Friday, November 20, 2009

Winding Down The Harvest...


Tuesday's harvest: Snow White(1), Snow White(2), Babywine and Patio Princess for a total of 4 tomatoes.

Patio Princess is now ready to be pulled. Also, it got down to 36.9 degrees in the morning.

Wednesday: No harvest done – too cold. It got down to 35.7 degrees and around harvest time had only warmed up to about 37 degrees.

Thursday's harvest: 4 Snow White(2), Snow White(1) and Babywine for a total of 6 tomatoes.

My wife watered both the back yard and front yard tomato plants.

Today's harvest: Babywine.


Tuesday, November 17, 2009

More On Mudslides...


More on the mudslide threat...

Hillside Residents Fear Threat Of More Mudslides

On Thursday, the west San Fernando Valley got a light touch of rain. Of course the rain amounts would vary depending on where you were in the valley, but my unofficial estimate would have put the rain at .03 of an inch.

But...a storm cell formed over the burn area and “...caused a third of an inch to fall in a 20-minute span...” according to the article. Six homes were damaged.

Still, I'm reassured by this article. It appears that Los Angeles is taking the mudslide threat seriously. Chances are, however, that homes will be lost and damaged in the upcoming months. But there's only so much Los Angeles can do – think of it as trying to prevent an earthquake. We cannot prevent a natural disaster but we can do what we can to minimize the loss.

Here's a key sentence from the article: “In the next two weeks, crews also will clean out the Mullally Debris Basin, which can hold 9400 cubic yards of material but was filled within roughly 30 minutes Thursday night.”

What happens if this area is hit by several storm cells? What happens if Los Angeles is hit by back to back to back storms? As stated previously, we cannot prevent it. If the debris basin is filled before it can be cleared out, the next wave of debris is in the streets.

My guess is that March of next year will be a terrible time for this area due to storms and snow melt. Clearly, I don't wish for this to occur...but it's like trying to prevent the tide coming in from the ocean. It can't be done. But the city has taken serious prophylactic measures to prevent disaster.


Monday, November 16, 2009

Brrr! Getting Cold In The Morning...


Friday's harvest: 4 Snow White(2), 3 Babywine, Mong and Patio Princess for a total of 9 tomatoes.

Saturday's harvest: 2 Snow White(2).

My wife watered the back yard. In the afternoon we both worked on her rose bushes in the front yard, giving them rose food and scraping out the weeds nearby. Some of them got watered.

There was no harvest done Sunday as it was simply too cold. It had gotten down to 36.7 degrees overnight and was only a couple of degrees warmer when I went outside to harvest. It wasn't worth it.

My wife completed watering the front yard roses.


Today's harvest includes 8 Snow White(2), 2 Babywine, Snow White(1) and a back yard Husky Cherry Red for a total of 12 tomatoes.

I did find a full size, adult caterpillar on Snow White(1) this morning. I'm surprised the caterpillars can survive the cold of the night. The low this morning (at 6:30 AM) was 37.8 degrees. The temperature when I harvested was only a degree or so warmer than the day before but there was less moisture in the air so it didn't feel as bad.