2013 Gardening

Before: Right after first planting in July.

Now.

I started the garden very late this year, since I was in Pittsburgh for all of June. July and August can get very hot in Mountain View, and the weather is quite sunny and dry. I did some blog research on late planting in the Bay Area to figure out what seeds to buy for my earth boxes. Eric and I went to Summerwinds Nursery on the 4th of July to get started. We bought six sweet corn seedlings, six cucumber seedlings, lettuce seedlings, swiss chard seedlings, spinach seedlings, a green pepper plant, a black krim tomato plant, and a Bulgarian Carrot Pepper plant. I also planted lima bean seeds, sunflower seeds, and herb seeds of basil, oregano, chives, and parsley.

Even with partial shade, the spinach bolted right away. The Romaine Lettuce and Rainbow Swiss Chard, however, did very well. I got so much lettuce I started giving it away, and it was delicious. It finally bolted, but I feel like I got more lettuce than I paid for. The Swiss Chard is still doing really well, though it grows much more slowly than the lettuce. I harvested early, and now it is growing back. I was only able to make a couple dishes out of the Rainbow Swiss Chard so I'm excited to be getting some more. Today I cut down all the bolted lettuce and made room for some cilantro. I hope to plant some spinach in place of the lettuce when it gets cooler. I saved the seeds from my first try.

Romaine Lettuce flourishing.

Rainbow Swiss Chard loving the earth box.

Amazing colors.

Lettuce is gone now.

My corn seemed to do well at first, but then completely stopped growing. The seedlings pollinated and developed ears of corn with silks, but then just stopped doing anything. I waited a long while but finally pulled them out today. The roots were so shallow they weren't even absorbing water, yet the small stalks were still alive. I have no idea what happened there. I planted a few sweet corn seeds in place of the failed stalks, just to see if they would sprout and do better. It's a perfect environment in my earth box. They either did not get enough sun, were too close together, or just didn't like to be transplanted. I also planted some more cilantro seeds in their place. If one cilantro seed doesn't do well I will have another.

One corn plant I replanted as an experiment to see if it would do well
away from the others. It got a little taller but then quit.

Here's where the corn was before I pulled it out.
Now there are four seeds in there--three corn and one cilantro.

Tiny cilantro seedling.

The peppers are doing amazing. They are huge plants and have a ton of peppers ripening. Bulgarian Carrot Peppers are really freaking hot. Don't ever cut them without gloves. I learned that the hard way. Everything on the internet says they are mild peppers for some reason. I used two tiny ones in a 1lb ground turkey taco recipe and it was pretty hot. It took me three recipes to use up a large one. I will most likely be giving these crazy things away because there is no way we can handle that many hot peppers.

Bulgarian Carrot Peppers.

Green Bell Peppers.

My cucumber plants had a rough start. Immediately I realized I planted them too close together. One suffocated and died, and I replanted another. The other four grew long and tall, curling around everything. At first I had trouble with pollination. The blossoms were just falling off. Then, when I bought some marigolds to attract bees, and cucumbers were everywhere, the birds started eating them!!! I was so mad. So I bought netting to keep the birds off, and the cucumbers are finally doing well. There are a ton, and they are ripening one by one. Now the only problem is, I am having trouble keeping powdery mildew at bay. I sprayed with milk, which didn't really help, then tried baking soda, which helped, but it came right back. Now I am trying oils, and will see how that goes. The powdery mildew isn't supposed to kill the plant or inhibit cucumber growth, but I'm afraid it will if it gets out of control. The people at the Nursery told me I was watering too much and to not water for awhile. But I tried that and in two days all the plants were wilting. Not a good idea.

First planted.

Tomato plant and cucumbers.
Tomato looked like it was dying, but had a few inedible tomatoes on it.

Corn and pepper plants.

Cucumber and tomato again, after a little love.

Now: Huge cucumber plants covered with bird netting.

See those little cucumbers back there?

