I know I’ve been a little busy and haven’t put in an update, but here it is. As you can see the green onions have all died. I don’t know what happened, but they just died. Over the weekend I’ll be pulling out the peat pellets and planting the remaining seeds and see what happens. The peat pellets have been a bit of a problem outside overall.
The initial peas that were planted had a nice little harvest last night to try as appetizers last night with dinner. I’ll be putting in some spikes to hold them up over the weekend as well as spiking the second set of peas. These were all very high yield peas which shows some promise for the future. They had said they didn’t need to be staked as they were a variety of English bush peas, but I think the staking will help.
The Mesclun lettuce I first planted has taken off and I found I had to cut back some of the plants that were actually beginning to flower. The newer Mesclun hasn’t taken off as well, but I’m sure given a few more days they’ll pick up.
As you’ll see down below, the tomato that I had all but given up on has started to bear fruit. We’ve got two small tomatoes at the moment and I’ll see what I need to do the make them turn from green to red. If you have any ideas let me know.
Glad to hear your urban garden is developing. On the Peninsula we’ve taken a multi-pronged approach to the downturn.
First, we enrolled in a Community Supported Agriculture plan run by a couple of Coastside farms. For six months we get a weekly box of whatever they’re harvesting plus a dozen eggs. That keep us out of restaurants except for special occasions.
Second, we expanded our garden. We planted an existing bed with snow peas and fava beans, and in May we built a raised bed and transplanted in tomatos, serrano peppers, basil, and corn. Elsewhere in the yard we’ve got established patches of oregano and rosemary, and this year we added more herbs. We’ve started picking pea pods and clip herbs every other day.
Third, we picked up a slow cooker and a couple of marked-down Crock-Pot cookbooks at a mall bookstore. It frees up kitchen time and we can buy cheaper cuts of meat.
Keep me informed about how your tomatoes are doing. Mine is having a bit of a problem at the moment.
Patience helps. On July 27 a tomato on our Black Trifele vine suddenly ripened — our first tomato of the season. It changed from green to near-purple over the course of maybe three days. Checking my journal I see I first spotted this tomato on the first of June! Took a while.
At this point we’ve got giant rambling vines staked to poles, lots of flowers but just a few tomatoes developing. We may have added too much composted manure to the soil, several web pages I’ve consulted claim that excess nitrogen makes them grow foliage and postpone fruiting. Maybe that’s the case with your early girl tomatoes? If you’re feeding them try switching to a fertilizer with less N and more P and K. Good luck.