Meet Reed and Hass

Reed and Hass have joined our family of avocado trees next to Mr. Zutano.  R&H are 'A' type pollinators and Z is a "B" so we will have a happy love fest next spring in the avocado grove.  The new trees also extend our harvest season to provide yummy avocados all year long.  It will be a couple years before we harvest our first Reed or Hass.

3/25 update. Hass has dead shoot tips and no leaves  so I sent sample to SD County Ag for analysis. No pest identified, so they suggested look at roots. I am worried that a root disease will spread to Zutano and to Reed. Today provided a large sample of the root to the county for analysis. Waiting for result.

Finally Got It!

I had a breakthrough yesterday with the Irritrol Smart Dial sprinkler controller.  Using a multimeter, I checked each valve for voltage while the controller was on and found a couple problems to fix.  Also fixed two breaks in the drip line in the back yard.  It now works great!  Keep your fingers crossed.

Converted valve 9 (top tier of rear slope) to drip for trees.  Moved the hose timer to the new Pumpkin Patch to water the seeds.  Still need to separate vegetables from the tree line on V9 and move to V11.

Pumpkin Patch

Planted seeds today in the lower bed.

• Big Max Pumpkin120 days (just in time for Halloween harvest)
• Jack O'Lantern Pumpkin 100 days
• Sugar Baby Watermelon 78 days
• Giant Sunflower.

Berry Patch Complete

Here is our berry patch now complete with 2 blackberries, 2 raspberries and 3 blueberry bushes.  Here are the details:

Blackberries

• Triple Crown Thornless
• Zarzamora Marion

Raspberries

• Willamette
• Heritage

Blueberries

• Bountiful Blue
• Southmoon
• Misty

Blueberry jam and Yukon potatoes

Sharon's update - Potatoes and Blueberry Lemon Jam

This week I harvested the potato cylinders.  One was a bust - no pots; the second produced about 8 Yukon potatoes of med to small size.  The smaller cylinder was a bust - may have had too much air circulating since I didn't compact the soil at all.  Live and learn.

In place, I planted one swiss chard and one arugula and a 6-pack of green onions.  The zucs are finally growing, as well, the surprise tomatoes and melon (of some sort) are on fire.  We used the potato soil/compost/hay to mulch the veggies and the smaller fruit trees.

I made blueberry lemon marmalade today with Dawn.  $16 worth of blues and $3 of Meyer lemons (only one from our garden) from the Little Italy farmers market and all we ended up with was 2-1/2 half pint jars :-/  While the jam is yummy, the yield was low.  Next time I'll try something that will yield more.  Time to try peaches and nectarines :-))

Drip Irrigation Upgrade and Irritrol-itating!

Improved fruit tree drip lines. Replaced avocado line to ready for additional trees.

Added vegetable garden drip as leg of tree line.

Added berry drip on zone 11. Shut down ivy spray heads on same zone. Requested Saul begin removal of ivy in future grape planter.

Installed new Irritrol Smart Dial control unit. This last week had several calls to the service line due to valves showing NC on the valve test. Researched and set all new programming for 10 valves. Then tried manual water

ing. All but valve 6 showed "NOW ON" on the controller, but did not activate at valve and no water came out. Valve 6 did activate and watered accordingly. This matches the results of the Help System valve test that showed all vales NC except 6 was OK. Plan to call and get advice on Monday.

Why a Garden Blog?

This inaugural post is the beginning of an attempt to find a better way to log garden notes in one place. Over the years, we have used myriad modes of record keeping including calendars, spreadsheets, book notes and memory to keep track of plantings, pest control, feeding and the like. None have passed the test of time.

So here is the latest and greatest attempt. Our garden blog. In this space we will record plantings and harvest, post pictures and log notes. We hope it will be a lasting log of our garden at the Palisades house in Kensington.

We hope you enjoy following along. If not, that's okay too. After all, the purpose of the blog is to record garden notes for our use. It may bore you to death!