Winter Garden Update 2014, Lots of Photos

 The garden at 5 weeks.

Here we have Kohlrabi, Red Beet, Chioggia Beet, a blend of Gourmet Beets and Kalettes, a hybrid plant that is crossed with brussel sprouts and kale. San Marzano Tomato plant in the back, getting huge.  I will need to put a fence around it soon, or it will move into the bed.

 Red Russian Kale

 The larger plants in the center are Brussel Sprouts.  Back row is Easter Egg Radish, White Icicle Radish and French Breakfast Radish.  Front row has Freckles, a Romaine lettuce and also some Broccoli Raab plants that are not in the picture.

 Lacinato Kale plant is a real workhorse.  I pick from these two plants each week.

 Sorrel, one of my favorite greens to add to soup and salad.  It has a wonderful lemony flavor.

Some backup Lacinato Kale plants.  I think I have 6 of these growing in a few places around the garden.

 This is Michihili, a Chinese Cabbage; off to the right are more smaller seedlings of the same plant.

 More Broccoli Raab or Rapini plants, planted just a couple of weeks ago.

 Marvel of Four Seasons lettuce

 Snow Peas

Now for some bad news!  A gopher moved in overnight and took down one of my Graffiti Cauliflower plants.  I have 6, and I hope to get him before he moves on to more and damages or kills them as he did this one.  We set a trap here so hopefully...

 Buttercrunch lettuce, and more holes from a gopher.  We set two more traps here so keep your fingers crossed that we get it.  Friday Tony will dig down 18" all around our garden, and put down a barrier of wire mesh to keep them from getting in again. Lots of work and we should have done that before I planted.

 Speckles lettuce

 Graffiti, a purple Cauliflower. The five remaining plants that the gopher didn't get to.

 Ruby Red Swiss Chard

 Augula, Oak Leaf and a butter lettuce.  Also seeded a blend of mesclun that is beginning to come in now.

I will leave you with a photo of Garden Party, my pretty rose in my front bed.  She is all covered in raindrops from the few showers we had last week.  All of my roses are blooming again!

Pretty Sunrise for Wordless Wednesday

Cool morning

Winter Garden 2014 Update

Here is the garden after 18 days.  Things are looking pretty good.  I did lose a few seedling of Buttercrunch lettuce; I guess they were just too tiny when I planted them.  I have seeded the empty spots with more.

Healthy looking Sorrel and a few of the Chinese Cabbage plants to the right, I have 12 of these planted.

Freckles Romaine Lettuce

Here are 6 Brussels Sprout plants.  Tony put these in and should have given them 2 feet between each plant; I will move some of them this week. 

Kohlrabi seedlings will be thinned out this weekend.

Graffiti, a purple Cauliflower 6 plants

Purple Russian Winter Kale.  6 plants

Lacinato  Kale 6 more plants plus the big ones below.

I will probably pull on the taller kale here as it is starting to fall over.

My beloved San Marzano Tomato plant still growing and even has a few tomatoes on it.

Lots of lettuce plants!

More lettuce

And more....

a few more

,

and yes, still more! We eat a lot of greens

Snow Peas

Ruby Red Swiss Chard

That's it for now, I will post again in a couple of weeks.  This week we have Santana winds and high temperatures.  Today was 89 and tomorrow will be 90!  Welcome to winter in San Diego County!

Early Morning Sunrise with a Mountain View

 Looking East

 Looking North Over the Mountains

 Looking East

Looking Northeast

Winter Garden 2014 is Planted!

This will be a bunch of boring pictures but I wanted to post the first planting of my winter garden.  This is our plot at the community garden, it measures 18 x18 feet.

All of my seedlings, garlic and seeds ready to go

Lacinato Kale (Dino Kale) from July

Sorrel was planted from seed in July

After rototilling and leveling the ground

Making the paths around the beds

All planted

This San Marzano tomato is doing better now than it had all summer.  I am going to try to keep it growing for next years cuttings.

2 Rocket Arugula, 6 Oak Leaf, 6 Mesclun, 14 Marvel of Four Seasons, 17 Buttercrunch lettuces

6 Cauliflower Graffiti, a purple color

14 Garlic plants and Spring Onions planted throughout the garden.

Far left is the Sorrel and 7 Ruby Swiss Chard seedlings.  Center raised bed on far right, Kohlrabi 3 rows, Red Beet 1 row, Chioggia Beet 1 row, Gourmet Beet 1 row. Center raised bed on left, Broccoli Raab 2 rows, Romaine lettuce Freckles 1 row, Easter Egg radish, White icicle radish, and French Breakfast radish sharing 1 row.  I still have space in the middle of this bed to plant more.

6 Lacinato Kale seedlings

halfway down this row is where I planted Snow Peas, with bamboo sticks for support

20 Chinese Cabbage called Michihili

All Planted, Watered and Nestled in!