Gigi’s Urban Gardenstead

14/07/2022

When you neglect the garden for a few days and she starts acting up. 😉

03/07/2022

☮️❤️🍅

02/07/2022

My favorite thing in the garden right now. She pairs nicely on the backside of my lemon squash along with some coleus. We also dropped in some large cone flowers and zinnias to take us into late summer/fall.

Keep those beds full in this heat. They will add shade and help keep your soil cooler, moist and active. 🌼🌻🏵️

01/07/2022

Absolutely!

30/06/2022

Let's not judge too harshly. I'm starting a patio veggie garden upstairs. I needed the appropriate seeds for this journey. It's too hot to play in the yard. Lol. I had to.

20/06/2022

Organizing ideas and content is proving to be significantly harder than it looks. My OCD parts do not want to post without a proofreader and edits but, the realistic part of me knows, it will never pass my own judgement. So, instead of keeping it all in drafts, I'm just going to post as is, as it comes. The idea, hopefully, is if I just keep going, it will get easier and become better. Yeah, let's just go with that for now.

You may have heard to not cut the tops off of your indeterminate tomato plants off unless you want to kill your plant. The truth is, you have a better chance of killing your plant from not cutting it off. I am not a video person, I am exhausted and I tried to cut my pinky off in the process of this post so, please forgive the novice of it all.

If you are growing determinate tomatoes, stop right here. Don't read anymore. If you are growing indeterminate tomatoes, you might want to s...

17/06/2022

Watering when it's hot? Don't do it. You will boil your plants alive. For the rest of the year, we say do not water at night but, NOT when it's 100+ degrees.

Make sure there's mulch to help retain the moisture and prevent any spores/bacteria in the soil from splashing up. Keep the bottoms of your plants free from leaves or stems that will touch the wet soil. Deep water only at the base of the plant. No overhead spraying ever.

Plant something else with your plant as a companion. We use marigolds with our tomatoes. They need similar water as the tomatoes but dry out/wilt faster than the tomato plant. When I see the marigold start to suffer, I know it's time to water my tomatoes.

17/06/2022

100 degree temps but we are still rocking! Microclimates and heavy pruning absolutely keep your season booming. I need to get the rest of the shade cloth out ASAP and top some tomato plants.

15/06/2022

Starting a blog from the ground up is so intimidating. For the same reason I waited so long to publish the page, I have held back on the blog. It seems so bare but, it is a start and you have to start somewhere. I have been keeping a running list of topics as I think of them. Between the shop, Felix Bug, the girls, the house and the garden, there isn't much time left in my day for content. A blog isn't like IG or FB, there need to be words. Lol. I am hoping to publish once a week, actively using searchable labels to filter the information better at a later time.

According to the National Weather Service, parts of Arizona and Southern California are expected to reach temperatures between 113 and 117 d...

14/06/2022

Kielbasa, cabbage, squash and onions. It's what's for dinner!

13/06/2022

It looks like we were successful in the squash borer head off mission. The plant hasn't died off or even wilted where we performed our backyard surgery. We are still checking it daily but I feel good about it... for now.

13/06/2022

So I take back everything I said about the cucumber squash being an ugly plant. I pruned the heck out of it a few weeks ago and fertilized it with some Agro Thrive. We've also had rain three times this week. It is so green and super healthy. I have been treating it once a week to head off any powdery mildew and/or other types of bacterial/fungal growth. We put one gallon of water in the sprayer with one tbsp of olive oil and 2 tbsp of baking soda. It's almost at the half way mark over the top of the trellis and we are still getting 2-5 cucumbers a day off of it. I am loving this cucumber!

10/06/2022

I'm transitioning the spring garden into summer. The lemon squash are still producing so, they are staying in place for now after a heavy prune. We pulled back the mulch and topped off the soil then replaced the leaf litter mulch.

I'm counting our lucky stars we noticed some fresh borer eggs. We were able to move fast by slicing the spots up, scraping it out and packing the hole with DE. A few more days and it might have been too late. Now we wait and keep watch. Hopefully we've headed it off at the pass!

10/06/2022

The color variations on this girl were beautiful yesterday. She's going to work with me today for lunch. A little sunshine sandwich coming up 🌞🍅☺️

08/06/2022

Part of me: we really don't need to start zucchini right now. Other part of me: opening the package.

08/06/2022

Lemon cucumbers. Yes! It took a bit to figure these guys out fully. Apparently, they just needed time. We are getting 8-10 cucumbers every few days with no end in sight. The leaves always yellow and it's not the prettiest plant but, it's a prolific producer, it tolerates the heat and once a week deep watering. It's now a forever staple in this garden. And yes, my nails always look like that.

05/06/2022

Summer garden seed starting is a lot different than spring garden seed starting. We are impatient for the spring. We have nothing else to do but plant too many seeds we know we will never plant out fully. Even at this stage in my garden life, I never plant more than 3-6 of each variety of anything. Even then, it's too many. I give the extras to friends and family.

Summer seed starting is so different. I know exactly what plants are getting ripped out and I know exactly what is going to be going in it's place. The springtime garden is dying back or starting to decline. I used to leave things in place, holding out for those handful of fruits that might come. Not anymore. My additions this year are the armanian cucumber, yard long beans and spinless crimson okra. With the heat, seed germination is usually 100% so, I only plant exactly what I need.

I have teenagers. They eat a lot of fast food and I hate single use plastics so, I repurpose their cups as a mini greenhouse seed starter. Once they germinate and emerge, I lose the lid and it then becomes a planter until I separate and plant them out. It's a super easy, free way to get those seeds started.

05/06/2022

Mini pick today. Getting to that point where I want to rip out the tomatoes but, then I want to cut them up and bury them 3' in the ground and let them grow.

