I always loved gardening but prior to 2020 we rented and moved often -every 1-4 years. So after several attempts early on I gave up on gardening. But since moving into our forever home I felt confident to try again. While I love the tomatoes and seasonal veggies, I want to have long term, semi permanent plants. So over the last year and a half I planted fruit trees and berries. Not pictured are some CA natives that I’m trying to add into the mix. The backyard will house my edible plants while the front yard will have non edibles but also hopefully pollinator attracting plants.
blueberries ready to be planted. These are not all mine. I happened to be a my fave local nursery – Sego in NoHo – and they had a lot of varieties. So I bought some for friends as well. Only 2 pictured will stay with me. red roger grapes (going off memory so might be wrong)Oregon Grapes – ca native (i believe despite the name)blue elderberry- Ca NativeGarlicMy strawberry tower! I just added 6 new plants to replace dead ones that didn’t make it over winter. Strawberries in grow bags from last year. These are doing really well but I want to transplant them to my strawberry patch. strawberry patch. This is located below my fruit tree containers and I want them to take over the yard. Or at least that side of it. more strawberries! new blackberry plant… it’s not dead, it was a bare root. I have 4 fruit trees planted in these containers. The one at the end is a mango tree, then a calamansi tree, not pictured is atis tree (which is not English and I have no idea what the English word is. I googled and it is Sugar Apple) and a pomegranate. Here’s the pomegranate and a sneak at the atis on the left.
Behind each fruit tree are 30 gallon grow bags with blueberries. 3 are a year old while the 4th is new this year. In SoCal we have to be careful and get varieties that have low chill hours so that we can have a successful harvest. Mine are still new but I have high hopes!
Don’t mind the mess but these are pineapples and I need to transplant them into bigger pots. Last summer the family and I got into buying a pineapple every week for several weeks. After eating them we planted the tops. This picture shows 4. We have one more elsewhere. We started with 6 so only lost 1 in all. I hope we can get pineapples next year and this summer we will again buy, eat, and plant! Here’s the sad state of my veggie garden right now and Tomatomania starts this weekend. I will be getting double the tomato plants from last year as well as jalapeño, cucumbers and zucchini’s.
Last week was an awful week of not getting everything or hardly anything done! I take that back. I got stuff done, just not much from my last Monday post.
There continues to be way too much to do and not enough time. In reality there’s just enough time, I just put way too much on my to do list and other things keep sliding to the top of that list pushing my crafty and garden items to the bottom. I really have to give myself some credit. Days have passed and all I can think about on this Monday post is that I didn’t get this stuff done. But, I got my first shot earlier in the week and I had to take it easy. I had the normal symptoms, sore arm, some nausea, and some tiredness. That explains it all. By Thursday I was feeling better, but that was 4/1 and the start of the new quarter which means I have quarterly tasks for work to do and I worked long hours both days. I made it on to knit night. So, what did I do from my list…
Monday – Last Monday my goal was to finish the hand stitching on the cushion project and I did! It was also my goal to plant the 2nd blueberry plant and I did! Today, my goal is to finish the cushion project! I have my minigroup, Nimble Thimbles, meets and I’ll be able to spend a few hours on it.
Tuesday – Last Tuesday, my goal was to plant the last blueberry and attach the welting/cording onto the front and back piece of the cushion. I did plant the last blueberry and I spent some time on the cushion but I only had enough energy to look for the fabric I wanted to use for the welting/cording. I may have pressed it, cut it and got it ready to attach. But the attaching did not happen. This Tuesday, I want to do some cross stitching. I haven’t cross stitched in a month and I want to get back to it.
Wednesday – Last Wednesday, my goal was to plant my last tomato plant and it didn’t happen. I did plant it on Saturday so that did get done eventually. A win in my book. This Wednesday, I’m hosting a new minigroup for newer members of my quilt guild. Those who have joined since the last part of 2019 have not had a real opportunity to meet our members because of the pandemic and I find joining mini groups the best way to form friendships in a guild.
Thursday – Last Thursday, I didn’t plan much because it was knit night and the start of my next busy season. This was smart on my end. This Thursday it will be knit night again, so my goal is to work on my knitting projects.
