More baby vegetables

There are a couple of small yellow squash on the plant in the foreground, and I believe a zucchini on the upper plant. It's hard to tell when they're at this stage, because what looks like a fruit at the base of the female squash flower will wither away if it isn't pollinated. I haven't seen any male flowers open, but they must have at some point because the yellow squash at least are definitely past the embryonic stage, not only on this plant, but also on one I transplanted to another area. No sign of fruit yet on the acorn or flying saucer squash plants.

I picked enough green beans for a meal and about five small Japanese eggplant. This is the first time I've tried to get a second crop from a plant that came back from the roots after winter cold seemingly destroyed it. I'm not sure if they are so small because of that, or because it's not really hot yet. Eggplant really like the heat. When everything else suffers, eggplant, okra, and sweet potato vines keep going.

Mood regulators

Whenever I find myself in a bad mood, I go for a walk in our backyard. Today was one of those days.

We've been working on a project in the front yard and have run into a few complications that will take some time to resolve. Water has been running into the street from the sprinklers in our small grass lawn, probably because of a combination of slope, clay soil, and type of grass. We're trying to resolve the problem by tiering the area, rather than having the grass slope all the way down to the sidewalk. We haven't got it right yet, and this morning I was again greeted with the unwelcome sight of wasted water and less than verdantly green grass.

First of all, I don't enjoy working in the front yard nearly as much as in the back yard. The front yard is our public, HOA-mandated persona. In the back yard I am free to express myself and experiment, which adds to my enjoyment. In the front yard I am constrained to do pretty much what everyone else in the neighborhood does. It's rather like wearing uncomfortable but socially correct business attire to go to work, and changing into something comfortable when you get home.

Secondly, I don't enjoy working with grass. I am not an anti-grass crusader like some people I know. I think there is a strong case to be made for its use, especially as a play areas for children and pets. I think it probably has a little bit of an evaporative cooling effect due to transpiration, making outdoor activities more enjoyable (tolerable?) I think it mitigates the urban heat island effect, as well as removing some carbon dioxide and pollutants from the air. But since our children are grown, and our cats stay indoors, it isn't particularly important to me. All in all, I'd rather be surrounded by fruits, vegetables, and flowers than grass. However, that's not really an option for our front yard.

Anyway, I was in a bad mood, so I went for a walk in the backyard, knowing I will never fail to find something to make me smile. I found these yummy yellow pear tomatoes, the first of the season, hiding at the base of a tomato plant, and then I enjoyed strolling by these bottlebrushes which are loaded with blooms. Not only are they beautiful to see, they are softly pleasurable to touch, and literally singing with bees and other insects.

For me at least, bad moods and backyard gardens don't mix. Front yards are another story.

Tomato the second (and third, and fourth)

I picked three more ripe tomatoes today, this time from an Early Girl plant which now has over a dozen green tomatoes. Early Girl is one of the more reliable tomato producers here. In general the "early" varieties with a shorter time to maturity work better here, because they will set fruit before it gets too hot. Tomato pollen isn't active above 90 degrees, and often during our summers even the nighttime temperatures don't drop low enough for tomato production. As you can see, it's a smallish tomato, and those are less likely to develop blossom end rot. There's nothing like the taste of a vine ripened tomato. I think the ones in stores taste like cardboard and I usually avoid buying them. When I don't have fresh tomatoes from my own backyard, I prefer putting citrus fruit or strawberries in salads.

If you're interested in growing tomatoes in the low desert, here's a Master Gardener publication giving the details.

Baby vegetables

We're seeing the beginnings of green beans and yellow squash from our February plantings, as well as several Japanese eggplants on a plant that lived through the winter. Zinnias are coming up everywhere in this bed. I regret having to pull healthy, attractive plants up, but if I don't they will take over and crowd out the beans and squash. I once heard it said that the definition of a weed is a plant growing where you don't want it, but I still hate to pull up zinnias.

