Growth

In the spring, we moved into a little house in Spreckels with a huge backyard. The owners had created raised beds when they lived there, but the previous tenants hadn't been gardeners so the garden was somewhat neglected. Here it is in March.


Aaron got started clearing the beds, trimming back the rosemary and planting.
A lot of hard work and a month later, here's the garden in April with strawberries in the foreground, the bean trellis up in the back and some small tomatoes and lettuce visible in the midground.

It took a while for things to start growing well. Masses of earwigs tried to wipe out the little starts initially. But by May things were growing nicely.

Monterey County is generally about 10 degrees cooler than Davis, but sometimes it's 20-30 degrees cooler. That's nice when I drive down from sweltering Davis, but some of the plants wish it were warmer. It took a while for things to really take off but by June the tomatoes were getting big, the coriander was starting to bloom and the squash were getting ready to take over the world. We planted corn and sunflowers and prepared a new bed where we planted hopi red dye amaranth, japanese indigo, more bok choi, sweet potatoes, more beans and more basil
July was spent trying to corral unruly squash and tomatoes. The pest problem was improving/changing though there was a large beast who got the beets.
By August, the buttercup squash has extended practically everywhere and has 10-15 fruits. (Pepoes!) The coriander is drying in the garage. The sunflowers are blooming, we've been eating fresh corn and collecting zucchini and tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes.

Aaron also had the brilliant idea of making a little privacy screen along the driveway with corn and sunflowers. Unfortunately after planting we realized we had rather short varieties of both corn and sunflowers. But we will trellis the beans on the end into a super tall if narrow little screen.The pest of the moment seems to be aphids...coating the artichoke and some of the squash. We did find this beneficial insect (assuming it is a soldier bug as we believe). Unfortunately it doesn't eat aphids but if the flea beetles that decimated my eggplant in Davis appear here, it'll be ready.
We have been eating well from the garden. Here's a frittata made with Sadie and Ariel's eggs, potatoes and garlic grown in our Davis garden, zucchini and tomatoes from this garden. Unfortunately the variety of onions we grew this year in Davis weren't too good and didn't keep. Next year.