Web Wetted by Weather

Wet drizzle has kept us from digging very much this weekend. Along the coast the low clouds have been parked right on top of us for 2 days. The moisture highlights the spider webs in the avocado and lemon tree. Hopefully the sun will return next week and the veggies will be happy and burst forth with new growth. Happy Gardening!!

Potato Ranch Update

The tater ranch is in a state of renewal. It's soon going to be out with phase 1 and in with the new spuds. So far we have 5 containers started for phase 2 and looking forward to starting more soon. Our harvest now stands at 76 potatoes. And each and every one was yummy. If anyone has ideas on starting potatoes fast, please let me know. We've got 10 potatoes sitting out on the counter just waiting for their eyes to sprout. Wish they would sprout faster..... Happy Gardening from Our Suburban Garden to Yours.

Strawberry Patch Gets Ceramic Tile

Thanks to a suggestion from Ruth at http://diaryofamadgardener.blogspot.com/ we decided to tile our strawberry patch. So far it is so much neater to have the berries on the tiles rather than on the soil. We are so glad she made this suggestion. Thanks! Happy Gardening from Our Suburban Garden.

Wate melin Seeds Today

Lil Bro went with Dad to get some irrigation supplies at the store. The seed display got his attention and we stared at the packets until he decided he wanted to grow parsley and watermelon. He had to choose just one, and Dad suggested that he would not enjoy parsley as much as he would enjoy watermelon. Meanwhile, Dad's thinking the garden is already full, what will we do?




We decided to try growing watermelon in a 15 gallon container in an empty corner next to the citrus & avocado trees. Lil Bro made a good choice with watermelon. When he asked how to spell watermelon, Dad said it is spelled just like it sounds. Now we have a cool sign for the wate melin patch.

20 Yukon Gold Potatoes

While we're on this potato harvesting kick, here are the first Yukon gold potatoes grown in Our Suburban Garden. Seems like all the potato plants are dying off for the harvest even though we stretched the planting out over a 4 month period. Perhaps the Yukon golds have a longer growing season and the Reds have a shorter season so they all meet in the middle. The Dark red norlands made excellent mashed potatoes and home fries. We are looking forward to enjoying these new spuds soon.

18 Potatoes

Yesterday and today we emptied out a potato container plant each day. The containers had 9 taters each. That brings our total to 44 potatoes. Home fries were a wonderful treat yesterday with salt, pepper, and chicken tikka masala sauce. Planning for some nice smooth mashed potatoes on Friday from these babies.. Happy Gardening!!!

Strawberry Nirvana

Today we all trekked over to the California Strawberry Festival held in Ventura County. The drive is spectacular when you get north of Malibu. PCH is carved between mountain bluffs and ancient rock formations and the ocean. Suddenly the mountains end and there are miles of strawberry fields. After the festival we took a wrong turn (I usually get lost) and stumbled upon a U-Pick farm. The kids' enthusiasm kicked in and we picked half a flat of super sweet strawberries. It's nice to visit this beautiful region, have some fun, and dream a little...

Lil Bro Demonstrates Potato Harvest

Even a kid can do it. He harvested 4 taters today! Just click the play button to watch how he did it. Happy Gardening from Our Suburban Garden.

Strawberries on Steroids ?

The strawberries plants and leaves are huge!!! Not sure what has them so excited except the warm weather. The fruit is just starting to form and it looks very promising. Last year we had some weeks when we could harvest one collander of berries each day. Oh Yea!!! (That's the bottom of our dwarf Washington navel orange tree in the back of the photo)

Any advice for dealing with strawberries that touch the ground and rot or get eaten by insects? Would straw stop it? Please leave a comment if you know. Thanks!!

Future Salad Ingredients

Oh my.. The veggies are growing so big and we planted so close together. The green ice lettuce has been wonderful and keeps growing back. The carrots are filling in. The cucumber is starting to spread out and we are training him to climb the wire cage. When the cucumber gets to the top of the cage, we'll fabricate a homemade trellis so it leaves the ground clear for some other veggies. The kale, onion and tomato are visible on the left. Eventually we will get an entire salad from this little section of Our Suburban Garden. Yum.

Pretty Potted Pepper Plant

Here is a close up view of our first sweet green bell pepper. She's still smaller than an olive. Looks like we have a dozen flowers on each of the 2 potted pepper plants. At this rate, we'll have lots of peppers in June and July. Today we had a quick visit in the garden. Enough time to water the container garden, put a wire tomato cage around the baby Japanese black trifele plant, and then sow a new batch of Italian kale seeds in a five gallon container .

Also had fresh salad for lunch and dinner. And cooked up some home grown potato & onion home fries. Potatoes harvested yesterday. Umm Umm Good. Happy Gardening to Everyone!!!

Lil Bro Makes Mothers Day Gift

While Big Bro and Dad were mowing in front, Lil Bro secretly picked up plant clippings that were destined for the mulching mower. Lil Bro decided to use potting soil and re-plant the clippings for Mom. What a nice kid!!!! Happy Mothers Day !!!!!!

Bigger Better Tomato Cage

The tomatoes that grew by themselves this year are almost up to the top of the 3 stakes we've been tying them to. So what do we do next? Well we decided to go big. The bigger better tomato cage is obviously a quick creation. And we hope it is strong and holds up the tomatoes and allows easy access for the harvest. It's hard to believe these 2 plants grew by themselves. It's hard to believe the one on the left survived the move in March. Let's see if we can grow these plants all the way to the top of this big cage. The little wire cage next to this is guiding the cucumber plant up. Soon we'll need a bigger better cage there also. Happy Gardening from Our Suburban Garden.

Green Beans Beginning to Sprout

The green beans are beginning to grow in that small patch of the garden that we recently planted with onions, spinach, leaf lettuce, tomato, cantelope, and green beans. We are expecting Our Suburban Garden to become quite a jungle this summer when all the veggies grow up. For now though we have some room for these young plants. We are expecting a few hot days here and the green beans and tomatoes should love that.

Also, not pictured, the boys helped harvest one potato container this afternoon. It was exciting to hear all our glee when spotting the red potatoes one by one. The prize today was 8 potatoes from that one container. They were mostly the size of extra large eggs and some were like medium sized store bought potatoes. Everyone, keep digging in the dirt and have fun!

Potato Ranch Update

Here is the latest on the potato container ranch. The ones in the middle seem to be dying off and will be the next harvested once they loose all their green foliage. The remainder of them are doing pretty well. One of these days we will get around to planting the next set. The last time we planted potatoes was March 1st. Happy gardening from Our Suburban Garden to yours.