it's been an interesting month of May here in Southern California with cool as
well as warm days welcome to the California garden so we will begin with
a garden tour we will look at the harvests we made this month if we look
at some things to do in your garden and finally we'll 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 growing along with the onions that you see here the
onions have grown pretty big now followed by the tomato plants we planted
five tomato plants and as you can see it has shown lush growth and is doing
pretty well and producing Tomatoes right next to the tomato bed we have the
okras now I transplanted these okras and I found that it's not a good way to grow
okra it's better to direct sow okra seeds so I've sowed a little bit more seeds
and we'll see how this goes moving on to the potatoes that are growing some of
these plants have actually died as you can see here and the others are still
growing else we'll wait for some more time before I harvest them
the taro root plants have shown good growth this month followed by the onions
that were planted from sets and as you can see here they are growing pretty
well and they've started forming their bulbs now
in the next bed we have the eggplants these are the Lista de Gandia eggplants
and the chilli plant the cayenne pepper plant that is producing a lot of chilies
this month and in the first bed we sowed some Bush
beans now these were older seeds and the germination rate wasn't very good and
add a few more seeds so that the bed is complete
that completes the tour of the raised beds we will now move on to the
containers in the front containers we have the pineapple plant that's growing
pretty well followed by the early girl tomato which has produced a lot of
tomatoes this month and the sunchokes plant that is also doing pretty well
the nombo giant variety is growing pretty well as you can see here
followed by the Ivy gourd plant in the center
a lot of Ivy gourds this month and finally we have our Swiss chard plants
which will grow for at least a few more months
we now have a front containers extension as you can see here we added five more
whiskey barrels or wine barrels here and I will do a detailed video on how I set
up these containers but now we have some additional growing space and this is
something I've been planning to do for a long time and I finally got around to
setting up these containers this month in the containers that are at the back
we have the strawberry plants the pineapple plant the curry leaf plant
that's growing and also the Meyer lemon that is producing a lot of lemons now
and right next to that we have some more strawberry plants at the back you can
see the Thai chilli plant as well as the mulberry tree which did produce a lot of
mulberries this month the turmeric plant as you can see here that's growing in
this large container and we have the mint and the basil plant as you can see
they have been doing pretty well and I have been harvesting them for a while
now
at the back you also have the cayenne pepper plant as you can see and this is
the celebrity tomato plant a great container plant that I highly recommend
that you can grow in your garden and now let's look at the harvest we
made this month starting with avocados the gem avocado continued to produce and
this was the final month of harvest because the plant is now producing new
growth and new flowers for the next season
but this avocado will produce a long time from fall up to almost spring so
it's a great variety to grow in your garden and I know a lot of you haven't
been able to find this variety at your garden stores so you can even try to
find the Gwen variety which is a very similar avocado variety that produces
abundantly year after year and as you can see here the harvest
looks pretty good these are really big avocados that we harvested from this
plant this avocado variety is very
delicious you can use it to make guacamole you can even eat them raw
they're absolutely flavorful and a great variety to grow followed by cabbage we
harvested a lot of cabbages from our cabbage bed in fact we harvested all the
cabbages now from our cabbage bed and we got an abundant harvest as you can see
here the cabbage is excellent and once again if you're thinking that cabbages
that have holes in them or don't look very good are not good think again
because it's better to have a few holes in the plant leaves naturally rather
than spraying them with pesticides or something that is not good for your
health so in the supermarket they aim for like
perfect looking cabbages but at home you can aim for healthy naturally grown
cabbages that are very delicious once you harvest the cabbage you can shred
the leaves I just tear them by hand and then put it in the compost bin
and as you can see here we got some really good sized cabbages from our
cabbage bed so if you haven't tried growing cabbages do try it out it's a
great vegetable to grow in your garden very easily let's look at chillies now
we harvested a lot of chillies from our chilli plant this is the hot cayenne
pepper and this plant has produced abundantly and this is a heirloom
variety so you can save the seeds for the next growing season I will try to do
that once the season is over and by saving seeds every year you can increase
your chances of getting a good plant in the next season because seeds have
limited viability so it's better if you harvest and save seeds as much as you
can at least every other year and this is a very hot chili pepper
variety it's an organically grown pesticide free heirloom chili variety it
produces these chilies that are not only very hot but are also very flavorful so
if you like hot chilies do try growing the cayenne pepper variety and there are
different varieties of cayenne pepper you can grow we like to harvest these
chilies when they are green that's how we cook them mostly chopped up and put
in dishes and curries and stuff the Thai chilies are a milder version of chilies
there are some Thai chili varieties that are extremely pungent extremely hot but
this variety that I have is kind of in between its heat is in between that of
let's say like a poblano pepper and a cayenne pepper maybe a little hotter
than jalapenos but it's a great tasting chili and thai Chili's are one of the most
popular in a lot of cuisines so very easy to grow and as you can see here we
are growing this chili plant in just a small container
and even in this small 16 inch container this Thai chilli plant has produced a
