Hey guys! I'm back at it with my garden. I have been away and some things have come up, like WINTER! haha, but weather aside things have kept me from updating on my gardens.

So anyway, Can you guess what is in the above piture , the white out of focus thing. THATS right! it's a sunflower seed!

 My sunflowers are reaching the end of their days. And what a mighty time they have given me. From just tiny seeds to mamoth towers of leaves and yellow peddels. So nice to look at , and fun to watch grow. But alas all good things must end. My sunflowers are on their last legs and are drooping to and dropping seeds! However this is a good sign for me.

Once you get a majority of the flower to have mature seeds it is time to harvest. If you look at the pic to the left you can see all the lines of white leading to the center. As well as the darker spots, those being the places where seeds have fallen out. This is good and bad. Because it means I will have larger seeds, but less of them.

Then the time comes to sever the head of the flower! And I have just the tool! That is correct, a hand saw!

Although my job at cutting went well I only got about 1/6 of the way through before the weight of the sunflower head broke the steam and it just fell. Lucky I caught it, because the process of drying it out is what is next to come!

I am drying my sunflower head upside down, so all the fancy sap and juices drain all the way into the seeds. this means that it will take longer to dry , but will also be more tasty! In just about 2 weeks time I should have my own home made sunflower seeds to munch on!

OK! Thank you for being a reader of my blog. And come back soon!

Praying Mantis

You all remember I'm growing sunflowers right? Well, I have been tracking them I have found that they have acquired a protector . Also, they have been getting pollinated by the wonderful bees!

 My fun and super tall sunflowers.

 The new resident. A praying mantis who has decided to claim this flower as his home. Seeing as they can fly I guess it makes sense he picked this flower because the flowers are so tall.

 Here is a pic of the mantis poking his head over the top of the flower. He is saying "Hey, I'm on camera! I'm going to be famous!"

and here he says "Hi MOM!" . Haha, this thing is kinda funny to watch. I did not see him get any bugs or anything, but I'm sure he is keeping the place clear!

 Then I had another visitor, a fancy pollinating bee! Hooray! that means that I will have pollinated seeds to munch on, and that I will have seeds to plant next year!

Then some more pictures for perspective. This picture shows not only the bee but also how high up I am to take this picture. This massive flower is about 16 Feet Tall, that is close to 3 Full grown men stacked head to toe . Man, that's tall!

OK! Thanks for reading again! and come back again soon!

Sunflowers are at max height.

I would like to introduce you all to my sunflowers!

These Things have gotten huge! If you have been reading along with me you have seen my sunflowers grow to great heights! They have reached their maximum height now, and have begun to flower, blossom. It's a wonderful sight!

 The sunflower on the right in the picture above is around 16 FT tall. That's crazy tall and about 1 1/4 stories tall compared to my house behind it.

As you can see the smaller of the two sunflowers is filling in nicely, but the blossom still has some green in the middle, so it has some time yet to mature to the point where I can start to dry it out to eat!

 Here is a better view of the blossom. It's mighty large, and it attracts many bees which was the whole point other then to look fancy.
Now to sit back and wait for it to mature so I can make me some tasty roasted sunflower seeds!

Then lastly here is a first person view of how tall the 16FT sunflower is. Man that thing is big, and not to mention the trunk is so big around I can not wrap my fingers all the way around.

KK! thanks for the reads, and come back soon, I'll have more fun things to show you about my sunflowers, for  instance, what kind of insects have decided to stop by.  

What Is and Heirloom Tomato?

 Hey everbody, I know I have been away for some time, but I'm Back! I have had a few things going on, like a mix of school starting, my phone dying, my boss leaving so I had to run the shop, and a few other things. But enough with my excuses , I'm here to show off the stuff growing from my garden!

First, Let me define a word for you that I will be using . Heirloom: (in the context I'm using it) A tomato that is the same since or before the 1940's . So if you took one of these tomatos and time traveled back to the 1940s and compared it to one from then it would be almost the exact same thing! This is only important because some people have created these varieties for their taste , size and appearance, and have kept them pure, so they are the classics, where as the new genetically altered stuff nowdays might grow better but they typically dont have the same character ore appeal.

Now on to what I have been doing!

Here we see a Tomato, the pic above being one week prior to the picture to the left. As you can see this tomato is not a normal tomato, and if you care to guess at the name then do so now before scrolling down.  It is of the Heirloom variety

 That's right! It's a Black Krim! These babies are so good! and the strange thing is they almost always split. If you look at the above photo you see the split in the tomato, that is usually from over watering when the tomatoes is fully grown. Over waterting forces the plant to drink more water and it "pops" the tomatoes on the plant, but this variety is weird in that it pops all on its own.

