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One thing that’s showing consistent progress in my garden is sunflowers. I planted three varieties: Sunspot, Autumn Beauty, and Mammoth Grey Stripe.

I planted some in pots and particular other places, but because my raised garden beds are so meticulously geometrical, I thought some randomness needed to be thrown in. So I threw some sunflower and nasturtium seeds about randomly. The following pictures are of one of those random sunflowers. I’m guessing this one’s a mammoth grey stripe.

This was taken this morning…unfortunately, I’ve been playing with my camera and the settings weren’t right. I was going to go take another pic, but the battery was dead. And I don’t feel like trying to correct it in post production right now.

Here’s a picture of the same one taken 9 days ago (and in better light).

The progress of the corn can be seen as well, so that’s nice. Unfortunately, the squash and the watermelons that I’ve posted about recently…gone. I’m not sure if the watermelon is a victim of the sqirrels or one of the near flash flood downpours we had this past week, but the one I posted is not there, there’s just one little stub of something green in that area. And the corn in that bed is really, really sad. I seriously need to regroup in that bed. And since it’s the last one to get irrigation, I guess that’s okay. A fresh start next week or so.

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information.

When I first planted things, something (ground squirrels?) ate most of the greens, a good deal of the eggplant leaves, and some squash leaves. Then, things were left alone for the next month or so. But between Sunday and now (Tuesday afternoon), something has really done a number on my squash. Lots of leaves missing from the smaller ones and spaghetti squash. I didn’t have it in me to do a full inventory, but there’s a lot missing.

I thought I had gotten past some hump of them not bothering things, but I guess they just realized that they should wait for the good stuff.

I guess I make some chicken wire/hardware cloth enclosures for things. Ick.

ETA:
Not great pictures, but…

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I knew that the melons had the yellow orange ‘moon and stars’, but I was surprised to see that the foliage has them too.

This one’s lagging behind a bit.

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information.

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ETA:

It looks like I’m a couple days away from my first ‘harvest’. I should be able to get two or three zucchini off of this plant this week. I can’t wait.

Since I grew up not liking tomatoes, zucchini is what says ’summer garden’ to me. And the triple digits here sure make it feel like summer.

Now if school would just let out…

We moved into our house late winter 2000. I planted a row of asparagus crowns probably in the spring of 2001. It might have been 2002, but it wasn’t much later than that. I, of course, hadn’t harvested any asparagus that year. And then I started working full time AND going to school almost full time AND teaching night classes…so I wasn’t gardening at all.

I cleared that level in 2005 when I built those beds. It was the dead of inland summer heat. I really hadn’t been down there much at all in years, and I didn’t notice any asparagus that year. But I wasn’t looking either.

However, a couple days ago…I looked over and saw this one lonely stalk of UC-157 asparagus. I really feel sorry for it. It’s so lonely.

I was trying to figure out where to plant asparagus when I was re-planning the beds this spring. I decided that it could wait another year. So maybe I’ll dig up this lonely one next year and move it to where I plant it’s relatives.

I’ll start with one thing about me…
1. I’m a high-school teacher in a school where something getting tagged isn’t a good thing. It usually involves a permanent marker that both damages what’s been tagged and probably gets the tagger sort of high. (Resisting the urge to pull an image of tagging from my neck of the woods…no need to give them publicity…)

Okay, another thing about me…
2. I went to work today with straw in my hair. I kept trying to get it out…but there was always more. I picked up a bale of straw to mulch my strawberry bed last weekend and for some reason today on the way to work was the first time that the wind kicked up all the straw remenants and I was COVERED! I kept finding straw in my hair throughout the day. Every time I thought I’d gotten it all, I’d find more.

Jenny at Seeded tagged me for a meme. And because I’ve been fiddling around in the guts of the blog, I want to use the blockquote tag, so, I’ll quote her…

Suddenly I feel like I’m thirteen again and somebody asked me to sit with them in the cafeteria.

I agree.

