Goodbye bermuda grass pathways

Last fall, we decided to take out the last of the grass in our backyard. We had mixed feelings about this because although the grass was attractive when green and nice to walk on barefoot, it was time consuming to mow and edge and futile to keep from invading the raised beds.

We sprayed the grass with glyphosphate, which only works when the grass is green and growing, last fall. Although I'm not a big fan of chemicals and prefer avoiding their use when possible, there are times when they are necessary and this is one of them. Other methods, such as solarizing the soil with clear plastic, aren't as effective in getting rid of the grass and tend to kill off beneficial soil organisms.  Here's an article from the Maricopa Cooperative Extension Service giving more details about the safety and efficiency of this method, along with more detailed instructions.

The glyphosphate did a pretty good jub of killing the grass, because we only saw a few patches of green this spring, which we resprayed. We then scalped the dead grass as closely as possible, applied pre emergent herbicide, and covered the pathways with 3/8 inch screened gravel.  Rain is predicted for the weekend (the first in over two months) so hopefully we'll get enough to thoroughly water in the pre-emergent.

Pea-pickings

I'm not sure of the etymology, but in the South "pea pickin" is sometimes used euphemistically-as in  "Bless your pea-pickin' heart" or "Not a pea-pickin' thing". Anyway, I've been picking plenty of sugar snap peas this week.

It's a challenge to find them all in the tangled vines, because these are the vining rather than the bush kind I thought I planted. Erroneous planting has not impacted their productivity from what I can tell. I prepared about six quarts for the freezer yesterday, along with another batch we enjoyed with dinner using a variation of this recipe.
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Petunia border

These are probably the best looking of the petunias I planted last fall as a border around one of the raised beds. I think the small white flowers are something in the chrysanthemum family. I planted the original plant several years ago, and they have been reseeding themselves and appearing each spring ever since. The larkspur and the red leaf lettuce are also volunteers. In this photo you can also see cilantro, planted last fall, and newly planted tomato and basil plants.

Under the lemon tree

We recently revamped this area under the lemon tree, which had originally consisted of two tiers. We combined the two tiers into one, higher tier, and planted onions and potatoes. The nasturtiums and hollyhocks are volunteers. I'd originally planted nasturtiums as tier borders, and they have reseeded and spread. I doubt this area will ever be free of hollyhocks after the mistake I made several years ago of using homemade compost made of ground up hollyhock stalks.

Citrus is starting to bloom and fill the air with fragrance, and the lemon tree is no exception, so here's my earworm for the day: "Lemon tree, very pretty, and the lemon flower is sweet. But the fruit of the poor lemon is impossible to eat."

Unless, of course, you add sugar and make lemonade, in which case it is very tasty.

Compost tea the easy way

We've never been very successful with composting. We never seem to be able to keep the compost pile sufficiently moist, so the things we put in it just dessicate rather than decompose. Our latest experiment with kitchen scraps is to throw them in a Vitamix with some water and let its 2-horsepower motor blend away on the Smoothie cycle. (For comparison, the small wood chipper we bought a couple of years ago has a 1/2-horsepower motor.) It does a fine job of chopping up coffee filters along with the grounds, along with banana peels, vegetable peelings, and other kitchen waste. Then I just pour the slurry around in the garden.

The thevetia is out

We finished taking out the thevetia today, and this is its root. Now to start looking for fruit trees to put in its place! I missed the window for ordering the desert-adapted cherry trees from Phoenix Permaculture Guild this year, so we'll have to check various nurseries. If we can't find any relatively soon, we'll put in another early-bearing peach and possibly another kind of plum. Our April/May bearing peach tree is declining, and although our Santa Rosa plum seems healthy enough, we have yet to get any edible fruit from it. Or maybe try this idea using fig trees, which would provide a nice tropical look around the pond.

