I just don’t even know what to do.  The tomatoes are taking over not just the garden but that entire section of yard.  That sad little plant you see hanging out of the garden box on the bottom right?  Those are our (previously huge) basil plants.  The planter to the right has also been taken over by tomato vines.

And the crazy thing is, THERE ARE LIKE 2 TOMATOES IN THAT MESS.  How???

Marsha showed up last week and when I showed her the first thing she said was, “Oh yeah, it looks like there might be too much nitrogen in the soil so it’s not flowering.”

What.

Turns out, I should never doubt what Marsha says when it comes to gardening.  Via SFgate gardening section:

Since tomatoes hate imbalances in soil nutrients, they are prime indicators in the garden when any deficiencies or excesses exist. Adding an overabundance of nitrogen fertilizer can cause abiotic disorders in your tomato crop.  …

Perhaps the best indication that a tomato bed contains too much nitrogen occurs when the plants produce lush foliage but little or no fruit. … Besides fostering heavy leaf coverage, extra nitrogen causes vines to grow to great lengths with few tomatoes to support.

Exactly.

Those white ropes you see in the picture?  A whole system Paul rigged to hold the plants up because the vines were so huge and heavy.  It didn’t work.

We could add bonemeal or colloidal phosphate to the soil to balance the nitrogen content…but let’s be real. That would mean I’d have to go out and find those things and figure out how much to put where and blah blah blah. We’ll probably just pull everything out and start from scratch.

So in addition to no tomatoes, we also managed to shade or push out any other plants in the garden.  All of our squashes have been eaten or rotted away before they were ripe.  We got about three tomatoes, a handful of peppers, and one cucumber.  Oh, but we did get a ton of basil.

Moral of the story: don’t over fertilize your tomatoes early on, and watch for these symptoms so you can nip them in the bud.  Literally.

…and thus concludes Garden Flop 2014.

Late October no longer means harvesting every last possible green thing before the frost hits.  Things here are growing and growing and growing, and they don’t seem to be slowing down.

Our tomato plants are approaching 6 feet.  We’ve got baby straightneck squashes making their way into the world, some huge anaheim peppers ready to be picked, our red bell peppers are finally turning red…

The basil, dill, tarragon, cilantro, and parsley can’t be stopped.  The rosemary hasn’t grown much but doesn’t seem to be hurting at all.

Some of the wildflower seeds that I threw into the barrels are sprouting.

And finally….wait for it…

straight eight in the houuuuuuuuse!

The lemon tree out front is about to topple over there are so many lemons on it.  Our green beans, early girl tomatoes, and zucchini plant didn’t quite make it.  But you can’t win em all.

Maybe it’s because the heat finally died down, maybe it’s the organic soil I used, maybe it’s our magic coffee grounds that get dumped on the garden weekly.  I don’t know.  But I honestly don’t feel like I’ve given the garden enough love to deserve this kind of output (not that I’m not complaining).  California gardening is awesome.

Bring on fall.

Like woah.

5 weeks ago

now

I thought our garden in Kentucky went crazy one year, but it was nothing like this.  Plants loooooove LA weather or soil or something.  Whoever said don’t plant new plants in August should not be listened to.  Our garden is growing like a boss.

The basil, two tomato plants (Champion and Beef Eater), squashes, and peppers are all going bezerk.  The tomato plants are even pulling the cages–which I originally thought would be too big for the plants–over, they’re so huge. We have baby peppers and tomatoes, and we’ve already picked some beans. The onions are looking healthy, I just have figure out when to pick them (see: radishes).  It’s all very exciting.

One problem: the growth trajectory of the beans and cucumbers (that are in the left hand corner up against the back wall) were starting to flatten out.  I thought it might be because that ginorm, leafy, flourishing, flowering squash plant smack in the middle of the garden box was shading them from all their sun.

A little over 4 weeks ago my parents brought us another half wine barrel/planter.  I planted some rainbow chard, kale, and flower seeds in it.  After 4 weeks, it looked exactly like this:

Nothing.  Weeks of watering and loving, no sprouts or beginnings of sprouts or anything. (The dark stuff on the soil are recently dumped coffee grounds.)

It may have been a little premature, but since our garden box was getting pretty crowded and that was some prime real estate, we decided to move the squash into the barrel.

“Is it bad to move a plant that big into a new environment? With other seeds?” I asked Paul as he casually reached down and pulled the huge squash plant from the garden box.

“Eh….no.”

We ignored the fact there are probably 50 other seeds in there, dug a hole, and stuck the squash in.

Went to check on it the next day:

Hm.  That’s not good.  Hoping it recovers soon.

Garden is still booming.  I still have no idea what to do with turnips.

I love it when the garden starts blooming.  I think this is going to be a good year.

…or not.  This picture was taken on Thursday.

This is a battle we have every year: how to get the garden growing before the weather warms up enough to plant anything in the ground (here in Kentucky that magical date is Derby weekend, or the first weekend of May.)   Historically, we have tended to take the greenhouse route starting early March, and have experienced about 50% success rate (see: here and here.)

Generally in March/April the biggest hurdle to overcome is high winds.  This year, it’s straight up lack of sun.  Days have been cloudy and dark and cold, and those that are clear haven’t ventured much higher than 40 degrees.

Effing.  Miserable.

BUT!  I figured why not take advantage of the lag and put some real thought into what we plant this year?  Right?  Right!

Our yard has two garden boxes, one in the front by the garage where we plant tomatoes and peppers, and one in the back against the back fence.

Both face the same way, so we figured would get comparable sun.

Wrong.

Garden box #1 has been amazingly fruitful, giving us more tomatoes and peppers than we know what to do with.  Garden box #2, as you can probably see, ends up in the shade as the trees fill in and has continually failed to produce much of anything.  The only marginally successful crops we’ve planted back there have been beets two years ago:

 …and kale last year, which got eaten up by bugs.

 I am determined this year not to let that whole back box go to waste.   Also want to have a SUPER successful herb garden.  None of this.

Poor cilantro.

More of this:

Basil! (We had more than we knew what to do with and ended up drying it.  We’re still using it for sauces and stuff).

Last week a coworker gave me the UK seed catalog which, in addition to providing all sorts of instructions for how to grow things in Kentucky. also discusses local bugs.  Talk about excitement.  I’m in the early stages of review.  Update to come.

I can’t wait for spring.