Recently, I reported on our Winter Garden. Over the past 2 weeks, we’ve planted our summer garden. We now have five 4′ by 8′ raised beds, each about one foot deep. We have aviary wire lining the base to keep out gofers. We have fencing in place to keep out deer.
We’ve planted 17 heirloom tomatoes of various types, 9 chilli, 4 bell peppers, 2 Japanese eggplant, 1 Lemon cucumber plant, and 1 zucchini squash heirloom variety. We still have chard, carrots, onions and lettuce left over from the Winter Garden.
In terms of fruit, we have both berries and tree fruit growing. Last year, I planted 2 blackberry bushes, one black current plant and one blueberry plant. This year, I’ve added two raspberry bushes and several strawberry plants. All are thriving. Our fruit trees include cherry, peach, apple, lemon and lime. The apple, recently planted, still has yet to bloom. However, the others are all in bloom.
We also are growing herbs. We have three types of sage, three types of oregano, two types of rosemary, garlic chives, parsley, tarragon and three different types of mint – which all wintered over. I recently planted four different types of basil (Lemon, Lime, Thai and Sweet), Lemon Grass and Cilantro.
Garden maintenance is pretty much hands-off except for harvest. 
We spent several hours this weekend hooking up our irrigation. We use the dripper and spray system from Raindrip. The irrigation system is connected to a daily timer so that all watering is automatic. Once a week, we’ll visit the garden to check how the plants are doing. The next big time commitment is hopefully freezing and canning the fruit and vegetables we can’t eat.
Nice garden you’ve got there!! We just started 50 seeds of various types — eggplants, 2-3 type of lettuce, a few melons, tons of tomatos (heirloom).. We’re down in the LA area and plan to run the garden until ??? It should work OK as long as we keep the chickens out! I’ll have to hook up the drip stuff again — I had it several years ago before our remodel but it’s been messed up ever since.. Gotta fix that..
By the way, you might be interested in checking out TEG (TheEasyGarden) and online Forum for all things garden wise.. There are some really sharp people on that forum — http://www.theeasygarden.com
Wow – it sounds like you’ll have lots of vegetables, too. We are hoping to keep things going into October (up in the foothills at 3,000 ft). How long do you expect your season to last in the LA area?
Thank you for the links. We are definitely still in learning mode;-)
We’re down at sea level (only about a mile from the ocean — near Redondo Beach) and can grow many things year round — mostly herbs in the winter though.. We did manage to keep some tomatos running through this past winter but the plants were no good and should have been tossed out (the tomato’s were some of the worst we’ve grown IMHO). We’re doing tons of heirlooms this year — they’re just sprouting and about 2″ tall.. I’m still waiting on a few more seeds to germinate — namely watermelon and a few other “larger” seeds. Tons of lettuce too.. Yum!
What an excellent location!
It sounds like you are having a great time as well as planting many goodies for summer and fall meals. I’m eager to hear how you like your hierloom tomatoes and rainbow carrots. There must be many tasty recipes incorporating the boundy of your work. Have fun!!!
Yes. We expect to have a lot of tomatoes.
In addition to eating them in salads and juicing, we hope to make fermented salsa and freeze batches for soups, sauces and chilli.
More ideas are welcome.
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