All Bundled Up

Cindy put the corks in place to support a protective cloth covering for the vegetable beds about a week ago, and when temperatures dropped into the mid 30's the last couple of nights, she covered them up to protect the plants from frost.

Shhhh, The Veggies Are Sleeping

She's not about to put all that work into raising the plants from seed, preparing the beds and transplanting the seedlings to have them nipped off by frost.  As a bonus, it makes it harder for the ravenous California Towhees to get at these plants to do the same kind of damage they've already done to the tender young Sugar Snap Peas.  

We're really pretty lucky that we live in a place where it is possible to start growing veggies in December, but they still have to be protected to keep them growing.    

Cork Farming

Using the wine corks as mulch for container plants has worked out pretty well for us (see: "Showing Our Dedication To A Noble Cause" ), but what do you do when you don't have enough corks or can't drink the wine fast enough to accumulate all the corks you need?

Why, of course you plant a cork farm and grow your own corks!  

Corks Up!

Actually, Cindy had intended to use these corks to support some shade cloth to keep the emerging vegetable plants safe from bugs and other veggie predators, such as the California Towhee or the Lesser Goldfinches, who like to nosh on our plants.

She had to quit for the day before she was able finish, but left the corks in place with the shade cloth over the top of the anti-varmint panels.  

 It's more fun to think of it as a cork farm, though.  

Nobody Told Them

I guess nobody told these green beans that they aren't supposed to want to grow at this time of year.  We didn't even plant them; they came up from this summer's beans that had dried out on the vine and fell into the bed.  So when we got some rain, the beans just sprouted and began to put down roots and develop leaves.

Volunteer Green Bean Plants

Although the freezers are already stuffed with the beans we grew this summer, as well as some from years past, Cindy decided to put up some strings for the bean plants to climb, since they appear to be thriving.

Sugar Snap Peas

The Sugar Snap Peas at the other end of the bed, which are supposed to be growing at this time of year, have been having a harder time of it.  Cindy put hardware cloth cages around some of them to keep the varmints, especially the feathered California Towhee type varmints, from eating the emerging plants.

The snap pea plants without cages have been stripped to the stems, so I guess the Towhees are hungry.  They don't seem to fancy green beans at this time of year, though; I guess they know they're out of season.

Some Happy Turkeys

When I was up in Oregon visiting my brother last month, I happened to look out the front window just as a flock of wild turkeys strolled across the front yard.

Wild Turkeys

They are apparently the progeny of a hen turkey who appeared in the neighborhood last Spring and took up residence in a cemetery a few blocks north.

More Turkeys

The hen obviously connected with a tom and soon had a flock of chicks following her around.  The chicks are grown now and current flock looked to me to be about twenty turkeys strong.  I watched as they strolled across the street and into the yard across the street, looking for seeds and grubs and whatever else wild turkeys eat.

Even More Turkeys!

They seemed completely unconcerned with human activity, obviously unaware of our former neighbor who used to shoot pheasants out of his back door in the vacant lot behind our houses.  That fellow is long gone now, but these turkeys might want to hide out in the cemetery for the rest of this week.

When Ugly Becomes Beautiful

Cindy was talking to a friend recently who asked her about an ugly pest that was devouring the leaves on her citrus trees.  When the friend described the pest as "looking like a piece of bird poop", Cindy guessed that the "pest" was actually the larval stage of the Giant Swallowtail butterfly.  Our friend was horrified to hear this because she had been carefully picking the ugly things off her trees and feeding them to her chickens.

Fortunately, the Giant Swallowtail is not an endangered species and has become fairly prevalent in Southern California, where the larvae happily feed on the leaves of citrus trees; the world can always use more butterflies.  Although the caterpillars will chew up some of the leaves, they usually aren't numerous enough to damage the tree.

The Ugly Caterpillar

My friend Kris shot a great picture of a Giant Swallowtail a couple of years ago, and shortly after that  Cindy and I found one of the larva on one of our small citrus trees.  See http://plantagarden-itllgrowonyou.blogspot.com/2013/11/giant-swallowtail-butterfly.html.

Becomes the Beautiful Butterfly

Just another lesson in not judging the worth of something based on its initial appearance.

The Down Side

The down side to living in the wonderful San Diego climate is that there really is zero down time for the vegetable gardener.  Vegetable gardeners in other parts of the country may watch while the landscape disappears beneath a layer of snow, but that doesn't apply in this climate.  No sitting by the fireside on a snowy evening perusing the stack of seed catalogs to pick out which tomatoes to plant on Memorial Day weekend for the San Diego vegetable gardener.

Cindy just pulled out the last of the tomato vines recently and harvested the remaining eggplants and peppers, but that left empty raised beds, so of course she then began preparing them for ...more vegetables.  The first thing she did was add more compost to the beds and check the irrigation system.

Empty Raised Bed

Then she planted the seeds for beets in one of the beds.

Planting Seeds

And started seeds for the cauliflower, broccoli, brussel sprouts and Swiss Chard in the mini greenhouse.

Then she called the chiropractor because her back hurt.  I can't imagine why.

End of Season

Cindy harvested the last of this summer's produce the other day; some eggplant, some basil and  her peppers.  Then she made a wonderful casserole from the eggplant and some of our tomatoes.

Harvest Still Life

And it was wonderful.