Parsley, sage, rosemary, and tomatoes

Tomatoes are coming up in unusual places all over the yard, most likely due to my propensity to toss inedible fruits and vegetables directly into the raised beds. This one sprouted in the middle of a parsley plant. There's another one coming up in the rocks lining the streambed.

I just never know what I'm going to find, or where. That's part of the fun. If you're interested in such things, here's an article on "The Gospel of the Garden" that I really liked.

Tomato the first

We picked this small tomato, the first of the season, today, and enjoyed it for lunch on our sandwiches. This one, a Heatmaster, was planted about a week ahead of the others, but the later-planted ones and even some of the volunteers have eclipsed it in size. I think the snap pea vines that were growing in this bed shaded it to much; it really didn't start growing until after I took the peas out.

It had a little bit of blossom end rot, which we cut off. Blossom end rot is caused by a calcium deficiency, which seems surprising since desert soil has plenty of calcium and our hard water ought to supply even more. The problem is that calcium needs water to be transported up the stem of the tomato plant to get to the leaves and fruit. When water stress occurs, which is almost inevitable here, it goes into survival mode and sends the calcium to the leaves first, and the fruit get what's left over.

Suggestions for treating it: water deeply, mulch heavily, and add gypsum to the soil to combat the salinity which exacerbates the problem.

Good bugs, bad bugs

I like ladybugs in my garden. I do not like the bugs I found on this grapevine today.

Grape leaf skeletonizers are voracious little caterpillars that do exactly what you might infer from their name. They are the larvae of an inconspicuous little blue-black moth that lays its eggs in clusters on the undersides of grape leaves, and start munching away as soon as they hatch. If you notice your grape leaves beginning to look like the ones in the picture on the right, look on the undersides of the affected leaves for tiny black-and-yellow striped caterpillars.

The best control we've found is Thuricide, a biological control agent containing live bacteria which will kill caterpillars, and only caterpillars. Some gardeners report successfully controlling them by hand-picking, but we found that very time-consuming as well as ineffective.

No shortage of limes here

I've seen quite a bit in the news about a shortage of limes in Mexico driving prices much higher, if you can find them at all. Because limes are the most frost-sensitive of the citrus trees, their range in the US is fairly limited.

We have two lime trees, a Mexican (Key) lime that is about ten years old, and a Bearss lime that we've only had for a few years. The Mexican lime usually produces hundreds of limes that we haven't been able to use because it was so time consuming to juice them. They're too small for our electric citrus juicer, and I gave up on trying to get a sufficient quantity of juice for any use via hand squeezing or using a reamer. However, this year I discovered the citrus squeezer (sort of like a round, oversized garlic press) and I may actually be able to get enough juice for a key lime pie this year.The Bearss lime produced about a dozen limes this year, which is a pretty good yield considering its youth.

They are frost sensitive, and in the years we've had several hard freezes, shown considerable frost damage. Because the Bearss lime is only about eight feet high, we are still able to protect it somewhat by draping frost cloth over it, but the Mexican lime is too big for that. One year when we had a particularly cold winter, it didn't produce any fruit at all the following spring and its branches were terribly frost-nipped. But it came back fine, and you wouldn't know it by looking at it now.

Buggy things

This year, as an experiment, I decided to let the cilantro go to seed. I doubt we will see many coriander seeds because finches have really been enjoying themselves, and I thought about pulling them up and planting something more attractive. I changed my mind this morning when I saw them covered with lady beetles in all stages of development! Here's what they look like, in case you aren't familiar with the larval or pupal forms:

I learned that cilantro, besides being good for bees, also attracts several kinds of beneficial insects. Here's an article (pdf format) about beneficial insects and how to attract them to your garden.

Bee-utiful borders

I like to plant flower borders around the perimeter of our raised beds, an idea I picked up from a Phoenix Permaculture Guild class we took a few years ago. Not only do they look nice, they attract bees which is helpful if you're trying to grow anything that requires an insect pollinator. And even if you aren't trying to grow food in your backyard, you're doing the environment a favor by providing for the bees.