lot of chillies as you can see moving on to ivy gourd now so the Ivy
gourd plant is producer in warmer climates and we've had ups and downs
this month we had some cool days and then we had some hot days and we're
gonna have some more hot days going forward but the Ivy gourd plant did
produce a lot of ivy chords as you can see here and we harvested a lot of Ivy
gourds this is still a small plant the harvest is not that abundant
still happy with the way this plant was producing it takes up less space and it
produces a lot of ivy gourds and these ivy gourds are absolutely delicious if you
haven't tried ivy gourds they have a very unique flavor and you should try it out
moving on to mint plants our mint plants have grown pretty well this is the sweet
mint variety that comes from Israel and it's one of the most popular varieties
here in the United States because of its flavor its vigorous growth and it also
the fact that it can be used in a variety of dishes our mulberry tree has
also produced quite well this season as you can see here there are a lot of
mulberries on this tree and it's just growing in a small container now
mulberry trees once they grow big and once they have a lot of space for their
roots they will produce some larger berries a little larger than what you
see here and although these are small these berries are absolutely delicious
they have a very unique flavor it's kind of between a strawberry and a blackberry
but it's got a very unique flavor it's got this sort of wild berry taste and
it's really delicious it's very different and you can easily grow this
just by putting a small cutting in a pot and it grows very vigorously it's a very
prolific grower and I was able to get a lot of these berries just in the second
year of growth
these are the harvested berries and as you can see here they look absolutely
beautiful and they are absolutely delicious
we now move on to Swiss chard we had this Swiss chard plant in containers in
this whiskey barrel or wine barrel and it produced a lot of leaves Swiss chard
is a good substitute for spinach and it grows all year long so you can use Swiss
chard for a long time if you're growing them in your home garden and their
leaves are also quite larger than spinach so you can easily grow them and
use them as you need they are very nutrient rich and they are
very delicious as well and for whatever purposes you use spinach you can
actually use Swiss chard and make sure that your Swiss chard plants are well
watered especially on hot days they like to be watered very well
moving onto Tomatoes we have the celebrity tomato variety that was
growing in this container this was our first tomato variety of the season and
as you can see here it's producing a lot of tomatoes we were able to harvest a
lot of tomatoes from this container just a small container here this is a five
gallon container and the plant looks absolutely beautiful
we just used a small trellis the three-prong trellis and this is a
determinate tomato variety so you don't need to stake it a lot just a little bit
of support is good enough for them to grow and produce these beautiful
tomatoes as you can see here now this one is the early girl tomato variety the
one that produces abundantly and we were very happy with the way this plant grew
this one was from Costco if you watch my earlier video I had mentioned about this
tomato variety in being available in Costco
and as you can see here the harvest looks beautiful
let's not move on to the things to do in your garden keep preparing your garden
beds what I did was mix up my garden bed soil with a lot of nutrient-rich compost
it was actually composted horse manure that I got locally from a place nearby
and I also added some peat moss for better water retention if you have any
leaves or any other kind of materials you can let it be there or you can add
it to your compost bin and then make sure you water it very well when you
water your bed you leave it for about a week or so for the weeds to come out if
there are any weeds or weed seeds there they'll show up and then you can remove
the weed seeds and then continue with your planting as usual so your soil
preparation is one of the most important things you can do for your garden so
just make sure that after every season you
amend your soil you add in compost you add in peat moss for better water
retention and you'll have a very healthy garden bed that you can use for growing
of variety of fruits and vegetables let's now move on to seeing some cool
gardening products this month at your local Costco you can see these roses
these are the tree roses and they're absolutely gorgeous I almost ended up
buying one but I did not have space to grow any more plants now and this is an
excellent Rose variety as you can see they also had some pomegranate plants
this is the wonderful pomegranate plant grafted plants which will give you
fruits right away so if you have a local Costco do check it out
Costco also has these wine barrels of whiskey barrels on sale for $11.69 which i
think is a great deal and the miracle grow organic potting soil that goes
along with it the potting mix is a very high quality mix that retains a lot of
water and at your local Lowe's you will find that almost everything is on
clearance right now as far as the bulbs go so strawberries onions all the other
flower bulbs everything is on sale right now at your local Lowes
and for this price you really can't go wrong
free compost the city of Irvine has one day where you can drive up to this place
called Tierra Verde the industries and they will give you free back compost so
if you live in this area or you can check out your local city they might
have some free compost too but we had a great time driving up to this place and
getting these free compost bags and the compost quality that this company has is
pretty good Tierra VerdeIndustries is the name of the company that makes
this compost and gives it to the residents every year and as you can see
here this is very high quality compost I was really happy with the way it had
water retention it was moist and it was nice so you should check out your local
city codes and your local City news to see if you can get free compost in your
area so there we have it folks that was our episode on the California Garden for
the month of May if you like this video please give us a thumbs up if you're not
already a subscriber hit that subscribe button and we'll see you again soon
happy gardening