Harvest Monday - Feb 5th

Happy Monday!

I tried to invent harvests in January when Michelle was kind enough to host Harvest Monday while Dave was away getting a tan and almost blown up. But alas, the harvest gods were like... nah, you wait. The only harvests I had were cheater harvests like trimming herbs and shelling fall corn. Boo.

So I waited.

That said, inspired by Michelle, I tried several varieties of Fava beans this year, including one that performed very well for her in the past: Extra Precoce a Grano Violetto. So before getting to the main Harvest Monday part, I want to quickly show off a picture of EPGV growing next to Ianto's yellow.

Extra Precoce a Grano Violetto, right of center. Ianto's yellow from flag to flag. Golden Sweet peas intermingling and climbing the wall.

No contest here. Look at all the blooms on the EPGV to the right!

EPGV, apart from being a mouthful (and having a jargon acronym), has done great in my garden - excellent germination, upright, ignored by aphids, and earlier to flower than the other varieties I'm trialing (Aguadulce, Robin Hood, Ianto's Yellow, Sweet Lorane, and Broad Windsor.)

Unfortunately, Favas have a difficult time in my climate. It's just not cool enough or wet enough. Even in winter, like now. Because, see, it's currently 86°... so much for winter. I'm not complaining, but the favas are. Despite the flowers, no beans are setting. The blooms just shrivel and die... and then it puts out more blooms.

I was very much hoping for beans, but I've been settled for eating the growing tips of the less precocious varieties for now. Lorane has since been nommed and pulled, making way for tomatoes in the coming weeks.

Since all the favas must come out between now and March, I don't think any will have time to mature pods, for eating much less for seed. But hey, it's not all bad -- they will provide lots of soil improvement and green manure, and currently feed the beans and my stir-fry dinners.

Fava Bean growing tips

Now, on to Harvest Monday!

Seems only fair to start with the fava greens, above. That was about 1/6 of last weeks harvest, with much much much more to come. Maybe too much. We'll see how the guts like me by Friday!

Here are the cheater, boring harvests -- let's get them out of the way. Firstly, Golden Sage. I have two plants and they both need cutting back. So far one plant has gotten a drastic haircut, and I now have two elegant 'vases' (old jars) of sage to show for it; plenty to use for cooking and tea.

While I don't personally ecommend a cup of tea made entirely of sage, some fresh or dried added to your tea contributes a subtle but pleasant heartiness to your cuppa. Hard to explain, lovely to taste.

Also, I finally shelled out my Painted Mountain Corn. Ended up with a good sized snack bowl (as the ones saved for seed were shelled elsewhere). Yup, I said snack bowl. Painted Mountain is a very soft flour corn, and, no joke, I grab a few kernels and pop them in my mouth whenever I have the munchies. Hey, don't knock it until you tried it.

I still don't have a grain mill, so for now these will be snack food and possibly parched like corn nuts in the near future. Another fun experiment I'll try to remember to document. I added some to my slow cooker baked beans the other day, halfway through the cycle. Delightfully chewy, but probably should have added them from the start. I was afraid they would disintegrate. That fear turned out to be unfounded.

These ears were the ones saved for seed. They've since been shelled as well, but didn't end up in the snack bowl. Ok, I maaay have nibbled a few from that rightmost ear one... hush. I keep your secrets.

Chard. So. Much. Chard. It's an apocalypse vegetable. Humans, cockroaches, Microsoft paint, and Swiss Chard. Everything else will perish. This is about 5 leaves washed and rough chopped. It'll take me at least two days to go through, and that's if I'm not also eating fava greens.  I could harvest twice this amount per day, easy.

See my problem?

I have over a dozen plants (why Day) that need to be completely consumed in the near future. Why completely consumed? Because I just had a much better idea for the prime real estate space they're occupying.

I'm not going to show you a picture of that real estate, however.

Because apart from the chard and a few sad favas, that bed is... well, it's a cinder block raised bed I made in a flurry one afternoon after getting jacked on caffeine and scrolling through too much Pinterest.

Raised bed, cement, hot climate... why I thought that would be a good idea I'll never know -- oh, wait, coffee and pretty pictures. Right.

We all have our weaknesses.



This is the beet bed -- and even the beets are contributing to the Chard glut now. The Mammoth Red Mangels were being impolite and shoving their fingers in their neighbor's faces. And so, in the wise words of Hannibal Lecter:

Whenever feasible, one should always try to eat the rude.