Friday – Last Friday, I was supposed to buy more potting soil because I was expecting some of my gardening purchases to have arrived by then. And they didn’t. At least not the item that needed the potting soil. So we didn’t go to Green Thumb nursery. They are supposed to arrive this coming week, Tuesday and Wednesday, so I’ll be needing to buy the soil this week. I could have gone to buy the soil last Friday but again, busy with work so I opted not to. I will need to go this Friday. On the quilty, crafty front I still have my orange top that I’m preparing for quilting. This is now the third weekend in a row that this has been on my list to do and I want to knock this thing out this week. There are so many quilts I need to quilt (I think 6) and I just need to do it.
Saturday – Garden – feed the worms, turn the compost, put together the new compost bin I purchased from the city (because I didn’t do this last week) and plant more of the seedlings I have to be planted. And, set up the garden purchases that should have arrived. I want to work on my Jan Krentz quilt, the Grassy Creek quilt, and my long term UFO, Dancing with the Stars by Linda Ballard. Linda will be at our guild sometime in 2022 so I want this quilt to be done for me to show her.
Sunday – We normally zoom from 10-1 every Sunday but I’ll probably spend most of the day in my sewing room finishing up the cushion project and reacquainting myself with some of the other projects on my list – most notably, Grassy Creek, my Jan Krentz top that is really almost done, and possibly Dancing with the Stars (a Linda Ballard UFO from 2012).
I didn’t get my homework done for my cushion class in time for our Sunday class. But it’s okay. I’ll go over the details another day as it’s Monday and it’s time for this week’s plan.
Last week went well in that I did the things I planned to do. There was just too much to do and not enough time to do it all. So this week, here’s the plan. This is garden heavy because it’s spring and in Los Angeles, spring is a short time before the full heat of summer.
the loan blueberry waiting for its friends
Monday – I’m still hand stitching the Jasmine blocks for the cushion project. I’m almost done and hope to get this done this day. I also want to spend an hour in the garden as its spring and I’ve got a lot of planting to do. Right now I’ve got a couple of blueberries to plant and my goal would be to do one on Monday and the other on Tuesday.
Dragon fruit has been planted and placed in it’s home
Tuesday – We have a number of home projects that are happening this day and I’m not sure how much of that will spill on to me and my time. I do not know if I’ll be able to do anything. But I hope to get an hour of gardening in so I can plant the last blueberry as well as spend an hour on the cushion project. By this point all 3 pieces of the cushion should be ready to go and the next step is to attach the welting/cording to the front and back pieces.
more plants waiting to be planted
Wednesday – So, I think I’ll have enough soil to plant another growbag with my last tomato plant that needs planting. I have 4 currently planted. My mom thinks that’s too much and she’s probably right but I love home grown tomatoes and it’s been years since I’ve been of the mind to plant them. I’m trying 2 new to me varieties that I purchased at TomatoMania. Next step in the cushion project is to make the handle, zipper pieces and attach the strip of flying geese. And if the time is available, connect that piece with the front.
Cala Lily found in my front yard
Thursday – Knit night so nothing else is planned. This is also April 1st and the start of my next busy season. I’ve got quarterly reports and tasks that I need to get started on and while I don’t like working long hours or even on the weekends, I’ll be working overtime and over the weekend to get some of these things done and out of the way.
One of the pepper plants waiting to be planted
Friday – Head out to Green Thumb nursery before they close at 5 to buy more potting soil for my remaining growbags. I am expecting some other gardening purchases to arrive by this point but we’ll see if I’ll be able to do anything other than buy more potting soil. On the quilty, crafty front – I still have my orange top that I’m preparing for quilting. Last week my plan was to spray baste it and I didn’t have time to do that. So I hope to get that done this Friday.
Saturday – Garden – feed the worms, turn the compost, put together the new compost bin I purchased from the city, plant more things, set up the garden purchases that should have arrived, etc. etc. And on the crafty front, pull out my cross stitching for a bit. It’s been almost a month since I’ve touched these projects and I’m itching to get back to these.
a close up of the blueberry plant
Sunday – We normally zoom from 10-1 every Sunday but I’ll probably spend most of the day in my sewing room, finishing up the cushion project and reacquainting myself with some of the other projects on my list – most notably, Grassy Creek, my Jan Krentz top that is really almost done, and possibly Dancing with the Stars (a Linda Ballard UFO from 2012).
One of my favorite pictures from our trip to Fresno’s Blossom Trail
Happy crafting, friends! Wish me luck with the gardening as this is something I’ve not done in many years. Now that we have a forever home, the gardening bug is stronger than ever.
