hello everyone welcome to the California garden in the city of Irvine in
Southern California in the United States of America we have a lot going on in the
June garden so sit back and enjoy this episode we will begin with a garden tour
we will look at the harvests we made this month we will look at some things
for you to do and then we look at some cool gardening products so let's begin
with the garden tour starting with the raised beds we have the black Cobra
pepper which is now producing some peppers followed by the tomato plants
which are absolutely loaded with tomatoes now I planted about four tomato
plants in this bed and as you can see they have grown pretty large and right
next to that we have the okra seedlings growing now if you remember last month
we had transplanted some okras that are growing now transplanting was not the
best method of growing okra so I sowed some seeds and you can see the seedlings
have emerged now and are growing so it's a better way to direct so okra moving on
to the next bed we have the taro root plants which have grown pretty large and
the cucumber plants are growing as well and right next to that we have the
onions the onions that were grown from sets are now drying up and we will be
harvesting them next month once the bulbs grow a little larger so you will
see the progress on this in the coming month and right next to that we have the
eggplants the lista de gandia eggplants and they have grown pretty large and
these plants are also producing some eggplants now and in the first bed as
you can see the bean plants as well as the amaranth seedlings are growing and
they have grown pretty well and they should be ready for harvest very soon
and that completes the tour of our raised beds we will now move on to the
tour of our containers in the back containers we have the tomato plant
followed by the mint plant and the basil plant that's growing well
and right next to that we have this strawberry plant that's producing a lot
of strawberries the pineapple plant which now has a pineapple growing on top
of it and the second strawberry plant that's also producing a lot of
strawberries at the back we have the Meyer lemon tree
which is loaded with lemons right now small lemons and we have the curry leaf
tree right next to that we have the Thai chilies that have produced abundantly in
the past two months and the mulberry tree which is growing well but not
producing much the turmeric plant that is now loaded with tubers as you can see
growing pretty well and the cayenne pepper plant that's also producing
heavily and another curry leaf plant at the back
in the front containers we sold some corn followed by the early girl tomato
plant that has produced quite a lot of tomatoes and is growing pretty well and
right next to the tomato plant we have the sunchokes plant that has also grown
quite well this month we have the number giant okra growing in
the first container followed by the Ivy gourd that has produced quite a lot of
Ivy gourds this month and as you can see here looks quite beautiful and finally
we have the Swiss chard plant that is producing a lot of Swiss chard leaves
we have curry leaf plants growing in one container followed by the cilantro as
you can see here the cilantro is growing very well now despite the heat
we also have the pepper plants our ghost pepper plant as well as the sweet pepper
and the poblano pepper plants growing and we have the shallots that are
growing pretty well in this container followed by the Juliet tomato plant one
of my favorite tomato varieties to grow and it is producing a lot of tomatoes
we have another row of containers that I haven't really set up so far completely
but we have the pineapple plant we have the Golden Nugget orange tree that's
growing in this whisky barrel container and we sowed a few seeds radish
eggplants and some corn and eventually these containers will move to the main
containers area but we'll do that later in the fruit tree store we have an
update on our gem avocado plant which was heavily pruned and is now growing
well the pomegranate tree is flowering and hopefully we should be getting some
pomegranates soon the Mexican guava tree is loaded with flowers now
the Moringa plant that was also pruned is now growing well
and the grape tree which was completely pruned down last season is coming back
up but I don't think I'll be getting a lot of grapes this season but I'm hoping
that I get some flowers and then those turn into grapes this season but it's
pretty late now so I'm not sure about that
and now let's look at the harvest we made
with chilies our chilies or the hot kind pepper plant has been growing very well
in the past couple of months and we harvested not only the red chillies
which are the ripe ones the red chilies are the ones that have a different
flavor than the green chilies that you see here
so we harvested the green chilies as well and when the pepper or the chili is
green and when it turns red there is a slight difference in the taste of the
peppers so some people like the red peppers and some people like the green
and hot peppers some peppers are actually hotter when they are green for example
this cayenne pepper is quite hot when it's green but it's hot when it's red as well
and the Thai Chili's are similar you can wait till they turn red and then harvest
them or you can harvest them green and these peppers are actually hotter when
they turn red and their flavor changes quite a lot so it's really a matter of
personal preference you can wait till the peppers too and red and then harvest
it or just harvest the green peppers and then use them like you would
The Ivy gourd plant also produced abundantly this season it's getting
warmer and hotter and the Ivy gourd plant produces very well in these
conditions now this is a one-year-old Ivy gourd plant and you can see that as
the plant grows the harvest from the plant also improves quite a lot this is
a very delicious vegetable and if you haven't tried Ivy gourd just try it out
sometime and you can then start growing it in your home garden this is a ripe
Ivy gourd as you can see here and the others are the unripe ones and
the ripe Ivy gourd actually has some seeds and although you cannot propagate
