Miniature Watermelons! Thank you!!!

I am very remiss....  I didn't thank you, Noel, for the Mexican Miniature Watermelon seeds!  They were with the carrot seeds you got me for Christmas, and I somehow was so carrot-centric I didn't even notice how special they were until I just rediscovered them and googled them!

 

 

I need to get my Melothria scabra seeds germinating in some soil soon for spring transplant!

 

Thank you Noel!  I love them!

Earthworms

I found some earthworms in the garden!  There are only a few, and they were clustered in the roots of a lettuce plant that I was transplanting. 

This is HUGE, important data:  I've been starving the earthworms!  Now I'm burying clusters of earthworm food (coffee grounds, veggie kitchen scraps, etc) in the ground where I know they are!  And I'll be laying leaf mulch everywhere. 

I honestly didn't think I had a single one... : )

Rainy December 30th

I didn't take any photos today for the blog, as it rained most of the day!  Clearly the plants are happy.  Snow levels were down to 4000 feet locally, and the mountains look amazingly pretty.  Not a lot of growth outside today...  no sun and pretty chilly.

American Goldfinch Swarm Behavior

These little guys crack me up : )

Frost Coated Veggies

Here's how the leafy vegetable garden looked this morning before the sun thawed their melted leaves...

It's amazing that these plants survive the frost every night.

The Great Spinach Soil Experiment

 

It's a chilly winter morning in Lancaster, California, after a low last night of 29 degrees, and I have all of the supplies I need to do the soil experiment I've been dreaming of!

 

We're going to start with a few plants of Spinach Bloomsdale that have been growing in the "vietnam" section of the garden, out front, blocked from the chilly winds of the arctic.  I have 6 plants, all in slightly amended clay soil, and they have been wildly underperforming since they went in the ground a month or two ago.

 

They're just not happy in the amended clay soil.

 

So, the experiment will consist of removing three of the spinach plants from their garden homes, and placing each of the three removed plants in a pot with "special" soil.

 

Hopefully this experiment will make it very clear which soil mix is superior for growing vegetables.  The resulting winning soil will be used to fill my raised beds!

 

 

 

A visitor....   Cute little hooded sparrow.

And now, the soil ingredients......

 

Top Soil

 

Vermiculite

 

Peat Moss

 

Garden Gourmet Compost

 

Garden Gourmet ingredients...

 

Compost

 

Super Soil Potting Soil

 

The three pots of soil

 

Pot #1

 

Post #2

 

 

Pot #3

 

 

Pot #1 is a 50/50 mixture of Garden Gourmet compost and Top Soil (plus a couple of trowels of worm castings, a tablespoon of blood meal, and a tablespoon of bone meal)

 

Pot #2 is a mixture of 1/3 compost, 1/3 peat moss, and 1/3 vermiculite.  Most online sources say this is THE soil for raised beds, growing amazing vegetables, etc.  Oh, I also added a couple of trowels of worm castings, a tablespoon of blood meal, and a tablespoon of bone meal, just like I did with Pot #1.

 

Pot #3 is commercial Super Soil.  I did not add anything else, just super soil.

 

Now, back to the spinach.

 

The icey leaves have thawed, and it's time to transplant the spinach plants.

 

 

The spinach plants are in their new homes!

 

Pot #2

 

Pot #3

 

Pot #1

Let the experiment begin!!!

Fennel..... soooo pretty

Sent from my Motorola ATRIX™ 4G on AT&T

Baby veggies

Sent from my Motorola ATRIX™ 4G on AT&T

Garden Update! 12-15-12



Time for a garden update!  It's chilly outside, but I had to do a walkthrough to see what's going on with my little leafy friends....   lets see what's happening!

 

 

 

On your left, we have Kale... on your right, we have Yukina Savoy, a lovely Asian cabbage-like green.  Kale is clearly the winner, leafing out nicely and looking anxious to get into the ground.  Savoy.....  keep trying.

 

I'm really in love with the way Fennel grows here in the winter.  It starts out with skinny little leafy sprouts, and then goes WAY fluffy....  We'll see more in a bit.  Here are a bunch of baby Fennel plants.... cuuuute!

Baby veggies.... all growing nicely.

The spinach in the center of Vietnam is doing fine, but growing very slowly.  I steal a few leaves off of each plant every weekend and it comes back, but I'm not seeing the 8" leaves I expected.  We'll keep watching.

Here it is....  the fancy member of Vietnam.  Fennel!  The pretty leafy top over the bulb base sure is happy here in my little zone 8B garden.  Pretty!

You must admit, the leafy variety looks delicious!  Red India Mustard, Romaine, Spinach, Celery, and Cabbage.   Yum!

Hard to see, but the seed tape of beets is showing some little sprouts. 

Same here for the carrots seed tape.  Not as impressive as my carrots-in-pots experiment.

I pulled aside the dirt to show that this carrot is almost ready to pull.   The tasty orange meat is peeking out of the dirt, and the diameter is almost an inch.

Ok, here it is, my only cabbage.  Not sure why all the others didn't make it, but this one looks cute!

Similarly amusing, here's my only celery plant.  I planted lots, but they didn't survive.  Still trying to germinate and grow more.  Look at the cute little celery stalks : )

I'm so thrilled with Red India mustard.  What a beautiful, hardy, vigorous, and tasty plant!

Another fancy little plant....   Green Ice Lettuce.  Gorgeous on a sunny day, and delicious snipped off leaf by leaf into a salad.

This spinach is growing a bit faster than the other, so I'm hoping for large leaves soon.