soon, the weeds were going to over and I won't be able to find these raised beds. Here's the last of the beds I haven't tackled yet and the weeds surrounding.

I called in my gardener for a quote to till the weeds and lay down landscape fabric and then mulch or gravel over top. I usually won't allow the gardener in my bed area, that's my domain, but this was becoming a crisis. If I were here full time, I could tackle it myself. I might have to still if that quote comes in high. I dread that, sigh.

In the meantime, I had some nice little surprises over the weekend. The first fig leaves are popping out.

And the tulips under the apple trees bloomed!

They are as beautiful as the previous owner, Kendra, told me they would be. I had to cut them so we could enjoy them this week back in the city. And see all that green behind those tulips ... weeds, weeds, weeds. sigh.

Planning the garden

It's time for some organized planning. I've struggled with how to keep my thoughts in order with so many beds to lay out using the square foot gardening method. I decided on a plan to have two large gridded sheets. It naturally worked out that one sheet covers most of the early spring plantings and the other the later spring plantings. I can use the see-through vellum to overlay succession plantings for the next go round. I tried to keep track of everything on the computer but I just couldn't coordinate well enough between the actual planting into the keyboard.

Finishing the planting of bed J (lower right on the sheet above) was the focus this weekend. I had half of the bed completed but was afraid to tackle the rest because I knew what was lurking underneath.

The bed from hell. These are roots of a certain pesky weed which I can't remember the name. And these are likely those weeds that just multiply when you break the root in two. Sigh. I did my best but at least I know I won't be planting any carrots here! I first sowed one more row of shelling peas just in case 132 plants aren't enough. Seriously, they say 170 for a family of four. We'll just see!

Then onto the weedy bed. It will be a guess just how much sun this bed gets in the full summer. I think a fair amount. There's a cedar tree just south of it that blocks out most of the sun in the winter.

I hope to save this leftover chard in the foreground. I transplanted two spinach plants over and planted two more squares. The bed will also have lettuces, radishes, kale, beets and flowers. And a surprise awaited me in the compost pile. A rapidly growing rhubarb plant which I did my best to salvage for another bed that already had the rhubarb.

I suppose in my haste of weeding beds last fall I chucked it before I knew what it was. We'll see if it survives although I'm sure any plant would be happier growing in pure compost.

March in the garden

We have been coming up Saturday mornings lately. I try to already have everything I need to make dinner so the only shopping I have to do is in the garden. This week I was able to harvest my usual pile of chard and the first spinach and lettuce leaves to make a side salad.

The weather has been so mild these past few weeks we've been taking afternoon bike rides throughout Sonoma. A few blocks away from the cottage we have this view to enjoy. There's a wonderful spot nearby to set out our picnic blanket which we plan to do a lot of this year.

Back in the garden, things are turning green, especially the weeds in between the beds. I'm debating what to do about the surrounding paths.

On the one hand, if you follow the concepts around permaculture, this is a vital part of the garden, providing shelter for good bugs (but also bad). The downside is the paths are uneven, you have to hand trim the paths because of the irrigation lines, and it just doesn't look very tidy to me.

I'm looking into mulching the paths, not sure if I'll go forward with it. In the meantime, I'm slowly removing an old straw bale bed to make way for a seating area with a fire pit between the beds.

In the midst of all these thoughts, though, the plants are growing well. Radishes sprouted last week, the snap peas have their first flowers and my flowers seeds (nigella) are growing fast.

Fruit trees in bloom and new growth

I swear these the fruit trees waited for me to arrive before opening their blossoms. We arrived on Monday, with just a flower or two open only on the nectarine and by the end of the week, many more had followed. My sweet friend, Jaime Rugh, sent me one of her weavings last year and I've been waiting for just the right tree on which to hang it. I love how the blossoms bring out the pink thread.

Next came the canning plum which hangs over into our yard from next door. I never would have noticed before but these plum trees are all over Sonoma. I've heard they make good jam, we'll see for ourselves.

Then mid-week a little hint that the white peach would be next. I managed to do the final of three copper sprays on the peach trees before they bloomed. I cut it really close this year but I managed it. The previous owners, who were entirely organic, told me we have to give in and spray to protect against peach leaf curl with these trees.

