Roadside Cantaloupes

Not much happening in the backyard as I wait for Matt to come up with his drawings.  Planting efforts are still concentrated only along the driveway and in front of the house on the parkway.  Things are going well in both places.  What blows me away the most is that there are a couple of nice sized cantaloupes growing out front.


It's the first time I've grown cantaloupes.  I've tasted only one so far, from the vines planted along the driveway.  It wasn't 100 percent ripe but still pretty good.


What surprises me even more than the fact that I was able to grow the cantaloupes on the parkway is the fact that so far no one has picked them, crushed them or otherwise removed them.  I hope they stay there until they are ripe (you know the melon is ripe when the vines are grey/brown and withered).


















There's also some tomatoes, cucumbers and mint growing around there too.  Someone took this nice yellow tomato.  I don't really care - the stuff I planted along the parkway I wasn't really planning to eat anyway.  It is mostly just a demonstration garden for passersby, as well as an experiment in front yard vegetable gardening.  I get lots of comments from people who regularly walk their dogs or their kids by the house.  That's more satisfying than eating the veggies myself.

The Figs Are Banging

The figs are huge, ripe and copious.  Today I picked about 20 which were about as close to perfect as figs get and brought them as a gift to a friend in Lincoln Heights who was butchering some of his roosters.  He gave me rooster meat in return.  

Searching the internet now for recipes. Coq au vin is the most popular but there are some other stew recipes.  I’ll try one this week.

It’s been a while since my last post so a couple of things to report.  The Ana apple tree is coming close to the end of its run.  The apples were huge and although not as fantastic as the first season still pretty damn good.  I dropped off about 15 lbs with my neighbor across the street who promised to make an apple pie for me.  I’m still waiting for the delivery.  Will post a photo when it arrives. :-)

The tomatoes are great and zucchinis more than abundant but I’ve been missing lettuces so I planted a few seeds today.  

Here’s the list:

Name	Planted	Emerge	Maturity
Lettuce Mesclun (Lactuca sativa)	8/8	8/15 (5-10 days)	9/23 (45 days)
Lettuce Leaf Oak Leaf blend (Lactuca sativa)	8/8	8/15 (5-10 days)	9/23 (45 days)

Oregano	8/8	8/18 (8-14 days)	n/a
Curly Parsley Perejil musgo crespo	8/8	9/10 (21-28 days)	n/a

The two lettuces went into the side garden raised bed next to the tomatoes (where the bok choi were).  The oregano and parsley into pots.  Look at the germination time for the parsley – 28 days!  Must be a record.  

It’s normally too hot to planted lettuce now but I will harvest as baby lettuce before it has a chance to bolt.

As for the organic acetic acid herbicide in the last post, it works quite well on everything except crab and bermuda grass, the two grasses which seem to just not die.