Next up is a Non Heirloom Variety, and again I will show you the progression of the ripeness of the tomato. As you can see it's typical in ripening, starting green and gradually working it's way down to bright red!

 Well now, if you would like to guess at the name I'll give you a hint , the name does not really describe the size of the tomatoes shown, however the color is a better way of describing it.

This one is ripe an ready to be picked!

That's right! You guessed it, it's a Watermelon Beefsteak Tomato!  Now look again at the wonderful color scheme, can you see the cool watermelon like coloring! So cool. Although it does not taste like a watermelon, it was still great on my turkey sandwich!

Then to end on a bright note, my sunflowers are doing wonderfully! They are however more droopy then I would like, probably a lack of nitrogen, but That's just fine. They are doing what I wanted them to , attract the bees for my tomatoes!

Ok guys Thanks again for reading, and putting up with my absence, My next blog will cover two more tomatoes I have been growing! So come back again soon!

SunFlowers, how tall will they get?

About the only thing that has made an significant change is the sun flowers At my sisters House have gotten really really big. about 4 of them are close to 6 FT tall. Its getting crazy big over there! That makes me very happy, it shows the soil is quite fertile.
Although, at this point I'm just waiting. Waiting for the tomatoes to turn red, waiting for the cantaloupe to get bigger then a baseball, waiting for the peppers to grow. AND Waiting for the herbs to get more green and leafy.

The cages in the background are just over 8FT tall, so you can  compare the sunflowers in front to the cages in the back and you can see that they are getting really big. I believe they have a 55-65 days of growth before flowering. Just to make sure the root system is in order, and the plant has grown as tall as possible before it sends out its big flower.

 This is the center of the sunflower, where it will pop out the flower. These Particular sunflowers are supposed to procure edible flowers. This will make me happy because I love to eat those things. Very yummy! I Just have to figure out how to harvest them.
I wonder If I should add a flavor to the sunflowers before eating them? or just use salt. not sure. Maybe do half and half.

Then the Pepper plants at my sisters house are doing very well. I think it is because the timer to the soaker hose was turned off and the hose was moved to water the front lawn. I need to get my sister a third hose so it can be used only for watering the garden. haha

Thank you everybody who has read this. Come back soon, I'm sure I will soon have great fruits to show off!

Volunteer Pepper Plant.

At my grand fathers house I limited the number of plants I put in the ground at the start of the season to allow them all to get really big.

That means I did not plant a pepper plant into the ground. With this in mind I'm wondering why there is a Pepper Plant growing in the garden. haha. The picture above and below show the same pepper plant. I do not know if it is a Red pepper, a Jalapeno or what, but I plan on finding out once it starts to flower!

Then I planted a bunch of Sun Flower seeds here to get some beez in there. Because you know, bees are about the only source of pollination. With out beez your plants would probably not bear fruit! These sunflowers are about 7 inches tall. Gettting pretty big. Cant wait to see the flower.

Then I got bored at my house, so I got a Earth box and put in a tomatoe plant, basil and one piece of chard. We will see if I get any fancy stuff from this box! wish me luck!

KK! Thanks for the reads guys! come back soon!

Because I dont have DIRT, or least much dirt.

At my house I'm stuck with about 3X5 Square feet of dirt to work with, but worst of all its not all in one place... Thank goodness for EarthBoxes. That is how I'm growing me a SINGLE tomato bush . oh well. Least I have something. But with the limited space I have to work with I decided to move my plants outside my patio. There is a nice big space of Dirt where a couple of trees used to be. But they were old and removed by the home owners  association.

So, I took over the space with some plants of my own. Really... I do not know the name of the HUGE plant in that is taking up most of the space , but it is very aromatic and looks pretty. It is also getting pretty close to flowering. That should be a nice sight!

 Oh, and that is my dog KunKun. You can see that the whole space I have to work with is kinda big... but the dirt itself is terrible, and needs to be amended. This winter I will cut back that big green varigaited bush thing, and add some soil nutrients.

As I get closer to the plants themself You can see what I'm gradually getting closer to. I must admit though, most of these plants were put here by my mother, so I really do not know the names of them.

 But as we get closer to KunKun you can now see a little better the dessert plants to the right.

Then as we get even closer and a little to the right of the patch of dirt you can see the main feature of this here fancy post. That small green bush thing just to the right of KunKun.

