Harvest Monday 9/17/12

Things have slowed down here with the high temps that we have been having, 3 weeks of high 90's and 100's. Friday it was 106, Saturday 104, Sunday 102. All of the tomatoes are crispy, still getting peppers though, as well as onions, figs, basil, and a few other herbs. The citrus are heavy with golf ball size fruit and both the Hass and Fuerte have lots of little avos on them. But what this time of the year really means to us here at 22trees is Horn worm wrangling! We found these big boys and left them under the watchful eyes of a couple guards. They never had a chance.

 

 

 

This juvenile Great Horned owl has been hanging out around our house for the last couple of days. Young ones will actually fly around during the day. The boys and I have been dissecting owl pellets. Super cool stuff!

Harvest Monday 8/27/12

Well things have cooled down a little, only 95. We had 2 solid weeks of 100+ weather, and the garden took a hit. It's always hard this time of the year, I really have to decide what will live and what will get crispy. Ever year I plant more and more drought tolerant plants and heat lovers. The tomaotes, peppers, squash, all love this heat, the cucs, corn, strawberries and herbs have a hard time.   Still getting tomatoes off at least 8 of the plants, and peppers from 5 of the plants.   However, we did have a few surprises, potatoes being the big one!! Can't believe they made it, I thought for sure they were goners. TPW made some pretty tasty potato salad, I have been able to dig up about 20 per week. The fig tree is in full effect, trying to beat the birds is hard, but I have managed to stay one step ahead of them.

 

Random squash that grew out of the compost that was spread around in the spring. 

 

And to think, I thought that we would lose this Lisbon Lemon tree.  When we first moved in it looked like it was going to fall over at any moment.  With a little pruning and some food this tree is kicking out large lemons ALL the time!!  TPW made us lemonade all last week.

Monday Harvest 8/13/12

So I returned last week after 2 weeks away, and things have been a little warm.  We have had 5 days in a row with 105+ temperatures, however the weather man says that it should cool off to around 102.  The garden has been a little crispy, but the heat lovers, tomatoes, cucs, peppers, figs, zucs, pumpkins, seem to be hanging on.  

 One of the hauls after being away.  Not bad!

 All of the ladies are finally laying again, however if this heat continues they might shut down.  Lemon cucs, interesting texture.

TPW makes the best fig jam, looking forward to a few jars this year.  I pruned the older fig tree, brown turkey, pretty hard this year so we did not get the early crop.  Need to be sure that I get the figs before the birds do!

Harvest Monday 7/9/12

I always love coming back to the garden after I have been away, and seeing how much it has changed.  Was rewarded with a pretty large harvest.  Pictured below is a fraction of the overall haul.  Cucumbers are in and TPW makes the best pickles around.  Lots of tomatoes from four of the plants, however the others are heavy.  Strawberries are everywhere, they never make it into the house, even got a few plums off of the trees.  Peppers, both bell and hot, are starting to change color.  Avocados are plentiful, looks like my squirrel eradication programis working.  Didn't lose many  

Basil is looking good, I keep them mostly in pots because it get sooo hot here, I did try basil from seed this year and have a few small plants starting.

Repurposed one of Ed's old ladders.  No way that I'm going to trust my life with this old thing, but the beans are climbing all over it! A few of the corn stalks have some pretty good size ears of corn on them. 

All of the pumpkins that I planted from seed look good but they are only putting out male flowers, even with me pinching them off, however the volunteer pumpkins that I have around the garden all have fruit of various sizes.

How quickly Maggie goes from farm dog to house dog when the weather gets hot.   She is practicing to be a leisure model , getting pretty good at it.

Summer.

The cucs are in, as well as tomatoes, avocados, peaches, figs are a few weeks off, herbs, onions and garlic.  It has been in the upper 90's for the past week, not much June gloom here, the weatherman says that it should cool to low 90's next week!  TPW has been making pickles with the cucs, pretty tasty.  The loquats are gone, I was amazed by how many people said, I love those things but can't find them anywhere. 

Last years tomatoes with this years onions, garlic, and basil, TPW turned this into a killer sauce.

Salad for two.

TPW's black gold compost.  We can usually get 2-3 loads throughout the summer.

This is the chrylsalis of the Giant Swallowtail butterfly that I found on one of our orange trees, see last weeks post.  The boys have been taking good care of it, the perfect pet.  However, when it comes time to release this guy I think we'll drive him down the road.

This pumpkin was a volunteer with the compost, it has taken over the bean, pepper and cuc bed

Lions tail, Leonotus leonurur

First cactus flower of the summer.

Harvest Monday 6/25/12

First official week of summer, and the peaches were right on time.  The branch has provided us with 20-25 peaches this year.  I think having the loquat bloom this year helped us survive the squirrels, as they had plenty of fruit to gorge on.  Also the avocados are plentiful, again I think the loquat tree has helped.  Lots of herbs to cut everyother day, the basil is my favorite, cucumbers and tomatoes are loving the heat.  Strawberries are tasty, need to plant more this winter!  Along with the fruits and veggies, we have quite an extensive collection of cactus around the yard, TPW thinks it'a a little to extensive and wants me to down size.  Pictured below is one of the night blooming varieties, you can smell it a mile away. 

 Onions, garlic and a few chillies.

First few ears of corn had emerged from the corn that the littlest farmer started at school.  The sweet one million cherry tomatoes have really kicked it into high gear, the boys have been doing a good job of thinning.  Planted 15 different types of tomatoes this year, all seem to be doing well.

Birds, bees and bugs

The next best thing to having a hive of your own is a neighbor that has one.  Watched him switch out boxes yesterday, it went from a one story to a two stories in record time.

Looks like bird poop don't it?  Actually it's the caterpillar of a Giant Swallowtail Butterfly.  Never seen one aroud here, but I guess they aren't that rare.  Bad news is that they can really devour citrus trees, good news is that this one won't.

Nest of Allens Hummingbird in the Fuerte Avocado tree.  After this picture was taken it took it's first flight.

Harvest Monday 6/18/12

Last of the apricots, man were they good!  I looked at them on Sunday morning and thought that they could have used a day or two, came back in the evening and they were good to go.  Beat the squirrel's, TPW has promised a crumble.  Getting about a handful of strawberries a day, however the boysenberries flowers are drying up and falling off, did the same thing last year.  HELP!!?  if anyone has any ideas please let me know.  It's like the whole crown of flowers/berries just dries up, end of story.  The rest of the plant looks good.

June in the valley means a couple of things, one is that the heat is coming, get ready, and two is that its Jacaranda season.  These trees are all over LA and they have a very cool purple flower, however they drop alot of debris.  Luckly ours is not over anything of consequence.

The avocados are still plentyful.  We pick 5-6 every week so that there are always avocado on the counter ready to go.  I almost have the rotation down perfect.

One of the summer projects is a garden path.  We have a lot of stones scattered around from various projects.  We'll see how far I get.

I planted 2 Pomegranate trees last year.  This is the one that's in the garden, I am going to keep it pretty small and let the other, which is outside the garden, get big.  Both have 5-6 pieces of fruit on them.

Peaches are close, the branch has held on.

Next years crop of avocado's.  Haven't lost many during the June drop,