Italian Roaster: 1

I picked and grilled my first Italian Roaster pepper tonight. Picked green, instead of letting it ripen to red. Mild flavor, slightly bitter. Will probably be sweet when fully ripe.









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Eggplant, at last!

It took a long time, but I finally spy tiny eggplants growing. It looks like an alien species!



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Smart move

Moved the trellis directly behind my cucumber plant.


Also, look at my gigantic pepper!


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Cucumber wonder

I am very impressed with my cucumber plant this year. It has broad, beautiful dark green leaves, and it is a climbing vine so it looks really lush. I'm trying to get it to climb up the trellis. A perfect summer garden backdrop.





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Crook(shanks)neck Squash

The final film in the Harry Potter series is coming out at midnight! Hence my garden/HP pun. I'm very excited for the last movie; we'll be viewing it tomorrow night and then hunkering down for Carmaggedon (405 fwy closed all weekend).

Some lovely pictures. You can see my rapidly growing Italian Roasting peppers, cucumber growing up the side wall with tiny cukes sprouting, and baby yellow crookneck (Crookshanks) squash.








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Green beans in my soup!

First serving of green beans....


...added to my lentil soup. Yum!


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It's getting ripe out there!

I'm holding my breath until my first tomato is ripe--please let no critter decide to eat it before we're ready to harvest! 

And, check out plucked green bean #1. We ate it raw. Very good.

Squirrels and beer

As promised... a blog post on squirrels and beers!

This Saturday we went down to San Diego to take in a few of their nearly 40 breweries and to visit the zoo. Our favorite stop was at Port Brewing/Lost Abbey. A small scale company located in a nondescript, warehouse block-style building, you wouldn't know it's there except for a large tank outside the building emblazoned with the brewing companies' logos. I especially enjoyed the gorgeous hops vine growing up the tower. While we may be some ways away from attempting to brew our own beer, a decorative hops plant may be in our near future!

The big news this week was that Marcia, the squirrel rescue lady, returned to our backyard with a new box full of adolescent squirrels. We discovered Marcia last year when we rescued a baby squirrel and she told us that when we was old enough, she'd bring him back to our backyard to live! We decided to sign up for the yearly delivery. Doing our part for the "wildlife" of Los Angeles. They're really cute too. 

First blush

Folks.... I am so excited. A tomato has started to ripen. It now is a particular shade of green that is also pink. And it is the prettiest thing I've seen so far this morning.


More zucchini blossoms today, huge and yellow.


Strawberries are abundant and ripening two or three at a time--just right for a small treat while roaming the yard.



Another blog post later today about baby squirrels and breweries...


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Squash blossoms blooming

Zucchini blossoms opening in the morning light. Dear Garden Goddess: grant me too many zucchini this year, that I may make zucchini cake with cream cheese frosting and still have more to give away to friends. Amen.









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Videos from the garden

The first video is of my squash plants, the 2nd illustrates how I strung my tomato plants. Enjoy!

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More seedlings and green bean babies

For the few years I've been cultivating my home garden, I've struggled with starting my plants from seeds. I think the main problem is I don't get enough sun on my garden. The seeds will sprout, but not flourish, for want of sunlight.

Today I stopped by the nursery and got a few plants to add to the garden, now that it looks like the seeds just aren't cutting it. Next year, with the select few exceptions, I'm going straight to seedlings.

Joining my garden: three kinds of peppers, eggplant, cucumber, yellow crook-necked squash, musk melon, watermelon, and 12 new baby lettuces. The lettuces I added because I've been eating so many salads this year, and the six plants I have are having a hard time keeping up. Now I think I'll have enough lettuce that I'll be giving it away in bulk. Fun!

Meanwhile, back in the wine barrel, the plants are doing really well, getting all the sun they need. And we have baby green beans. They're so adorable. Look for the tiny bean in the above picture. Cute, right?

High-Strung Tomatoes

Watching the video on how to string and sucker tomatoes (see my previous post, "Suckers...") inspired me to string up my tomatoes in the same fashion.

My tomatoes are indeterminate varieties (Boxcar Willie and Stupice) which means they will keep growing taller and taller, and they need to be suckered. I used some handy-dandy string to gently wrap the tomato plants up their stakes, and tied the string off on the lattice behind them in the planter. I'll have to add more string next time I tie them up, but they should be all set for a while.

