Sunflower

Wow - it's beautiful!

My first sunflower

Much to update

These are Long Green Peppers. We don't eat many peppers but I do dry them to make a pepper seasoning that my bf likes to use on many things he cooks. Also shown is my first decent harvest - all picked last night. Most times I get one squash or one Sungella. Here I have 3 Benning Green summer squash, 2 Zephyr squash, numeroud Sungellas and one lonely Sausage tomato. There were actually 2 other small Sausage toms but the snails ate them hollow.

One of my experiments. I planted my cotton plants in the ground. Here is how they looked before that. They seem quite happy after the fact. On the left is three Mississippi Brown. On the right is from a seed that came in the MS Brown packet, but it was green so I kept it separate.

My giant summer squash - this is Bennings Green variety and apparently, I totally missed two of these behind the giant leaves it produces. This was bigger than my tomcats head and I placed a bottle cap on top of it for size comparison. We ate this one last night, and it was gooood. Sauteed lightly in a little butter with olive oil, sprinkled with bread crumbs and grated Monterey Jack cheese, a little salt & pepper to taste. YUM! :)

First bloom on my sugarsnap peas. They are just starting to trellis up the ladder as opposed to up themselves and falling over. I thought it would be easier to train them up, but they are stubborn and seem to want to grab anything BUT the ladder that I set up for them. Go figure.

My other experiment - this is my cutting from a blackberry bush near my work. I cut it, potted it, and let it go. It's done very well but I never expected it to bloom and produce for me. I know berries are supposed to come up on 2nd year canes and this is technically a 2nd year cane, but I figured the cutting would be using it's energy to re-establish itself instead of producing. This is a VERY pleasant surprise. :)

Yesterday I heard from someone I never thought I would hear from. Talk about a pleasant surprise.

Update & Status

My trashcan-taters are doing very well. While my friend who lives 20 minutes south has potatoes that are flowering, mine are lush and green because I started mine later, and my climate is much cooler than hers. Last weekend, I also added more soil to the can. The green is now to the top of the can and I will water them thoroughly when I get home from work tonight.
My original nasturtium is growing well and blooming while my new nasturtium seedling is looking hardy enough to transplant in the ground.
My loofa seedlings are ready to go in the ground but I must remember to encircle them with old tin cans (tops & bottoms cut out) and copper so the slugs don't get them before they are established.
My sunflower, which claimed to get 3-4 feet high, is now at least 5 feet tall! She's a slow grower, I tell you... A week ago I looked down on the top bloom that was coming out and it still hasn't bloomed yet. I do, however, see that within each leaf node, another bloom is forming. Originally, I thought one bloom to one plant, but last night I counted nearly 10 blooms on this one. I wonder if the seeds are edible or not? I think they are red sunflowers. I'll check my seed pack when I get home since this is the first time I've grown sunflowers.
My tomatillos are blooming and blooming and blooming. But do you think I've seen ONE tomatillo? Nope, nothing, nada. This is my first time growing these as well.
My cotton experiment is going along fine. I have three seedlings in one pot and one seedling in another. They will all get planted out this weekend, if not tonight or tomorrow.
My arugula is all a-bloom and to any regular Joe, they look like weeds. I enjoy the yellow flowers, both visually and as tasty snacks. I harvested more yellow crookneck squash the other day and we had them for dinner. I now have a Bennings Green and another crookneck that are ready to be consumed. I also harvested 3 small heads of brocolli before they went to seed as my other brocolli completely bloomed the other day. I at least wanted to get SOMETHING out of these, my first seedlings of this growing season.

Monday, revision #2

Last week was a short week and so is this week, so even though this is Tuesday, it is MY Monday back at the office. Friday I took off, packed, shopped, borrowed cooler and sleeping bag, picked up my very best friend from the local hotel she has stayed at with her sister, picked up a Westfalia camping van and headed to Fresno for a BOW weekend of wilderness survival training and self-defense training. We had a fabulous weekend, packed out brains full of knowledge, kicked some butt, and now I need a couple of days to sleep and recover. Much to my dismay, the bullfrog in the lake croooooooaked all night long and just when I thought he'd give up, another bullfrog started to answer him. And if it wasn't the bullfrog, it was the neighbors peacock. Pretty as they are, I hate them and their calling sounds. Even though I didn't have to work yesterday and my honey stayed home with me, we each had errands to do, work to be done (his work, mine school) and I had to drive to Palo Alto for my car loan which took 2 hours. I still had to go to class last night and didn't get home til way after 10 so it was too late to relax with a beer. Tonight, I'm having some sort of grilled meat, fresh squash from my garden, and a nice cold Sapporo. ahhhhhh
Oh y es, I harvested 2 more zephyr squash on Friday, 2 more crookneck squash yesterday and a sungella tomato as well. My honey was kind enough to water for me while I was gone and again last night while I was in class so all my plants, as well as my cotton seedlings, are good to go during this mild heatwave.