04/06/2022

Don't need bread, don't need mayo. Thick, meaty tomato slices with fresh crushed basil, black pepper and a smidge of salt. This, my friends is absolutely why I do this. If summer had a taste, this would be mine. Wish my mom was here for this. Of course she'd add mayo and smack it between two slices of bread. ❤️

04/06/2022

I'm so impressed with the top chop job we did on the pepper plants yesterday. Perky, producing and ready to go again for the summer garden! Peppers are amazing in the fact they can be revived... even over wintered just by chopping them up a bit.

03/06/2022

Annnddd it's official. I will never plant mini bell peppers again. With so many peppers, we are now at a point of needing to process. The flavor isn't bad, it's just not overly liked either so, they got cubed and are soaking in brine tonight. Tomorrow they will be blanched, tossed on a baking sheet then frozen so we can bag them up for the freezer. It took forever to cube 1-2 oz peppers. Lesson learned. They will serve a good purpose though for soups, stews and meatloaf this winter.

02/06/2022

I'm trying really hard to not curse but I get an energized excitement when I can catch an early pest before infestation or destruction. Imagine lots of cursing... think Bruce Willis in any Die Hard... while I'm carefully searching and crushing souls. I am unstoppable. Die mothe....... oops sorry 🤣🤣🤣

02/06/2022

We are well into neglect at this point. From the hail storm, to me being sick to no real rain since the hail storm. I refuse to water. Things are planted and maintained in a way they need very little from me as long as we get rain once a week. Well, I broke down today and watered. I also topped off the peppers and my tomatoes. Yes, I top off my tomatoes. It's okay. There are the select chosen lower suckers that were allowed to live. After the shock has worn off, we will get our second big boom of tomatoes. It's hot. I'm exhausted. Now onto mandatory family fun! ❤️🙂🤪 Today should revitalize the garden, yard long beans, armanian cucumbers and okra are going in to fill the gaps.

23/05/2022

1st successful melon pollination for the season!

19/05/2022

My garden helper is so strong with his tattoos!

19/05/2022

This little mini bell pepper is the first of our second bumper crop to turn red. The existence of mini bells in our garden solely lies with this guy. The pros: Insane production, smaller fruit/plant, healthy plant and fairly heat/pest tolerant. The cons: Small, 1 oz fruit, more seeds than meat. This would be an optimal plant for a super small garden on a deck or balcony. Although, it’s pretty perfect. We need a bigger pepper. I’m waiting to see what sweetness comes with a fully mature (red) pepper before I make any real decisions. I may move it to the patio. It’s definitely coming out of the main raised bed though. To feed five or six people, prep time on these little guys is just not reasonable for us.

18/05/2022

The is by far my favorite producer of the year. It’s not too big, not too small and super sweet. It’s perfect for Bug to grab and eat straight off the plant. The color when ripe is mostly orange with some red, yellow and sometimes green blotching/striping. Their season may end up cut short though. They are not as disease/pest resistant as the other varieties we have planted. It’s become a favorite around here now and definitely earned its place in the !

17/05/2022

It doesn’t get any fresher than this. We’re following the use it now rule! Over the years, I’ve learned a valuable lesson in waste and excess. As a gardener, some things barely produce but, sometimes you get major bumper crops. We keep planting, we keep producing. So many times we’ve had food rot to complete waste because we didn’t use it or we just had too much. The rule we try to live by now is if we harvest it, we eat it or preserve it. If we’ve got no immediate need or use for it, we give it away. Today, we ate the heck out of it! 👩‍🌾❤️🍅

17/05/2022

Lemon squash blooms.

16/05/2022

Garden Haul: We are finally able to use our basket for this year and not just my apron. We got both a lemon squash and a lemon cucumber. Today was a fertilizer day. A few weeks back, we won some AgroThrive Organic Liquid Fertilizer. We also got some from the company itself. We document everything around the garden so, we should be able to see any difference. Stay tuned for that part. In other news, I found odd excrement on my lemon cucumber plant and my trellised beans. Maybe rat? Maybe caterpillar? It’s definitely something. I’ve got the next three days off to really catch up on the two week neglect. I see shade cloth coming. 😉 At this point, I’m super happy with everything. Thank goodness I tidied up the tomatoes last night. We got one hell of a storm and I don’t think the top half of them would have survived.

16/05/2022

Garden fail: Two weeks of not pruning or tending to tomato row was enough for an almost disaster. One of the plants wasn’t producing to my satisfaction so I let it branch out a bit instead of pruning it so heavily. It then decided to produce and with the extra weight, it collapsed during the storm today. There’s a before & after. Pruning and adding more weave was not on my list of things to do tonight but, leaving something like that for even the night could be disastrous. Plus, look at that beautiful orange tomato! I’ll let Little Buddy pick it tomorrow. 🍅😉👩‍🌾

12/05/2022

Work has kept me out of the garden this week. Thankfully we got some rain today. Tomatoes has a little pesty situation but, I’ll just hard on that tomorrow. All the cucumbers need some fertilization. The corn looks great and the Malabar spinach is starting to climb. The lemon cucumbers well, I’m not crazy about them. The left side of that bed has struggled. Maybe once the fruit is ripe. It’s awfully scary looking. Bug got his cucumber so he’s happy ❤️

07/05/2022

I wasn’t expecting these mini bell peppers to only weigh 1 ounce. I guess I should have read the seed packet. I need to find just some plain old California Wonder.

I love preseason mini hauls. They get me super excited for what’s coming!

06/05/2022

Malabar spinach setting first blooms. This is our first time growing it. It’s growing to provide a microclimate for half of the trellis!