There's a lot of speculation about why bee populations are declining, but one problem we have in large cities is the "urban desert" effect...buildings, parking lots, roads, and gravelscapes don't provide much in the way of livable habitat for them. The Maricopa County Cooperative Extension ran into this problem when they attempted a community garden project in an area of downtown Phoenix where there is a large homeless population. It was hoped that the garden would not only provide nutritious food to supplement the diets of people living in the area, but that the gardening skills they would learn might help some of them find work. But the Master Gardeners volunteering with the program found that many of the fruits and vegetables they planted never produced anything, because there were no bees living in the area to pollinate them. It would be a very serious problem if bees died out, so I'm happy to help them out any way I can, especially when what makes them happy makes me happy too.

The permaculture class suggested edible flowers, so I use a lot of nasturtiums, but they don't like really hot or cold weather. I usually plant petunias in late fall for winter color and in the spring, sweet alyssum and dwarf marigolds which will take the summer heat. I don't think you can see them, but there are dozens of bees on the alyssum in this photo. It has a sweet, honey-like scent that I think I enjoy as much as the bees do.

This bed contains bush snapbeans, tomatoes, and three kinds of squash. I didn't plant any of the tomatoes; one plant survived the winter and all the others are volunteers. I just put the cages around healthy-looking plants that came up in areas where I didn't have anything else planted. I'm not sure what kind of tomatoes they are as I had several kinds planted here last year. It will be interesting to see what they turn out to be.

A broccoli selfie

This was supposed to be a picture of a broccoli bouquet I picked yesterday, but the camera wound up a little too close. By the time I looked at the big picture on my computer instead of the little picture on my phone, this broccoli was already chopped up and simmering away in a crockpot, well on its way to its destiny of becoming our dinner.

I think this is the longest I've kept broccoli plants after harvesting the primary heads. They just keep producing little side shoots, and I keep picking them. I see no need to pull up the plants until they stop producing entirely. They are still tasty, and I'm still experimenting with recipes in a quest to find the ideal recipe for broccoli cheese soup.

Peaches vs. birds and other moochers

Despite its obvious struggles, our eight year old Desert Gold peach is producing ripening fruit right on schedule. The way we know fruit is beginning to ripen is when we see evidence of birds helping themselves, and I noticed several have already been nibbled on.

If we wait for the fruit to fully ripen on the tree, the birds will get most of it, so we usually pick them in a not quite ripe state and allow them to finish ripening on the counter. They still taste better than anything from a store!

After this year's harvest, we plan to take off the long limb extending over the pond, which has very few leaves on it, and cut back the dead-looking branches to a point where the foliage seems healthy. If the branches don't have leaves, they can't photosynthesize food for the tree, so they're really just moochers. My theory is that by pruning away the nonproductive parts of the tree, the roots will be better able to provide nutrients to what's left.

Artichokes take two

More artichokes are appearing. We haven't eaten any yet.

Peaches in spite of it all

It looks like we will get a few peaches this year from our poor sick peach tree. In spite of its declining health, it still produces fruit.

There's a lesson here...

Flower mash-up

I noticed that one of our older rosebushes has two kinds of roses blooming on the same bush. The cream colored rose is what I planted....I think it is the "Peace" cultivar, and this year there are also red roses growing from one of the spurs. I assume the red roses are from a rootstock onto which the cream roses were grafted.

To add to the flower mash-up, larkspur and coreopsis have come up on their own in the middle of the rosebush. So far the rose doesn't appear to be suffering, so I have left them alone. The larkspur probably won't last much longer, but coreopsis will keep growing through the summer and into late fall, and can get quite large. I might have to extract it from the rosebush at some point, which could be a painful undertaking.

Onion fail

"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." Romans 8:28

So far, I've had to pull up two of these red onions because they bolted, and the bulbs aren't much bigger than when I originally planted them in February. I wasn't sure when I should try to harvest them, so I researched it via my ever-helpful friend Google, and learned that they should be ready when the tops fall over, but must be harvested immediately if they begin to bolt. Once they send up flower spikes, the bulb begins to be consumed to nourish the bloom so it can do what plants naturally do...set seed and die.

