Welcome to the California Garden December 2021 blog. Today, we will be going through the bountiful harvest in December, a tour of the California Garden, and some gardening tips and advice! 

HARVESTS

So let’s begin with the harvest we made this month. 

 

Apples, we were growing our en shimmer apples and it yielded one beautiful-looking apple.

Broccoli, we were growing broccoli both in containers as well as in raised beds. Our broccoli crowns have grown quite well and they will continue to produce side shoots. 

Cabbage, As you can see here the cabbage heads have formed quite well and these are the ones on our raised beds.

 

Cauliflower, We had cauliflowers again growing both in containers and raised beds. This harvest is from a container growing next to our fruit trees and we also had some harvests from the raised beds now again. 

 

Eggplants, We did end up having one large eggplant, this black moon eggplant that had overwintered from the last season.

 

Guavas, our tropical white guava plant, was full of fruits and we harvested a lot of guavas from this plant in December. 

 

Hyacinth beans, The hyacinth bean plant had grown quite large it had taken over the entire wall and we harvested a lot of hyacinth beans from this plant. 

Meyer lemons, we had a lot of Meyer lemons growing in our semi-dwarf tree in the ground. 

 

Pineapple, Our plant was growing in a container and we harvested one more pineapple. 

Pomegranates, The Ariana pomegranate was producing some fruits and now we have this pomegranate tree growing in a container. 

Radish, We had multiple varieties of radish growing, this is the golden minnows radish, one of my favorites to grow in the garden. 

 

Swiss chard, Our Swiss chard plant was growing in an elevated, self-watering raised bed and produced beautiful Swiss chard leaves.

 

Tomatoes, Our most productive tomato was the San Marzano tomato that was growing in a container and we harvested tomatoes from this plant almost throughout the whole month of December. 

 

TOUR

Now let’s take a tour of the garden!

 

The first raised bed is home to many onions and some beans such as bush beans and pole beans. On the other side of the bed on the trellis, there are some determinate tomato plants. In the next raised bed, we have some more determinate tomatoes and some added netting to protect the brassicas such as cabbages, cauliflowers, and broccoli. We also have multiple varieties of radishes growing in the corner.

In the next raised bed we harvested a lot of cauliflowers and cabbages and in the next raised bed, we had broccoli, followed by some beets on the side. In the final raised beds, we are growing black moon eggplant, kale, red acre cabbages, spinach, and green bunching onions. On the back, we have our ivy gourd plant. 

Let’s now move on to the containers. In the first container, we have broccoli, atomic red carrots, and our Suraj Mukhi pepper plant. The other containers hold carrots, minnows radish, bush Roma tomatoes, taro root, lettuce, some bulbing onions, a medicinal plant, some mint near the turmeric plant, a guava plant, our mustard spinach plant, our San Marzano tomatoes, and more green bunching onions. All of our containers are packed with even more plants such as radish, overwintered eggplants, hyacinth beans, spinach and peas, more determinate bush glacier tomato plants, our ivy gourd plant, our pigeon pea plant, and our longevity spinach plant. Lastly, our GreenStalk planter houses several onions.

Watch our episode !!HAPPY NEW YEAR !! California Gardening December Garden Tour 2021 – Winter Harvests, Garden Tips on California Gardening!