Sun Slays June Gloom!

What do tomatoes, watermelon, and Jen have in common? We love sun! And there has been far too little of it here in Half Moon Bay as we've headed into "June Gloom". Bleck.

Thankfully, the chief executive meteorologists with their spiffy Doppler 3000's have been absolutely wrong in their forecasts of overcast and light showers, and we have had two -- count 'em! -- two whole days of intermittent sun! That's good enough for me and loads of excitement for the lil' ones out there in the garden trying to grow up.

(Of course, now I've gone and tempted the weather gods and probably will get smacked by a hurricane tomorrow...)

Anyway, here are how things are looking:

Can't believe I went from working 80+ hours a week to watching my garden grow. I've gone from Gordon Gekko's right hand gal to Mary-Mary-Quite-Contrary in under a year's time.

Half Moon Bay-bies

We had a particularly overcast and gloomy Memorial Day Weekend here in Half Moon Bay, but it seems that the "greenhouse" is working because we have little baby flowers and vegetables!! Today is bright and sunny, so these little ones are going to get their first real taste of pure, unfiltered sun! And then, they are going to find out about their little photosynthesis engines. How cool would it be to discover that inside you? Kinda a superhero-finds-out-about-her-superpower moment...
Here are baby wildflowers -- brown-eyed susies, painted daisies, wallflowers, scarlet buglers, bachelor buttons, coreopsis, purple coneflowers, indian blankets, alyssum, arroyo lupines, white yarrows, and mission red monkeyflowers. How awesome is it to be growing a monkeyflower?

Come here ya little sweet pea!

I'm strong to the finish when I eats my....

As Janet Jackson once said, "Gimme a beet!"

(look how cute those little red buggers are!)

Tiny little marigolds...defenders of the garden universe.

A sunflower is born.

Oregano: Hey there, what Thyme is it? Heh heh heh.

Thyme: Yeah, that hasn't gotten old. I'm just sitting here wishing you'd get transplanted.

Parsley: Yeah, but can you do THIS?

Mint: Show off.

FBF in HMB! Part 4

Last Friday was the assembly of the "greenhouse" part of the raised boxes. To do that, I bought polywoven plastic used for greenhouses in the northeast that is supposed to be able to withstand gale force winds, as the side of our house where we put the boxes tends to act a bit like a wind tunnel when we have storms. This is me measuring out the plastic.

My design for the "greenhouse" is to allow it to be pulled over the boxes, but also to be able to furl the plastic when the days are warm and when we are working in the garden and don't want to have to negotiate our way around it.

So, I cut the plastic to the right length to cover the boxes while allowing for approximately 3-ft. high plants in each box. Then, I wrapped the plastic around a 1"x2" redwood slat and screwed it to the fence. Leon installed 2"x3" uprights at the edges of each box, on each of which we put a u-shaped bracket. I put a 1"x2" redwood slat in the bracket to create a sort of frame, pulled the plastic over the top of it, then put another slat in the frame so it stays anchored and taught. We installed cleats on the fence and on the boxes so that we can either tie down the plastic and secure it when we want to use the "greenhouse" or we can roll and furl the plastic when we are working on the garden or it is sunny.



Here are boxes 4 & 5 unfurled.

Here they are furled.

We had plans over the weekend, so we didn't get to work much on the planter boxes, though I finished up the installation of the plastic on Sunday.
Today (Monday), however, I was determined to get the soil in and plant the garden. Mom recommended a blend of a third each of soil, peat moss, and compost/manure. Because I got soil that was already mixed with compost, I blended about 60% soil, 27% peat moss, and 13% steer manure/compost. I'm guestimating on those percentages, but I think it looked about like that.

Leon came home and helped bring in the last of the dirt, and then we got to PLANT!!!

Last week I put together a planting plan based upon the book called Great Garden Companions by Sally Jean Cunningham (thanks for the great reference, Mom!). I followed the recommendations made in the book about combining certain flowers with vegetables to fight off bad insects and encourage good ones. I'm also delighted to think about having an assortment of flowers I can pick to decorate our house!

