The first ever fruit harvest

For the first time in 4 years, the Plums managed to survive the Squirrel attack

Our first ever harvest of fruits from the garden

Summer 2012 blooms

The bird feeder adventures

When we decided to put up a bird feeder we designed it to be far away from any branch and high enough off the ground. We hoped that this would be enough to keep the Squirrels at bay. We also designed it as a pulley-cable-hook system with a very thin cable hoping it wouldn't give them enough of a foot hold. But they are smart creatures and up for the challenge.

As soon as the bird feeder went up, the Squirrels were all over it. Within a few hours, they had mastered the subtle trick of getting on to the feeder. They seemed to have taken some cliff hanging lessons from Sly Stallone.

Our first step was to mix in some cayenne powder with the seeds. This didn't seem to bother them one bit. In fact they seem to enjoy the added spice and kick and were coming back for more. We then installed a squirrel baffle that we rigged using a cheap metal salad tray that was picked up from Smart-n-Final.

That has seemed to do the trick for the last few days enough to "baffle" them. But the Squirrels are content eating the scraps the birds drop as they feed.

Artichokes

Sometime in the summer of 2011 I received 2 artichoke plants in a blog giveaway from www.groworganic.com

They were planted in the ground in the fall, and one of them sported a healthy artichoke that we did not harvest and sported a very beautiful flower. Over the winter and the most recent and abundant spring rains, the artichoke plants are thriving. Actually one of them is doing really well, whereas the other is just starting out. I am wondering if the smaller one is set at higher level in the ground and all the water that it is getting is draining off into the more healthier plant just below it.


The struggling one

The bigger of the two plants

The new raised beds

More raised beds

You would think we are crazy to be building more planter beds. Well, maybe we are !

Four massive 12*3 foot beds are replacing 3 of the Gen1 raised beds we had here and expanding the planting area.

It is proving to be a really massive project. Just leveling the boxes took almost a full day. Then the hardware cloth that had to be custom fit took away another entire day. We still have not gotten to filling up these boxes with our miracle soil+compost combo, which we assume will take 2 full days for our trusted garden handyman Anthonio.

This has also become a pretty expensive project with the lumber costing over $300, the 10 cubic yards of compost costing around $300 as well, the hardware cloth, the lag screws and the rest adding up to around $500 and the many days of labor. Now there goes the budget for a Hawaii vacation !

Getting ready for winter

The past couple of weeks we got our garden ready for winter and all the weeds. Our yard has been riddled with weeds of all kinds. Slowly we have been trying to eliminate them (most importantly without the use of any chemicals).

Every year we have been covering unused areas with weed fabric or newsprint and a few inches of wood chips. (Read about our experience with Oak mulch here).

 Some of the woodchips we put down in 2008 have already started to decompose really well and are turning into organic matter. I now see weeds growing in them. I am not quite sure how I should deal with this. Add more woodchips on top maybe? or should I first remove the decomposed matter and them add new chips?

In areas (where I intend to plant this summer) I have not put down any weed fabric. Just a nice thick layer of woodchips.

Now that this big task is done...I can rest easy knowing that weeds wont take over my wonderland.

From the summer of 2011

This was very early on in the summer, because after the vegetables started coming in, there was no more time for pictures of the garden.

This picture now adorns my desktop, reminding me how far we have come.

Drumstick update

In the summer of 2010 I set out on this ambitious experiment of trying to grow Drumsticks in California (and from seed may I add). Read about that here.

Of the 7 seeds I grew only 3 made it to the end of the season. I kept them in these big blue buckets all through the growing season last year and they were moved under a covered porch area (It just has a roof overhang and no protection from the sides.

They survived the winter without any additional protection and looked like this when they were set out this spring.

They are now in the ground in the south side of the house. This place has very poor soil (which works perfectly for the Drumstick), and gets abundant sunlight too. We just need to remember to cover it up with burlap this winter.

In the month or so they have been in the ground, the plants have begun to settle in very well. Hopefully I get some nice juicy Drumsticks this summer.

On another note, I bought yet another packet of Drumstick seeds and have 3 lovely plants growing in small pots.

The well

We picked up these lovely green tinged, even sized pieces of concrete for our recycled retaining wall project (read here and here)
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But then we went overboard or guesstimated badly and ended up with a lot more concrete pieces than what we would need.

There is no dearth for ideas, and off we went....building our well. A dry well like structure around our Magnolia tree. I had always envisioned a small seating area around the tree, probably made of wood. But concrete would work too.

And the full picture

And the birds eye view of the new well and the retaining wall

The next recycled concrete retaining wall

In the fall of 2010 we envisioned a project to use recycled concrete to shore up the back fence that had a grade difference with our neighbors. This is where we started off (read here).

