Adventures in an Urban Kitchen Garden
A journal of sorts
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| April |
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| 2024 04-03 | 2024 04-09 | 2024 04-10 | 2024 04-14 | 2024 04-28 | |
| Journal | |||||
April 4, 2024
Ah, April. You know what they say about April. They say
"It's fucking raining again." That's what they say.
I can't fucking wait for the fucking weeds of May.
But it did stop raining eventually. For the moment. It's
been almost two days without any rain. ALL of the seedlings
and burly apre-seedlings are out in the fresh air, getting
what little sun they can gather from the nooks and crannys
of sunlight that manage to sneak past the condos and giant
post-modern monstrosities that people build these days in
an effort to black out the sun in my backyard. I don't ask
for much and I get less, but I'm not going to descend into
a bunch of bellyaching and grumbling. Things seem to be
growing just fine.
So my secret benefactor on "Buy Nothing Santa Monica" messaged
me a photo of these things hidden behind some garbage cans in
an alley a mile from the shop at around 2:30 PM. I found them
quite alluring in the photo, but resigned myself to the fact that
by the time I left work they'd be gone forever. However, they
were not and although it broke my heart to stuff them into the
back seat of my Tesla, I did it anyway. There they were, majorly
in the way of the dolly transporting my new water heater, but all's
well that ends well and here's how they ended up:
Full of violas and such. Now it's just a matter of time.
By the way, the craspedias and some of the celosias
will be populating Flower Island soon, although with the
adjacent box I'm not sure I can call it an island anymore.
Should be right purty along the pathway to heaven in a while
when the beans start producing and the peas thicken up some.
My damn broccolis got a late start and now they're starting to
flower. That draws bees, which love those broccoli flowers.
I am deathly allergic to bees, and while I am risking death with
this garden (the bee balm and the borage and all the rest of the
pollinator-friendly stuff is getting bigger by the day) I figure that
with my Epipen I can survive a stang or two if need be. That said,
flowering broccoli heads are completely edible and most of this
one went into my salad that evening and the rest went into my
kale and mango green drink the next morning.
I'm sure you're wondering if I have deepsixed all of the extra
plants by now and the answer is no. I'm waiting on three - count
'em three - people to grab their starter kits:
and
And there's STILL this left to deal with:
We're back in growing season, people!
April 9, 2024
Well, a couple nice days and the heat malaise sets in.
That's not to say there wasn't anything happening.
Lots of starter flowers got deployed, quite a few vegetables
got placed. Weeds got picked and, with the heat, there
was watering to do. But nothing exciting, really.
I yanked all of the cauliflowers; none of the seedlings
were out there long enough to form heads. The weather is
going to force them to flower so I made room for the actual
spring crops. I also yanked out most of the broccolis, although
some of them do have little florets on them and I'll let them
go as long as possible because they are delicious, the flowers
are edible and the bees like them. But because of the heat
malaise I have not taken a bunch of pictures to document
the changes. No big loss. There'll be plenty of time for
awesome pictures over the next month or so as the yard
fills in with dozens of flowers and hundreds of tomatos and
peppers and things.
My friends collected their starter trays and I am giving away
a bunch of the overflow at the shoe store via "Buy Nothing"
on the evil Facebook platform. I like having the plants in
the front window and I think they like it too.
I'm eating great salads; they will be better when there are
some homegrown tomatos in them. I'm eating a pretty good
hole in the lettuce ranks, but there are a couple of dozen
ready to go into the ground and another 40 or so popping up
in the germination station to follow them. Not sure how long
I can keep them going in the heat but it's time to focus on
heat-resistant varieties instead of the winter varieties.
I do love a salad. If I could just figure out a way to grow
tunafish back there I could retire.
April 10, 2024
This is catchup. The month of April was a mess; the garden
kept on but on the 18th some moron decided to turn left
on the green light I was driving through at an intersection
and totalled my car. I'll live but I was injured a bit and this
event played havoc with my blood pressure and stuff. I shot
a bunch of photos anyway but I don't have contemporaneous
journal entries so the pictures will have to be as good as
many thousands of words for a while. So here they are:
The annex has been started. Now only time will tell if
anything will actually grow.
It looks pretty desolate. Check back in June.
Peas are still producing a bit, but they were never the goal.
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These are bean seedlings in raised bed #4.
Chervil and a sage plant.
Salads, and other things. Even a sneaky weed.
This is the Eastern border. Those are a couple of volunteer
tomato plants mixed in with the flowers I started. Not
sure what the varieties are.
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Sad Flower Island.
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Onions kicked in; garlic is slowly maturing.
Gonna eat most of these lettuces before the slugs get 'em.
Baby squashes, I think.
Another angle.
Herb Avenue.
Lettuces. Some are starting to get a bit ragged.
While others are still glorious.
Army of zucchini on the way.
Where will all of this go?
Tomato Row...
More tomatoes.
April 14, 2024
I bought one mint plant. Divided it into 12. Most of them are
thriving.
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Herb Avenue.
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Snapshot.
Guest seating.
April 28, 2024
This is ten days after the accident. My blood pressure has
been steady at 180 over 100 for a while now. That's not good,
but the garden is coming along fine.
This is an incipient Zinnia flower.
Chervil is disturbingly healthy. That won't last.
This is cowshit. It goes into the ground.
Flower Island.
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Tomatoes with a small borage plant for companionship.
I forgot to pick the weeds.
Snapdragon flowering in the desert.
Working my way through the seedlings.
This broccoli has flowered itself right into the compost heap.
The beans are getting bigger. Soon I'll have to move the
Brad's Atomic Grape tomato pot and all those little mint
pots elsewhere.
The view of Tomato Row from the green bench.
A closer view.
Bob sees all.
By golly, I do believe I see a tomato flower.
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This is a damn weed. Its days are numbered.