Ivy gourd from seeds or rather it's difficult to propagate them from seeds
I will be trying it out just to see how it goes so I'll be removing these seeds
and then putting them in a seed starting kit and we'll wait to see how it goes
but a harvest looks very good we harvested a lot of Ivy gourds from our
Ivy gourd plant this season moving on to onions the onion tops will
actually fall over in this season and if not you can just uproot your onions and
keep them dry them in the Sun for a couple of weeks and it will be ready to
go into storage
strawberries are absolutely delicious when you harvest them fresh in your
garden and then eat them they are absolutely sweet and delicious and you
can see here the strawberry plants are producing very well now they produce
very well in the spring and the summer months
and you can see that these are very delicious strawberries the plants are
looking very healthy and here you go these strawberries are extremely nice
extremely flavorful and very healthy as well
Swiss chard is also one plant that doesn't grow very well during the
summers but in this case as you can see it's producing a lot of leaves and in
areas where the summers are not very hot and the winters are not very cold so
zones 10 11 even 9 you can grow Swiss chard pretty much
year-round and Swiss chard is very delicious it's very flavorful it has a
lot of nutritional value as well and Swiss chard comes in various colors
this is the red Swiss chard that you see here and you also have the green one
growing right next to it and each of these Swiss chard varieties is very
delicious we have their own unique flavors and all the colors that you see
here add a lot of nutritional value to your diet and you can get the best
produce from your garden when you're growing them right in your backyard
harvesting them and then consuming them and moving on to Tomatoes the king of
the summer crop you can see here this is the celebrity tomato variety that was
growing in the container and we harvested a lot of tomatoes from this
container a determinate tomato variety the celebrity is one of the best tomato
varieties you can grow you can see how firmly it was attached to the plant and
had to literally pull it out from where it was attached so these tomatoes don't
drop very easily once they are right they are very flavorful tomatoes and the
plant is determinate it doesn't grow like crazy and it still produces a lot
of tomatoes as you can see here so if you're growing in containers I highly
recommend this tomato variety
tomatoes look absolutely beautiful and they're very delicious as well
and then we were growing or tomatoes in the raised bed we had different
varieties we had the early girl we had the big beefsteak and the big boy all
grew very well you can see here the tomatoes look excellent and we were able
to harvest a lot of tomatoes from the raised beds
and you can see here different tomato varieties and these are the ones that we
got from Costco and you can see here beautiful looking tomatoes that are very
delicious and the early girl tomato variety that
was growing in the container the whiskey barrel also produced a lot of tomatoes
as you can see here the early gold tomato is a very prolific and early
tomato variety it it produces fruits quite early that's why it gets the name
the early girl and you can see here the fruits are
pretty large and it's one of the most commonly grown tomato varieties here in
Southern California and is one variety that I would highly recommend that you
try out growing in your home garden because it's not only very productive
the tomatoes are very nice-looking and they're very delicious as well
now you can either harvest them while they are slightly red and then keep them
on the shelf for ripening or you can wait till they're completely red on the
vine
let's look at some things to do in your garden you can sow some seeds here we
are sowing some radish seeds and although radish is a cool season crop I
want to try out how it grows in the Southern California weather during this
month and we will find out and I'll let you know how the shraddha variety grows
and we're also suing some corn here they're showing the glass gem corn
time to harvest some of your vegetables like onions if you've been growing
onions with me and it's also good time to think about
composting now I got this tumbling composter or the rotating composter and
this is very handy and I'll post a product review for this composter
sometime soon but Costco has this for a great price
and now moving on to some gardening products at your local Costco you can
see this butterfly garden kit it has some nice plans that you can just take
and plant in your home to create a beautiful butterfly garden and it has
some fragrant varieties as well the Japanese maple trees are available at
Costco for a very decent price these grow into lovely trees
then they're very attractive in your garden this little kit for kids is
called start and sprout it has everything that you need for starting
your own little garden and the kids will absolutely love it it has everything
that you need I'm sure the kids will have a lot of fun with this product that
you can find for very cheap at Costco if you followed my advice and got the wine
barrels of the whiskey barrels you did a good job because the price has now gone
up plumeria you can find a lot of plumeria
trees at Costco and they're available for a decent price and we also have this
raised bed garden kit vinyl based kit which is a pretty good option to set up
your own raised beds it is a modular system and as you can see here it's made
with good quality vinyl and finally we have our own shared as you can see here
we use this to keep our tools which are long and cannot be kept outside it won't
look very attractive when you keep them outside so this shirt takes care of it
made some really good quality material it can withstand the elements and is
quite roomy and I'll provide a link to some of these products in the comment
section below so there we have it folks that was our episode on the California
garden for the month of June I hope you enjoyed the episode if you liked the
episode give us a thumbs up and don't forget to leave a comment below see you
again soon happy gardening