Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Revamping the rooftop garden for fall

We're in the process of changing over from our warm season crops to cooler season crops and I'm thankful that we are able to take our time with this process due to our mild San Diego climate. We still have some of our warm season crops that continue to produce nicely and I don't want to pull them just for the sake of pulling them because the calendar says it's time to do so. I want to get as much off the plants while they still look healthy enough to produce before replacing them with cooler season crops. 

I think this is going to work just fine as our lowest temperatures overnight rarely dip below 50 degrees, ever. As some of our initial warm season crops are dying off, I am replacing them with more traditional fall season crops and I am hoping to make it into November before everything is changed over completely but the plants will let me know. 

Today, I'm focusing on putting in some fall crops on the newly expanded roof. The roof feels a little empty to me right now but as the plants in the EarthBoxes in the front yard die off, we will bring the boxes up and I'm certain the roof will return to lush glory soon. 


Here's a look at the newly expanded roof
Earlier in the week we took out the faltering lemon cucumbers and moved one of our big planter boxes. I am going to put some pea and carrot seeds in it as soon as I am done writing here. We planted some "fall" tomatoes a few weeks ago in the big individual pots and they are looking good with their first blooms. Tomatoes aren't typically considered fall crops but in San Diego, in full sun, with a cool resistant variety, it should be possible. We will keep you updated.


Our other large planter box
I am also going to pull the horrible looking cucumbers out of this box now because I don't think they have any chance of producing anymore. I will leave the tomato on the left because it still looks great. I am planning on replacing the cucumbers with more carrots.

We put some pea seeds in an EarthBox about 2 weeks ago and they are looking good. 

The Swiss chard went in as seedlings 2 weeks ago and it is also looking and tasting good.
We have another EarthBox to plant as well and while I did briefly consider trying potatoes in it, I don't think that would be very successful because it's not big enough so I'm going to start some spinach, which is Farmer D's favorite.

Gidget says; "I don't like this "fall" stuff. It rained right on top of me today and that was not cool."


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