At this point I'd consider my onion experiment mostly a failure. I didn't get the large bulbs I anticipated, but green onions are also tasty and have many culinary uses. Next year I think I'll try planting them in the fall instead of the spring, so they will have a longer time in the ground before the lengthening days encourage them to flower.

My onion failure caused me to think about failure in general. There are many things in life that don't work out the way we predict or would prefer, but generally I think very few things that happen can be classified as total failures. Usually something positive can be salvaged from most disappointments, even if it is only that we learn something that may help us or someone else be more successful in the future.

Grapes, continued

Here's the grape arbor that has produced our only edible grapes so far. It is in full sun in front of a fence that hides our pool equipment. The grapevine on the left is a Thompson seedless grape that's about seven or eight years old. The one on the right is a Flame seedless that we just put in today to replace one that died.

Originally, the two grapevines were in large wooden planter boxes with the bottoms cut out, placed on either side of a purchased bench/harbor. We had plastic planter boxes on top of the half-wall planted with asparagus fern and annuals. After a couple of years of the bench getting almost no use because the location was too hot and sunny to be an enjoyable sitting area, and the annuals routinely dying of heatstroke, we decided to replace the bench and planter boxes with this raised bed. We built the raised bed up to the same height of the wooden boxes holding the grapes, removed the boxes, and filled in the area between the grapes with soil. Both grapes did fine up until last year, when the driplines malfunctioned and we didn't notice until it was too late.

Today, in addition to planting the new grapevine, this time on the inside of the arbor rather than the outside, we dug out the Bermuda grass, Mexican primrose, spent nasturtiums, and a dead miniature rosebush that also succumbed because of insufficient water. We left a volunteer asparagus fern in the middle, sprinkled the area with marigold seeds, and mulched everything heavily. Oh, and we also revamped the drip lines to provide more water.

Grapes

There are lots of embryonic grape clusters like this one on this particular vine in full sun. We've gotten a few grapes in the past, but most of these clusters shrivel before producing fruit, and the grapes are pretty small...like large peas.

This year I'm going to try giving the vine a daily bucketful of pond water in addition to the water it gets from the drip system. I am guessing that our limited grape production is due to either not enough water or not enough fertilizer, and pond water ought to fill in both gaps nicely. There were two vines in this location, on either side of an arbor, but one didn't make it through our last summer, I assume because of a watering issue.

We have two older grapevines, planted on the fence behind the lemon tree, but they never have produced grapes. I think it is too shady for them. We have four younger grapevines on the side fence where we replaced bougainvilla, but they're too young to expect fruit production.

No sign of grape leaf skeletonizers...yet.

Larkspur

Larkspur is one of those things I don't plant, but which surprises me by coming up all over the yard. Hummingbirds love its tubular flowers.

Nasturtiums in unusual places

One of the things I enjoy the most about or garden is taking a stroll and seeing what's new or surprising. I tend to be somewhat of a guided laissez-faire, serendipitous gardener. I let plants go to seed, wait to see where they come up, remove the ones that aren't where I want them, and fill in the bare spots with things I think will be attractive in those spots. 

Since I've been doing this for several years now, I often find plants growing in areas where I didn't plant them. This morning I spotted nasturtiums growing up a trellis intended for a snail vine, and nasturtiums springing from the rocks surrounding one of our ponds.

Nasturtiums and hollyhocks are the most prolific of my "let it be" plants, but this time of year I also find larkspur and lettuce in various locations. My most unusual discovery was a viola growing in the nonplanted, nonwatered gravel pathways.

Doing what I can

God, give me grace to accept with serenity

the things that cannot be changed,

Courage to change the things

which should be changed,

and the Wisdom to distinguish

the one from the other.

Living one day at a time,

Enjoying one moment at a time,

Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace,

Taking, as Jesus did,

This sinful world as it is,

Not as I would have it,

Trusting that You will make all things right,

If I surrender to Your will,

So that I may be reasonably happy in this life,

And supremely happy with You forever in the next.

