A busy Memorial Day weekend gardening

This time Kevin takes the prize for taking the initiative to get the backyard cleaned up. He was up early yesterday sorting through all the stuff that could be hauled away, from sun-torn frost sheets, broken pots to rotting wood. It all filled his pick-up truck and this morning he took it all to the dump before work.

In another week or so we'll hvae a truck load of organic trash to take to the dump: years of dead branches, palm fronds, freeze-killed vegetation. I'm also going to trim a lot of plants of the dead branches. I could perhaps also rake up all the dead oleander leaves.

He also set up bird netting around one of our 10x4 lot, using the old PVC pipes and getting corners for them. They may not be too sturdy during our winds though, as I've already had to adjust a few beams.

The vegetables are slowly coming up. I'm still fighting a battle with the yellow and black aphids though, and one spinach had sponge fungus that showed up overnight. K also planted the small peet cups of turnips and beets into the eastern lot, and in another week or so he'll have more to plant there as the lettuce, cabbage and other goodies come up.

The older cabbage is looking harvestable.

I took my grapefruit tree outside, the last tree to see sunlight. The plant was shocked by the drastic weather change. The leaves burned and today the leaves have all dropped. It will now regrow hardier leaves and do better now.

Over 100 beans coming up!

I think giving the soil a break last year has made it more fertile this year. Things are coming up: tomatoes, beans, peppers, cabbage, peas, eggplant, turnips, beets and my beloved spinach which I can't get enough of. Kevin waters the garden faithfully twice a day.

And we haven't had much insect infestation yet, although I saw my first grasshopper today.

We have agreed to extend the western plot by another 10x10 area using recycled soil that has been solarizing for two years. Our back yard is finally taking shape and looking less like a redneck yard with empty pots and garden equipemtn along the fenceline.

Aphids!

Yellow aphids have attacked my oleanders on the eastern perimeter AND my little peach tree. Right now I'm getting rid of them organically, with a high-pressure garden hose at close range. Today will be the fourth day I will have done this method, each day decreasing the amount of aphids on the plants. There also seems to be white mealy mites on some of the same plants infected with the aphids.

Otherwise we seem to have little insects so far. But the growing season is young! We seem to finally have a decent garden coming up, with tomatoes growing fruit and our first beans coming up. Kevin planted so many more new seeds in peet containers: beans, turnips, beets and even lettuce will go into the eastern garden, that new plot he prepped last weekend. Planting will begin in early June, so that the plants will benefit from the monsoon as they are strong enough to handle heavy rains.

My spinach is really growing nicely this year. I think this is the best year yet for spinach.

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Prepping the east garden

Kevin continued to prep more of the eastern garden, spreading out steer manure and mulch. His rows of turnips, beans and beets are slowly sprouting.

This afternoon I jet-sprayed yellow aphids off the young oleander shrubs on the east fence. The young peach tree also had black ones. I didn't see any aphids on the other fruit trees, and this is the first time in two years I've had aphids.

My grapefruit tree is showing four fruit growing, the same tree that shows trunk damage to its outer cambrium.

Otherwise, the spinach is slowly coming up. I trimmed down one plant for a salad and a few days later new leaves had come up. I may finally have a steady growth of baby spinach!

I also planted a few more potato skins; I have two plants coming up that way.

I also transplanted the rescued cucumber plant into the large bed behind the pine tree. This was the plant I dug up from the compost tumbler a few months ago.

Tomatoes are also filling in. Today they all received some 30-30-30 fertilizer to blossom more. The bush beans are also slowly dropping fruit. Can't wait to eat the first tomatoes, but I think that won't be till the monsoon hits.

The white cabbage is also coming in nicely. We should have our first heads at the end of June.

It was very windy and dry today, with smoke from the Chiricahua hazing out the eastern sky.

Our first beans

My first green beans are coming up ready for harvest, and they are all beans I planted in separate containers. I seem to do better with containers here in the high desert. Even the peppers that overwintered are doing better than the ones planted this spring in the raised bed.

Kevin was busy all weekend getting the eastern lot ready for a late June planting. He's got all the seeds ready: turnips, radishes, more beans and peppers, and a few eggplant.

Yesterday he even bought eight bags of steer manure. I'm surprised the dogs haven't torn into those warm bags yet.

Our first peppers

The pepper plants that overwintered are the first plants to grow fruit this time around. The lone tomato plant that overwintered is also growing nicely and is flowering, but no fruit yet. The tomatoes outside are all doing well, though, and it seems that more beans are sprouting despite the occassional bird killings.

Our oleander shrubs are all growing new branches from the root base. Next month I'll trim them all down to an even six feet so that all plants are at the same height. I don't want to cut them down to a foot tall as then we loose privacy.

The strawberries are doing well, two are dying off but I think that may be from the cat peeing there. The rest are doing fine. Maybe I should fertilize them some more and give them more shade.

I have the first snow peas frozen in the freezer as now I'm waiting for the beans to fruit.

I think my orange honeysuckle vine is dead. It should be growing new vines by now but sofar there is nothing. And the bottlebrush is as dead as can be. Both cactus are now dried skeletons in the front yard. I'll replace those later this year.

The palm tree is coming back now. Despite the heavy winds these last two days it didn't lose any fronds.

I trimmed the jasmine vine down to its living vines; most of the shrub was dead anyway and the new growth just grew over the dead stuff.

We desperately need rain. We should be at least 6" for this year and we haven't even made it to half that much.