And so they, too, were nommed.

As you can see, Greybooger the curious goober cat decided to sneak in to add scale. Top left you can also see Mr. Stoner the volunteer tomato. He's growing like crazy and putting on flowers and has some forming green fruit already, which unfortunately aren't visible in the photo. I'll post more on him another day.

Speaking of tomatoes, somehow my 'Paul-Robeson-in-a-storage-tub' is still alive from last year, and hot damn is he committed to the cause. Atta' boy. First ripe tomato on February 1st, though technically I cheated since it's from a 2017 plant. But all's fair in gardening and war. Or... is it gardening and taxes?

Who cares, I have a ripe tomato in February.

The other side of the tomato is almost entirely purple, odd since it's the side facing away from the sun. Naturally, I couldn't get a good picture of it, precisely because my phone won't shoot into the sun.
(in full Harvest Monday disclosure, I'm saving seeds from this puppy so I didn't actually harvest it this week. But I could have harvested it. That counts, right?)

Oops. Ok, I cheated. I wasn't going to eat my peas. But but but.... ah... I love peas. And, spoiler alert, I finally learned how to cross pollinate peas! (post to come.) So as a reward, I've now given myself a pass to eat a few here and there... so long as they're not adorned with dangling jewelry tags,

Clearly, I did not have the self control to take a 'before' picture. Nom nom nom.

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That's it for this week. I do have two eggplant sizing up nicely on Moriarty, who despite my best efforts is swarming with spider mites again. But the eggplants still need another week and they're going to be given to my hair cut lady anyway. Hm, maybe I can pawn off some of the chard on her too...

Harvest Monday is sponsored by Dave over at Our Happy Acres -- head on over, say hi, and take a gander at what everyone else has harvested this week. Link up if you have harvests of your own!

Happy Planting!

Hakuna Matata!

slimy, yet satisfying.

What a wonderful phrase
               Hakuna Matata!
                         Ain't no passing craze
                                   It means no worries
                                             For the rest of your days
                                                       It's our problem-free philosophy
                                                                 Hakuna Matata!

Hakuna Matata: when you pull up a dozen Figeater Beetle larvae for every third shovel of compost.

Hakuna Matata: when the elder weather council predicted steady rain today, and so you push off watering for a week... just to watch the chance of precipitation fall from 93 to 0% over the course of a single morning.

Rain canceled due to lack of weather.

Hakuna Matata: when your first batch of homemade compost, the one so full of pine needles and leaf stems it took a year to breakdown, is finally distributed... and delivers a hidden army of cutworms and pill bugs that decimate your squash seedlings.

Headless Squashman

Hakuna Matata: when the gorgeous tree sprout you found in the cucumber bed, the one you want to grow as a houseplant,  turns out to be (probably) a black walnut. Which means there's a mother tree nearby, somewhere...

The evil queen in disguise

Hakuna Matata: when you're drooling to eat the snap peas, but since your cool season is short and unpredictable (could end in march, could end tomorrow) you've dedicated all plants to increasing seed stock so that next year, next year, you can sow and consume with absolute abandon.

Can't touch this.

Hakuna Matata: when the seeds you collected from Olsen, the twin mini-white cucumber, germinate at an extremely poor rate... and the few that do survive look like they belong in a "Honey, I Shrunk the Cucumbers" remake.

honorary member of the itty bitty cucumber committee

Hakuna Matata: when the onions you were convinced did not survive the five weeks no water end up sprouting after all... exaaaactly where you've now planted your cucumbers. Way to poke companion planting in the eye.

Onion ambush

And, at the same time --


Hakuna Matata: because the peas are flourishing, with flowers and pods joyously forming, ignorant of my nearly overpowering desire to masticate them.

Hakuna Matata: because Moriarty the unkillable Eggplant is happy even after a dramatic haircut, putting on a huge flush of fruit that will need to be thinned soon... lest his arms fall off.

Moriarty... and his previous neighbor, Godzilla (eaten by cutworm, RIP.)

Hakuna Matata: because Stoner Tomato the mystery volunteer is setting stripey fruit, and is probably a mediocre tasting Black Vernissage plant, but nevertheless totally content sharing a bed with the beets and getting by on next to no sunlight.

S'all gooood.

Hakuna Matata: because my dry farmed lettuce cover crop accidental experiment has turned into a lawn, and is now one of the prettiest parts of my garden.

