is it spring? my garden tells me so!
Nov. 28th, 2018 07:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tielan posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
gardeningMILLIONS OF PEACHES, PEACHES FOR ME!
MILLIONS OF PEACHES, PEACHES FOR FREE!
\
All right, so they're peaches and nectarines.
We got two weeks of steady rain at the start of October, and EVERYTHING GREW. Including my fruit trees. The ones up the front have gone great guns, and I'm just about to finish harvesting the last of the four stonefruit there (2 white nectarines, 1 white peach - pictured, 1 yellow peach), and then it's a five month wait until April when the Fuyu persimmons ripen.
My backyard went from this at the end of August:
To this by the middle of October:
To this by the end of November:
There's still a plum and two peaches to go in the backyard, and possibly an apricot. Yes, I planted a lot of stonefruit trees, but apparently the whole area was stonefruit orchards back 100 years ago, so, you know, the climate's already good for that.
I've worked out a system for the chooks and we're going to be implementing it in the next week: a summer run out the front under the trees, and they'll winter in the backyard (and in the front orchard).
Other than eggs from the chooks and fruit from the orchard, harvests so far have included:
1. the kale (which went beserk in early spring)
2. Mustard greens and broad beans
3. Peas
4. Zucchini
5. Asparagus (YES, ASPARAGUS!)
Currently growing are:
- tomatoes
- eggplants
- corn
- fennel
- tomatillos
I had an avocado that put out the little branch of flowers, prepatory to setting fruit. Then it set three fruit. Then we had a few days of crazy heat and two of them dropped off. And then, one day, while trying to reach past it, I brushed the last baby avocado fruit off the tree. *unashamed sobbing*
The passionfruit and grape vines are a bust.
I think the passionfruit are just a dodgy kind: apparently other people have had trouble with this type - lots of flowers but not a lick of fruit - and so next winter it's going to get completely pulled out and I'll set something else there. Or, if my local gardening group does the unit on grafting, I might get a scion of a producing passionfruit and graft it to the rootstock I've got. No point in wasting good rootstock.
The grape vine is up against a wooden fence and it's growing mould on its leaves and vine. I'll cut it back in autumn and replant it elsewhere (maybe along the driveway to grow up a frame and shade the big cement expanse in summer). Possibly do another graft on it? Or get another vine - possibly a kiwifruit?
Anyway, I have a big garden bee happening on Sunday with my local gardening group, and many longer-term things will be getting done...
MILLIONS OF PEACHES, PEACHES FOR FREE!
\All right, so they're peaches and nectarines.
We got two weeks of steady rain at the start of October, and EVERYTHING GREW. Including my fruit trees. The ones up the front have gone great guns, and I'm just about to finish harvesting the last of the four stonefruit there (2 white nectarines, 1 white peach - pictured, 1 yellow peach), and then it's a five month wait until April when the Fuyu persimmons ripen.
My backyard went from this at the end of August:
To this by the middle of October:
To this by the end of November:
There's still a plum and two peaches to go in the backyard, and possibly an apricot. Yes, I planted a lot of stonefruit trees, but apparently the whole area was stonefruit orchards back 100 years ago, so, you know, the climate's already good for that.
I've worked out a system for the chooks and we're going to be implementing it in the next week: a summer run out the front under the trees, and they'll winter in the backyard (and in the front orchard).
Other than eggs from the chooks and fruit from the orchard, harvests so far have included:
1. the kale (which went beserk in early spring)
2. Mustard greens and broad beans
3. Peas
4. Zucchini
5. Asparagus (YES, ASPARAGUS!)
Currently growing are:
- tomatoes
- eggplants
- corn
- fennel
- tomatillos
I had an avocado that put out the little branch of flowers, prepatory to setting fruit. Then it set three fruit. Then we had a few days of crazy heat and two of them dropped off. And then, one day, while trying to reach past it, I brushed the last baby avocado fruit off the tree. *unashamed sobbing*
The passionfruit and grape vines are a bust.
I think the passionfruit are just a dodgy kind: apparently other people have had trouble with this type - lots of flowers but not a lick of fruit - and so next winter it's going to get completely pulled out and I'll set something else there. Or, if my local gardening group does the unit on grafting, I might get a scion of a producing passionfruit and graft it to the rootstock I've got. No point in wasting good rootstock.
The grape vine is up against a wooden fence and it's growing mould on its leaves and vine. I'll cut it back in autumn and replant it elsewhere (maybe along the driveway to grow up a frame and shade the big cement expanse in summer). Possibly do another graft on it? Or get another vine - possibly a kiwifruit?
Anyway, I have a big garden bee happening on Sunday with my local gardening group, and many longer-term things will be getting done...
(no subject)
Date: 2018-11-28 02:49 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2018-11-28 03:51 am (UTC)And ooh, ripe lemons! Other people have fantastic citrus trees around here (lots of Italian and Greek immigrants who brought their backyard garden concepts over, along with their espresso coffee machines), but I have always managed to FAIL at lemons. I'm hoping to break the cycle with a lemon tree that is COVERED in teeny tiny little lemons. Just have to make sure it gets enough water!
Mmm...squash. I just remembered that I have a couple of different squash/pumpkins growing right now.
What are your favourite squash recipes, btw? Got any you'd recommend?
(no subject)
Date: 2018-11-28 05:04 am (UTC)Lots of my butternut squash actually look like watermelons. They seem to still taste like conventional butternut squash.
(no subject)
Date: 2018-11-28 09:59 pm (UTC)I'm also a fan of this butternut squash risotto, and squash in fresh spring rolls is really good, as is white lasagne with squash.