The anticipation is killing me ...

I'm heading up to Sonoma this morning to see what progress (if any) has been made on the giant mulch job of the garden paths. See all those weeds? They grew even higher after this picture was taken in March.

The gardeners said they would lay down mulch sometime last week. Fingers crossed they actually did it. If so, I'll have some incredible transformation photos to share. I'll spend all weekend redoing the battered irrigation lines that run all over the place. We've been hard at work ourselves in another part of the yard, building yet another raised bed, this one for herbs that will be located closer to the back door.

See that flat patch in front of the lattice? It's now much higher off the ground. My husband built an amazing contraption that I'll be busy filling in with loads and loads and loads of compost this weekend (my back is already crying). The bed will be 3'x8', lots of plants to slip in the soil this weekend as well. And just maybe I'll have a few moments of this too.

Maybe I'll have a little time to do some of this as well. It will have to be iced though, it's supposed to be 85 this weekend!

Spring break

Just a few images of the garden from the past few weeks. The cherry tree was in full bloom last week. Beautiful! This more than makes up for the terrible formatting blogger is having right now, grrrr.

There is fruit developing on some of the trees already, mostly the plums. The peach and nectarine trees were hit hard by the late rain leaving lots of peach leaf curl. I sprayed three times like I was supposed to but apparently that doesn't matter if the rains come late. No one is sure how much fruit we'll see this year. The same thing happened last year in Sonoma county.

Peach leaf curl on one of the peach trees.

The square foot garden beds are starting to fill in. I was able to plant some peppers this past week, fingers crossed no late freezes! I chose a red and yellow bell pepper and two padrone pepper plants. Padrones have been all the rage in the bay area the past few years. They're amazing grilled in some oil and salt.

Radishes, carrots, beets, lettuces, peppers, tarragon, calendula and cosmos.

Even though the ladybugs are everywhere in Sonoma this month, we let a few more free in the garden one evening. They seem to be especially happy in the artichokes.

My daughter's garden bed is growing quickly. It's the first bed we planted after moving in. She picked out two cherry tomato plants over the weekend at the Tomatomania festival here. We'll have to figure out where to squeeze those in. We chose eight more for the rest of the garden. I have no idea where I'll plant them.

Chard, broccoli, oregano, parsley, radishes, carrots and stray onions.

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.