The main crop figs started late, and seemed to grow slowly. With the recent hot weather, they seem to be taking off and growing.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Fig Progress Notes
One of my biggest gardening anxieties this year related to the figs. They got off to a late start, and lost their initial leaves to late frost. I wondered if I would get any figs at all this year.
The main crop figs started late, and seemed to grow slowly. With the recent hot weather, they seem to be taking off and growing.
Hardy Chicago - The figs are the size of a quarter. This variety is supposed to take a freeze that kills the top, and still grow back fast enough for a fall crop.
Petite negri - I thought about cutting this one down this year. The new growth did not look promising. Now it has more small figs than any of the other trees.
"Vancouver" fig - probably Brunswick. These are the largest of any of the main crop figs.
"Vancouver" again - The one and only breba. I ate it today. Very yummy! Sweet and tropical tasting.
Lattarula" - I wondered if this would have any. These are now the size of blueberries. They seems to enlarge from "almost-too-small-to-see", "almost-overnight". Will they be in time for a fall crop? Being on the South side of the house, this location may be warmer and encourage faster growth. Or not.
The main crop figs started late, and seemed to grow slowly. With the recent hot weather, they seem to be taking off and growing.
Kitchen Garden Progress Notes
The veggies contine to produce. Cherry tomatoes came 'on-line' about one week ago with occasional ripe tomatoes, and now with a bowlful every day. LemonBoy has been producing for a week, but the first 4 had significant blossom end rot. I'll need to check on that - I thought it was an issue of calcium content of the soil, so used lots of crushed eggshell in soil prep this year. I hope that subsequent tomatoes are not so affected.
I also planted a new crop of Ning's "ChangChun" climbing beans, adjacent to the current ones that appear to be giving up. We'll see if they produce this fall.
The front row is mesclun, also growing fast.
Labels:
beans,
cucumber,
kitchen garden,
pepper,
tomato,
tomato disease
Monday, August 11, 2008
More beans
Planted more today. Nothing lost if they don't produce, but if they do, we'll have some more fresh garden produce in the fall.
"Greening" the lawn

I can come up with an opinion about anything...
"Traditional" lawn maintenance burns as much gasoline in an hour as driving 100 miles, results in as much petrochemical spillage as the Exxon Valdez, causes air pollution with polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and ozone, wastes water, damages waterways.
In keeping with living 'greener'-
1. We let the lawn go brown for the summer. OK, some of that was just neglect, but the front lawn was intentional. It greens up nicely when the rains start in the fall. Fortunately, we dont live in Sacramento, where citizens can be harrassed into watering their lawns during an official drought!
2. We let the lawn go 'diverse'. This was also passive, mostly. Anything that stays small (clover, small-leaf ground covers, yarrow, alyssum, violets) can stay. I do pull dandelions by hand. Those are fed either to the compost pile or to the chickens.
Obviously, with a brown lawn, the new mower isn't needed now. I'll see how it works this fall, before giving up the more traditional rotary (but electric) mower.
(Image at the top is copyright-expired from wikipedia commons)
States where I've been.
These are the states where I've visited, lived in, or driven through. If just the airport, I would add a few more:

visited 30 states (60%)
Create your own visited map of The United States or determine the next president
These are the states where I've lived at least a couple of months, although in most cases several years. Louisiana was boot camp, Texas was medic training. I've lived at least 4 years in each of the others. My heart is in the Pacific Northwest.

visited 7 states (14%)
Create your own visited map of The United States or determine the next president
(Thanks to Plants are the Strangest People for the cool link)
visited 30 states (60%)
Create your own visited map of The United States or determine the next president
These are the states where I've lived at least a couple of months, although in most cases several years. Louisiana was boot camp, Texas was medic training. I've lived at least 4 years in each of the others. My heart is in the Pacific Northwest.
visited 7 states (14%)
Create your own visited map of The United States or determine the next president
(Thanks to Plants are the Strangest People for the cool link)
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