LEARNING AS I GO

When I laid out the garden this spring I thought that favas were climbers. I put them in with the peas and bought netting for them. Guess what? They're not. But they're going to be delicious.

FAVA AND SISKIN

 This little pine siskin was napping in the leaf mulch this morning. I thought it was injured but if flew away when I tried to pick it up. It was back later, snacking on dandelion seeds, and didn't mind at all when I walked past just a couple of feet away. I read that pine siskins can be fearless and I often get close to them at the feeder, but this one is unusually so.

I bought these tablecloth weights 11 years ago and never used them. Now they come in handy to hold down the trellis mesh for peas and beans. Decorative, functional and repurposed!

Favas are about to bloom. Really looking forward to it. I hear they're light with black centers. Never seen one before. 

Overall this long, cool La Nina spring has been great for my garden. I've been able to get away on weekends and let the rain take care of the watering, and all of my cool crops are happy.

TA DA! BEFORE AND AFTER.

Before...

and After! 

With the addition of 10 eggplants & 4 tomatoes from Canyon Bounty, the first bed is full.

 The cauliflower & broccoli I started from seed is doing great.

Can't wait to see the broccoli romanesco. It's one amazing looking veggie.  Like this:

THE HOT GARDEN

Here are a couple photos of what I like to call "The Wasteland". Up until about a week ago it was waist-high grass, muscari, violets and weeds.  Pretty in the rainy season, but as soon as it warms up it's just an ugly scalded-looking mess, even when watered.  (On the left is another coil of soaker hose left behind by the previous tenant. I love free usable stuff.)

It's the perfect spot for the hot crops: tomatoes, squash, pumpkins, beans, basil, corn, et al.  And while I am trying to be a good steward here, there are a couple of poorly-placed trees that might have to be relocated.  To the wood chipper.

This here is another recycled favorite thing. The folding cot was left in a parking lot next to my office.  I took it home and grew peas on it the first year. When I moved it became my bed for awhile. Now it's my potting shelf, with the addition of a few pieces of my old chicken coop.  The pots and flats are recycled from previously purchased plants three years ago. And when I'm all done, I can fold it away or grow cukes on it.

Some starts for the hot garden.  I made the markers from the bits of milk jugs I didn't use for hot caps. 

One thing I'm noticing this year is that there's a whole lot of plastic in my garden.  Sometime down the road I'll probably make it a goal to reduce that. But not this year.

PEAS, FAVAS AND CARROTS

 Super sugar snap, golden india and blauschokker peas. In this year's garden my first priority is quick yield, second is interesting color. Most of this produce isn't going to market anywhere so I figure if I want to put color before flavor, this is the year to do it.

 Favas! I love them and didn't realize until this year that they are a cool crop. Just noticed tonight that they are full of ants. Hope that's not going to be a problem... 

Here's a stroke of good luck: the renter before me was a landscaper who left behind stacks of pavers, hunks of quartz, a big pile of compost and lots and lots of soaker hose. So the soaker hose watering my favas, peas and carrots is free to me!

Carrots. Went with the rainbow mix because I like pretty colors. Also some Parmex for quick, sweet satisfaction.

CAPPED BRASSICAS

There's a lot of recycling going on in this photo.  The hot caps are a winter's worth of milk jugs and cat litter containers I stowed in my shed. I can't tell you what a relief it is to finally put them to use so I don't look like a hoarder. Leaf mulch was recycled from sycamore leaves left on the front lawn last fall by the neighbor's trees. Some of the garden edging was bought for $5 at a thrift shop. And the broccoli & cauliflower under the caps were grown in pots and flats saved from plants I bought at a nursery three years ago. So my capital input here is the cost of seed, edging and the gas it took to run the mower while chopping the leaves.

Also in this bed: three sections of beets, one section of Spanish garlic and a big bed of lettuce that needs thinning.

BEFORE AND AFTER

This part of the yard was pretty bald when I moved in a year ago so it was first to be converted to garden space. I tried to leave the healthy sod on either side of the bald patch intact. Not that I want to grow grass much, but it's a rental so I'm not going to tear out healthy sod.  Lucky for me, that only accounts for about 1/4 of the backyard.  The rest is weeds and bare patches.

I decided to edge the garden so I could use the weedwhacker to keep the grass out of the garden.  Spent about $25 on edging and $4 on a sack of stakes to hold it up because I didn't feel like digging it all in - sometimes I conserve energy as well as money.  Single-dug the whole bed and mulched heavily with manure and leaf mulch. 

Made a spot for my grill, which I rescued from the trash. Another freebie.  The pavers under it came with the place. Still more room in the bed. Think I'll fill the rest with eggplants and herbs.