Flowering Broccoli

Whoops.

I'm pretty sure this is my fault for not eating enough broccoli:


Bolted!

 At least the bees are enjoying it:

look at those pollen sacks!

 It was nice to hear them buzzing again. I need more winter-flowering plants, I think.

And maybe I need to eat more vegetables. Although I'm going to continue to mix vegetables into my ornamental plants, like using Brussels sprouts for edging in one of the beds, at least until it gets hot. I'm not even sure I like Brussels sprouts, but they look cool, so in they went. We'll see how that goes.

And as a note to myself - I planted these in late fall (November?) in the bed on the west side of the patio, and they grew all the way through winter, even though it got way colder than normal. I should remember this for next year.

Melon Experiment

This is the first year I've been able to grow anything for real, and outside. I decided to try and grow melons (watermelon, canteloupe and honeydew) and they worked surprisingly well. I went with two types of watermelon, red and yellow.

A friend asked me if I were planning to grow a square watermelon... When I said just trying not to kill them was goal enough for the year, he made me a "watermelon box" and told me to try it. I have engineer friends :) I put one of the small yellow watermelons into the box....

On July 30th, after about two week in the box, the yellow watermelon looked like this:

View from the stem end, about two weeks after being put in the box

And view from the back, where the melon is already growing against the plastic sides...

 But a few weeks later (Aug 20th), there was trouble!:

The melon is escaping! The box was glued and screwed together...

I left it on the vine another week, and this is what it looked like when I brought it to the patio:

It only got worse over the next week...

The box had deformed so badly, power tools were required to open it. When viewed side by side with a "non-boxed" watermelon from the same vine, it appears pretty obvious what happened:

Boxed (top) and non-boxed (bottom) melons from the same vine, plus a tape measure...

Both melons were about 9 inches high, but the non boxed melon (bottom) was almost 16 inches long, while the box constricted the other one to about 9 inches long. It does look pretty cube-ish though:

It's kind of like a cube...?

So maybe a bigger box (or stronger box?) would work? Maybe next year... but I'll either have to make a new box, or get someone to make me one, because this one is toast!

The remained of the box... the pins were so deformed they couldn't come out...

But still a pretty cool experiment! Hopefully they both taste good... except I'm wondering what I'm supposed to do with two huge watermelons now...

First Harvest

Since this is the first year I've planted vegetables, I was very excited when some of them were ripe. The first ones were a bunch of Lemon Cucumbers, that I harvested at a couple of different sizes:

4 lemon cucumbers, eaten, and made into cucumber water

The smaller ones were so good I just ate them like an apple! I also made some cucumber water, and pickles (adapted from this recipe here). They're really good right off the vine, but I have found they don't store very well. Even a day later, they get a bit mushy.

The second plant that started ripening was the "black cherry" cherry tomatoes:

First six cherry tomatoes. All eaten shortly after this picture was taken!

 Unlike Carol at May Dream Gardens, there was no elaborate ritual for the first tomato, but they were tasty none-the-less. The first yellow tomato was also ripe, but I ate that one so fast, there was no picture! The first of orange sweet peppers met a similar fate. I need to be better at taking pictures!

In the next week, the first watermelon should be ready! I already can't wait... There is also a watermelon-experiment on-going... pictures to come soon!

Foliage Follow Up in July

After Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day, its always good to look at all the foliage in the garden too, especially when the crazy weather has been causing issues in the garden.

One of my goals for this first year was to find a way to make the garden look "lush", even in the desert and summer heat. My solution seems to be working - plant vining vegetables and fruits! The water melon ('Sugar baby') seems to be doing really well:

The Optunia is having some problems - the wind blew it over! The watermelon hasn't tried to climb it yet...

The Feathery Cassia (Senna artemidiolides) is trying to out-grow the watermelon, I think:

It's put on a lot of new growth lately - and I've been keeping the watermelon off it.

It's open leaf structure and feathery look means it will shrug off the desert heat once it's established.

The yellow watermelon, next to the Chaste Tree (Vitex agnus-castus) and Yucca rostrata is also contributing to a look of lushness:

Two different views - and I found my first yellow watermelon while taking these pictures.

The Vitex is actually blooming, but the blossoms are so washed out, you can't see them.
Even if this pea plant never produces peas, it's adding an excellent lush, vertical accent to the garden:

Pea plant, with A. parryi, Salvia gregii and more watermelon in the background.

The Optunia macrocentra is also looking lush, in its own spiny way:

It's making more blooms and more pads. Not more giant spines yet though...

and this picture of the spine imprints on my Agave bovicornuta (? - I think) is too pretty not to share:

my not so good picture doesn't really do it justice...

Several of the grasses are growing in too - I love purple fountain grass (Pennisetum setaceum 'Rubrum')

This one was dancing in the wind as I was trying to take its picture

But I can't figure out if it's hardy here or not... too much conflicting information. But I'll find out this year! The Mexican feather grass (Stipa tenuissima) in the back garden is also growing in. I love the contrast of yellow and green:

This one was planted this year - it's amazing to see how much its grown!

Both the back and the front gardens' dry stream beds have pink muhly (Muhlenbergia capillaris). I like how different it looks in different spots:

From left: first year in the back garden, in the front garden, full sun with last year's blooms left on and last, in the front garden, in part sun...