Odd shaped cucumber from uneven pollination. 

Valley Carpenter Bee hanging out on my cucumber plant.

Perfect and tasty cucumber.

My single tomato plant, which I planted in the same earth box, never did well in the first place, but once it started to do better and get blossoms, it suddenly dried out completely--seriously overnight. Either I didn't water enough, it caught a disease, it gave up on life, or the cucumber plant strangled it. I'm just not sure. But it's an heirloom tomato, and it's too late in the season for tomatoes, so I didn't expect much from it anyway. I'm just impressed that I got it to come back to life once, even if it was for a short time.

The sunflower seeds were fun. I enjoyed watching them sprout and start out as tiny little seedlings. Now they are huge. I had some issues with snails and birds eating the leaves, but they are strong, resilient plants. It's just so hard to believe that these huge stalks came out of tiny seeds and need zero help standing up on their own.

Today I planted a Meyer Lemon seed from a local lemon I received. I'd love to have fruit trees some day, and since it takes 3-6 years for a lemon tree to bear fruit, I figured I might as well get started. Apparently lemon trees do well in pots. You just keep pruning them so they don't get very large. I hope it grows :-)

There's a Meyer Lemon seed in there.

Italian Parsley.

Sweet Basil.

Tiny lima bean pods (Chihuahua not part of garden).

The birds feasted on these sunflower leaves for some reason.

Tall stalks, still growing.

Dog Training, Take 2

Our walk before training on the Baylands Trail.

We have tried dog training in the past at A Dog's Life in Sunnyvale. It was a program called Growly Dog Training, which consisted of 1/2 hour private sessions using a clicker and treats. The trainer was often late, yet never extended our time, and didn't give us much to work with. For $50 per session I expected to get a lot more out of it. We were so disappointed with the results at the end of five sessions that we deemed it a waste of money and quit. Granted, this was almost three years ago, so the program might have improved, but it's also gone up in price.

A friend of mine recently recommended a Bay Area dog trainer to us whom had done wonders with her puppies. She sounded amazing, as she had a great recommendation, five star reviews on Yelp, and would come to our apartment for an hour long private training session. She charged a very reasonable price--cheaper than the Growly Dog Training and every other dog trainer in the area. Since certain situations with Mia are still stressful for us and we were not traveling this fall, we decided to try again with dog training.

In just one session, Mia learned more than in all five sessions of the Growly Dog Program. She learned some new hand signals for tricks, how to look at me on command, and that she must now sit to get attention--no more jumping. I learned that hooking her leash to the front of her harness instead of the back gave me more control when going on walks, and that it was easier to keep her next to me. We practiced some exercises on how to "stay" and how strangers in the house mean Mia gets treats. Thanks to all the guests who helped me practice!

We have now had two sessions, and Mia has learned that she needs to sit in her bed before she can get what she wants. Since Friday we have had very little jumping. Instead of jumping on us for food, treats, leash, and toys, she now goes to her bed and waits patiently while we prepare these things. We are practicing staying in the bed when a person comes to the door. She is able to do this by the third try so far, but eventually we want to perfect this so there is no more attacking people as they come in, and no risk of her running out the door. We are learning to walk together, as well. We now have commands for turn, stop, fast, and slow. I've realized that this only works as far as the parking lot where we first practiced, because I took her on our usual park walk today and she didn't pay attention to me at all. We need to keep practicing and start from scratch at each new location. She really enjoys all of our new "games." Everything is fun when you get chicken!

I appreciate everyone's help with training. I won't be able to have large groups over until she has a good foundation. Also, no one will be allowed to give her the same amount of attention she used to get. She has to trust that strangers are not going to touch her until she is comfortable with them. We need to end the snapping and lunging at people so this is very important. If you come over, please don't pet her at first, but you can give her a treat! Strangers mean chicken--that's what we are trying to accomplish!

New bed for the living room.

Tired from training all day.