Now that my backyard soil is rejuvenated, I thought it was time to start a new thread of my ongoing gardening journey. As you may know, I love all things garden related, especially my beloved flowers. It’s been so much fun sharing the backyard project with you all and tracking all of my successes and failures in one place. Sure hope you stick around and watch my progress. I will be starting on my 2nd year out there and still have lots to do, tons of space to still fill with new plants and others that are growing in. I have learned so much the past year and have so much more to learn.
So, the veggie patch is winding down for the season. My birdhouse gourds just stay on the trellis looking ugly until they dry up. Could be months. I’m probably only gonna get 2 decent cantaloupes. I didn’t realize how late they start growing and they pretty much got shaded out by the tomatoes, so shit yield. Live and learn. All of my sunflowers are gone, pulled out the last of my zinnias today. Still have masses of tomatoes and bell peppers and as you see above some fall flowers happening. Yes, fall is mid summer in Southern Cali according to plants. I also have a few tuberose flowers that have popped up but have not opened yet. The major events however is the flowering cannabis. Fucken monsters!
The Farmers Almanac sent me an email saying it’s time to plant garlic. I have purchased 3 heads of organic garlic from Sprouts and will dig a spot where the sunflowers were sometime in the next week or two. I’ve had someone say I needed to freeze the bulbs before I plant them, but I can’t find anything so far on the internet that confirms that. I’ll stick it in the fridge though until I plant it. It will either come up or it won’t. Simple as that. I do love garlic scapes and garlic so I’ll be excited if they do.
I have absolutely no idea what kind of apples these are. Inherited one tree with the house and the other one, the birds started about 11 or 12 years ago and they have both always gotten apples, even during the drought when I made them strictly search for water. The apples were small, but they happened.
I bought a dwarf southern lowbush blueberry last summer. It got flowers this year, but I pulled them off per first year instructions. It’s so small. We’ll see what happens.
Oh, I bought a special hybrid of Lilac bush designed for our zone. It’s my prized plant. It was a twig when I got it, literally. It’s now like 4 twigs with actual leaves on it. In 5 years I may see it bloom! lol Seriously though, my favorite flower of all time!
BTW - Good news. I went out this morning to dig up one of those beetles and didn’t find any. Now that may not mean they are gone, the dirt is pretty hard from sitting for a few years, but I am going to wet it down a bit over the next week and try again. Have to get down a ways for testing so we will see. Will probably till it down to about a foot (have a small electric tiller) so I can mix everything in and that may stir them up.
Bugs are cyclical. After you till it. Throw down some Dr. Earth or some balanced fert and put a cover crop down. Get some nitrogen in there. I used a lot of manure as well. If you check out my old thread linked at the top, you can see my whole soil rejuvenation. I worked on it all last summer through now lol
Okay, I started looking at the other thread. I have a question, can you compost weeds?
Unfortunately, while I was living in TX, my folks kinda let the “grass” go to shit (the sprinkler system I installed broke down and neither of them wanted to get out there with a hose) and then we had the Drought. Everything that has grown back has been weeds. Normally, I just mow them down and put them in the brown bin and they take them away. Recently, we had some trees cut down and the stumps ground, so when I mow, I am picking up some nice dirt with ground up stump, which would be great, but separating chopped up weed would be a hassle.
I think I am going to start a thread on this and will take some pics tomorrow of what I am hoping to do. Might make it easier to understand.
If they haven’t flowered yet, yes. Obviously you don’t want a bunch of seeds in your compost, but I assume it gets hot enough to sterilize the seeds. @Tinytuttle could confirm for sure. I used grass, leaves, fruit from my trees, macadamia nut shells (they were great for aeration) whatever was in the yard except succulents.
Edit: I didn’t put the kumquats in there either.
I cut down two of the trees, that were small, but the bulk of the trees were either too tall/big and were around electric wires. We had a tree guy come in to do those and because I don’t have a chipper (and couldn’t get one without paying a HUGE delivery fee) he took all the wood and chipped branches. There was a load of ground up trunk, but most is gone with the weeds. The only spot I have is in the back where I don’t mow. In fact, it was a raised bed (though they messed it up because if the grinder) but I am going to bring it down to the level of the patio/walkway, so I was going to use the dirt and grindings in the other plots. You will be able to see it in the pics I take.
The only trees I have left are a lemon, an orange and a tree that WANTS to be an orange.
Yes weeds can be used @WMoon518 they are a great nitrogen source ! weeds with seeds? A little more difficult but yes you run the chance of seeds making it through the compost process though, temps of at least 130 for 3 days is what is required to kill seeds the hotter the better like 150-160 try not getting piles over 160 though like @Meesh stated it would be better if the weeds have not gone to seed yet , aeration and moisture are important and controlling temps and holding temps ,most peoples piles aren’t big enough 3x3x3 is the size you should have for piles to heat up properly and constant turning this is where most people fail at it !
Hello Meesh! I’m in the I.E., SoCal baby! Nice to meet you!
In my experience chips from a stump grinding, need to be composted into fungal wood, before being used in a growing situation. Fresh wood chips absorb N. Think about it like this, real wood mulch from lowes or HD works in a two-fold manner. When used in a flowerbed or garden pathway, it crowds out weeds and at the same time sucks all that N that fast-growing weeds need to grow. For mulching the cannabis use alfalfa, not hay. Alfafa is animal food and hay is for animal bedding, it has no nutritional value and otherwise known as straw.
Now if I was too fresh and you want to kick my ass, you’re going to have to stand in line! lol. peace.
You can take weeds and put them in a barrel and mash them up and ferment them with added microbes for a great tea. Some weeds are more beneficial than others but they are great sources of nutrients.
I’m still learning about them and which ones are best. Nettles are great. @Sebring fermented a barrel of comfrey and horsetail and added in the microbes to do the work. He may have better info on the weeds. I will by next year! I have plenty, lol.
Woot! Another SoCal neighbor! South Bay representing here!! @WMoon518 is also in SoCal. It’s a Cali party!
I personally only use wood chips as mulch in my regular flower beds cuz they look nice. Barley Straw in my veggie patch and been trying to get a decent living mulch going in my cannabis beds. I’ve had a bitch of a time getting the dutch white clover to fill the beds, in the beginning the birds kept snatching the sprouts and then eventually the plants just shaded the beds out too much. Luckily, it doesn’t get that hot here and mulch hasn’t really been too necessary in there.
Greetings, Meesh! Love the pics and grateful for the soil info. One the New England coast here and had a banner year of Milkweeds for the Monarchs. They self seeded and took over a whole patch but sure enough the butterflies came, as did a pretty little beele opportunist. And have let some large furry leafed, taallll flower plants growing everywhere too this year cuz the bees are at them like clockwork every morning. The bees occasionally fly up to my second floor porch and buzz around the flowering pot plants but never stop. Any idea why? (Maybe cuz they have plenty of other tasties in my yard?)
Greetings! Gorgeous plants! The bees don’t seem to come near my cannabis plants either, guess there are too many other fun things for them to eat. I love butterflies, just not a fan of the darn caterpillars on my bud. lol Good to meet you! Feel free to share your plants with me anytime.
Welcome! 
The damn cannabis sparked something in me. Now I just can’t stop growing things! I’m sure glad you’re here.
And have let some large furry leafed, taallll flower plants growing everywhere too this year cuz the bees are at them like clockwork every morning. The bees occasionally fly up to my second floor porch and buzz around the flowering pot plants but never stop. Any idea why? (Maybe cuz they have plenty of other tasties in my yard?)