But sadly, the heat got to one of my hostas:

Blurry picture, but you get the idea. It only got worse today...

It will come back next year. The funny thing is that this one gets more shade than the other one, and that one is fine-ish.

The warm weather has been good for some of the houseplants, which get to come outside (when it's not crazy windy). I think this is Monstera deliciosa, which has to be one of the funnier latin plant names:

I now call this plant the delicious monster!

It just recently got moved to that giant pot (post coming soon), and really seems to like it. I love it's giant leaves, which are starting to develop the characteristics "splits". Sadly the giant leaves tend to break in our crazy winds, so I have to lug that pot in and out every day...

The ZZ plant (Zamioculcas zamiifolia) is also making new foliage, which are super shiny:

5 new stems help to balance out the plant again.

It also seems to like its new home from Earlier this year.

Finally, there's the foliage on this plant; Chlorophytum amaniense, or Mandarine Plant:

It's orange! And rarely needs watering or much of anything, really...

I love the orange color on the leaf stalks... Even in house plants, foliage is really the backbone of the (indoor) garden!

To see more beautiful foliage, go to Pam at Digging and see all the links to other bloggers' gardens.

Vegetables!

In addition to doing a front garden update, I want to show some plants in the back garden! I'm so excited the vegetables are actually growing!

One of the "problems" (I use the term lightly) with the newly installed back garden is that it's rather... empty. A lot of the plants are still small, and they'll fill in eventually, but not yet. Combine this with my laziness re: mulching so far, and the beds look sad:

This was still during construction - that stick in the middle is a Vitex agnus-castus

So the question became - what do I use for "filler" while the rest of the plants grow? Besides the whole mulch thing, which I will get done before the end of the summer.

The answer (for this year) was vegetables! I've always liked growing them, but have never really had the room for them. I grew tomatoes and herbs in containers, which was dangerous because I would forget to water, but never vine crops like melons. But now I have plently of room, and late may/early June is the right time to plant those heat-loving crops. So I went and got:

All the plants were planted over Memorial Day Weekend, which might be a little late...

Some tomatoes: ('Black Krim', 'Green Zebra' and 'Black Cherry')
Some melons: Honeydew, Cantelope and 2 types of watermelon: yellow and 'Sugar Baby'
Lemon Cucumber
Sweet peppers: red and orange
And peas (it's technically too late for peas, so we'll see how that goes...)

The 'Green Zebra', Honeydew and Orange peppers went in the bed with the buddleja :

This bed in particular was very empty

The Black Cherry tomato, Canteloupe and 2nd pepper went on one side of the patio:

This bed (like the rest) basically gets full sun (all day).

and the other side got the lemon cucumber and 'Black Krim':

The two beds are sort-of symmetrical - I like the combo of order & disorder...

While the long bed, with the Optunia, Vitex and Yucca got both watermelons and the peas.

I didn't crop out my sprinkler valves (ugly!) because this picture shows what the Optunia looked like when the vegetables were planted...

Of the four pea plants, only 1 was still alive by the end of the week... So that didn't work too well.

Now I'm excited to see how they'll grow! I also have to figure out cages vs. stakes for the tomatoes... But before I buy (or build) anything, I want to see if they'll live! I did build little watering basins around each plant, so I can water them deeply a few times a week (in addition to the sprinkers) as needed. I also sprinkled some Sluggo around them to make sure the snails don't get all of them.

So an update about a month later - it worked!/ is working! Everything is still alive, although one of the pepper plants is a little sad. And they're filling in the blank spaces between the plants like I hoped.
Here's the bed with the butterfly bush:

Honeydew, buddleja and tomato. This tomato has grown the biggest so far...

The buddleja actually has buds, which I was not expecting this year. I'm not entirely sure which color/cultivar it is, so figuring out the color will help!

And the cantaloupe with the red yucca and blooming Coreopsis verticillata 'Route 66'. You can also see the 2nd tomato in the background.

The canteloupe seems happy, and yuccas seem unbothered (as they are by just about anything)

I ended up getting colored cages for them (red and yellow) and they add a nice vertical accent to the garden. Here is the other bed, with the lemon cucumber:

The yellow in the background is Coreopsis pubescens 'Moonshine'.

The color scheme of red and yellow is starting to take shape with the flowers, tomato cages and other accents.
The biggest surprise has been the Sugar Baby watermelon. It really likes its spot next to the Optunia:

Maybe its all the extra heat from the walls? But its been in the 90's/100's most of the month.

That little plant in the back is a Feathery Cassia (Senna artemisloides). It's supposed to get bigger and hide the sprinkler valves. The Optunia has also been putting a bunch of new pads, maybe it's inspired by the watermelon:

This compared to the Optunia just a month ago (see picture above) is crazy! It's made 10 new pads!

The yellow watermelon and peas still have some growing to do, but are also filling in:

That's the last remaining pea bush in the back. I'm not sure how happy it is.

And...

Canteloupe on top, watermelon on bottom. We're going to have a lot of watermelon this year!

Melons! I'm excited... I've not been very successful actually growing edible things before, so it's so cool that this is (or appears to be) working! And the rambling vines are filling out the beds nicely!

I'm sure there will be more updates later in the summer. I'm so excited, and the plant are growing so quickly! Next year I might do this again, any maybe try planning and getting started a bit earlier....