Tomatoes Up!

Tomatoes and Other Veggies--Early Stages

As she has done for the past several years, Cindy has been starting her tomatoes from seed and raising them under grow lights.  This year she thought the garage was too cold for them at first, so she started them under grow lights in her office.

Now they're big enough to be repotted and set outside during the day to "harden off", or acclimatize them to the sun and wind, and then they go back in the garage at night.

The tomatoes she's raising this year are Cherokee Purple, Siletz and Brandywine.

Tomatoes

Stumped

Current Project

When we took out the Eugenia hedge four or five years ago, it didn't occur to us that it would keep coming back again and again.  But it did.  Cindy kept cutting it back every couple of months, but it was clear that just cutting it wasn't going to kill the stumps.

When we started our back yard renovation project two years ago, we knew that we would have to deal with the Eugenia stumps when we did the north side of the yard.  Our goal is to put some small fruit trees in that area and make a level area for the barbecue grill.

So now that we've started this phase of the project, that meant the stumps finally had to go.  Greg Eubanks of Serenity Gardens has been working on them for a couple of weeks.  He was doing fine until he hit one huge old stump that seemed to have roots that went all the way to China, but he finally got that one out, too.

In all, there were about thirty Eugenia stumps, but they finally all came out.

Monster Stump

Then he realized he had forgotten that he also needed to take out the stumps from the old Boxwood hedge that was parallel to the Eugenia hedge (it never made any sense to us, but that's how it was).  Those stumps are smaller and we're all hoping they won't be as difficult to remove as the monster Eugenia stump was.

Once the Boxwood stumps are out, Greg will build a retaining wall similar to the wall he built on the south side of the yard.  The new wall will help prevent erosion and will include some steps down toward the canyon for fire access.

Anyway, that's the plan.

"Acceptable Level of Damage"

Acceptable Damage

Cindy is preparing a presentation for the new Master Gardeners' class on vegetable garden pests, so she asked me to shoot some pictures of slug damage to our potato plants, demonstrating a level of minor, acceptable damage, and another shot of more extensive and unacceptable slug damage.

Unacceptable Slug Damage

The damage to these plants was caused by common garden slugs.  Cindy had surrounded the potato plants growing in these fabric bags with plastic garden fencing, but the slugs had no trouble getting through the fencing to munch on the plant leaves to their hearts' content.

Totally Unacceptable Squirrel Damage

On second thought, do slugs have hearts?  Time to get out the Sluggo.

After I shot the pictures, Cindy continued to work in the garden, so she left the fencing off the plants for a few hours.

Between 2 p.m. and 5 p.m, when she went back out to the garden, some varmint did far more damage to the potato plants than the slugs had done by stripping whole branches of leaves.

Prime Suspect

We know it was the squirrels because this morning Cindy saw one of them hop up onto the edge of the raised bed and start pawing at the fencing she had reinstalled after she discovered the damage yesterday afternoon.

I guess he wanted some greenery to go with all the birdseed he's been snarfing down lately, but we were stunned by the amount of damage he managed to do to the plants in such a short time.

One thing for sure, we won't be putting out any beer to control the slugs:  who knows how much damage a pack of drunken squirrels could do to the garden.

Get Your Goat

The City of San Diego has a program that allows property owners to use goats to manage brush on their properties.  There's even a permit application form for it on the city's website.  Who knew?

Cindy discovered this the other day when she was working on the Master Gardener Hotline.  They had a call from a woman wanting to know how to manage weeds on her property of about two acres.  Fortunately, another Master Gardener knew about the city's brush management permitting process and found the link to the application.

The goat contractors must monitor the goats 24 hours a day and have at least two years experience with goats.

Goat contractor?  Two years experience?  Bet that makes an interesting resume entry.

Chicken Lobbying

Don't think that I don't know what Cindy and Dominick were up to with those beautiful eggs he gave us the other day;  Cindy still wants to have her own chickens.

On January 31st, the San Diego City Council voted to allow backyard chickens, bees and goats.  Unfortunately, this pretty much cuts the ground from under my strongest argument against having chickens in our yard.  Under the previous city ordinance, a coop in our yard would have been too close to the neighbor's house, but those regulations have now been relaxed to permit up to five chickens, but no roosters, and up to 2 bee hives.

The chickens must have a coop that is predator proof, watertight, ventilated, easily accessed and cleaned, with a minimum of 6 square feet per chicken.

That first requirement, "predator proof", would be essential for us because of the coyotes that occasionally sweep through the canyon behind our house.  They've killed several neighborhood cats and I'm sure they would love a nice chicken dinner.  We also have raccoons, skunks, opossums, hawks, snakes and who knows what other critters that also love chickens.

The only ones who would not be likely to get a chicken dinner out of our chickens would be Cindy and me; neither of us would ever be able to kill one of our chickens or even let somebody else do it.  We both grew up with Midwestern grandparents who raised and regularly ate their own chickens, but we couldn't do it.  We'd end up having to wait until some of the chickens died of old age before we could replace them.

Judging by how carefully she takes care of her worms, Cindy would probably be knitting them little hats and sweaters to keep them nice and warm in the winter.

Green Eggs, But No Ham

Eggs!

One of Cindy's Master Gardener friends gave her some eggs from his family's farm in La Mesa.

I was amazed at how beautiful these eggs were, especially the greenish-blue ones.  They were delicious, too, with large yolks that were so intensely yellow they were almost orange.