Weeding my own garden

Peaches, nasturtium, and larkspur are beginning to bloom, but so are spring weeds. They seem to sprout up full grown overnight, and I don't know where they are finding the moisture to grow like this because the soil was pretty dry. (Better check the drip lines before the really hot weather sets in) It's not possible to get rid of this particular spring rite of passage, because the seeds blow in from all over the neighborhood, but I try to get rid of them before they flower and dump the bulk of their seeds where they stand.

As I sometimes do, I started thinking while I was weeding. One of my pet peeves is the tendency of some people to point out the failings of others.  I find it particularly egregious when religious people feel it is their duty to warn others they are sinning in some particular way, usually a sin that they themselves aren't tempted to commit. I can speak only from my own faith perspective and study of the Bible, but from what I understand from the teachings of Jesus, I've got enough to do weeding my own garden. I think that if one reads the Bible and finds things to apply to other people, he or she is reading it the wrong way.

Matthew 7 quotes Jesus as saying, "Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' and behold, the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye". That seems pretty clear to me.

 I'll never get all the weeds out of my garden, or out of my life, so I'd better concentrate on weeding my own garden and making it into something beautiful. If someone admires my garden and wants to know how I did it, I'll be glad to tell them.

It's tree-chopping time

I hope Mike was serious when he said he'd be okay with taking out this thevetia so we can put in a couple more fruit trees. If not, it will have to live with a very short haircut for a while.

Tomatoes

We set out transplants of three varieties of tomato in this spot off our side patio which most recently grew broccoli. We purchased the colorful tomato cages at Summer Winds. They cost a bit more than plain metal cages, but they are sturdy enough to last several seasons and I like the bright colors. The green cage contains an Early Girl plant, the blue cage a Yellow Pear, and the red cage a Purple Cherokee. We've been pretty successful with the first two varieties in the past, but this is the first time we've tried the latter.The petunias in the foreground were planted last fall and although a bit leggy, are still blooming. Most of the nasturtiums I'd interplanted with the petunias didn't survive the relatively mild frosts we've had this year.

Here's a link to a Master Gardener publication on growing tomatoes in the desert.

Apricot blossoms

I spotted the first blossoms on our younger apricot tree today. No sign of blossoms on the older tree yet.

Peach Blossoms #2

Blossoms have appeared on this young peach tree, a Mid Pride variety planted as a bare-root transplant a year ago. We purchased this and a white-fleshed variety from the Phoenix Permaculture Guild. The other new tree survived the summer, but died in late fall. Our oldest peach tree fruits very early, usually in late April, and we hoped to extend the fresh-peach season by choosing some later-fruiting varieties.

The larger tree in the back is a Key Lime. I don't know that I would choose that variety again. The fruit is very small and therefore time-consuming to juice, and it is dangerously thorny. In an attempt to avoid being scalped, we try to keep the branches pruned higher than our heads. I didn't plant nasturtiums here this year; these reseeded and spread from last year's border planting.

Spring plantings

Mid-February marks the beginning of prime spring planting time in the Phoenix area. High temperatures have been in the eighties the last few days, which is a bit warm for our normal February weather, but we're not likely to see freezing temperatures again this year. We planted yellow, zucchini, and acorn squash, cantaloupe and honeydew melons, and Armenian cucumbers in this bed. In another bed, which most recently hosted broccoli, we set out three more tomato transplants- Early Girl, Yellow Pear, and Purple Cherokee. I also found a spot for a new basil plant in a third bed.

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We added two stepping stone pathways in this bed because it's too large to access plants for weeding and harvesting without stepping on (and compacting) the soil. Below you can see how we adjusted the drip tubing layout for mound rather than in-line planting- just coil the tubing around the mounds. We use the same setup around the tomato cages. I only got as far as planting the back part of the bed today; I plan to plant bush beans in the front part, and when I do I'll use straight rather than coiled sections of drip tube and plant two bean seeds under each emitter.

Also seen in this picture is some mondo grass (called monkeygrass in the South) I transplanted from the side of the house because it will no longer get water when we remove the last of our backyard lawn. I think it will make a nice edge plant for the streambed.

