Zizane Glad

Here are pictures of the Zizane Hybrid Gladiolus.   Its a really unusual color as there are stripes in the flower.  The main color of the bulb is a bright red, with stripes of white on each individual petal.  Some have more white than others.   Here are some close up's of the flowers

13 Raised Bed filled

The 13th raised bed was moved from the old site and filled.   There is one more left to move, so the total won't be the unlucky 13.  They are connected to pvc pipe and sprinklers so I can water 6 beds at a time.
Here are pictures of the beds at various angles.

Ants! Ants! everywhere Ants!

There is a big problem with ants on the property that use for my garden.   They were farming aphids on my melons and its so bad the leaves were curling up from all the aphids sucking the life out of my plants.  Some of the fruit trees leaves are so disfigured from scale, whiteflies, and aphids on the leaves.  The ants are the culprit.  They "farm" these insects for the honey dew they extract and protect the from predators.   I saw a lady bug land in my melon patch and the ants immediately started attacking it.  I had to save it and move it somewhere else.    The challenge is how do you get rid of ants without using chemicals.   I found the KM Ant Pro traps.   They were tested at UCR (University of California - Riverside) which has acres of orange groves.   It utilizes 1% borax mixed with a sweet liquid similar to honey dew.   There is a small slit that only the ants can enter.  Keeps bees and pets from drinking the stuff.  It's a low dose of poison that the ants bring back to the nest and feed to the queen and babies.   It will slowly build up and kills the entire colony, or thats the plan anyway.  I  set two of these traps in areas where the ants are bad and we will see if it works.
Here is a picture of the trap and also the liquid bait.

Chickens!

The owner of the property is taking care of 3 chickens for awhile, so they are living in the little chicken pen.   I have been feeding them some of the overripe vegetables and they love it.   There is a golden laced wyandotte, black australorp, and barred rock.  They are laying 2-3 eggs a day.

Lucy's Ranch

We decided to allow our Corgi - Lucy to come along to the garden.   She loves to run around the pond, chase the squirrels and occasionally will spot a rabbit to chase, but with her short little legs, she doesn't stand a chance of actually catching one.  Its good exercise for her since she's about 8 lbs overweight.  
There one picture of her hiding in the bean plants,  she was waiting for me too walk by so she could jump out and try to nip at my heels and herd me (her favorite thing to do)

Planting a row of gladiolus - plum tart

I planted a row of gladiolus today.   They are size 3 bulbs which is the smallest available that will bloom.   They will not have big blossoms, but they are very affordable and I will fatten them up and resell the once that are big and replant the smaller ones along with any babies that grow from the mother bulb.  This variety is plum tart.   I planted them in a furrow - after placing some bone meal in the furrow.   I then covered them up making a raised area because they are watering by flooding each some of the raised area.   See my post on aquaponics watering.

Watering plants where it doesn't rain - Aquaponics to the rescue.

We are in the midst of a drought in Southern California and received very little rain, so everything needs to be watered.     The spot where I have planted my plants, has a large pond stocked with fish.  The owner drains the pond weekly and waters her orchard with the waste water from the pond.   The water is brown and has a slight fish odor which means its full of nutrients for the trees.  I created furrows between the rows to flood my plants when she waters this way.  This won't work for the raised beds, but the stuff that's planted in the ground will benefit.  Its a large scale method of Aquaponics.
Here's a picture of the output column.  These are commonly used in orange groves.  I dug canals to each of my rows and they got a very good soaking.  This beats using city water for my plants.