Harvest Monday 1/30

Another Monday Harvest, last one of the month.  Well as you can see from the picture below the beer bush is doing pretty well.  This was my harvest on Friday, I was wondering when the beer was going to be ready to pick?  We have a lot of avocados on the tree, the trick is getting the rotation right, having just enough ripe avocados on the counter and enough back up to get us through the week.  Planted another new tree, I might have to change the name of the blog.  A Variegated Eureka Lemon tree, aka Pink Lemonade, out front, should get plenty of heat this summer.

 One of the ladies had not been laying, at least we thought.  When we did not find eggs from the youngest farmers chicken we just figured it was getting ready to molt.  Well this weekend I was walking through the orchard and came across 2 eggs in the path.  I figured that Maggie had decided to move the eggs around, which she has done before, she can pick them up and run around the yard and deliver them to me with out a scratch on them.  Not this time, I discovered the cache, 15 eggs strong.  We tested all of them and not a floater among the lot.

I think that I planted too much lettuce.  I have been getting at least a bowl a day, and you can't even tell.  Lots of radish, and spinach, turnip's not far off.  Lots of citrus, not pictured, I have a big bag of lemons, navel oranges, grapefruit, and mandarin waiting to be delivered to friends.

Harvest Monday 1/23

 The two newest members of the family.  On the left is a Santa Barbara Peach and on the right is a Fuju Persimmon.  As I have mentioned we have a peach branch, most of it has had to be removed due to disease.  Hopefully this one will do better, this is the type that they grow just north of us commercially.  The persimmon is one that TPW gets in her CSA box and thought why not plant one of our own?  Finally got some rain yesterday,  .5 inches and the weather man said expect 1-1.5 inches tomorrow.  That puts us at 4.44 inches since 7/1/11. 

Still harvesting at least a bowl of lettuce a day as well as a few radish. 

Some of the radish have pretty cool colors, here is a sample.  Good thing that I am the only one in the family that likes them, that way I don't have to share.

Looking up at the Tangelo on the left, Mandarine in the center and Navel on the right

Lots of citrus, these two bags are going into work.  All of the trees, except for the blood, are heavy with fruit right now, and few have flowers on them.

The ladies helped out with breakfast the other day, a little chard for flavor. 

The ladies of the manor.  The Giant, the black Jersey Giant, seems to get a long well with Maggie, they share a water bowl and food.

Harvest Monday 1/16

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TPW took this picture of the citrus, shows what we have.  Grapefruit have been nice and sweet, the boys can't get enough of the Tangelos, and having fresh lime for the cerveza is pretty nice. 

Looking at the garden from a different angle.  I have been harvesting at least a bowl a day of greens, good variety.  The Turnips and Beets seems to be coming along slowly, just put out more seeds of both

The farm dog is very helpful, except I caught her eating the tops off of the radishes.  It's hard to get mad at that face! 

 Here's the other culprit, the youngest farmer likes to sneak into the garden and eat the spinach.  Can't blame him, it's pretty good.  Finally a chance of rain tonight, after 3 weeks of warm weather it's getting cold.  I think it even dipped below 60 today!  Brrrrrr.

Harvest Monday 1/9/12

Art with fruit.  The little guy and I have been experimenting with orange peel art.  This is our first one, pretty cool.  We'll try peeing in different shapes and see what we can do.

 Which one is not like the other.? Lisbon lemon, Navel orange, and...

The boys were pretty happy with their haul: Improved Meyer and Lisbon Lemon, Mandarin, Navel and Tangelo Orange, Hass and Fuerte Avocado, Oroblanco Grapefruit.  Maggie gave them her seal of approval.  We have a lot of greens, as well as radishes and snap peas right now. 

 First peach blossom from the peach branch.  That's pretty much what it is, a branch.  It was in bad shape when we moved in, so I hacked it back last winter.  We got 15 pretty good pieces of fruit in the spring, we'll see about this year.  Looking good so far.

This is one of two Navel orange trees that we have.  This one is lower down the hill and is a little behind the other, maybe colder down in the bottoms. 














This is the only Valencia that we have.  The oranges should be ready in another few weeks.  Tangelo tree, probably my favortie citrus  that we have.

Tangelo

I also have a few natives as well as an Olive tree that I just put in.  The Salvias and Lavander are are starting their growth spurts.  TPW asked that I put in a Sweet bay tree.  The flowers are just about ready to pop.  This will be a good shade tree for the garden.

The oldest defending his Loquat tree.  He has set up camp and is ready to go to battle if need be.  Last year we didn't have a single flower, this year it's heavy with them.  We'll see if the fruit can hold on.

Harvest Monday 1/2

Happy New Year.  Hard to believe that it's January when it's 83 degrees!  Had a week of warm weather, missed the hot spot in the country by 3 degrees on the 31st.  A look down from the garden, I have been opening new plots as I find new things to plant.  New olive tree at the bottom of the yard is doing well.

 A look down the newest spinach row.  I have three other rows planted, this one is just coming up.  The boys love them some spinach, so I have planted more.  I put these seeds in the ground about 3 weeks ago, took them a while, but now they're finally popping their heads up.  Not sure if you can see it in this picture, but there are also some Shirley Poppies next to them.  Shirley you can't be serious .  I'm dead serious, and don't call me Shirley.  Sorry, couldn't resist.

Planted a bunch of snow peas a few weeks a go, I have been getting a few every day, to bad I eat them before they make it into the house.  I blame the boys.

Our older Blood Orange did not really fruit this year.  I have 20 oranges on the tree and have been very protective of them.  I ration them out to the youngest boy, who loves to smear the juice all over himself and claim that he is bleeding. 

Still getting at least a bowl or two of lettuce a day.  The picture below has 2 Artichoke plants, Chard, lettuce, Beets, Radish, and a small Sweet Bay tree, top middle,  that I planted last year.  TPW has been taking leaves off of it to cook with.  This is just one level, I have three levels in the garden, each with 4-5 different rows.  Still getting LOTS of oranges,  mostly navel and manderine but the Valencia are coming as well as grapefruit.  Have more avocados than I know what to do with, well almost.  I think that the boys are going to turn green from eating so many avos.

More radish on the way,  I can't seem to get enought of them.  I am able to harvest a few every day, however very few actually make it inside.