-Reinhold Niebuhr

I was too obsessed yesterday with trying to figure out what might be wrong with the apple tree to either enjoy or do anything constructive in the garden. Today I think I will make better use of my time by digging out the Bermuda grass that is threatening to infest this raised bed and choke out these snapbeans.

I've done what I can about the apple tree. I've gone through three separate disease keys from the Cooperative Extension services in several Western states, and although I'm not 100% certain, I think it is likely some kind of crown or root rot brought on by our archenemy of poorly draining clay soil, and there's not much I can do about that. Mike reminded me that before we planted the apple tree, we dug down about three feet in an attempt to improve the drainage, and amended the native soil with compost. That was the general wisdom ten years ago, but since then recommendations have changed. One of the results of backfilling with heavily amended soil is that the area will sink over time as the compost decays, resulting in a sunken area. The sunken area is really obvious now that the grass is gone, meaning that when we water, it pools right next to the trunk and stays there, opening the roots up to various infections.

The first lines of the "Serenity Prayer" above are well known, probably because of their adaptation by Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12-step programs, but the last part isn't as familiar to most people. For some reason, I was reminded of the thoughts behind this prayer today. If I'm going to be a successful gardener, I have to work with my backyard as it is, heavy clay soil, extreme heat and all. I'd rather have better soil and more moderate temperatures, but this is what I have to work with. Trees may die, but there are other things in our garden to enjoy, and perhaps the difficulty of coaxing beauty from a less-than-ideal situation adds to its appreciation.

Water lilies in bloom

The water lilies have been blooming for a couple of weeks now. I've seen a yellow bloom in addition to the white ones seen here, but haven't seen the pink one yet. They do much better when I keep the cattails cleared out. Interestingly, algae ceases to be a problem once the water lilies emerge from dormancy.

The cattails and umbrella plant are supposed to stay confined to a container, but they keep escaping and if left to their own devices will totally take over the pond.

Don't sit under the apple tree...

I'm becoming concerned about our Ein Shemer apple tree, especially so soon after losing our mature apricot tree. It has blossomed, but is rather late to leaf out and the few leaves that have appeared do not seem healthy. Some young leaves show signs of interveinal chlorosis, which is a sign of iron deficiency, and some have scorched-looking leaf margins, which could be a sign of sodium buildup in the soil.

I'm also wondering if it has been affected by our recent conversion of the grass paths to gravel. We put it several drip emitters around the drip line of the tree, but I'm wondering if the feeder roots, which were used to getting water from the lawn, extend beyond the drip line.

In an effort to cover all possible bases, I sprinkled Ironite, blood meal, and gypsum around the drip line, and am following that with a deep watering of the entire area around the tree, going all the way to the patio instead of stopping at the drip line. (Deep watering for trees means until I can push a soil probe in the ground 3 feet deep in multiple areas) And then we will just hope for the best!

Interview in the garden

This morning we met with Cathy Cromwell, a Master Gardener who has written several books on gardening in the desert. Last year she sent an email out to the Master Gardener listserv looking for people who combined edible with ornamental plants in their home gardens for an article she wanted to write for Phoenix Home and Garden magazine. When I mentioned this to my retiree lunch group, some of them persuaded me to send in pictures of our garden for consideration, so I sent a link to this blog. It didn't work out for her to come last year because we had so much frost damage, but she contacted me a couple of weeks ago and said she'd like to see our backyard and interview us.

I was really nervous about the interview, because she is such an experienced and knowledgeable Master Gardener and I thought our garden was probably too eclectic and imperfect to be magazine-worthy. However, she put me at ease by saying "I don't know what you were worried about", and we sat out on the patio while she asked us questions and typed notes on her laptop. At the conclusion of the interview and yard tour, she said she thought it would make an interesting article, although it might not be published for another year. She is concerned that she might not be able to schedule a photographer to come out and take pictures for several weeks, and the garden won't be at its best once the heat sets in.