Leon and I planted cucumbers, watermelon, basil, cilantro, peas, beans, squash, garlic, lettuce, onions, carrots, beets, and spinach. We interspersed them with sunflowers, marigolds, wildflowers, and nasturtiums. Tomorrow I'll pick up three small tomato plants, and I'm presently growing four peppers from seed, both of which I'll add to the basil bed.

Here's our "salad" box. I got the heirloom red and white pinwheel beets that I really, really hope grow okay. And we have TONS of onions....too many to plant, so maybe I'll be shipping some to Idaho.

Finished up the planting and lowered the "greenhouse" to tuck the little seedlings in for the night. It can still get cold here -- while it was 80 degrees yesterday and sunny, today it was overcast and in the mid-60's and it is expected to dip below 50 degrees tomorrow night. We are keeping our fingers crossed that this will work for the little plants!

FBF in HMB! Part 3

Jen again here. Yesterday was day 3 on the garden project, and I was determined to get the boxes done. Leon helped me with the angled cuts on Box #3, which was a big help.

I also figured out that the sawhorse is a nice height for the compound miter saw, but it is too high for me to maintain constant downward and straight pressure to follow through on the cut, so I started using a c-clamp and one of the structural supports and things got a lot better after that, and a bunch faster.

Here's me blowing off the top of my drill cuz it is smokin'....

And I like to call this one "Building the Perfect Box".

I actually maneuvered and cut through 3 more 16' redwood boards, and this time without any tripping incidents. It took me awhile to figure out the best way to build the last box because it is a very odd shape. Basically, the garden box at that point is about 5' deep and 8' wide, but unless I sprout gadget arms, I can't reach that far. So, we built in 2'x2' cut-outs so we can step into the garden and comfortably reach across the boxes. Leon returned home in late afternoon and together we finished out the last box.

Finished!!

(Leon's in one of the 2'x2' cut-outs, and I'm up in one of the boxes)

Thor & Elli thought the boxes were very cool and made sure to do a full inspection of each box.

Thor thinks it is a doggy run, and showed off some pretty impressive leaping skills.

Looking forward to adding dirt, compost, peat moss, seeds, and creating the greenhouse effect with some heavy duty plastic.

Almost there!

FBF in HMB! Part 1

This is Jen, sister of Melissa and daughter of Carol. I've long been inspired by their work chronicled here on the Fat Bottom Farm (FBF) blog, but then they recommended I read a few Michael Pollan books during my current state of unemployment. So now inspiration, information, and idle hands have combined with a genetic predisposition to garden and I'm happy to say that FBF has expanded to Half Moon Bay, CA. At least, that's the plan....we have yet to see if the green thumb still works (it's been pretty pink and manicured for a long time).

My husband, Leon, and I have a bit of a challenge with gardening because our dogs will jump up to about 2.5', and if there is food involved, they will eat it or at least chew it. So, we decided upon doing a raised box garden with the added benefit of being a garden at waist height (i.e., much less back pain). We decided the best place with sunshine and a water source was along the west side of our house on top of a gravel drainage area.

Having measured and put together plans on Excel (I'm a dork, I know, but I use Excel like my own version of Autocad making each cell a 4"x4" square), we ordered pressure-treated Douglas Fir for the supports, and hardwood redwood for the boxes themselves.

Leon started on the supports last weekend while I was up at Lake Owyhee for Mothers' Day Weekend. He made great progress!

Then on Monday, I started making the workbench and compost bin. We have the coolest saw! Makes things a lot easier...

I finished off the workbench with Leon's help cutting the plywood shelf and base for the marble top. I know it may seem like an odd thing to have a marble-topped workbench, but it was a leftover piece from our house that we've been saving for 4 years.

And here's the finished product with the compost bin. Yay!


Leon finished up the support framework for the boxes. This is the completed structural support from the workbench looking back towards the gate:


This is the completed structural support looking from the gate back towards the workbench:

And then we installed our first box! A satisfying finish to a long day.