My Jasmines aren't blooming

Almost everyone that has winter Jasmines seems to be overloaded with blooms. Mine are just barely blooming. What is causing me more heartache is the fact that there is a lot of browning at the base of some of the plants. Did the dry winter lead to this (we promptly turn off the irrigation when the first rains start in winter)?

This one is from the same time last year (early April 2011)

More Fuchsia therapy

It is the time of the year when the local Costco is flooded with plants. Yet again, the Fuchsias were there. With the Rohee's Blacky from last year dead, and all the crazy stuff happening this month, some Fuchsia plant therapy was in order.

Two new varieties were added to the collection,

.........and I have vowed never to let them sit out the winter.

The original Fuchsia from this house that was languishing in a crappy plastic pot was transferred to a nice big ceramic planter and is so lush and healthy...and sporting some new blooms

Amaryllis Belladonna

When we dug out the Amaryllis Belladonna's last year, we were not sure they would make it. (Read here). They were planted under the Camellia's and did not seem to be in great shape.

They got planted inside the well like structure we built around the Magnolia tree earlier in 2011. They seem to have taken to the place and also multiplied well.

Can't wait for the pretty flowers to show up in summer

Circle of life

I am so relieved that the month of March is coming to a close. It has been the most craziest roller coaster month in the 30+ years of existence. The painful lessons have been learnt- what cant be cured has to be endured and what does not kill you makes you stronger.

Now, to the happy moments that helped us pull through this month.

A sweet wedding in early March

A dear friend's baby shower (she pushed it out by a week, so I can attend). I had a great time and also enjoyed a really yummy Japanese cake that was by far the best cake I have ever eaten in my life.

And just a couple of days back, this beaten up trash can brought us immense happiness and cheer

The big haul of Oak leaves we had rounded up over a month back is still being loaded onto the weekly pick up. It sat around for most of this month, waiting for us to get back to our routine. Lo and behold, there was this tiny little bird that we totally scared. Inside was this beautiful nest with 5 little eggs. And, the nest was built with nothing other than dryer lint that we haven't gotten around to cleaning.


Life is a road with some bumpy patches, but hopefully for most of us the road is a smooth one and the odd bump doesn't deter us.

Fuchsias

The first time we spotted this lovely flower was at the "Mystery Spot" in Santa Cruz. We were stuck in their long line because we didn't know about their online booking system ...duh

These were the days when we knew nothing about plants. We were drooling over the beauty of these flowers whose names we didn't know.

When we bought our house (in April 2008), we spotted the same flower in the garden. After some research, we figured that these were Fuchsias.

In 2011, we added to the Fuchsia collection - one called Fuchsia- Rohee's Blacky

The lady who sold us these said we should put some Christmas lights over them in winter or bring them in. We did neither. The 3 Fuchsias in the hanging baskets did not make it past this winter.

The old one (original to the house) is on the front porch, protected from the cold and is producing some pretty buds

A new fence

We finally have a brand new fence on the south side of our property. I have come to the realisation that it is actually good to have the 6 foot fence, and here is why.

The neighbors side is the one where you cant see the difference between where the lawn ends and where the weeds begin. We also saw dog poop littered all over the frontyard.......ewwwww (Remember the unruly dog that charged at me more than a few times and is always outside in the yard).

We also saw that he had a plethora of boxes along the side and guess what- they were rabbits and chickens. We later heard that he was offering the rabbits for free to the guys who were there putting up the fence.

One can see the stumps of the many vines that literally held up the fence, when they were taken down, along came the old fence. The alpha male creature (it is a shame to even call it a dog) going at it all the time didn't help much either.

As the fence came off, it took down the section that held the gates for most part. So we now have new gates too ! But not without its share of drama.

The post that holds up the gate (above picture with the new frame) is right along where the water main line runs on its way to the house. Of course the guys broke the water main when they were digging out the old concrete (I don't blame them for breaking it. But it took them a while to realize it was the main and call for our help to shut it off....cant imagine how bad the water bill will be now)

After patching things up, they put down a box to hold up the cement that was going to be poured for the new METAL posts (no more sagging gates)

Even though the bank balance took quite some beating, I now feel a lot safer to venture out into the yard.

Now for some after pictures

Neat huh?

The new raised beds

Firewood rack

This was one of the last minute DIY projects in the Fall of 2011. It got bundled up in tarp right away and seems to be holding up very well.

The firewood is off the ground, leaving no room for those damn rodents, and all those leftover pieces of lumber that the resident packrat has been holding is also put to good use. I am a happy camper.

When spring is here can summer be far behind ?

The wait is finally over, hopefully we will have some homegrown Plums this season.

Our very own Chupacabra

We have had a long tumultuous history with animals of all kinds in this house. Over the years, it has gotten more and more challenging.

