End Of Summer 2016 Tomato Garden

Well my Tomatoes did not do very well this year.  I think grubs caused this.  I dug down into thge soil and there were a bunch of these 3/4 inch long grubs. From what I read nematodes are the best way to fight these and to water in the morning. Luckily I had a few volunteer tomotoes pop up in my other raised garden bed and they are doing much better.  Only 2 plants and they are putting about 2 tomotoes a week each.  I think a couple things lead to this.  1. I did not fertilize them. 2. Inconsistent watering. 3. Planted the plants to close together.

2014 Tomato Garden

Here is my tomato garden from 2014 summer.  In 2015 I had a bit of a problem getting good tomatoes and I think this year (2016) I will be putting in all new fresh dirt.  They say you should not grow tomatoes in the same dirt in back to back years so I usually rotate.  But I think  after 10 years of gardening in the same raised beds it is time for a change.

End of Summer 2010

I only got a few Watermelon and they were smaller in size this year. Also only had 2 pumkins off one plant. I even bought some expensive soil for the Watermelon and pumpkins but it did not make a difference. I think I might have planted them late. Starting from seed it takes a while. Next year I will buy plants at the store and get them in the ground a bit earlier.

We had a good harvest this summer. Lots of Tomatoes, and Zucchinni. We had 4 Zucchinni and 4 Tomato plants that produced plenty of veggies. Our 1 summer squach did pretty good. The 3 Blueberry plants did not produce very much this year. Next year I will fertilize them more. I also want to plant more heritage tomatoes next year. The pepper plant did pretty good. Roseville does not seem to have a long enough or hot emough summer to get very many red peppers. I did get 15-20 green peppers off this single pepper plant. Mainly used it to make salsa. Madarin tree seems to just struggle along this year and same with the orange tree. They both have fruit on them.

A Stewart Avocado Tree

This is an apprx 4 year old avocado tree. It seems to struggle with the cool Roseville winters. This winter I have a 2 step plan on providing it with more frost protection. Last winter I just put a patio umbrela over it. This did not work very well because the umbrella would get blown over and break from the winter winds. This winter I will spray it with a product called "Cloud Cover". This soaks into the leaves and provides great protection. I will also cover it with plastic on the real cold nights.

The fruits from our labor

Not only did this garden produce a gorgeous squash and tons of tomatoes. It produce a smilling 12 year old kid. This is my son Ben. He is one of 4 boys. Each boy gets their own 4x8 raised vegetable bed. They get to pick what they want to grow and they have to take care of it. It is truly a great family hobby!