It’s been a while since I reported on the garden (or wrote anything else here, for that matter!). The fall garden is started, though the summer garden isn’t quite finished, so it seems like a good time for an update.

Summer Garden Results

The first cucumber showed up on July 5th, a little under two months after planting; I think it was a “Slice Max” (rather than a “Diva”), but I can’t be sure. We’ve had a steady stream of cucumbers ever since, and there are still a few to come. I expect to plan cukes again next summer.

The red peppers were very tasty and fairly productive, though they took longer than claimed; the yellow peppers were also tasty, but far less productive. Both pepper plants have given up the ghost; I suspect it would have been cheaper to buy peppers from the supermarket or at the farmers’ market, but it’s fun to grow them, and I’ll do it again next year.

We’ve had a good crop of tomatoes (both the Early Girls and the cherry tomatoes), and they have been delicious. We harvested some today, and a few more may ripen, but the end is near if not already here…until next year.

Watermelons were not as successful; we had a bunch of 4" melons, many of which were completely white inside. We did get four or five edible melons, but they were tiny and not terribly sweet. We took the last melon today, and I’ve ripped out the vines and repurposed the EarthBox.

Fall Garden Plantings

We didn’t do anything with our actual dirt garden patches over the summer, but we planted lettuce seeds there today (after adding a half-bag of planting mix to each patch).

We sowed one patch with about half a packet of “Chef’s Gourmet Spicy” mesclun mix; the other patch has the other half packet, plus a full packet of “Asian Salad Greens”.

And the EarthBox that hosted watermelons over the summer now has six arugula seedlings; I kept most of the dirt, but did add a bit of new potting soil at the top.

I’m not sure what we’ll do with the other two EarthBoxes when we take out the last of the cukes and tomatoes; we’re not really big pea eaters, which is the obvious thing to plant. I’m thinking of putting strawberries in one of the boxes in hopes of an early spring harvest, but maybe that’s foolishly optimistic. On the other hand, it would be really tasty if it worked!

My friend Sam asked me to help with a Geocaching class on Sunday; even though I’d looked at the maps, I hadn’t realized that the trail was on IBM property until I got to the trailhead. Fortunately, no visitor’s pass was required for access.

There were about 40 students and 8 docents. After a short lecture and a group discovery of the first cache, we broke into small groups; I had two families in my group, with children ranging from 4 to 10 years of age. Since one family had brought a stroller, I decided we’d take the steepest part of the trail first (uphill).

The views from the trail were interesting, but not picture-worthy. I did find some nice California poppies on the way, though I suspect they were a pale remnant of what I would have seen earlier in the spring.

The second cache was only a few hundred yards up the trail; it was easy to spot, not least because there was another group at the cache when we got there! We waited a few feet away until they re-hid the cache, then turned the kids loose to find it, which only took a few seconds. Everyone was happy.

The happiness didn’t last, though. The trail to the third cache was long, uphill, and full of switchbacks, and enthusiasm flagged. About the only high point was this flower, which was blowing in the wind so hard that I had to steady it to get the photo.

After we collected the third cache, things got better – we were more than half-way through the trek, and it was mostly downhill from there. And the caches were more closely spaced, too.

In fact, the fourth cache was only about ten minutes away. On the way, I confirmed that I was, indeed, very near my old stomping grounds at IBM Almaden Research

and found one more interesting flower, “Farewell to Spring”.

The fourth cache required some exploration but the kids found it without resorting to the hint (“Troll”).

The fifth cache was slightly off-trail in a field of high grass…well, except for the grass leading directly to the cache. The kids found it immediately.

Cache number six was made obvious by the trampled grass, too; cache seven took a little longer but yielded to determined seekers.

We were on the home stretch now; the last cache was one of the hardest to find, but still only took a couple of minutes before one of the kids got it (far sooner than I would have seen it, I must admit!).

And then it was a quick jaunt back to the assembly point, where my charges returned their loaner GPSes. I’d be interested to know if any of them continue caching, but I’ll never know unless I happen to see them at a cache or a get-together.

I’ve created an EveryTrail map of the hike.

Thanks, Sam, for inviting me along!