farm with a view

Enough of our little patch of dirt, for once. A few snaps of other things growing at Ocean View Farms:

(Whoa – talk about a bumper crop!)

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Stumbled across a large online collection of old wartime food and farm posters (via Boing Boing) from the National Agricultural Library, curated and thoughtfully captioned by Cory Bernat. An interesting flashback to those days when Uncle Sam urged us to tighten our pocketbooks and practice self- sustenance during hard times, not to borrow more money and go shopping.

Forgot to mention that we pulled up the Earl of Edgecomb tomato plant the last time we were at the garden. It was 90 percent brown, afflicted by some kind of wilt that slowly overcame it. It produced a total of four edible tomatoes in the four months or so that it’s been in the ground. The first tomato was reasonably sized and pretty tasty. The other three, which we harvested last week, were small and mealy. Bleh. Lesson learned: Don’t put out tomatoes until end of May or June. And do not succumb to tomato sales that happen in March.

The EE was next to our Minnesota Midget melon plant, which is slowly succumbing to the powdery mildew that I first spotted in June. We’ve harvested three mini melons so far and at last check there are two green ones that, who knows, might be ripened by now. I’m pretty sure we’ll be done after that.

Soooo … Now my mind is wandering to what we should plant with the empty space, and for our fall garden in general after the tomatoes are done. Oh, the excitement of planning. Would love to do some lettuces and leafy greens. We still have some spinach seeds left after our bunk spinach attempt earlier this year. Maybe kale? I’ve read that they’re pretty hardy and easy to grow, and I already have a few ideas for using them in wintery soups. (Mmm, caldo verde.) Butternut squash would be interesting, too, but don’t know when it needs to be planted; might be too late. Some sort of pea – either sugar snap or my mom’s snow – is a must; will probably plant that in the area where the tomatoes currently are, to give the soil a bit of a nitrogen boost.

Something else to think about is what to do with the upper part of the garden where we currently have the SIPs. The ground itself is covered with pine needles so there’s nothing growing there at the moment, except for some weeds. It’s kinda nice to have the space up there to stand around with a bit of elbow room to spare, though. There was also talk earlier this year about finding an old gardening bench or something and turning part of it into a sitting area … but that, of course, means we’re not maximizing our veggie-growing potential.

What’s up with the weather here?

(Water Garden complex, Santa Monica)

Is your neighbor’s fruit tree hanging over communal or public property? Technically, the fruit is anyone’s for the taking, including you.

According to law, if a fruit tree grows on or over public property, the fruit is no longer the sole property of the owner.

Check out the peeps over at Fallen Fruit, who’ve turned this concept into a movement of sorts. And here’s a map of “public fruit” in Silver Lake, if you’re in the area and have really long arms, or happen to have a claw-slash-fruit-picker.

Andrew is doing his own thing here on the Westside – mainly, getting at our next-door neighbor’s lemon tree, which is totally hanging over the (public) alley: