The days are getting longer, you can feel the warmth of the sun, smell the fresh air, hear the sweet melodious chirping of the birds and this means it’s that time of the year, start your summer vegetables, if you haven’t already.

In today’s episode we look at the California Garden in the month of May 2019. We look at lot of aspects of organic gardening – beginning with a tour of our raised beds and containers, we will then look at some harvests we made this month, tips to prep your garden for the summer and finally we
will review a great quality product by VermisTerra, a family owned company located in Thermal,CA.

Garden Tour – Raised Beds and Containers.

We have black cobra pepper which has been overwintered from the last growing season, Anaheim Chill peppers, Little Prince Eggplants, Nombo giant Okra, Roma and Grape Tomato, Fava Beans, Hyacinth Beans and some Onions growing in our raised beds.

We have two new entrants “Loquat and Mango Tree” growing in our containers and are very excited to see how these progress as the temperatures warm up.

We also have some Volunteer Tomato plants, Little Prince Eggplant, Amaranth greens, Cauliflower still braving warm temperature and some potatoes growing in our containers.

Harvests

Cilantro which had started bolting as warmer temperature set in.

 Purple Kohlrabi

 Mulberries

Onions – Our kids had a great time yanking the bulbs out from the soil.

Black cobra peppers which were overwintered. Overwintering helps you get a faster yield without the wait as the plants are already established.

Yukon Gold Potatoes – Oh Boy! It was fun hunting for the potatoes that were hidden all over. We were very happy with the yield this year and would absolutely recommend growing Yukon Gold potatoes in your home garden

Strawberries

Our first tomato for this season (Yay!)

Things To Do

If you haven’t already now is a good time to start preparing for the summer season and start your summer vegetables. We sowed the giant variety of watermelon and Bell pepper, pole beans seeds in our seed starting kits in the greenhouse.

We also transplanted our Okras which were growing in the greenhouse to our raised beds.

Our Yukon Gold potato leaves were affected with blight this growing season. Blight is typically caused by fungi such as mildew, rusts and smuts, it causes a discoloration of leaves which eventually die. We removed all the affected leaves and remember not to toss them in your compost bin.

Product review

We will review a wonderful products from VermiSterra, a family owned company based in Thermal, CA.

We will look at VermisTerra vermicompost and VermisTerra worm tea and how to use these products in your home garden for maximum yield.

They are great organic soil amendments and are neutral pH, so won’t burn the plants and are safe for application on seedlings. Their products are OMRI certified and we are eager to share the progress of our plants in the coming months.

Here is a video guide of how our California garden looks in the month of May – California Gardening Garden Tour – May 2019