The last day we were at the cottage, the santa rosa weeping plum burst into bloom for us. We trimmed the tree back quite a bit this year but there are plenty of beautiful buds.

 Next will likely be the yellow peach, followed later by the fig, apples and perhaps even the pears, although one of the pears already flowered in November. The other exciting thing that happened this week was almost all of my shelling peas have sprouted. I was so worried someone would come by and eat up all the seeds. I planted them at the end of January and they're growing fast already.

 Next weekend I have more weeding to do. Three more beds left, two of them are 14' long. Luckily, I don't have to plant anything for a few more weeks while I wait for the soil to warm a bit more.

February in the Garden

This is our first week back at the cottage since the beginning of February. My fingers were crossed I didn't miss any monumental changes, including the chance to see the first asparagus of the year. I had read that asparagus can grow several inches in a few hours. I swear these weren't here yesterday.

I have no idea which year these were planted and I know you're only supposed to harvest little, if any, in the first three years. I plan to wait a few days and see what else appears before deciding what to do.

Last night when we came in, it was nice for the first time to not have to run to the grocery store to pick up some fresh produce. We had enough greens for a little feast to make a salad and chard risotto.

We plan to spend the rest of the week here so I will finally have enough time to prepare several beds for planting. Here's a 4'x6' bed I prepped this morning using the square foot gardening method. It will contain peppers, carrots, radishes, chard, lettuce, calendulas and bachelor buttons. I planted seeds for most of them this morning and have some lettuce I will transplant tomorrow.

I planted about 130 pea seeds a few weeks back which are now bursting out of the ground underneath my homemade trellis. I read that birds LOVE pea seeds so I was so happy to see they all survived.

I also prepared this bed nearby with brussel sprouts, thyme and onions two weeks ago. I'm still deciding what to grow in the rest of the bed.

Near the asparagus surprise, I made another discovery. A few weeks back when I was weeding, I came across a monster root that looked quite healthy. I decided to leave it be to see what would grow. And it looks like rhubarb is now peeking out. I'm wondering if one rhubarb plant will do or do I need to add that to my evergrowing list of plants to grow.

The next few weeks will be busy, but it's nice to finally see some of the work I've done start to pay off.

January in the garden

My weekends are being filled up with bed preparation and future planting days. Although I didn't account for getting the flu last weekend. I managed to prepare one bed until my husband made me stop. Sure enough, I overdid it. And now I'm behind on everything, artwork and other responsibilities included. Oh well, I feel good about what I accomplished out there. This is one of the beds ready to go. It will contain onions, spinach, carrots, calendula, basil, oregano, peas and some tomatoes based on the square foot gardening method. My daughter had fun pushing the onion sets into the soft soil.

Planting onion sets in a square foot grid

I've been looking to other local places to see what they've been putting in the ground this month, looking through the farmer's almanac as well as my local master gardener website recommendations. It's all spinach and peas this month and into early February. The Farmer's Almanac seems to me a little early though.

Charming french bistro chairs I found at Maison Reve before it closed, sniff, sniff.

I was able to transplant the remaining stray chard plants as well as some spinach and lettuce I started in the fall into my first prepared bed. I could have spaced them closer, I'll see how much extra weeding it will involve. The spinach will be thinned once they get used to the transplant.

 Chard, spinach, lettuce, radishes, shelling peas and Nigella will live here.
I created a little straw path for pea picking. Next year I will garden more intensely if needed.

The garlic I planted in the fall is growing well. There are a few onion survivors popping up next to some of the garlic but I'll just pull that garlic sooner for some nice green garlic to throw on the grill.

 Garlic under the apple tree with a great resting chair
for when I need a break.

A site plan, sigh, I have about four going right now and am trying to figure out the best way to work. One on the computer, two on grid paper, and one on many different pages of a notebook. For some reason, the notebook technique is winning but it looks impossibly confusing!

And finally, the mushroom compost has arrived! I learned about this compost from reading the previous owner's blog. Now I understand why the soil in the beds and under the fruit trees is so amazing. Why fix what isn't broken!