Welcome to Caliann's blog

I love the outdoors, the beach, gardening, family get-to-gethers! This is a spot hopefully for anyone who is interested in giving me pointers on being a better gardener as I'm a beginner. Mostly learning from reading other garden blogs I'm finally going to give my vegetable garden a try.

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

SPROUTS

These wheat grass seeds were started just 2 days ago between some paper towels which were kept moist.
So after they sprouted I then put them in a plastic tray with potting soil, then put in the kitchen window. I should start getting the "grass" from the wheat seeds very soon. Yummy!

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Wheat Grass and Bush Beans

These are the green bean seeds that will be planted after I pull up the spinach. And I'm germinating some wheat grass seeds. I thought I would give them a try and just let them grow from the window sill of the kitchen. I got curious about wheat grass because they sell it at the "Jamba Juice" and "Juice it up". So I seen the package of seeds and bought it thinking I should see if I can grow them, and use the juice at home with my own juicer. Now I've found out I can't actually process the wheat grass in my juicer cause it can clog it up pretty bad. I may have to buy an actual wheat grass juicer.
Wheat grass also known as "liquid sunshine" is one of the most nutritious foods available to humans. It detoxifies the blood, and the chlorophyll in wheat grass juice has antibiotic properties and creates an unfavorable environment for bacterial growth. Chlorophyll can inhibit the activity of some carcinogens, and wheat grass juice is an appetite suppressant. It improves the bodies ability to heal wounds, and helps purify the liver. It improves digestion and keeps hair from greying. Wheat grass juice absorbs 92 of the 102 minerals in the soil and contains almost all the vitamins used by humans. There's a lot more information to add on this subject but you get the idea about the benefits of this little grass.
Germinating seeds between wet paper towels then put in zip-lock bag.

Saturday, May 24, 2008

Fresh spinach for lunch

Fresh from the garden.
Spinach, Sweet Peas, and Basil grown from my garden and freshly picked for lunch. My tomatoes are not ripe yet so these are from the Farmers market.

Rainy day today...is this sunny California?

Its a rainy day today in the Central California valley. We had tremendous wind this last week then a weather system that brought us rain. No complaining here about the rain, but please don't bring the Wind! We even had a couple of tornados down in southern Calif. I know all our gardens could use the wet rain. Yippee, I don't have to water today!
My first Sunflower. These aren't tall guy's. I'm glad I planted the medium height one's, cause the gail force winds we just had would have knocked the tall ones completely over.
It looks like I have purple dirt. It's just the way the sun/cloudy light came through the lens I guess. This is my spinach. I'm learning that this is probably what it looks like when it "bolts". We've had some pretty hot weather and I'm afraid the spinach time is up. I'll pull it up and harvest the leaves and plant bush beans in it's place. I've been cutting spinach leaves for a while now and using in some great salads.
One more view of the spinach with the red and yellow onions. I hope my onions get a little bigger, they just seem a little slow in getting fatter at the bulb. They don't get a full day of direct sunlight so that is probably the cause. My neighbors are huge and falling over already, and she has them in direct sunlight all day long.

Monday, May 19, 2008

SWEET CORN IS LOVIN THE HEAT...
UH-OH WHAT'S BEEN EATIN THE SQUASH LEAVES? I suspect white flies. I've seen them on my tomatoes too. Guess I better get the soap spray, I hope that takes care of them.
I GOT A BETTER CLOSE-UP TODAY OF MY "BLONDE" BUMBLEBEE.
I HAVE SWEET PEAS! I just discovered them. They were so hidden or I just wasn't lookin for them yet. The HOT weather really brought them to mature.



Wednesday, May 14, 2008

I think summer is here. It's 90 F. today.

I took this picture today of a BLONDE Bumblebee. Yea, he's blonde. This is the first year ever, that I have seen this little guy. He is always buzzin around this particular bush (sweet broom). There aren't any blooms on the bush yet but he's always there.
SUNFLOWER just starting to bud.
Little tomatoes
GARDEN VIEW
SPINACH AHND ONIONS
OKRA

It's warming up really quick. The vegetables are lovin' it. I'm looking forward to some fast growing food! My soil isn't the best, so it will be a surprise if I get any good results with anything as I'm not an experienced gardener. Before I planted anything I added compost to the soil. But I think it needed more of something else to make it more loamie.

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Things are growin.

Watermelon
Sweet Corn
Zucchinni Squash

Monday, May 5, 2008

Red Finch



I took this picture today of this Male Red finch. I have lots of them around. I just can't seem to ever get any decent pictures cause I don't have a super duper camera with a close-up lense. This bird feeder is right outside my window, so I was able to get a pretty good close-up.

Sunday, May 4, 2008

Birdies flew the "coup"

My baby birds flew from their nest yesturday the 3rd of May. This picture was taken just a week a go. They grew so fast! Their still learning to navigate through the yard cause I still see them. When I go out into the yard "Mama Bird" sees me and perches on a branch real close to try to distract me from them... I don't bother them though, I don't want her to get stressed and draw attention to them cause my cat might take advantage of it.

New Seeds to Plant

I bought these seeds the other day thinking I'd like to plant them. Now I have to find room though. The weather is warming up very fast so I better hurry.

MS. POODIE

MS. POODIE