After the rain

An unseasonable late June rain has just broken here in the East Bay of California... The plants were rejoicing...

We see much growth happening in the coming days.

Click on photos for high res :)

Chard Wars

It's a beautiful day in the bay area. 73 degrees Fahrenheit, sunny and nothing to do in the garden but water and watch everything grow.

Or.... be silly and stage the many battles of the epic sci-fi series Chard Wars 

Battle of Strawberry Buds

The Empire invasion of Carrots 

Radish Troopers are done looking for droids

The Epic Chard Wars. 

patent pending :) 

   

March Update

I've decided to do a monthly update in addition to our regular posts. It's almost impossible to tell you everything that we have going on here... but I'm going to try anyway.

First, some very exciting news. Our potato experiment appears to be working !

There is also a number of sprouts coming out of the side of the cage as we hoped. It's very exciting. It took 16 days from planting our potato cuts to seeing growth breaking through to bask in the sun. We are very proud of our tiny tubers. 

Generally all around the garden we are seeing a lot of progress. Little green folks popping up all over the place. 

Look at all our little green friends !

We also picked and ate our first radish. 

The peas are starting to grab their trellis. 

Strawberries are doing great in their gutter.

This poppy should be in full bloom any minute now. 

And just for fun here is a list of everything we are growing.

1. Radish
2. Red Stalked Celery
3. Purple Broccoli
4. Carrot
5. Parsnip
6. Rainbow Chard
7. Chioggia Beets
8. Golden Beets
9. Sugar Snaps
10. Shell Peas
11. Basil
12. Chive
13. Tulsy Basil
14. Chamomile
15. Oregano
16. Cat Nip
17. Mint
18. Butter Lettuce
19. Spinach
20. Oak Heart Lettuce
21. Arugula
22. Bok Choy
23. Daikon
24. Russet Potato
25. Butter Potato
26. Red Potato
27. Red Cabbage

It's been a fun,exciting and challenging month at The Littlest Farm with so much more to come in April.

In the gutter

It has been a busy couple of weeks here at The Littlest Farm... busy enough that we haven't had time to post but here are the latest updates and a quick instructional.

Let the updates begin!

Our starts have started.

It has only been a couple of weeks and we have all of our herb and ( bee attracting ) flowers poking their heads out.

Meg picked up a straw bale from a local horse farm for only eight dollars and built a planter box for it. 

Carrots were promptly planted.

There is also purple broccoli and red stemmed celery getting started in another set of beds.  

This posts instructional is a great space saver for folks with little room for growing. 

Gutters!

I purchased a ten foot section of vinyl gutter and cut in into two five foot pieces and using some masonry screws mounted it above our raised beds giving us a new space to plant our pick-able lettuces. 

First cap off the ends.

Drill some holes for drainage.

Mount brackets

I spaced them at 2 inches, 30 inches and 58 inches for a 60 inch section.

Insert gutter

I will be adding roughly 10% vermiculite to the soil for water retention.