When life gives you lemons (and oranges and grapefruit)

Lemon

Orange

Grapefruit

 Happy Valentine"s Day, which here in the Phoenix area means it's time to fertilize citrus. These are our three oldest trees, planted in 2002. Even though we lost several large limbs on the lemon tree last fall, it still produced prolifically, so my Chandler friend if you are reading this, come and get some!

We've pruned the lemon tree into a tree shape, because we grow things under it, but left the grapefruit and orange untrimmed. When possible, citrus is best left in shrub form. The low hanging branches protect the trunk from sunburn, so you don't have to paint it with tree paint, and the lowest growing fruit is usually the sweetest.

The last couple of years we've frozen some of the lemon juice to enjoy fresh lemonade year round. For lemonade, I put about a cup in a ziplock bag, and I also freeze cubes in ice cube trays for uses that require smaller amounts.

My mother, who lives on the other side of the country, usually visits us once a year and pays the airline an extra luggage fee to take back a box of grapefruit. She is convinced ours taste better than the Florida-grown ones available to her. She's also a 23-year breast cancer survivor who is convinced that grapefruit played a role in her recovery.

We mostly eat the oranges fresh. I like to put them in salads instead of tomatoes which I can't grow myself this time of year. They are especially tasty when combined with avocados. (Unfortunately, we haven't been successful in growing those.)

This year we splurged on a Vitamix and I've been experimenting with citrus-based salad dressings and drinks. I find it much easier and less messy to use than a citrus juicer, because you can put the whole (peeled) fruit in. It's probably healthier to eat the whole fruit, pulp and all, too, because of the added fiber.

Citrus Fertilization Guide on the Maricopa Master Gardeners site

Revamped pond

Here are two views of the reimagined upper pond and streambed. This one is the view from the gazebo with the new spillway. In the original design, there were plantings of plumbago which blocked the view of the pond when we were sitting in the gazebo. The additional spillway gives us a better view and also allows us to  better hear the sounds of the flowing water. The two trees are an early-fruiting peach on the left and a dwarf nectarine on the right. We're in the process of adding water plants to the new stream bed now- watercress, yerba mansa, and other small plants. Hopefully I will be able to keep the "evil four leaf clovers" at bay! The second view is from the side patio of our house. The bare tree on the left is an apricot, and the one on the right is an Asian pear. The green one in the background is Thevetia peruviana (yellow oleander). Mike loves these treelike shrubs as much as he hates bouganvillea, but I'd like to take this one out and plant more fruit trees. There's a kind of cherry that can supposedly be grown in the desert, but you need two varieties (Minnie Royal and Royal Lee) and I think this would be a good location for them. We planted three varieties of strawberry in the bare-looking raised bed in front of the pond, and a few of them have started to come up.

Broccoli take two

This is our second crop of broccoli from the same plants. Once you remove the main flowering stem, smaller florets will sprout from side nodes. After harvesting these, I'll pull the plants up and put something else in this spot.

How do you like your peas?

These were supposed to be bush sugar peas, and I planted them under each emitter on the drip grid last fall. By the time I figured out they were actually climbing peas, it was too late to trellis them without breaking the vines, so I stuck tomato cages into the tangled mass. We're getting lots of tasty peas from them now.

Lots of things in life don't turn out the way you think, or plan, but can still be enjoyable. "Monitor and adjust", a teaching mantra that has gone out of fashion, is still valid.

February overview

I'd originally planned to post "overview" pictures taken around the first of each month, but didn't do it because the yard was such a mess. Mike rebuilt the streambed between the two ponds, which necessitated taking all the rocks out of it and there were piles of rock and dirt everywhere.

We are harvesting lots of citrus, broccoli, and sugar peas now, and the asparagus is beginning to appear. We're getting ready for spring planting, which we usually do around Valentine's Day as it typically marks the end of any danger of frost. I did decide to chance it and put it one tomato plant last weekend, along with parsley and oregano transplants.

This year's winter was relatively mild and there has been little frost damage. A Japanese eggplant is putting out new growth, as is one of the tomato plants, and there are blossoms on the April-fruiting peach tree.