May have over planted... just a little

Hakuna Matata: because I have an entire (haphazardly organized) card table full of healthy and vigorous tomatoes, melons and seeded peppers and squash awaiting transplant and the return of the sun.

Beam us up, Scotty!

and finally,

Hakuna Matata: because I was lucky enough not to get hit in the head by this jerk when he tumbled forty feet from the sky.

Hose Sprayer for scale...

...but scale is cheeky.

So yeah... I think Hakuna Matata sums it this last week pretty nicely. No worries.

Happy Planting!

Pea Genes, if you peas...

Two cool new 'Pea Things' have revealed themselves in my garden.
Let me introduce you:

This is a Sugar Magnolia Tendril Pea. I'll just call him Magnolia for now, because his official title is a mouthful and SMTP doesn't roll off the tongue either.

This is my first year growing Magnolia. They're pretty fun. They're a hyper tendril pea, which means they stick out  a crazy, almost disconcerting amount of grippy-grabby tendrils lacking leaves. They start like this...

HI.

Then they grab stuff...

MINE.

.... then more stuff, until they turn into little fists and punch each other while trying to grab more stuff.

MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE

They also have quite pretty flowers:

I'm pretty.

They have purple flushed pods, though I don't have any photos since mine are just starting to flower. But all in, that's what a typical Magnolia pea is supposed to look like.

Now... check out this Dude.

 

I really want to nickname it the "Lilliputian Leaves" pea but, alas, after a bit of research I discovered it already has a name: Parsley Pea.

(booo... fine.)

Here are few more pictures -- though my phone is obsessed with dirt and refuses to focus its attention elsewhere without some literal handling. 

So... what is a Parsley Pea and how did it get in with my Magnolias? Genetics time.

Now, if you know nothing about pea genes (but want to!) here's a fantastic link: Andrew's Blog - Following in Mendel's Footsteps. (I'm familiar with Andrew and his work on peas from the fantastic forum: Homegrown Goodness. If I haven't posted on my blog in a while, this is probably where you'll find me! It's definitely one of the best in-depth resources for anyone looking to know more about the vegetables that they're growing, and all the fascinating genes behind them.)

In a nutshell, the Magnolia type hyper tendril peas occurs when you outcross a Parsley pea with a regular pea. Though I haven't discovered how many genes are involved (still doing research!) it appears that within the Magnolia gene pool there are still enough recessives to occasionally unite and, with their powers combined, throw a Parsley pea.

Of the 30 or so Magnolia seeds I planted, two are growing like Parsley peas. And while they are very cool to look at, there are a few downfalls.

Firstly, since every tendril terminates in a leaf, the Parsley pea has no 'grabby hands.' Though mine may appear to be climbing, they are in fact just swept up in the arms of their neighbor Magnolias, being cradled and carried aloft. Ooo la la, how romantic.

Secondly, research has shown that the pea yield from Parsley peas tends to be very low, and much later in the season than Magnolia or other traditional varieties.

Regardless, a very interesting pop-up in this batch of Magnolia, and something I'm looking forward to saving seed from later in the season! Who knows, maybe they'll have purple flushed pods, too. We can only wait and see ~


OK< NEXT PEA


Second on today's agenda, a pea that caused a minor stir on this Homegrown Goodness thread earlier this week.
(spoiler alert: mostly unwarranted)

What's this red and white flower doing in my patch of Cascadia, which normally have all white flowers? Great question. Even stranger, when I posted an inquiry on the forum, a few people (remember Andrew, from above?) were genuinely surprised at the color arrangement. They'd never seen it before.

And while the good folks at Homegrown Goodness haven't seen everything, they sure have seen a lot.

Curious.

Remember the pink/purple colored flower from the Magnolia section? That type of coloration is quite common in peas. However, the particular and distinct division between red & white on the flower above was not something anyone on the forum had seen before. Also, see the slight red pigment where the leaves connect to the stem? That is also not traditionally present on the heirloom Cascadia plants (though you will notice, both the Magnolia and Parsley peas have it).

So over the next few days, I took photos and kept track of the flowers progress. It went a little something like this:

Interestingly, as the days went on the red & white flower turned more and more traditionally purple. The yellow spots indicate a different blossom on the same plant. I followed its progress closely, so see if it would open up red and white, like the first one, or go straight to a more traditional pink/purple.

Traditional pink/purple it was! The top blossom is the same as the one with the yellow spot next to it in the previous graphic. The darker purple one below is the original flower, that has begun to dry up and shed. If talking this subject has interested you, you can also check out this LINK for another short overview of the genetics behind purple flowers.

