Dabney Garden Blog

On a better note, the day I left (12/22/08) the first sweet pea plant had a pretty purple bloom, and one of the squash was starting to get a bud.  Note that these yield dates, even if they bear fruit, will be beyond the expected range for the plant.  Clearly these ranges are calculated for summer growing, and the Theoretical Eating Chart is not so useful for winter plantings.  I’m not sure how to update it for winter usefulness, as even the latter range dates are far too early.

But yeah, we’re going to have veggies, and that’s cool.

So this year we planted a lot of things in the late fall.  A number of things did not do so well in the cold, shady garden.  Insects are definitely a problem as well, even in this cold weather.  For the purpose of record keeping, the poorest performers are:

• broccoli (very slow-growing, but also eaten to death by cabbage worms)
• spinach (just veeery slow-growing?)
• lettuce (maybe never sprouted?)
• most of the greens, with the exception of the red mustard and russian kale (sprouted, but slow-growing and some of them eaten to death)

It seems that beets and carrots are doing fine, but are growing extremely slowly.  Notably, there were two rows of carrots planted a week apart, and the earlier ones are very much larger.  Since that week was very warm comparatively, the older ones are far more than a winter week ahead.  I think in general we planted far too late.  Lessons for next year: everything should be in the ground by early October! (If not sooner…)  Our current crops seem as though they will not be mature by the date of a proper spring planting in early to late March in the coming year.

I tend to think that spring planting and summer gardening will be a more satisfying endeavor, with faster-growing, possibly healthier plants.  For example, faster-growing plants should be better able to overcome insects.  

I also think we should have the tree to the west of the main patch trimmed.  I think a few minor branches are making a lot of difference in terms of the plants getting more than a very few hours of sunlight per day.

I also want to start trapping squirrels and taking them off somewhere else, nasty little buggers.  I don’t know what Caltech would think about that, or whether it’s properly legal.  But I’d love to catch them all and put them up in Angeles Nat’l Forest or something.  I’m sure they’d be fine there, and they’d no longer dig the radishes or eat half of each tomato and eggplant.  

Dumb old squirrels.

It wouldn’t surprise me if it has rained 4 inches in the past three days.  I’ve had the watering system turned off, and the garden seems fine, no puddles or anything even.  The rain is also helping with the mildew problems, washing the spores off the plants and out of the air and such.  The beans are still bearing, and are remarkably crispy due to the rain.  Delicious.