Have you guessed yet what plant I'm talking about? well, if you did not then I'll tell you. Its the Bush Bean plant. In the last pic it is between the planter and the dessert plant. I'll have to post another picture when the sun is not in my eyes. But thats it folks! My bush bean plant! with some luck it will grow to be a wonderful big Bean plant and produce a nice little bounty of Green Beans for me! Oh, and as parting words, if you look closly at the last picture at the dirt you can see TINY green sprouts, those are the second Platoon of sunflower seeds I planted. Next post will probably focus on them.

KK! thanks all, tune in next time for more pictures of Kun Kun!

My SunFlowers DIED!

Do you guy recall I was growing sunflowers in an egg carton? Well, things were going great! they were getting nice and big, almost all of them sprouted. I had about a 95% success rate on the seed germination. That is great! usually the most you can hope for is like 90% possibly 85% . Just because they are not all live seeds, or they were grown wrong. But I got a really high % rate of growth.




But then I decided to go on vacation, and I completely forgot about them. Recently it has rained here in North California, rain is not strange , it's the time of year. Just last week we got a good couple days of rain, and I did not have to water anything. So that got my mind off my sunflowers. Thus I went on vacation with out even thinking about them. I come back and they look terrible...

Ever last one of my pretty pretty sprouts has shriveled up in the sun and died! A lack of water can do that you know?

 You can see that ALL my sprouts are dead because I did not water them, and that makes me sad.

Poor guys! Oh well I guess. It's a learning experience. I will try again, there is still time this year. I will just have to re plant and hope for the best. The good thing for my next batch of plants is that I wont have any more vacation time, so they will not be forgotten!

Alright Yeall! thanks for the reads as usual! and keep coming back for another update on my fancy garden!

Let's attract some bees!

The weather is pick up, and becoming more like it should be for this time of year, though it's still being kinda dumb. Not nearly as warm as it should be! Speaking of bees , with the stopping of the rain they will be coming out again to farm their nectar and to make honey, and that is why I am growing my sunflowers! Bees love sunflowers because they are HUGE!

Weather for Walnut Creek, CA

56°F | °C Wed Thu Fri Sat Current: Clear Wind: S at 9 mph Humidity: 79% 76°F | 53°F 78°F | 54°F 78°F | 53°F 76°F | 55°F Detailed forecast: The Weather Channel - Weather Underground - AccuWeather

I love how google makes the weather thing so easy to just copy and paste! haha.  But as you can see it is getting warmer, and the nights are not getting as cold, which is great for the roots of my fancy plants!

Let's show you guys what I'm currently growing from seed. Most of what I plant and claim I grew I purchased from local nurseries and hardware stores. BUT these Sun Flowers are all mine from seed!


If you look closely you can see that they have almost DOUBLED in size compared to my last post. All that growth in only about 5 days no less. Sun flowers are cool, they grow really fast, and produce a fabulous display!
All these Sun Flowers have germinated and sprouted in about 1.5 weeks and they are already pretty dang big!

I now realize I never told you the types of sunflowers I planted. So I will tell you the ones you see in the pictures.
The left one with the seed still on its leaves is a Sun Spot which will get to be about 1-2 FT tall. The right is a Mammoth Greystripe and I expect it to get to 8-10 FT tall.

The plant in the Very far back that is kinda red around the edges is a Velvet Queen and I expect it to grow to be around the height of an aveage American man, 5'6-5'11

I will be taking these sprouts to their new homes pretty soon. They will soon out grow their little eggshell container that I used to start them in . Once planted I believe they will grow to their full potential and might even produce a crop of seeds to much on!

KK all, thx for the reads again! come back soon!

Blasted Weather STILL!

This is the weather I'm dealing with here. Live in Norther CA, and IT'S RAINING IN JUNE!
why is the darn weather being so bad! When I was a kid I would be getting out of school around this time and I could go swimming at the pool , or walk around in shorts... NOT AN UMBRELLA AND FREAKING PLASTIC PANTS!

Weather for Walnut Creek, CA

58°F | °C Sat Sun Mon Tue Current: Shower Wind: SE at 5 mph Humidity: 95% 66°F | 52°F 71°F | 54°F 65°F | 50°F 71°F | 52°F

Because of the rain I have not had much of a chance to get out and tend to the garden. If nothing else I dont need to water it. Save a few pennies there I guess. However I did start some sun flowers from seed that I'll show you.

I started a few different kinds of sun flowers

You can see them poking their way out of the soil, and getting ready to get nice and big!

One of the more interesting of the sprouts was when it poked out of the soil with the seed still intact. Getting a little ahead of itself there. Silly thing!

As they grow I will document them, and update you on it. I plan on moving these guys to my sisters house and to my grand fathers house. Should Add a nice little bit of color to the garden, as well attract some bees!

OK! thx all for the reads! come back again soon!