May 15, 2010 Vegetables

Here is my updated garden starting from the left and going right.

The tub on the left covered with plastic, I'm eventually going to transfer my cucumbers there. They are currently seedlings. The two pots in the foreground are Black Beauty Eggplants.



Tomatoes are in the white tubs.












These are some of the tomatoes in the white tubs. Peppers are behind them in the black pots. You can see how much they've grown in two weeks compared to the earlier pics.













These are zucchinis. A yellow variety is to the left while a green variety is to the right. Some more tomatoes are to the right of them.




These are Black Beauty Eggplants. I also have Asian Eggplants on the deck but I didn't get pictures of them. They are about 30-40% smaller then these.



Some lettuce.

May 15, 2010 Fruit Trees

Here are some updated shots of my fruit trees.

My 5-in-1 Citrus Tree which currently stands as a 12-in-1 tree now. It has grown a lot of leaves since its pitiful look from a few months ago.



My Tarocco Blood Orange to the left, Moro Blood Orange in the center and Improved Meyer Lemon to the right. Tons of winter leaf drop on the Meyer and Tarocco. Hopefully, they'll recover.



My Owari Satsuma Mandarin on the left and Oro Blanco Grapefruit on the right. The grapefruit suffered a lot of leaf drop. Hopefully, it will recover too. Its hard to tell but they are both covered in flowers.





Its hard to tell but this is my 5-in1 Peach/Nectarine/Apricot tree in the foreground and the 5-in-1 Asian Pear tree behind it. The peach tree has several fruits developing which are also hard to make out.



A little blurry, but this is my 5-in-1 Apple tree. I believe the two fruits on the right are Einshimer and the on on the left is a Dorsett Golden apple.




This is my avocado tree. I thought it was going to die. When spring came it started losing all of its leaves and the branches were turning black and dieing off. I pruned it beyond the black branches but it kept on coming. I've probably lost about 75% of the tree. It seems to have stopped now and the new branches are growing. I grafted two varieties to it but not sure if they'll make it.



This is my Carrie mango tree whose top I chopped off in an effort to make it branch out. You can see some flowers sprouting from the very top. I may pick those off to encourage real branches to form. You can also see a branch about a quarter of the way down trying to sprout as well as another branch about three quarters of the way down on the left that is already about an inch or so long. Also, at the base of the tree there are some flowers trying to grow. These are coming from below the graft line and I have no idea what my Carrie is grafted onto.

The branch that I tried to air layer looks as good as dead. You can look back at older posts to see that story.




Here is the papaya tree I brought back from the dead. You can look back at my older posts to see what I did to it. New leaves are growing and its looking good. Its twin died.




Papaya seedlings. I thought these were as good as dead too. You can look back at older posts for what they looked like. I thought the cold had killed them off. But spring came and so did they. I took off the plastic bottle just now to show what it looks like. I'll keep it off since its too big now. The other one has a ways to go. Wow, I'm surprised they came back.



My Malaysian Red Guava tree.

Spring is Here!!!

I haven't updated anything for a while so here are some pictures I took on 5/1/10. Look for the next post two weeks later for the updates.

Here is my deck starting from one corner and circling to the right.












Some tomatoes and peppers.



Eggplants



Zucchini

New Pepper Plants

Today I went to the Monster Tomato & Pepper Show at the Fullerton Arboretum. It wasn't quite what I expected. There were just a bunch of tables full of pepper and tomato plants in the parking lot. Since it was at an arboretum I was expecting something more. There were a lot of people and some of the plants were already sold out. Everything they had was already out on the tables so its best to get there either Friday or early Saturday. I feel sorry for the Sunday crowd, there won't be much left.

Here's what I got: Eleven peppers and two tomatoes. I wasn't expecting to get tomatoes since I planted a bunch of seeds but there were some kinds I wanted to try. Plus, the thought of my seeds not growing to full maturity weighed heavily on my mind. If my seeds turn out to be a bust, I would have missed a good opportunity to get some hard to find varieties.



I didn't get all the peppers I wanted because they were sold out. Thus, I ended up getting some I didn't plan to. I'll probably end up getting them at Home depot or Lowe's. The one's I still want to get are Sweet and Hot Banana, Cubanelle, New Mexico Big Jim, Big Bertha and maybe Serrano and Jalapeno. The peppers I got are:

1. Giant Aconcagua - L.Green to Red. Flavor as sweet as apples. Oblong fruit to 12 inches long in great abundance.

2. Giant Marconi - Green to Red. All American Selection Winner for size, flavor, earliness, and yield. 8 inches long, sweet.

3. Lilac - Lilac/Purple. Mild tasting 4 lobed fruits that change from ivory to purple with an amazing lilac hue in between.

4. Peto Wonder - Deep Red. Large, thick walled, 6 1/2 by 4 1/2 inches.High vitamin C. Tobacco mosaic virus resistant.

5. Purple Marconi - Purple. Elongated fruit can grow 10" long and mature from purple to red. Mild, sweet flavor.

6. Chinese Giant Hybrid - Red. Huge 5 inches long and wide fruit on a compact bushy plant. Perfect for stuffing.

7. Bounty Hybrid - Yellow. Incredible harvest of huge banana peppers that grow up to a foot long. Sweet flavor.

8. Biscayne Hybrid - Light Green. Cubanelle type pepper 6 1/2 inches long with a blunt end. Great for frying.

9. Golden Summer Hybrid - Yellow. Outstanding golden pepper with excellent quality. Lime green, to yellow, sweet tasting.

10. Purple Beauty - Purple. Compact plants bear meaty, thick-fleshed, sweet purple peppers. Very desirable.

11. Pepperoncini - 500 to 800. Hybrid pepperoncini, classic fruit size that is jarred commercially. Heavy yields, 3 inches long.



The tomatoes I got are:

1. Bull's Heart - (Indeterminate) Late Season. Pink Heirloom. Russian variety. Excellent, sweet flavor. Strong plants, abundance of 2 lb. fruit. Oxheart shape.

2. Purple Russian - (Indeterminate) Mid Season. Purple Heirloom. Ukraine. Dark Purple to black oblong shaped fruit. Meaty, great production. Slicer type.

Here they are all transplanted:

Planted Seeds 3-17-10 Wednesday

Today I planted all of my tomato seeds listed below. I also planted green and yellow zucchini, English Cucumbers, Asian eggplants, jalapenos, some more spinach, black seeded Simpson lettuce, red and green Romaine lettuce and some sunflowers.

The tomatoes:



The zucchini, eggplants, and cucumbers:

New Used Pots

Upon the recommendation of my buddy Kyle, whose blog can be found if you look in my profile, I went to a nursery and bought some used pots for really cheap. I ended up getting two 25 gallons, two 20 gallons, two 15 gallons, two 7 gallons, a 5 gallon and a tray for $15.50.

Now my tomatoes, peppers, eggplants and zucchini will have enough room for their roots to grow.

Random Updates

You can scroll down to see these trees when I first got them. Now that spring is right around the corner they have sprouted some leaves.

This is my 5-in-1 Apple Tree.



It already has a few tiny apples. I believe the Einshimer is on the right and Anna is on the left.



Here is my 5-in-1 Cherry Tree.




Here is my 5-in-1 Asian Pear.



Spinach on the far left and celery in the back row. Ate the celery on the right.





Ate some of these spinach last Saturday. Very yummy.




A huge celery.



A random tomato growing in my citrus pot. I think it may be an Early Girl Variety.