Raspberries

I've decided to transplant my potted Raspberries into the garden. They have given me two years of delicious fruit but didn't do very well this past season. The spring harvest had plenty of fruit but the raspberries were small in size and the Fall harvest was little to none.  The poor harvest could have been the result of the weather but the fact that I'm not getting much in the way of new strong canes tells me it has out grown it's pot.

Bed 1 should be the perfect home. They will get lots of sun even in the Winter months and some shade in the late afternoon during the Summer months. The canes will have plenty of room to grow without taking over the yard.

Bed 1 before

I hope they do better in their new location.

Bed 1 after

Look What Santa Brought Me!

I have wanted one of these for two years. I guess I was a really good girl this year.

ACURITE Weather Forecaster

Now I will be able to keep track of the night time temperatures and once I get the pop-up greenhouse up I'll move the sensor in there to keep an eye on the temperature for my little seedlings. I am a happy girl.

Speaking of keeping an eye on the temperature, we have had the most frost days in a row than I have seen in years. My backyard is always about 3 to 4 degrees cooler than the forecast and we have seen freezing temps everyday for more than a week now.  The banana trees and avocado have been under cover all week. The banana's are not looking to good but the avocado seems unfazed. The blueberries and apples on the other hand love this cool weather.

There's nothing growing in the beds this Winter but I'm starting to plan my Spring and Summer garden. So here is a question for you. What is your favorite heat tolerant lettuce?

I hope you all had a wonderful Holiday and I look forward to reading your garden posts!

Merry Christmas

Have a Happy Thanksgiving

Never Forget

Garden Friends

To all my garden friends that are riding out Hurricane Irene I'll be praying for you.

Nosy Neighbor Virtual Homestead & Garden Tour

Ericka's over at Northwest Edible is hosting a nosy neighbor urban homestead tour and I'm participating. If you were to peek over my fence today this is some of what you would see....  Click on photos for a better look.....

View of the beds from the roof

Columnar Apples

Avocado and Banana

Something is eating my carrot tops. Squirrels maybe?

Cherry Fox Tomatoes

cilantro

Ginger

Hot Peppers

Climbing Italian Summer Squash
Trombetta di Albenga

Mild Hot Peppers

Pole Bean

Climbing Italian Summer Squash
Trombetta di Albenga

Climbing Italian Summer Squash
Trombetta di Albenga

Roma Tomatoes

The Fall raspberries are coming in.

Strawberries

Sweet Potatoes

Sweet Potatoe

Harvest Sunday July 30 2011

Harvest Monday August 1 2011

Hope you enjoyed your peek into my garden. Feel free to stop by anytime.

What Is It?

Found this guy while I was watering this morning. Looks just like a stick and moves like an inch worm. Click on photo for a larger view.

If you know what it is please let me know if I should set it free or not.

Happy Independence Day

Have a Happy and Safe 4th of July!

Sweet Potato Update

February 2, 2011 Sweet Potato Post # 1

March 12, 2011 Sweet Potato Post # 2

July 1st Sweet Potato Post # 3

The sweet potatoes were planted in the the garden the first week of June. Normally we would plant sweet potatoes in May but with the weather so unseasonally cool I opted to wait. June was still a bit too cool so the beds with the sweet potatoes were covered with plastic. The plastic was removed on June 14th and there was not much growth until just this past week with the warmer weather setting in. 

Below are photos of the nine plants I have planted in beds 2 and 4. 

Click on photos for a larger view

Bed 2 has four plants....

Bed 4 has five plants....

Nice Day

The weather was perfect... a nice 80 degrees in the garden today.

The to do list is as follows...

• Harvest compost
• Plant lettuce
• Plant flowers
• Harvest anything that looks ready

Click on photos for a larger view

If you don't like worms you may want to skip the next few photos...

The first fork of compost gave me a fork full of worms.

 Lots and lots of worms.

 My compost bin is more of an over sized worm bin. I don't have a good supply of browns when I have garden greens and when I have lots of browns I don't have greens. The worms do a great job making me black gold the only issue is the seeds don't get killed off without the high temps. It's not really a big deal since I square foot garden. I know where I have planted every seed so anything grows around them gets pulled out.

Hand full of worms.

 I was not happy to finds a few of these in the compost.... That's right it's a wireworm.

But I was really happy to see this... three bins full of compost ready to use in the garden.

Finished compost

Next up is planting lettuce seeds. I decided to plant them in the potato bins that are not being used for anything at the moment. I have noticed that this area is not getting as much sun as it use to. The tree right above it has grown out to the point that it now shades this area of the garden.

One bin has cut and come again and the other is head lettuce. I also covered both bins with fencing to keep the squirrels out.

Bed 2 with some summer flowers to bring in beneficial insects. Cosmos to bring in predators like hover flies and lacewings. Marigold for parasitoids like wasps and a sweet allysum will bring both predators and parasitoids.

Have you ever grown a rampicante zucchino?

Well if you have never grown one and are thinking about it you will need a very tall trellis. This plant stands at about 8 feet and is still growing. I'll take some more photos when it fruits.

And last be not least today's very small harvest...

Cucumber, strawberries and and the last of the spring raspberries.

Carrots

It was a very nice day and I'm looking forward to a 4 day work week. We have a long weekend coming for the fourth of July and I tagged on four vacation days. It will be nice to be home for the week.