So, stay tuned and I'll let you know what happens! And if you're looking for good books on gardening, here's a list of Cathy's books:

Composting for Dummies (author)
Desert Water Gardening for Beginners (author)
Desert Gardening for Beginners (co-author)
Success with School Gardens (co-author)
Earth-Friendly Desert Gardening (co-author)
Better Homes and Gardens New Garden Book (co-writer)
Sunset's Gardening in the Southwest (contributing writer)
Desert Landscaping for Beginners (editor)

Luncheon in the garden

In my previous life, I was a high school science teacher and guidance counselor. A number of my former coworkers are retired now and we try to get together for lunch once a month. Usually we visit different restaurants that we have heard about and want to try, but for the last two years we've had a spring garden party in our backyard.

Because the garden is always changing, it's a different experience each time. Last time it was the hollyhocks that dominated the scene; this year it was the roses. My friends are all really good cooks who like to experiment with new recipes, so the menu is always changing too. One of my friends put together a cookbook for us to share recipes, along with some pictures of our garden.

The weather was as close to perfect as it gets: temperatures in the mid-seventies and no wind. We had a good time eating, visiting, and enjoying the garden. Some people picked citrus to take home with them, and cuttings of sweet potato vines to try at home. I didn't get any takers for the dozens of volunteer tomato plants that have come up, though.

We had our lunch under two canvas pop-up canopies. They function nicely to provide shade, but we have to take them down if the wind kicks up, or they will sail away, wreaking general garden havoc in their wake. (I found that out one monsoon season when I was using them to shade July tomato transplants) One of Mike's ideas for a future garden project is to build a pergola on this side of the house to provide a more permanent shade structure for the patio area.

Honeysuckle in bloom

I like to choose plants for their fragrances as well as their appearance. This Hall's honeysuckle is planted on the block wall behind our gazebo, and has begun to bloom this week, adding its sweet smell to the potpourri in our backyard.

It has flourished in this location, and now covers several sections of wall. In fact I have to keep trimming it back so it doesn't hang over on the HOA side of the wall. Personally, I thought it looked nice, but apparently someone complained about it, so I cut it back from their side of the common wall. I let it hang down on into our front yard on our wall, though.

Since I really would prefer to look at something green and growing than bare block walls ,I've tried several kinds of vines in various locations. The two that have done the best are this one and snail vine. Snail vine has attractive purple flowers which have a longer blooming period, but it dies back in cold weather. The honeysuckle stays green year round.

It's been rather unseasonably cold and windy today. I ought to appreciate it while it lasts, because 100-degree days are not too far in our future. However, my retiree group is coming over tomorrow for lunch in the garden, and I hope the weather cooperates and is pleasant.

April Overview Photos

Panorama taken from the middle of the side patio. I don't think the sky is really this blue; it must be an IOS thing.

It looks quite different from earlier photos of this area since we took out the grass pathways. It was pretty when it was green, but labor intensive to keep looking nice. I'd rather put my labor into things other than grass with nice colors, smells, and tastes. The apricot tree is conspicuously absent. We replaced it with a "fruit cocktail tree", mostly because we got tired of running around to nurseries looking for a replacement apricot tree. The new tree has peach, nectarine, apricot, and plum grafts. I've not been impressed with what I've heard about fruit cocktail trees; they're more of a novelty than anything else and if they aren't pruned rather aggressively one kind of fruit will take over. But it was this or wait another year, and on this one the apricot branch was the thickest, so we'd be just fine with it taking over. Mike did some work on the raised bed that will hopefully improve the drainage situation and give it a fighting chance.

Panarama taken of the pool side of the yard. I don't think the pool is quite that green, either.

Since last year, we added another pygmy palm in the space where the sour orange tree was behind the waterfall, and replaced a bare-root peach tree that didn't make it through the summer. We're being treated to an early display of rose blooms this year. We usually cut them back in January and don't see roses until Easter, but they are in their prime now.