You can see the difference in grade in this picture

We completed that wall in the spring of 2011, and used up pretty much all the concrete we had hauled from almost 25 miles away from home in multiple trips.Filling it up took a lot of soil and compost, and needless to say time. (read here)

This is how it looks now

Ever since, we have been scouring Craig's list for any listings that had at least some decent looking concrete pieces. It turned out to be either too far, or ones broken up pretty badly.

Just a couple of days back during my drive to work I spotted a demo crew down our street tearing up an old house that was sold recently. I figured the driveways were going to be taken apart as well. We spoke to the guy doing the demo, quickly rented a pick up truck form the U-Haul down the road and bagged these beauties. This batch is much nicer than the ones we picked up the first time around. Bigger beefier pieces that have been broken into even pieces and they are also stained a light tint of green.

Our reliable "garden help" helped haul it in during the week and has been working on getting the wall up over the last couple of days.

Looks like I might get rid of all the soil (piled up behind the concrete pieces here) and compost piles I have had sitting around for this project.

Bulbs 2011

We went crazy buying bulbs in 2010 and breaking the bank. We also set them out in bad locations (and the moles/ voles didn't help either. Read about the Calla Lilies here and here) As I was looking for the pictures on our 2010 bulbs I realized that I never posted anything about the lovely Dahlias, the Tulips, Hyacinthus and Asiatic Lilies that were planted in 2010.

In 2011, we learnt from our mistakes, and we got only the ones we really liked and thought through our decision on where to plant them.


But then again....we were lazy. The bulbs were languishing in the garage for few months and them it finally struck me sometime last weekend that I needed to plant them before it was too late. The bulbs were actually growing through the plastic bag in which they were packed.

One of my favorites from the 2010 garden were the Asiatic Lilies that were extremely fragrant and were very long lasting when cut and put together in a vase. We had decided to plant them in our newly built recycled concrete planter bed (read here).



These are the bulbs that I bought in 2011. We picked up every variety of Lily I set my eyes on.

After a week of being in the ground, they seem to be doing well.....I guess I did not cause too much harm by delaying my planting.

The Camellias

This past weekend we worked on a project that has been on my wish list ever since we bought the house in April 2008.

Each of the Camellias are unique and bear very pretty flowers. Here are some

This is a picture from fall of 2008 when the pool demolition was in progress

We finally managed to dig out these Camellias and move them closer to the back fence. And now i am keeping my fingers crossed, and praying that they make it.

I haven't pruned them as yet, and hopefully they will all survive and take well to the new surroundings.

Art on the walls

After 2 years of sitting around in the garage....this clearance aisle find finally went up near our backyard concrete patio.

More on this "test garden" area shortly

Backyard retaining wall

I have gone off the blog radar for a while...thought I'd peep in with some progress reports.

The work to build one of the two retaining walls in the backyard is under way. The retaining wall is to hide the difference in grade between our neighbours fence and ours.

This is the smaller of the two walls, on the smaller section of the back fence. 

It is a tough job....each of those concrete pieces weigh a ton ! 

More on the progress coming up soon...

Recycled Concrete Stepping Stones

We picked up a ton of concrete pieces that someone was giving away for free a few months back. (Read my earlier post here). It was with the idea of building a retaining wall to compensate for the change in grade and the stop the neighbour's dog from digging under the fence !

The progress on building the dry stacked hasn't taken off, it needs a lot of investment in time and money that we are not ready to do any time soon. Plus we needed some walkways in the garden.

Over the last couple of months we have been creating walkways and paths in our front and back garden with the recycled concrete pieces, and here is how we laid them out

In the front lawn

In the flower area in the front

And in the backyard

Retaining wall - Part 2

This was the trailer we purchased recently. We drove almost 50 miles one-way to pick this thing up. We thought it was a bargain when we bought it and yes, it was perfectly fine the first few days when we ferried massive chunks of concrete from an old driveway.

We were in for a rude shock during week 2. As you can see the frame is broken, and thank god it didn't happen in the middle of the freeway.

We were planning on using the trailer to dump all the rocks we were digging out of our backyard. Off we went with our first load to the Zanker landfill and thanks to lousy directions online we were going in circles trying to find the entrance. And right when we were close, two deceptive speed bumps took the life out of the trailer. There we were at 1.30 pm and just a few hours shy of the closure time with a broken trailer and wondering what to do. Thankfully, one of the guys working for us had a pick up truck that we eventually used to dump the stuff. Now to move this thing out of the way before Monday when it is going to be in the way for dump trucks. After an hour on the phone with AAA roadside assistance and talking to multiple people we managed to figure out a way to have this covered by our roadside assistance policy and to tow it free of charge back home. The next week Guru went shopping around to see how we could get it fixed.

As we looked closer, we found bad work and realized that it probably was not the bargain we thought it was earlier.

And after $600 ....here is how it looks. Hopefully built to last with a completely new tongue and a frame made of heavy C-channel and welded all the way through to the frame of the the trailer.