June 4th-5th

Today, Danielle (my girlfriend) and I went to the Dervaes homestead (the same day we went to the Huntington Botanical Garden). It was cool and we took some pamphlets. For more info on this Google Dervae's Family Homestead...Basically it is an urban mini-farm project located in Pasadena. It's pretty inspirational and it was a little sad that we couldnt take a tour of it; though, nonetheless it is amazing.
After that we went to Chinatown and bought a banana tree for 20$. When I went to transplant it I noticed it was sitting in the hardest clay I have ever seen and it was infested with snails and bugs in the root system. This was very unhealthy plant. It also had a lot of dirt on it. I cleaned the leaves and I transplanted the tree into premium potting soil. After a few days the tree is looking a lot healthier.

Noticed soybean plants being eaten. Don’t know cause yet.

Found out soybeans being eaten by slugs.
At night scattered ladybugs for pest control.
Also made a perameter of coffee grounds around the plants that act as a barrier for slugs and snails.

Next morning realized that most of the ladtbugs I scattered either flew away or were already dead :(...I guess thats what you get for forcing ladybugs to a location rather than promoting a healthy natural habitat that ladybugs will be attracted to. oh well.

Also I decided on planting lavender and chives as a background to the center two beds. These two plants do a great job of complementing each other and provide a good source of flavor and food. Although these plants didn’t fill all the gaps, I decided to put the dill/fennel in the back (done on a later date).