T was home sick this morning, but we did manage to get out there and pick some Armenian cucumbers, tomatoes, and zinnias. I really don’t want him to take the flowers, especially the buds that haven’t opened yet, but hey, this gets him into the garden. And who knows, maybe I’ll even sell some flowers next year. I hope to do a lot of reading about flowers this winter.

Alright! Tonight I transplanted 2 sixpacks of Gypsy Broccoli and a napa cabbage. Near the end I actually started discarding the seedlings that had black or light colored spots on them. Good for me.

I’m nervous about these plants’ survival, though, because I think the plants that were already in the ground got cooked under the row cover. The closest one to where I pulled back the fabric so I could plant tonight was pretty dried out. I think that the combination of compost that’s too young, the bed not having been watered for very many  days between adding the fertilizer and transplanting, and the use of rowcover in warm weather may be too much heat for them. We’ll have to see. I meant to run the water at the end of my time out there, but T ran out of the house naked to find me and I had to go inside without even  putting my tools away.

I noticed that there is space for about 3 beds between the tomatoes and the 4th row of pumpkins. The soil in the 2 that are farther from the pumpkins is pretty loose – at least near the surface. Maybe this means

I didn’t have time to pick strawberries tonight. Aside from bug damage, I think it will be ok. It’ll give the berries a chance to catch up- we have had a lot of foggy mornings! Our freezer is full, by the way, so I really need to be giving this food away or selling it. Those both require time. I did pick 3 of the yellow squashes  that I’m growing, but I don’t know if I brought them in, left them out there, or asked Z to carry them into the house.

I finally got the new greens bed finished. I put out some fertilizer (7-7-2? the one with the picture of broccoli on it) and oyster shell meal today, raked it in, put the drip tape back, and then had help from Z’s parents and T in putting row cover over it all. I wish we had pipes or something to hold the row cover off the ground. The reason I’m  using it is in hopes of keeping animals from digging in the bed. They have been killing my peas and radishes (plus digging up whatever carrot and lettuce seed remain) every night.

Tonight I planted Green Arrow shelling peas. I had way too much seed so I did 2 approximately 20-foot sections. One side wasn’t along the trellis. The package clains that this variety grows to only 2′ tall, but I bet I can find a picture of 3 and a half-foot tall shelling peas from last year.

I found a Spiny Clotbur plant in flower and took a few photos. Here’s one:

The cucumber beetles are out of control in the 4th pumpkin bed! I put out one yellow sticky trap and 35 minutes later, there were 1 cucumber beetle, 1 potentially good bug, and a wasp on it (or, wait, was that a yellowjacket?). I swiped the wasp and it flew away. I thought I had bought cucumber beetle lure, but I didn’t see it with the traps. Will have to check again…

Ugh, what did I even get done this weekend? We went to 2 birthday parties!

I picked over a gallon of strawberries the last 2 nights (brought one half-gallon to a birthday party next door! What’s weird is that they didn’t put them out on the table for ppl to eat. What else? I keep pulling weeds in the 5th pumpkin bed to try to get some light on those plants, but if I had the time I probably should just pull them out and prep the bed for a cover crop and strawberries.

I did a bunch of weeding and pulling old leaves out of the peppers and tomatoes, and I put some extra oyster shell lime under the neediest-looking plants (until I ran out of what I had brought to the garden).

I planted some Tashkent (?) Marigolds tonight to see if they will grow this late. I have really awful luck with small seeds and it’s probably too late. I guess these are the variety ppl like for Day of the Dead.

My compost looks like ashes and straw, for the most part. I’ve turned it 4 times in 11 days, but I didn’t turn it soon enough after I started it so I think it got too hot too fast. It’s just warm now.

We’re still getting some broccoli – even some 2-inch side shoots from the big plants! I need to pull all of those and most of the kales and somehow chop them up and compost them. Maybe at the rate of a few plants per day.

We are getting (squash and?) cucumber beetle damage on the cucumbers. The Armenian cukes grow too fast and I can’t harvest them b4 they turn into baseball bats. The yellow crookneck squash has started to bear. The first peas have emerged. I wish I had planted the rest of the row – I was going to do shelling peas, which take longer to mature than snap peas. Hm.

This week they’ve been paving our street. It’s about a mile and a half or so long. It gets a lot of traffic because it’s a major route between Santa Rosa and roads that lead to Rohnert Park – plus it leads to a bunch of places in the hills. Today they paved the part of our side of the street that’s outside of our house. I avoided the garden this morning so I’d avoid the fumes. I picked most of the pears from the trees that are at the front of the garden yesterday while 6 trucks drove by carrying asphalt. So many!

Today I focused on housecleaning. I got out there for a little while tonight -T helped me to plant some lettuce, carrots, and radishes. Why do I have so few packets of radish seed? Anyhow, then I also planted a packet of “blue” snap peas. They look like they might be a spring crop, though, based on what the packet says.

My in-laws picked tomatoes and kale, which were used in the pizza Z made tonight, and T picked basil. I didn’t have time to pick strawberries (had to run some errands in the afternoon, plus T was clingy!). So I’m feeling garden withdrawal. Looks like T is a bit sick so he’ll be home with me tomorrow = no fertilizing, moving compost, etc. SIGH! Plus it’ll be the 1st anniversary of my dad’s death. 😦 Nice full moon tonight!

Last night I felt like I was pulling out as many bad strawberries as good ones (three baskets, gave one to the new neighbors!). We’ll see if I get to pick berries tomorrow.

I wrote to a local gleaning organization to ask if they wanted to come and pick pears. No response (yet?).

Today’s harvest included over a half-gallon of strawberries and 2 ears of corn. I couldn’t stand watching th is Armenian cucumber get any bigger