Graduation day. It’s such an exciting and proud day. Hard to believe. It seems like only yesterday I was bouncing him on my knee. My my how he grew.
Graduation April 20, 2011
Almost 7 months
Ajax continues to practice his skills by visiting the local Farmers’ Market and enjoying all the attention from the farmers, customers, and other pups. He still needs help in refraining from digging in the garden.
One day at a time. One day at a time.
I wish I had the discipline to keep a written garden journal. It’s just not in me to be that organized. That’s a shame, because Linnea Design sent me a great garden journal. It’s got space to note calendar-like entries, other notes, and folders to stash things like seed packs. It’s spiral bound so it stays open nicely. The illustrations are fabulous plus there are cute garden related quotes. This journal can be used year after year.
Now here’s the deal. This garden journal needs to go to a gardener that will put it to good use. Dog-ear it. Scribble on it. Mark it up. Stain the lovely pages with your dirt covered hands. The clean pages are screaming to be filled up.
If anyone would like to help me get this garden journal to a gardener that will use it, simply ---
Leave a comment telling me what month is your favorite.
Make sure to verify the word in the super secret window.
You have until April 23, 2011, Saturday @ midnight (Pacific).
The Easter Bunny will post the winner on Easter Sunday. That’s April 24.
Check out all the other stuff Linnea Design has to offer.
Ye Gads! My windows are hideous. But that’s not the point. The point is that I scored a Heinz Tomato plant at the Tomato Ladies stand down at the Farmers’ Market this morning. I wanted to try this variety and thought I would wait until next season. What a nice surprise to see this variety available to me for a simple $2 investment.
This is what Victory Seeds has to say about this variety:
75 days, determinate — An early, bright red, crack resistant fruit. Heavy yielder with Fusarium and Verticillium disease resistance. A good processing type tomato bred and originally released by the Heinz Company.
Crack resistant?! That’s a relief. It’s good to know that “Just Say ‘No’” is working.
There are several sub varieties of the Heinz. All I know is “Heinz”.
I’m hopeful.
Where were you in 1979?!
The Iroquois believed corn, beans and squash are precious gifts from the Great Spirit. Each watched over by one of three sisters spirits, called the De-o-ha-ko, or “Our Sustainers" made up the tale of Three Sisters planting. The planting season is marked by ceremonies to honor them, and a festival commemorates the first harvest of “green” corn on the cob. By retelling the stories and performing annual rituals, Native Americans passed down the knowledge of growing, using and preserving the Three Sisters through generations. The only ritual I have is keeping the soil moist.
Iroquois were from the other side of the continent. Yokuts lived in the San Joaquin Valley and up into the Sierra Nevada Mountains. They didn’t have corn, nor beans, nor squash. Acorns dominated their diet. In elementary school we had field trips to Pioneer Village to watch an ancient Yokut woman grind acorns and weave baskets. I don’t know if any Yokuts continue to conduct education at Pioneer Village; but I do know that the local casinos are pretty successful. I do know that corn, beans, and squash are grown successfully here in the Valley; so I suspect the Three Sisters methods just might work. I’m not taking much of a gamble.
This past weekend the fruit trees enjoyed a little beauty treatment. A light trim to encourage the leaves to bush out and shade the branches from the sun, a nice helping of fertilizer, and a good deep soak was provided for all the espalier fruits. Citrus trees will have to wait until I buy more fertilizer. Most of the trees are not symmetrical and that burns Farmer MacGregor just like he burned the weeds in the lawn. You see, Farmer MacGregor enjoys symmetry. So, not only will the goal for the trees this summer be to bush out a bit more but once the abundant (I hope.) harvest is complete, a bit heavier pruning may be needed to get things in line. Some branches will be encouraged to extend past their current boundaries. That’s the goal for these trees – plum, peach, apple, pear, nectarine, and apricot –for the summer of 2011. These trees weren’t the only items trimmed this weekend.
Yes. Farmer MacGregor received a haircut from yours truly and looks much more symmetrical. He may even experience a burn to his neck similar to the sad state of the lawn.
Note to self: Schedule tree feeding with Farmer MacGregor haircuts.
A recommendation was given to add a water feature to the garden. It doesn’t need to be big or expensive. The feature can be as simple as a saucer of water at ground level to draw in some garden terminators. There’s no electricity out in the garden so a recirculating pump won’t work. I’m going to start with a simple large terra cotta saucer of water. If that’s a success, I’ll expand to accommodate the pool party. The question is where to best locate the toad pool. Where?
As I was puttering around in the garden pondering the location, my able garden assistant proceeded with the site excavation.
With the site secured and excavation underway, the saucer was cleaned out and ready to install. A quick check for depth and we’re about ready to proceed.
From one of my favorite movies:
Be sure, if I acquire three of these creatures they will be named Pete, Delmar, and Everett. I hope Ajax doesn’t take on the personality of Big Dan.
Bonus: This may be a good area to transplant my Scotch Moss.
This morning I headed down to the farmers’ market. The Tomato Lady has a stand with loads of tomato plants for sale that she has grown. I didn’t see her at her regular station so I walked on down to the gal that sells cut flowers and potted herbs. Today, she had tomato plants for sale. Great. I’ll pick up a variety that I haven’t tried before to supplement my measly seedlings. I about choked paying $3.25 for one plant! Heavens. That’s about the price of a packet that contains about 100 seeds. Oh well. I’m tired of the mess inside that starting seeds brings. It’s the price I have to pay. The Santa Clara Canner originated in Italy and is a great all round tomato.
