Harvest Monday 2/27

 Still getting lots of lettuce, radishes, herbs, snow peas, and of course citrus.  Turnips and onions are coming soon.  Had a visitor in the garden the other night.  I was out collecting slugs when Maggie when ballistic towards the bottom of the orchard, I followed the barking with my head lamp and found the cause,  She had treed a raccoon, and he was a pretty big sucker too.  Looks like they are enjoying the oranges.  Not for long.



Still working on getting the avocado rotation right, put these in bags with apples for a couple of weeks to ripen them up.  Notice the nibbles, last years squirrels.  This year I'm ready for them though.


Mandarin picked this week, I guess I pulled a little too hard and ripped the top of the skin off on a few. 


 The wild flowers have finally started.  The only ones that we are getting are inside the garden fence, away from the chickens.  Three different shades of California poppies, all reseeded from last years crop.



Along with the wild flowers I have some natives, pictured above are the first flowers on a ceanothus that I planted last year.  Below are the first flowers of the citrus, with little fruit visible.

Harvest Monday 2/20

A good wife picks you up when you fall, TPW is a little more proactive than most, she wants to prevent me from falling in the first place.  Doing a little President's Day pruning, the whole family was helping out on this "little" project.  Even Maggie lent a paw.  Still have more citrus than we can use, dropping of at least a bag a week at work, no complaints yet.






 Garlics coming along, should be a few more months, once we get the basil going it's going to be pesto central!

Lettuce is still plentiful, I grew all of my lettuce from seed this year, except for 1 6-pack that I used just to get some instant gratification.  I have been giving it away by the bag full





Lots of snow peas,

 My apricot tree that I planted last year has quite a bit of fruit on it.  Thinning always kills me, but I know that it is a must to get the biggest fruit possible.

Harvest Monday 2/13

 Looks like we might get some peaches this year after all.  With such a mild winter, really no winter at all, all of the trees flowered early, and have set fruit already.  This peach "tree" is really just one branch that I have been able to save.  I put in a new Santa Barbara peach tree this year, if anyone has info about this variety let me know, all I know is that they grow them commercially north of us and they seem to do well.  The Avocado trees have lots of flowers on them, hopefully we can keep the squirrels away from them.  Chance of rain tomorrow, we'll see.  Got .2 inches last Sunday.


All that's left of the Sunday OJ Squeeeze. 

Still getting a lot of greens, I brought in a bowl this morning, set it on the counter and turned around for just a second and the little guy was all over it.  Radishes and turnips still going strong, lots of chard and kale.













Lettuce on the right, carrots and onions on the left, snow peas in the back, turnips in the front with a few strawberries on the side.  I have never been able to go the strawberries, maybe this year will different?

Harvest Monday 2/6

Another big harvest of citrus, fresh OJ for the family this week, as well as plenty of lemons, limes, and grapefruit.  The tangelos are flowing right now, the little guys can't get enough of them, sadly we did not have a very big blood orange harvest this year.  Ate the last one today.   The weather lady is saying that we may get some rain on Tuesday, it would help as we are 5.06 inches since July 2011.  Other than that things are moving along smoothly here on the farm, the chickens have decided that laying their eggs in the coup is better than the bushes, thank god for that, makes collecting them easier.



Still getting lots of greens and radishes, the turnips are getting bigger, but I still think that we are a few weeks away. 



TPW made a great egg and chard dish, a pretty colorful display of the stems as well as the leaves.