2019 Project Update

Man, it's been a while. Fall of 2018 since I wrote anything here.

Updates first:

The watermelon landrace is meh. Four melons this year, none of which have matured yet. All have the Ali Baba patterning, but two of the four surviving plants have the icebox size melons. The plants that were supposed to be the primary female parent didn't survive the spring. I'll plant them in the greenhouse next year and transplant so I make sure I have the crosses I need.

The commercial variety sweet potatoes appear to be doing exactly what I want. Because of the dry conditions they're sending their roots deep. Most of those roots will not be harvested, but will remain in the soil to provide compost. The sweet potato breeding project is in its first year and I got two well adapted plants that produced flowers. I'll be keeping those two and planting them next year to evaluate.

Dry bean landrace is going to have to be restarted next year. I keep trying to do too many things at once--in this case, inter-planting non-adapted dry beans (to get the start of a landrace) in a dry area that doesn't get much water, where the soil doesn't hold water well, without mulch, and in bad soil. Hm... One thing at a time, Lauren! :)

The dry garden is doing OK. The parkstrips were watered only once this year. Tomatoes, squash, pumpkins and sunchokes all thrived. Still getting too much water, I think, because it's the "dry" stuff like echinacea and irises that are struggling. The main dry garden has thriving tepary beans but again they're just starting to bloom. If I can't get seeds, I can't get my 1st generation and start the adaptation process.

The plum and almond trees didn't get watered at all this year. There was more mid and late season fruit drop, and the fruit on the plum was smaller and less sweet. The almonds had more empty pods and shriveled nuts, but both plum and almond still provided a reasonable harvest. The nectarine was deeply watered once a month and absolutely thrived. While water is available I'll use the once a month watering schedule for all the trees, but with the knowledge that they can still produce if that is not possible.

This spring I again planted my tomatoes in regular garden soil (primarily sand), in bad light, and with little water. The survivors are thriving and most have fruited. Next year I'll do the same, and probably every year after. My eventual goal is tomatoes that thrive in bad soil, with bad water and bad light, and still produce a decent harvest.

The bell peppers are actually producing this year. The seeds are probably (?) first generation, but previous years have produced spindly plants that don't produce before the first frost. Last year they actually started to bloom in October. I started and will start the seeds the same way I did the tomatoes. If they can't thrive here, I don't want them here.

Park Strip Conversion Project Update

This spring I started a new project--it's been planned for a while, but this year I asked a bunch of friends to come help me. We pulled all the grass out of the parkstrips. I was able to get a chipdrop a few days later and filled the space with wood chips. Then I spent a couple weeks transplanting drought tolerant plants from other areas of the yard.

When it fills in it will be AMAZING, and in the meantime I'm not paying the city to water "their" grass three times a week. The park strips abut my property but are technically owned by the city--however, the adjacent land owner is responsible for maintenance. Grass takes a LOT of water, so I decided to take care of the problem.

I now have echinacea, groundcovers, irises, tarragon and a bunch of other drought tolerant or borderline xeric plants in there.

The rocks create a little bit of a protected zone, where the sun doesn't hit the soil directly and the water doesn't evaporate as fast.

This week I planted a sweet potato. I'm not sure if it will survive, but I figured it's worth a try.

This morning I noticed something interesting. It's wet enough out there, even in full sun, that fungus has started to grow. This was a dog vomit fungus, which is technically a slime mold and not a fungus, but it normally grows in shade and in very wet areas. What is this doing in a bed that was supposed to be dry???! In full sun, no less.

I've been watering this area for five minutes once a week and everything has been thriving even in full sun and with the summer heat (Mid to high nineties during the day)--except a few items that can't stand wet feet. They've mostly died. That should have told me what was going on.

I dug down in the soil and it's wet for a good six inches down. Probably more, but that's as far as I dug. I'm extending the watering schedule out to 9 days--I think we'd be good to go to two or even three weeks, but I want to do this gradually and let the plants get used to the change.

Garden Update

This year is a little different than last because I have the greenhouse. It seems to have moderated my planting addiction to a certain extent.

About mid-April I was thinking about planting watermelon at the beginning of May and went back to my records to see if that was too soon, only to discover that last year I planted them in March. MARCH!? There's snow on the ground in March! Good grief. So no, May is not too soon.

Greens are going full bore. They are naturalized in my garden and come up every year, although I'm not sure how that's going to work with the mulching schedule. Every 7 years each area of the garden will get a thick layer of leaves. So we'll see. Lots of salad! Radishes are also naturalized in the same area, and interestingly enough where those things are growing there are no weeds.

Beans are up. Hidatsu Red and Hidatsu Shield by the bean towers, two varieties of tepary beans by the fence. The tepary beans are a trial this year, a drought tolerant type of bean from the Southwest US. I planted the green beans two days ago and the dry beans yesterday. Kidney beans will also go by the fence, as they're supposedly a climber. 60% germination on that one so far, for beans purchased from the grocery store four years ago.

Watermelons were planted out last week.

Two Joseph Lofthouse winter squash in front beside the almond, along with a mystery squash that was a gift. One cantaloupe, also a gift, seems to be doing well. I planted more cantaloupe in the same area. Three zucchini are up under the walnut. The Black Beauty Zucchini don't seem to be germinating well. I planted more zucchini and yellow squash as a border around the new garden area.

On the east of the house is an area that has been designated as the "dry" garden for this year. The plan is to water it at most once a month during the summer. It's the start of developing drought tolerant varieties and learning about dry farming. Eleven seedlings up and starting to get secondary leaves.