Baby, It’s Too Cold Outside to Garden!

I promised I would let you know about planting my fall garden today. It’s not going to happen. It’s cold, windy and rainy outside my window. That’s just fine with me. It isn’t a heavy rain. My garden will like it. It’s not too cold for my carrots (is that even possible?), but it may finally do in my Early Girl tomato plant. That’s alright. It’s pretty hideous now, although the tomatoes still taste yummy.

One of the best parts of condo gardening is that it really is easy. As long as we keep our gardens small and neat, there is nothing to do most days. There is simply no weeding or fertilizing if you use Mel’s Square Foot Gardening soil, like I do. If you want exercise, I’m sure there’s a gym around. I don’t go to the gym anymore. I have everything I need in a cute little basket I bought at Pottery Barn. So, if there isn’t enough gardening to do to fulfill my daily quota of exercise, I just pull out the ankle weights and non-latex stretch bands from the basket and get my exercise indoors.

Maybe I’ll do some online Christmas shopping, or read a book. Since I have located a relatively small bag of blended organic compost (E.B. Stone) in a nursery nearby, I just need a dry, warm day (like the one in the photo at the top of this post) to refresh the soil and plant a few seeds and transplants. Maybe that will happen later this week. Who knows? It’s fall in California. Almost anything can happen with our weather. One day we get snow down to three thousand feet, and the next it’s ninety degrees. Go figure!

Until next time,

Elizabeth

Amending Garden Soil for Fall Planting

Success at last! It has taken me way too long to find a small bag of organic compost to amend the Mel’s Mix I use in my garden containers. I found a 3 cu ft bag easily, but I only have eight medium sized pots in my garden. I discovered that E.B. Stone makes an organic compost which is available in 1.5 cu ft bags. This is still probably more than I need, but at least I should be able to lift the bag.

The weather forecast this weekend was for showers all three days. but now they say that we will have showers, or maybe full on rain, on Saturday only. I don’t think it's wise to replant my pots the day before hard rain. I might lose the seeds and some of the soil. So, I’ll wait to see how the storm progresses. If it passes my area fairly quickly, I’ll go to Green Thumb and pick up the compost I need, two broccoli plants and some leaf lettuce. I have seeds for the peas I want to plant. They were given to me by a local gardener friend.

This will be the first fall garden I have planted for decades. I started gardening again last January, after a very long break. My sorry looking tomato plant just won’t stop giving me tomatoes. I should tear it out, but how can I when the tomatoes taste so good? The variety is Early Girl. They should rename it “This Girl Won’t Give Up”. The tomatoes are a bit smaller than they were when the weather was warmer, but yum. I just eat two at a time instead of one.

I’ll let you know how the planting goes, and show you how my garden looks once I’ve filled up my empty containers. I hope my peas do better this year than last. It’s up to the weather. It sure didn’t cooperate much last season!

Until next time,

Elizabeth