AND... I'm such a proud mama... I have 12 baby tomatoes coming in. 10 of them are on the Stupice plant. The word "bounty" comes to mind, but I'll have to be watchful and take good care of them until they ripen. I also added some Jobe's tomato stake plant food today. I can hardly wait for the tomatoes to be ready!

Suckers.....

I was talking with my friend Alyss about a week or so ago about suckers. Namely, the extra growth on a tomato plant that needs to be pruned away so it doesn't draw on the nutrients needed to create delicious tomatoes.

I did a little research and found the following excellent video. In a nutshell, you only break off the suckers on indeterminate plants (climbing variety), and only below the new blossoms, never above. On determinate (bush) variety, the "suckers" are the new growth that will eventually blossom and give you more fruit.

Here's the video: How to string and sucker tomato plants.



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Tomatoes, can't waitoes!

Yeah, that's a pretty bad name for this blog post, but my tomatoes are really looking good. Here's a picture:



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More edible plantings at Dland!

Great edible plantings at Disneyland!


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Leftovers

Leftover chicken from Healthy Family Farms on lettuce from our garden. Farmer's market tomatoes and peppers too. Yum.

Hang on to the vine...

Hang on little tomato! Baby tomatoes have appeared on my Stupice tomato plant ("Stupice," not "stupid." Har de har).





It's an exciting day. And judging by the number of flowers on the plant, we're in for a fruitful summer.

Most seeds have sprouted. The plants in my full-sun, half wine barrel are truly flourishing. Used the basil in pasta this week, and I had my first salad from my mixed salad greens. Yummy!











In other responsible eating news, we're very excited to become a Venice pick up location for the CSA members of Healthy Family Farms. They're a local farm that we like to get our eggs and meat from. Pasture raised, humanely treated, and lovely people who work there.





We made a beer can chicken recently, using one of their birds. Chicken that tastes like chicken!





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Welcome squash babies!

I could see the sprouts from the window. They must have pushed through last night. All the rain we've been getting is a big help.

How exciting: here come zucchini and yellow squash!



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Holy green beans, Plantman!

One week of growing, my green beans are twice as tall.

Before:


After:



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New garden bliss!

Happy Mother's Day to all you mommas out there! I paid tribute to Mother Nature by finally giving my veggie patch the attention it's been needing.


Stopped by the local nursery and picked up a half wine barrel, Growers Gold dirt, and a couple of seedlings.

Home soon after and the project began in earnest!

Here's the half barrel under a shower we have but have never used in our backyard.


I think it's a little kitchy, but fun to put it there. The barrel is big enough that I could bathe in it if need be... But I'd rather plant stuff!




After planting tomatoes (Boxcar Willie and Stupice), green beans, basil and zucchini (seeds) in the wine barrel, I moved on to the more daunting task...

...of cleaning out the overgrown mess that used to be my garden. It took a while, but at the end of the process, here's what I planted:

Spinach
Lettuce
Jubilee watermelon
Sweet bell peppers
Cantaloupe (heart of gold)
Cucumber (straight 8)
Sweet corn
Moon & Stars watermelon
Black beauty eggplant
Broccoli



Can't wait for the first sprouts! And I think I'll have an even better growing season with my sun loving veggies in the half barrel in the sunniest part of our backyard and the other veg enjoying more space and water. Time will tell!

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Edible gardens at Disneyland

A beautiful example of edible landscaping is in the gardens of Tommorowland at Disneyland.

Check out the chard, bok choy, lettuces and herbs!




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Cool way to view my blog

Hey There! This is a beautiful way to view my blog (or any blogspot blog for that matter). Add /view/mosaic to the end of my url (http://greenthumbtroop.blogspot.com/view/mosaic) and you can see an artistic look back at my years of gardening! Enjoy!

Happy Spring--Strawberries and Kale

Sorry for the long hiatus away from my gardening blog--I kept thinking, "get those pictures online and then write a blog post," but today I decided to just go ahead and write a little note without any pictures.

I went into the yard this afternoon to see a bunch of beautiful red strawberries growing in my strawberry pot! I thought I would surely have to plant new strawberry plants to get a crop this year, but instead it's looking like I can just trim back some of the dead leaves and let it be. I ate one--delicious.

Also, we're having a Kale and Mustard Greens explosion. I will need to make a big pot of melted greens soon and make way for some new plants.

This year I'm also going to get a half barrel to plant some of the kinds of veg that I've been struggling to get growing because my garden is in part shade. I'm going to plan a tomato, cuke, zucchini and a green bean plant, and put it all in the sunniest place I can find on our property.

More on that and other adventures very soon, I promise!