After picking up a sack of oranges from a Dinuba citrus farmer, I wandered down to a stand that grows veggies and eggs up in the foothills east of my neighborhood. A nice bunch of carrots and a bunch of beets had my hands full (I forgot to bring my canvas bag.). Dang it. The lettuce was great over at Farmer Tesch’s stand; so I grabbed a nice head of Romaine ($1.50). I saw stuff at the grocery store that was close to $3 a head that wasn’t fit for pigs. I don’t have any green lettuce in the garden thanks to the appetites of pill bugs and earwigs. Now my hands were really full. Then I spotted the Tomato Lady! She had moved her stand closer to the sunny side of the street. Yikes. She had tons of tomato plants from which to choose.
A fellow backyard farmer at work brought in some tomato seedlings for anyone to enjoy. She hasn’t been able to face the necessary job of thinning her seedlings. I understand and will separate my choice. I picked up a Tigerella cup.
Tigerella was developed in England and produces orange and red striped fruit. We’ll see if this English dandy can hang with the big boys in Bakersfield. My money is on my favorite, Al Kuffa. But I hope I’m wrong and every plant is a wild success in the garden.
I headed up the hill to check out Garden Fest. Everything was just getting underway. Loads of plants for sale, gardening related booths, and booths not so garden related offered a bunch of stuff. It looked like there would be a great crowd to help fund the Agriculture Department at Bakersfield College.
The Horticulture Department at Bakersfield College is pleased to present their Garden Fest 2011 on Saturday, April 9 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the college's Environmental Horticulture Gardens, now called Renegade Park, which are located on Mt. Vernon Avenue north of Memorial Stadium. Garden Fest will celebrate the horticulture and agriculture programs at Bakersfield College for the seventh year.
"The event is an information outreach event to tell the community about our programs," said Lindsay Ono, Environmental Horticulture faculty at Bakersfield College. "We started our first year as a simple plant sale with nursery seminars in partnership with Kern County garden clubs. Since then, though, we've become bigger and better."
Bakersfield College's Garden Fest 2011 has grown to become Bakersfield's premiere springtime garden event for seasoned "greenthumbs" and novice gardeners alike. Garden Fest 2011 is an open house, featuring Bakersfield College's Environmental Horticulture and Agriculture programs, and draws thousands of visitors annually.
Events scheduled for year's Garden Fest 2011 include Country Garden Seminars on the California Landscape Contractors Country Garden Stage, hosted by Dale "Sultan of Sod" Edwards and Lindsay "The Plant Professor" Ono, with the help of California Living Museum. Along with Ono and Edwards, industry professionals will provide valuable tips and information on gardening, floral design, pet care, cooking and more. The popular "Build-a-Pond" seminar from Buck's Landscape Materials and Pond Shop will return again this year, too. Vendor booths will be available with information on gardening, pets, cooking, outdoor leisure, arts & crafts, and environmentally-friendly home improvement ideas. The annual farmer's market, by the Bakersfield College Renegade Ranch and Murray Family Farms, will have fresh fruits and vegetables ripe and ready for purchase.
Returning again this year is the Mean and Green Car Show, featuring muscle cars and industry-produced hybrid automobiles, and is hosted by the Bakersfield College Agriculture Ambassadors.
More than 150 participants with vendor booths will be part of Garden Fest 2011! Admission is free and some activities require a fee for participation. Proceeds benefit the horticulture program at Bakersfield College.
I've just learned that regular Sluggo doesn't work against pill bugs and earwigs. The ingredient used in Sluggo Plus is Sevin. Sevin can kill beneficial bugs as well as the boogers I’m trying to control. It has been suggested a water feature should be introduced into the garden. This will encourage beneficial insects as well as toads. Thanks to Chiot’s Run for alerting me to items left off of labels such as the hazards caused to beneficials. For now, my regular Sluggo will be kept in the garden shed. Now I need to introduce a water feature and some toads. Perhaps I’ll hire some neighborhood kids to wrangle up some toads for me.
Look at what’s developing on the other side of the garden fence!
The apricots have never made it this far in development. Sure. There have been blossoms and even some fruit; but the March winds have blown through in the past knocking the fruit down from the immature limbs. 2011 looks to be a bountiful year. There are many more growing under the shelter of the thick leaf canopy. In fact, when the trees get fertilized on Saturday, this tree will undergo a very light pruning.
Blenheim Apricot Precisely one gajillion olive-like plums dangle in the shade of the many new leaves. Honestly. There are so many plums this year there is simply no way this young tree can carry them to maturity. It is shedding some of the weaker fruit; but I may have to help nature lighten the load to allow for larger plums to develop and avoid broken limbs.
Twenty-four sweet peaches are currently getting fatter; but hope is slim that they will all make it. The one pictured here looks like it’s emerging from a nest or has a jester’s hat or is wearing a hula skirt.
Here the apples are a bit less mature than the other fruit; but there certainly are a load. Last summer we didn’t harvest early enough and the fruit was a bit pithy. August is the month to harvest these this year.
The nectarine looks like it may develop its first fruit this season. No picture here because I didn’t want to jinx it. Sun scald has taken its toll on the nectarine, peach, and apple trees. Beach umbrellas will be erected soon to help protect them from the intense sun. Typically, these trees wouldn’t be so sensitive to the sun but since they are being grown espalier they are opened up to much more sun. These three trees really need to bush out to create more of their own shade like the apricot and plum.
Charlotte Moss designed this china pattern, Espalier. This American made china would be great for a garden lunch including items harvested from this garden. For now, a sandwich wrapped in a paper towel will do just fine.
PS…The title of this blog is from an advertising campaign in the late 1970s for California Fruit.
