PREPPING FOR VACATION

a helper hard at work

The praying mantises are growing up and doing their job! It is fun to watch them grow throughout the season.  They are feisty creatures.

relocated houseplants

To make life easier for our house sitter, I have relocated some of our houseplants.  You can see the obsession carries over indoors as well as out.

almost time to harvest

The garlic (foreground) and shallots (background/left) are close to being ready for harvest.  Time to turn off the water on the garlic and we can harvest this after vacation.  Shallots probably have another month.

early eggplant

 

zucchini and more zucchini

We are finally getting some production happening.  We have zucchini and eggplant nearing harvest.  Hopefully we will have a long season of both of these veggies.

blackberries almost ripe

The blackberries are abundant and finally ripening.  I am hopeful that we won't miss the big harvest will out of town.  I am looking forward to more jam and cobblers this year.

bean and cucumber seedlings ready to plant

filling in the gaps

first planting beginning to climb

Something (pill bugs and lizards I believe) ate many of our first planting of pole beans so I have replanted some seeds outside and started more pole beans and cucumbers indoors.  The indoor starts were finally ready to plant this week so I filled in the gaps and am optimistic that these plants are big enough to survive the small predators.  The east bed is much more abundant.  I think this is due to a combination of sun and soil quality.

clearly this bed is much busier (please ignore the finger)

As we get ready for vacation we continue to survey irrigation.  There have been quite a few leaks.

another leak

Jim is the irrigation guy!

The new lavender bed has popped several tubes.  This is odd as we have used almost all new parts on this bed.  Perhaps the "almost" is the key word in that sentence!

all better..... for now