Summer of 2011, we had to deal with mysterious cracks in the ground. These ruined the look of the landscape, but was not causing much trouble.

A couple of props were added to the landscape, knowing fully well that they wouldn't be helpful ;). But a girls got to have her retail therapy.

Then came the attack on the vegetables. This we suspect was the squirrels that had inhabited this place all along but had mysteriously developed a love for vegetables.

Then some nasty things started happening over the fall. Squirrels (or racoons) started chewing up our drip irrigation heads and the elbows in random spots. We ended up with 350$ water bills and the slugs having a party !

But the worst was yet to come. Over the winter of 2011 the cracks in the garden became more rampant, the soil would just cave in beneath your foot and the mounds started appearing everywhere

We are still trying to do damage control and figure out a longer term fix to this issue

The indoor Chayote story

Sometime in October 2011, our trusted garden handyman Anthonio brought us a couple of Chayote Squashes he grew in his garden. These were not edible, i.e they had over matured and had extremely long thorns. I decided that they would be a good choice to hold on to and grow in our yard. So they sat by the fireplace all along and have grown to over 6 ft in length with tendrils and what not.

Another couple of weeks and I will put them out in the garden. Apparently the plant dies in winter (like all plants do) but automatically comes back to life in Spring. Wouldn't anyone love a low maintenance plant like this !

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 !

Good neighbours make good fences

A piece of news from the San Mateo county caught my attention (link). Over the past couple of months we have been involved in a futile argument about the fence we share.

The  newer fence you see is the one in question and is our neighbor's front yard fence. Our city fence guidelines mandate a 4 foot fence in the front yard and for the first 15 feet on the side yard.

We pointed that out to them, but without the least bit of care that it violates city guidelines, they went ahead and put up the 6 foot structure. As much as I support privacy because we are on a main street, the blatant violation bothers me because we are now forced to match his 6foot fence on the common side we share. But we have decided to sit tight and not complain to the city (after a lot of thought and discussion and considering that we don't want to pay for the fence all by ourselves).

The next post will be all about the new fence, just have not gotten around to  taking pictures.

Weed crack down

We had to engage in an intervention and a major crackdown on the weeds ;) 

The winter of 2011 was fairly mild, very little rains, temperatures in the 60's in December I did not expect weeds to be a big problem. (Hey I also invested a lot of time in putting down close to 4 inches of mulch). I wish my plants are half as resilient as the weeds out here.

Not stepping out into the garden for a month was a big mistake, the weeds had literally taken over the yard. Over a half day and some sore hamstrings later, the weeds are all out for now.

More bad news

Just when we were thinking that we had this place all figured out, we got this interesting piece of news. (Interestingly, calling PG&E was on the "honey do" list for a while, but it never happened)

This weird fixture you see here is about 3 ft tall and 3 ft wide and is in our front yard by the fence. I have never seen anything remotely similar in anybody else's house in the area (We are special people for who nothing comes easy).

When the San Bruno incident happened a few years back and when PG&E got around to publishing maps of supply lines, this caught my attention again and it went up higher on the "honey do" list. (the main supply line runs along the road you see right there). 

Interestingly, a few weeks back we had a guy from PG&E knocking on our front door wanting to talk about this thing. Turns out this is a pressure control valve for the main supply line (did I miss out on an opportunity to charge rent from PG&E) and it should not be here to begin with. And our house is apparently connected directly to the main supply line instead of a service line like every other house. Turns out that we have to get a brand new gas connection from the service line and they would remove this fixture and close the existing line. But this process may involve ripping out the driveway. We are waiting for more news and next steps.

A timely fix

Over the past week we finally decided to fix some issues with one of the irrigation pipes that was not laid down properly. It was a lot of work, but we are glad that we got it done.

Projects like this one are what we want to focus on this year. The veggie garden is getting a break in 2012 as we refocus.

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.

Brrrrrrrr......it is cold

The cold weather has set in almost everywhere in the US, and even in sunny California. We have been busy getting the garden ready for winter.

This is our first attempt at setting up winter protection. The past few years, we have either left the plants to fend for themselves and die in the process. We also housed a lot of the precious ones in pots that were moved indoors.

The precious plants were put inside the ground this winter, to give them the nutrition and the space to grow. So we had to built some protective cover for them.

This is the biggest structure, and it protects 5 Drumstick plants that I carefully grew from seeds (read it here and here)

This protects the Malaysian Guava that died every winter but has successfully managed to come back.

The most treasured possession i.e. my curry leaf plant looks lush in this picture. We pruned it well (with just a few sprigs to spare) and covered it p with some shade fabric and Burlap cloth as with the rest.

The foliage on this plant does not seem like much but the pruning yielded us at least a pound and a half of curry leaves (which is quite a lot, and should last me all winter)