Wednesday...

My reading assignment is read (finally, but with no help from noisy coworkers at lunch or noisy family at night) and my take-home quiz is complete! I turned in an essay on Monday and have another one due this Monday. Not much time to write, rewrite, and finalize an essay but, that is what this accelerated summer class is all about. Besides, I have a great topic for my 'personal experience' essay and it should be a breeze once I add in the details.

Here is the status on my broccoli. It finally sprouted heads but I could tell before they got out of 'tiny-wee' stage that they were going to flower before I could eat them. I took these pictures last night and by 7am this morning, the first one had flowered already. The 2nd one was still tight enough that I picked it and took it to work to have as part of my lunch. I missed it for lunch, so it will now be my entire dinner, as I ate my dinner for lunch {sigh}.

This last picture is my zukes, growing next to the tomatoes in the side bed. I'm not sure why two are doing so much better than the one on the far left. They were all planted at exactly the same time from exactly the same seeds... c'est la vie! It is what it is...

How could I almost forget to add that I spotted my first Bennings Green summer squash last night?? Honestly, where is my head.... Heaven's to murgatroid!!

Monday blahs

I don't recall a weekend ever passing so quickly. Last week I was preparing for the weekend - purchasing paint so we could finish the living room and looking forward to a day at Janet's making stepping stones while my guy replaced his master cylinder. Saturday came and we had gotten up and had breakfast by 10am. BF headed to the auto store to pick up his master cylinder as they are a specialty shop and only open until 12 noon. His part didn't come in yet so he went back at 11AM and found that they had ordered the wrong brand; a brand almost $100 more than what they had quoted him. While his Sunday plans were shot, we still had all day on Saturday. While he was gone for the 11AM run, I was painting the living room. Once he returned, we worked together to get the first coat on, including the REALLY high trim at the top of the vaulted ceiling. Luckily, the trim is high enough that we don't need to go over it a second time, so our second coat was strictly rolling it on the main sections and touching up anything we had missed. We went in our grubbies to a local pizza joint, had a beer and picked up 2 pizzas and headed back home. We had an early dinner and went back to painting. By 7PM, the entire process was complete and cleaned up. We spent the next hour replacing the front speakers in my car.
Sunday came and I was due 30 minutes south at 9AM for a birthday bash; women only, and there was only 3 of us. Mrs B had her birthday and we decided that she would be 8 again. We made the day in to a playdate and mixed mortar, concrete, and made stepping stones and mosaic pots (in other words, we made mud pies). It was a fun filled day and I will eventually see my projects, once they dry and settle. I made it home a little after 5PM and snatched a couple of yellow crook-neck squash from the garden. I nibbled on the arugala flowers and leaves, made some rice and squash while bf smoked and grilled a couple of steaks. Delish! We watched some cooking shows and hit the sack. Meanwhile, my essay is due today and was incomplete. I finally finished writing my compare/contrast of organic vs non-organic and it's printed and ready to go. I've got to better plan my homework assignments!
My trash can taters are as high as the top of the can. I think it's way too early for them to be so large and have no idea what to do with them. Meanwhile, my tomatoes are now all staked, and string is run so that they are all vertical and happy. This stake and string technique I find easier than caging the tomatoes. I harvested two more calendula leaves, found 1 additional cotton seedling, and I am letting my spinach go to see as it never did much with this hot hot spring time anyways.

