Heat is GONE

Looks like it's over for this year, nice storm in today and outlook is for next 10 days in 70s and low 80s. We can turn the AC completely off!

Also, picked up romaine lettuce and bell pepper plants to plant in containers in the next few days.

We'll see how that works out.

peace, shamba

Herb Garden Report

Last September, end of September, I got some herb plants; Greek oregano, Italian parsley and basil. I gradually added to this group over November to January; thymes, another basil plant, cilantro, chives and some catnip. I bought a bronze fennel mostly cause I liked the way it looked, pretty metallic touch. It could be used for herbs, though, too.

These plants transplanted well into containers, produced pretty well and thrived until about April-May. I was able to use them in my own cooking and dehydrated some of them. Mostly though, I just liked them growing there and smelling so good.

RESULTS:

The sunshade I put up in mid-May probably helped keep them going a couple of more months. The basil and cilantro went to seed and even clipping off the flowers they didn't do so well and died sometime in June.

The parsley went to seed, too, but it still produced some until about June-July.

The fennel just didn't make it through the heat and the catnips got exposed to the sun too much for a few days and they didn't make it. this was sometime in June.

I had two thyme plants, one was a very lemony thyme. One went just seemed to give up one day and the other one is still alive today.

the oregano plant produced less and less the past 3 months but was alive until I think it drowned the week we had 3 monsoon storms in addition to my watering the day or so before that happened. It just was so water logged after that week I thought that's what killed it.

Factors that I don't know how they affected the plants:

Type of pot they are in;

Whether the plant would do better in the ground and not in a container;

Regularity of feeding, since May this has been spotty;

Life cycle of the particular plant;

Should I be going only by the Low Desert Planting schedule that I have a copy of from a local organization or can't I just grow them whenever they'll grow?

CONCLUSION:

This was a success as far I'm concerned this time around; first time I'd done it, got pretty good production from the plants for 6 or so months.

I want to add some rosemary and get some lavender to grow at the other end of the patio. My friend, S. has lovely lavender growing in her yard and I want to have some, too.


I also had very good time doing all this and I'm going to do it again.



peace, shamba

October 17th

1. Dried about 6 sliced up bell peppers in the dehydrator I got last winter at Linene’s N things when they went out of business. I ran it overnight and it seemed to work fine. I will try this with one of the solar ovens next time I dehydrate something just to see how it goes with the same kind of peppers. I don’t know how hot the electric dehydrator gets, I’ll have to check the instructions that came with it.

2. I’ve got the dehydrated bell peppers next to the solar sundried tomatoes.

Later in the day: I went to Safeway for a couple of things. The parking lot was packed a lot more than even a Saturday midday. So, what’s up there? A big promotion and lots and lots of prices marked down significantly.

They had some houseplants and flowers out I front for sale including several herb plants. I picked up a little sage plant, organic and locally grown, it said. I love the smell of sage. It makes me think of Thanksgiving and Christmas and sage stuffing in turkey! So, I brought it home.

I also got some more well priced Roma tomatoes to sun dry and got some kale to use this coming week. I've tried some kale before and it was okay. Better than the mustard greens were anyway.

Now, I've decided I want a catnip plant and I better find out if any particular herbs or plants are poisonous to cats. I hadn't thought of that before.
Peace, shamba

October 9-10th posted on October 12th

Very iffy sun today, temps are in the high 80s but sky is slightly over cast and the light peeks in and out of the bigger puffs of clouds. I put rice, yellow splitpeas, a can of diced tomatoes and some seasoning in the Tulsi oven. I plugged it in to use the electric backup on low to see how that will do today. I soaked the split peas for a couple of hours. These are the tail end of a group of split peas and I suspect they are a little harder with age so I soaked them.
I also have chicken to cook up tonight but that’s going in the inside oven later this afternoon.

My herb plants are doing very well. They are all growing and growing.

Next week one day , I’m trying drying tomatoes in the global oven. I haven't done it before so maybe I should say i'll try! No, this will be a very easy thing to do, I'm sure.

I‘ve inherited some containers with plants from a neighbor. There are several aloes and some other things growing among the various aloe plants. One of them looks like the leaves of a golden pothos or something just like that. I think some Irises are growing between the aloes in one of the pots. Anyway, I’ll have to look those up, blooming Iris would be great or the upright stems/leave plant look pretty good the way they are.

All thei ttime I'm doing anything, I'm watching events in the world--financial and other--about the "big" event that's been p[redicted by the webbots and seems to be happening based on reports of overthrowing the dollar as reserve currency and the grwing debt in the US, the dollar falling in value the past few months rather severely.

anyway, I'm watching

Peace for now, shamba

September 15-18th

Our kind landscaper came and took out my last and very old dead pyracantha bush. It was . old enough and brittle enough I could have broken it’s branches off one by one like I did with the other one, but he made short work of taking it out by using one of his saws. Now I have a whole empty corner of the patio to do something with. I’m thinking containers with some kind of plantings in them. I have some cuttings of plants one of my neighbors has and she’s got a great container garden in her front window area. Maybe I’ll check into a climbing plant of some kind to see if it could cover up part of the wall to keep it cooler. Cats’ claw always works. I’ll think about it.

Went to Home Depot today to look at a variety of things I’m always thinking about doing something about: a new front door that would be more efficient that the old door I have; look at lighting fixture for the kitchen or globes/bulb covers to replace the ones that I have broken; maybe plants.

So, for once I found some globes I like: I’m going back to get the globes later today. I did and they look so much nicer than only 3 globes on a 5 light fixture and only light bulbs in the places where the globes were broken off.

And, I got a container pot of basil, oregano and parsley. They will be fine in the container they’re in for a few weeks then I want to transplant them to larger ones. They smell wonderful.

This is all to reward myself after the struggle to get a signature guarantee from the Cu or the BofA so I can sell the last stock transfer for my mom’s estate account. The little BofA branch came through for me again! They didn’t’ fuss about whether or not they could do the signature since I am a trustee of the estate, they just did it for me! Something about the differences between CUs and banks I’m sure. Anyway, that done!

DJA still going up but hasn’t broken 10,000 yet. What holds it up for heavens sake??
Shamba