Now, why the first blossom looked so different and unique to anything we'd seen before remains a mystery.

But I have do a theory...

...wait, wrong theory.

Daylight. On Monday and Tuesday of two weeks ago, we had a crazy 48 rainstorm and extremely heavy cloud cover. The next day, the first blossom opened. It was overcast that day too. However, on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday the sun came back in full force.

I suspect that, like some tomatoes that turn purple when exposed to light (while the shaded ones remain red), the first blossom remained such a distinct red color due to a lack of sunlight exposure on that first day.

The second blossom, which emerged pink/purple, did so during several days of heat and bright sun.

Perhaps this is the cause of the unusual red & white color? But what it doesn't help to explain is how colored genetics ended up in my white flowered gene pool of Cascadia. Since white flowers are recessive, the most likely cause is an accidental cross that happened at the seed farm (since all my Cascadia seeds this season came straight out of a packet).

Another strange arrival this week at the Shandy Dandy that I will definitely be keeping an eye on (and saving seeds from) in the near future!

In the meantime, this colored little Cascadia still needs a nickname. Thoughts?

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PS. It took me a few days to write/compile this post, and in the meantime the original red & white flower has started forming a pod.

Happy Planting!

It's Fall! ...in January? (and we're all gunna drown)

It's already next year but... we still haven't finished last year. At least as far as the seasons go. The leaves only just started falling from the trees last week. At this rate, it won't be winter until July... and summer won't come until... Christmas?

Good thing that's not how it works. I love our climate* even for all it's strangeness.
*As long as we're not on fire... or having a that which must not be named.

The main source of all this juvenile compost?

Meet my towering garden guardian: Probably Ash Tree, aka Pat.

 

This may surpise you... but I think he's an ash. If you recognize him as something else, let me know! But use your magic powers to ensure it's, like, an elm or an oak or something. I need a vowel. I don't want to end up calling him Dwt just because he turns out to be 'definitely walnut tree.' 

Pat going blond.

See the palm tree in the top right corner of this photo? That's Jerkface. He desperately needs a beard shave *coughcuelandlord. Because while I love dodging 5 foot long saw blades falling 40ft from the sky... well, I don't.  More on Jerkface and his horrorshow appendages in another post.

Jerkface's extended family posing dramatically. Above the telephone pole, you can see a free range police helicopter off in search of prey.

We've also been having partially cloudy skies of late, which is such a nice break from the intense and glaring direct sun we usually have. To take advantage of it, I've been rushing to do any/all double digging and heavy thing moving work that needs to get done. And boy, I'm sore from it... it's easy to forget how many muscles there are in the body until all of them hurt.

The last item of news is also weather... and one of the main reasons I'm hauling ass on my digging projects this weekend:

If you haven't been keeping track of our weather here (and why would you be) we haven't had rain since... well, lemme think about it. August was the last rain big rain I remember. It was so memorable, I even made a whole post about it. After that, well... we had a brief overnight sprinkle in early September? Which warranted a mention in a post at least.

So yeah... it's been a bit.

The yellow underlining is mine, because it's that part that concerns me the most. It's not so much an issue for me or my garden, but very much an issue for the more than 300,000 acres burned up by wildfires in December alone. The LA and surrounding areas are a series of hills and valleys. Most of these valley floors are urban; most of the hills are uncultivated and often difficult to access, with the exception of some wealthy sprawling neighborhoods which mostly occupy the foothills.

And since much of the recent fire damage was in the hills... the foothills and surrounding areas are now primed to get buried in mudslides.

Right now, as I look out the window, the sun has broken through the clouds. The garden is basking, growing happily. It's 12:15pm. 70 degrees. Hard to imagine that in 24 hours roads will be flooded, and we may be digging our friend's houses out of the hillsides.

We'll see how it plays out.

But not to end on a dark note, here's a long overdue picture of my partner in crime, the many nicknamed inherited miniature grey panther of lore: Greyson Greyweiner Greybutt Poose Bunny Goober Noodle, the first.

Greyson dudeface eatin' weeds, with a Moriarty the Eggplant photobomb.

And yeah... that's lawn weed grass whatever stuff he's eating. I actually had to dig and pot it up, just for him. It's his favorite thing ever. I don't know why... but hey, if it keeps him out of the corn patch (which he also has a thing for) then I figure I can indulge him this one thing.

Weeds in a pot, sure. Why not.

What a cow.