Hummers and sprouts

One of the resident hummingbirds was yelling at me yesterday while I was in the backyard. I finally looked up at the feeder and saw it was empty. "Ok, ok - I'm filling it up!" Took the feeder inside, washed it, refilled it, came outside and hung it up again. Then I got my camera, set the zoom, and sat down about 15 feet away to wait for a nice shot of him. Nothing. I didn't see him nor hear him anywhere, and I noticed the feeder was dripping. I scooched the chair back over and as I climbed to take the feeder down again, that ungrateful hummer dive-bombed me, right under our patio overhang! I fussed at him - he fussed at me - I got the drip to stop and hung the feeder again. More waiting for a photo. I heard him fuss as he flew by and landed in our apple tree 1st photo). He wasn't ready to eat, but he would chase off any others that came by for a snack. That is when he headed to the other side to sit in our neighbors fruit tree (2nd photo). You can just see his brilliant red head (just to the right of center) shining in the sun as the wind blew the branches back and forth.

Finally, the little cuss came in for a feed and this is the best of the 3 shots I got of him.

Mung beans before and after soaking. 48 hour difference.

Compared to the soaked beans above, they grew this much overnight. Amazing....

Tis Thursday

Tis a Thursday in June and I feel like I'm working on a Saturday. My eyes are sleepy, my body numb. Soon, my boss will leave for a three week assignment in India. I'll stay behind, thankfully, and watch the fort while he's gone.
Yesterday I found another cotton seedling in the pot with the Mississippi brown. A nice gentleman on the OHG forum told me how to properly care for my cotton plants and I'm very thankful for his advice. Everyone else I had asked just told me "plant them in the ground and they'll grow," which wasn't quite the information I was looking for.
I also found out that my blackberry bush experiment seems to be sprouting blossoms, or, just one blossom. A couple of months ago I wanted to try my hand at growing blackberries from a cutting. I asked our Site Operations manager at work if I could go down the hill and snatch some cuttings from the creekside in the cow pasture. He agreed, so I brought my clippers in, hopped two fences, and went in to take cuttings. Sure enough, the leaves on the cutting died, new ones sprouted, and now a couple of months later, blossoms are showing up when I least expected it. I know that blackberries only grow on 2nd year canes, and technically this is a cane more than 2 years old, but since I potted it I wasn't sure of the timing.
Why am I doing these odd experiments? My goal is to become more self sufficient in life. If I learn this information and these skills now, I will have them later when I really need them (praying for a homestead). Sometimes I feel like it is too late for me to learn all there is to know about self-sufficiency and how to do things and sometimes I feel like I cannot absorb enough information. Just since January, I have learned: how to build a wall out of used concrete and mortar, how to lay vinyl flooring tiles, how to grow my own bean sprouts (growing my first batch now), how to grow sage/blackberries from cuttings, a new way to stake tomatoes, and this weekend I will learn how to make my own stepping stones. I'm currently reading a book on caring and raising chickens and I recently finished a book on butchering livestock, game and poultry including chickens, turkeys, squirrels - you name it.

Experiment status

This year I am trying several experiments and a few new things. One of the first experiments that came to mind was to grow cotton. I know, my friends looked at me like I was nuts! I'm in zone 9, California, and wondered what cotton plants and cotton bolls looked and felt like (I'm very visual and very touchy-feely). Images online weren't enough - I wanted to see them up close and personal and be able to touch them. And I didn't want the white cotton that everyone and their mother grows; I wanted to grow cotton in beautiful natural colors. So I ordered some seeds (which came with a little cotton fuzz still on them so I could see the color), waited til it got warm, and planted them out last weekend. This weekend, I got seedlings! I can't tell you how tickled I am, and also quite excited to see if they grow and thrive and produce the Mississippi brown color. This is pre-civil war cotton and is supposed to grow a nice light tan to golden brown cotton. When the seeds arrived, I had a pack of the Mississippi Brown that included one rogue green cotton seed in it. I planted that lone green seed and the brown seed in different pots. The green came up first (right) and the brown came up second. That may have to do with the fact that my bf was watering the other day, and knocked the brown pot over with the hose. I righted it, shoved the seed back in, and two days later had the new sprout on the left.

I also grew calendula. This was my first seedling of this type and of course, first to bloom. I was surprised that once that flower emerged, it took DAYS for it to actually open and bloom. This beautiful flower took it's own sweet time and this is the result. Very much worth the wait. I enjoyed it for 3 days before I clipped it. Calendula has medicinal purposes and I plan on making my first salve with it.