my santa barbara country n victory garden update

MY SANTA BARBARA COUNTRY N VICTORY GARDEN UPDATE

flowers just pop up in and around my garden
the one above is a california poppy

this is a borage with its pretty blue flowers that are edible and are bee magnets
i keep one growing most of the spring and summer on the edge of my garden bed

this is a calendula that just pops up where it wants to
the bees love this one
i harvest the petals to add color to our salad

you gotta keep the bees happy you know

i am able to work in my garden away from others
i wear my n95 mask if anyone else is in the garden
if they are not i wear my cloth mask

i only use my tools i bring in myself
if i use the gardens stuff i spray it with lysol
i wear my plastic garden gloves which i spray down with lysol
i spray the garden lock entering and leaving

i realize i am probably immune to the covid 19 virus but i cant be sure about that
so
i am protecting myself from others and protecting others from myself

the nearest plot to mine is about 40 ft away
i try to garden at times when no one else is around

now that i am getting my stamina back and can work some in the garden i have been working on getting my garden planted for the rest of the spring and summer

last week i harvested around 200 onions from my garden
these are dixondale onions texas i ordered last fall
they are short hour day onions which happens to be the same ones i planted in texas
i planted a mix of red white and yellow onions with one of them being the sweet 1015 onion

i usually wait until the stalks all fall over and dry up some then i harvest them
however
last year when i tried to wait they got a fungus and mold that caused half of them to rotten
so
this year i harvested them early
for those in the know they had around 10-12 leaves on them
13 is where you want to get them to
so
i harvested them and will leave them in the garden bed to dry out some
then i will trim off the onion stalks and save them in old panty hose in our garage
they should last for several months

in this bed where the onions are i added my worm compost i make my self
i put all our veggie food scraps and egg shells in buried 5 gallon buckets with holes drilled all around
i put a concrete paver over it to keep out varmints
the worms enter the bucket through the holes and eat up the veggie stuff
whats left is a very rich compost
so
this week i harvested all 7 of my buried buckets
for a total of about 30 gallons of this rich worm compost

i then spread it thickly over my bed which is about 3 ft x 8 ft where i had my onions
i also added an organic fertilizer
i worked this in well with a larger garden fork which works the compost and fertilizer down into the soil
i then raked it all out
then
i watered it in well with a fish emulsion molasses seaweed mixture

in this bed i will plant a tatume squash which looks like a round zucchini
it runs on a vine which i will run up some mulberry limbs that were trimmed off our mulberry tree
this squash will run up the limbs
this squash can be harvested early like a zucchini or it can be allowed to grow larger like a winter squash
on the other end of the bed i will plant a zucchini squash which seems to do well here
we never have a problem with the squash vine boer here like we did in texas

in my garlic bed i did the same thing adding the worm compost plus fertilizer plus the liquid stuff
you can see how rich and dark that worm compost is
i planted a bell pepper which gets really large as the season goes on
on the other end i planted an armenian cucumber which is a long narrow cuke
it grows in a long vine so i will run it up some mulberry limbs also

surrounding the bell pepper and cuke i planted some bush french filet green beans
these are slim long beans that can be eaten raw or cooked or frozen for future use

along one side of my garden in the picture above i planted a long row of billie beans or puruvian or myocoba beans that i will let go to seed and then harvest them dry
these are our favorite beans to cook to eat

the rest of my garden is now fully planted except for a few spots
10 tomatoes early girl celebrity 3 sun gold 4 tammy tomato of unknown name and an unknown tomato from last years crop that is a productive small tomato
3 peppers bell banana jalapeno
christmas lima beans
vine french filet green beans
bush french filet green beans
kales curly leaf dinosaur red
spinach
malabar spinach red and green variety
basil
thyme
leaks
multiplying onions
some late lettuce mix

i will add things to any open spot as the season progresses

we all need to be planting a victory garden

the organicgreen doctor