Persian Cucumber Update

This was my first trying using the Earth Box and so far so good. These cucumbers have done far better than my Japanese variety I planted in the ground. I have about 8 tiny cucumbers, the largest one (pictured above) will be ready to pick in next week I believe. They are much happier and growing much faster than my previous attempt.

I believe the main difference to be the sun. My garden in the ground gets full sun pretty much all day and the cucumbers would wilt midday. The peppers and tomatoes seem to enjoy all that sun but the cucumbers are just too delicate.My earth box cucumbers are under our pergola so they are shaded throughout the day but also get plenty sun.

I did buy neem oil once I saw the signs of leaf miners. Most of the bad leaves towards the bottom I removed, some remain as you can see from the picture. All the new fresh leaves on top came out huge, dark green, and very happy.  That was until lately I started to notice some holes on the leaves. Started about 5 days ago and upon closer inspection I realized I had a green caterpillar issue. I manually removed all the ones I found and that put a halt to the holes however every morning there are more (super tiny freshly hatched) underneath the leaves. I have been smashing them because they're just too tiny to remove. I seem to be catching them before they do any real damage but it is exhausting to look for the little guys every single morning. I am pondering buying an organic caterpillar poison to spray on the leaves, They are obviously hatching from eggs I am not seeing. I keep blowing off little eggs I do see but I can't keep up.

Have to think of a better solution. This container currently holds 4 plants, you can see the one on the right towards the front (gets the most sun) is doing best out of the four.

My First Trip to Green Thumb Nursery

Through an OC gardening Facebook group I heard really good things about Green Thumb Nursery in Lake Forest. My husband and I have been on the lookout for an avocado tree (a very specific variety) so I thought I'd head over and take a look.

Green Thumb Nursery, Lake Forest, California.

It's a wonderland of magical healthy plants and gardens (and waterfalls which my 3 year old loved). It was terribly hot, I could have stayed for over an hour or more for sure but with the sun and kids, I had to be as quick as possible. But it was OH SO FUN.

Though I did find many varieties of avocado trees I did not purchase one. Decided to think on it more and do a little more research. But I did not walk out of there empty-handed! This flower I'd never heard of, the tag read Anchusa, it was $2.99 and covered in bees! Since my cucumbers had been having a few issues with pollination (lost some fruit that yellowed and fell off). I thought this was worth it try near my garden so I bought two. It was super pretty purple. The best part is the bees, it always has bees on it. In fact they were following me around while I was trying to plant it!

Anchusa (July 3, 2017)

 Also awesome trip because I finally found Persian Cucumbers! Had I know they were here all along I would have never wasted my time planting Japanese Cucumbers. Now I bought these and I have no room in my ground in-ground garden so I decided I'd have to figure out a pot situation for them. I didn't need this many, but I had to buy the pack. I ended up using 2 plants (technically 4 as each pocket has 2 plants), I gave one set to a friend, and the rest to my newphew who has taken up an interest in gardening lately.

Persian Cucumbers (July 3, 2017)

Several weeks after this trip I ended up finally buying a Earth Brown planting box. It was based on a "wicking" watering system. Which is where the bottom tray of the box is filled with several inches of water that eventually soaked up into the top soil through the "wicking" process. So the only watering you do is filling it up from a tube off the side so there is always water available for the plants. I also bought a small ladder trellis. This all may be for nothing, not sure if this will work or not but I am excited to try.

Earth Box Trial - Persian Cucumbers (July 11, 2017)