We wondered if such eggs had inspired Dr. Seuss's Green Eggs And Ham, but according to a Wikipedia article, it was inspired by a bet between Dr. Seuss and his publisher, Bennet Cerf, that he could not write a book using as few as 50 words.

Cock-A-Doodle

The green eggs started Cindy and me wondering what breed of chicken produces green eggs.  That led us to Henderson's Handy-Dandy Chicken Chart, which indicates that the two most likely breeds are the Ameraucana and the Arucana breeds.  The former lays various shades of blue and green egg and the latter lays only blue, so these eggs were most likely from Ameraucana chickens.

Dominick, who supplied the eggs, says the blue and green ones come from Ameraucana hens, the white ones are from Anconas and the brown eggs are from Barred Plymouth Rock hens.

Looking at pictures of Ameraucana chickens led us to an "ah ha" moment:  the Ameraucana roosters pictured were absolute ringers for Cock-A-Doodle, the very handsome rooster who had lived in our shrubbery for about a year.  We had always wondered what breed he was, so I'm thinking we may have identified it.

With the help of the hens in his new harem, Cock-A-Doodle may have helped several new generations of chickens produce lovely green eggs.

Party Animal

I couldn't resist taking a St. Patrick's Day picture of A.B., Cindy's Assistant Bear, who loves to party.

A. B. O'Bear Parties

Due to circumstances beyond his (and our) control, he unfortunately had to miss Mardi Gras this year, so a St. Patrick's Day party was absolutely essential.

I don't know about that umbrella in his drink glass, though.  That doesn't look like authentic Irish Whiskey to me.

First Rose...And Whitefly

Ole

The lovely red Ole (should be an accent mark there, but I don't know how to do that) was the first of the roses to bloom this year.

We love the brilliant red of this rose, so we went over to take a closer look.

Then we noticed the aphids and the Whitefly, tiny white sap-sucking insects, on the unopened buds.  They excrete Honeydew and a large population of Whitefly can devastate a plant.  Ugh.

Whitefly

 A blast of water is one way to get rid of these pests.  We prefer not to use insecticides, because they may also take out beneficial insects, such as Lady Beetles and Lacewings, that eat Whiteflies.

Time for the Bug Blaster.

Queen Palm Trimming

The city of San Diego used to have a forestry department that would come around and trim all the Queen Palms in the neighborhood every other year, but because the city is broke, they don't do that anymore.  

So Earl, one of our neighbors, put together a deal with a tree trimming company to come do it for us last Saturday.  

I love watching these guys work.  One guy goes up in a cherry picker crane and uses a power saw to cut through the stems of the old fronds and the seed pods.  

They just let the fronds fall to the ground, but this crew attaches a rope to the seed pod and carefully lowers it to the ground; if they let the pods fall, the seeds will explode off the pod and go all over the place.  Earl told us that each pod weighs about 60 pounds; that much weight falling from a 50 or 60 foot tall tree could be a real hazard.  

Once the fronds are cut, they trimmers also take off as many of the frond butts they can, but some remain on the trees until they fall off naturally.  We found that out the hard way years ago when we came home and found that a palm butt had shattered the window of the car we had left parked on the street under the tree.  

Sometimes gravity is not your friend.  

"Shave and a Haircut..."

Queen Palm Nut Pods

Our neighborhood was a subdivision of San Diego begun in 1910.  The streets are all named after English counties, but the prevailing architectural styles are Craftsman and Spanish Revival.

Somewhere along the way, somebody planted Queen Palms, Syagrus romanzoffiana, along most of the streets.

After the Haircut

When I first moved to San Diego, I told my realtor that I wanted "real trees", not palms, but I've grown rather fond of them over the years.  For one thing, you don't have to spend entire weekends in the fall raking leaves.

The main problem with Queen Palms is that they are not "self cleaning", meaning that they occasionally need to have dead fronds and seed pods trimmed off to keep them healthy and attractive.

Lots of Queen Palms in the 'Hood

The seed pods are really the worst aspect of Queen Palms; they look interesting at first, with a fibrous pod forming under the fronds, which later splits open to reveal the hundreds of palm nuts inside.  If the nuts are left on the tree, they eventually turn orange and drop off onto the ground below.  Where they decay.  And stink.  And attract vermin.

And if you don't sweep them up, they're a tripping hazard for your neighbors and will eventually create thousands of little palm trees in your yard.
It's no wonder that some communities in Florida consider them an invasive species.

Properly cared for, they can be quite attractive.

Gnome Management

I just had to post a link to this IPM (Invasive Pest Management) video on how to deal with invasive garden gnomes.

Who knew they were such pests?  Now we just need a video on how to deal with invisible deer...

Orchidaceous

Are Those Buds????

Somebody gave Cindy a lovely orchid several years ago, and it was beautiful while the flowers lasted.

But after it finished blooming, the plant was shifted around from place to place and finally ended up in the plant "hospital" behind the garage, where it has been ever since.

Recently Cindy noticed some buds on the plant; a cool, shady environment and a program of benign neglect seems to have agreed with it.

Now the deep purple buds have finally opened, revealing the creamy interiors of these gorgeous flowers.

The word "orchidaceous" means "of, relating to, or denoting plants of the orchid family", but the word itself seems to have a connotation of the luscious, outrageous beauty of these wonderful flowers.

Orchidaceous.  Wow.

Yes!!!