The Rules:
Link to the person who tagged you.
Post the rules on your blog. (2 down…4 to go)
Tag 4 people 3 people at the end of your post linking to their blog.
(Jenny did three…I’ll do three.)
Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

Four more random things…

3. I am an organizational-geek. I used to love going to fabric stores with my mom when I was little mostly to put all the zippers, buttons, and thread back into the right spots. It was fun, they were colorful. But my house is usually a mess. I’m pretty sure that enjoyment I get from gardening, and blogging about it, comes at least partially from the organizational aspect of it. (and as much as I thought I’d like my visual, excel-based, pdf’s of my beds for keeping track of planting and sprouting info…I’m going to switch to or supplement with plain ol’ lists. (Ahhh, a chance for a new system!)

4. I love the rain. I love clouds. But it’s probably because I’ve lived in Southern California almost all my life, so I don’t get to experience it too often. I have very fond memories of watching mid-western thunderstorms from a window upstairs at an aunt’s house for hours on end.

5. I’m planning to hike Half Dome in Yosemite this summer. I can walk 10 k/6 miles like it was nothing. But I seriously need to get my butt in gear to get ready for that 16 mile trek!

6. I cobbled this post together at various times over the past couple weeks, so there’s absolutely no flow I’m sure. I angst-ed over various aspects of it, then figured what the hell.

I shall tag:

Front Yard Gardens

May Dreams Gardens

Mercenary Gardens

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A hummingbird I caught this morning. I should be posting a picture of something growing in my garden, because every time I walk out, the plants do look bigger and stronger. But I’m pretty happy with this pic. And I appreciate my fountain more and more.

(Now if I can just get the blogroll for GTS into my sidebar without breaking this theme…I’ll be even happier.)

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information.

I’ve been busy working outside. Not so busy taking pictures or writing. Time to play catchup. This is bed 1 (far) and bed 2 (near). This past weekend I replaced the drippers in bed 1 and finished the system in bed 2.

I also did bed 6.

Bed 6 gave me the roughest time, but I also learned the most. My FIL has worked with this stuff quite a bit and he said how much easier it is to work with it when it’s warm. Not a problem this weekend…it was in the 90’s. But while the heat makes it easier to push the tubing into the L and T fittings, it makes it difficult to punch the holes for the drippers. I found, through trial and error, that when the tubing is hot, it just dents. And then it’s hard to put the punch in exactly the same spot when you realize that it didn’t punch all the way through. But sometimes there’s enough of a hole that when you do put the dripper in, the water squirts out from underneath through that first, not so good hole. Ugh.

I ‘did’ most of bed 6 on Saturday, but was left with water squirting out through lots of those extra-sort-of holes. So Sunday morning I headed out to get some straight connectors and I patched the one strip where that had happened on the drippers at both ends. This was when the trick of cutting the tubing, and marking the spots for the holes, then bringing it into the house to cool down to punch the holes, and then returning it out to heat up before connecting the fittings came about.

But by Sunday evening, I only had two more beds to plumb. After that, I’ll have someone in to connect all the beds to my valve. And I just got the name of someone new that I’m excited to try out.

I’m a terrible person. This stuff is hard.

The benefit of doing one bed at a time and waiting a bit in between is becoming apparent. I have put on two water shows. The Bellagio’s got nothin’ on my tomato bed when the ‘good’ drippers either fly apart or pop off entirely. I think I’ll be replacing them this weekend with the cheap ones.

When I turned the water on on the first bed, I was so cautious. I barely turned the hose spigot…nothing. Then I edged it up slightly. And a slight bit of water dripped out. I finally found the ‘right’ setting and was very happy with them. The cheap drippers are supposed to have (precisely) 25 gph. Yes, I know, I’m supposed to be using a pressure regulator, etc. But since I wasn’t using one, and I’ve got water pressure galore, I was just very, very careful.

When I turned the water on on the second bed, I wasn’t quite so cautious. After all, they’re pressure compensating. But right away, things started squealing and shooting off all over the place. I never found several parts. I replaced the missing things and it worked alright.

Today, I watered the first bed again. Beautiful.

Then, I watered the second one. And I had a second show. I threatened to take pictures before I replaced the parts the first time and didn’t. This time, I’ll definitely turn the water on one time before I yank them all out (not an easy task) and replace them.

It’ll be another sprinkler oriented weekend.