The first sign!

Here is a photo of the first sign of Japanese cucumber I planted 1.5 weeks ago.

The first sign of Japanese cucumber

This is what happened: I dug 3 holes, in each I planted two seeds. One week after, 4 seeds germinated. A couple days later, one of them withered. This morning I thinned one out from one hole which had two left. Now there are two seedlings in two holes (one each). 

Here is the Jalapeno pepper I transplanted from a container into the bed. It came last year but didn't give many peppers. I hope transferring to the bed will boost its vigor and productivity.

Jalapeno pepper

Other activities in the garden include that the cilantro and the dill are germinating, the chamomile is growing tiny, the zucchini is flowering. I didn't take pictures though. 

The most splendid thing right now is all the lilies are blooming like crazy. Earlier this year I bought a bag of bulbs called "assorted lilies" and put them all in one big plastic planter. They all came out. 12 of them! Now they are blooming with all different colors. So far I have seen white, red, yellow, and pink. Here is the yellow one:

Yellow lilies

Here are lilies of other kind: 

Two lilies blooming every spring. They have different tones of red.

I also went on a hike last Saturday. The trail was short, steep, and close to where I live. I found many unknown native flowers. One of them is this one:

Native blooming along the hiking trail

Around last year I had a crush on California native plants and once even considered to rid the lawn and convert it into a native garden. But after trial and error, I found some native plants were not as hardy as they appeared to be, and they are unlikely to do well in the urban clay soil. Moreover, I am a hiker. Whenever I want to see them, I can just go for a hike. They are everywhere. They are like a garden in nature. Why would I need to have another one?

But I did keep some common ones in the garden under the oak tree - manzanita, ceanothus, coffee berry, etc. This spring I spread California poppy seeds around them. Now the blooming is gorgeous.

Blooming California poppy

  

Photos from container garden

While waiting for the vegetables to grow, I captured some photos from my container garden. 

Lily

More lilies

Begonia

Container Herb Garden (from upper left clockwise, geranium, scented pelargonium, an oak tree seedling in a small container, parsley, and thyme)

Lemon thyme

Mint

Peppermint

Basil

Joel's Vegetable Garden!

Joel's Vegetable Garden

- A blog about gardening and the joy of simpler life

Hey! My name is Joel. I am Chinese. I live in Southern California. I have a backyard facing south, most of which is the lawn, surrounded by an oak tree, an Australia Arcacia tree, and several palm trees. Last year the Arcacia tree died, leaving a sunny spot of a decent size. This spring we started a raised-bed vegetable garden. Inspired by many bloggers I created this blog 'joel's vegetable garden' to share the joy of gardening. 

Here is the spot!

The vegetable garden consists of two 4 feet by 8 feet, raised beds, which we bought from HomeDepot. We have some wood left from the old fence (yeah the fence is new!), and we could have made the beds ourselves. But it could be a lot of work and time was not waiting (it was already April!). The beds were very easy to install, and look nice. My only hope is they can last longer. 

So far I have planted all four beds and put on some tomato cages and supports for cucumbers even though they don't need them right now. In the near right bed are four tomato plants and I planted some basil seeds in between; in the far right bed I planted a row of Japanese cucumber, a row of lettuce, a cantaloupe plant, and a zucchini plant. In the near left bed are an heirloom tomato plant, three pepper plants, and some herb seeds in between. The far left bed has one cherry tomato plant (seed), a rosemary, an English lavender, and some flower seeds.

It already seems crowded. It is my first time of doing a vegetable garden. Hopefully next time I will have better sense of spacing.   

For the rest of the garden I designed to include perennials and fruit trees because they need less care. Along the wood fence are some azaleas and one heavenly bamboo, which I hope can give the garden some Asian touch. Along the wall next to the compost bin are two Meyer lemon trees and one bougainvillea. I like the fragrance of lemon blossoms in the winter. I envision when I work on some cool-season vegetables this winter, the fresh smell from the blooming lemon flowers will be extremely soothing and rewarding.