Pergola progress

Our most recent hardscape project is constructing an pergola over our north patio. After getting an estimate in the $7000 range from a company a couple of years ago, we decided to go the do-it-yourself route. Mike researched building a structure and tying it into the house, which is a fairly complicated process requiring building permits. We decided instead to purchase this freestanding assemble-it yourself pergola from Lowe's instead. It was on sale for $500 and if we bought three of them, we could cover the entire patio for far less than $7000. Home Depot offers a similar pergola by a different manufacturer for the same price, but we decided against it because the canopy cover is controlled mechanically. Mike did make some of the modifications suggested by the Lowe's reviewers, including stuffing a 4 by 4 up the support posts and bolting it to a square concrete paver.

Because of our roof overhang, the 10 by 10 pergola doesn't fit nicely on our 10 foot wide patio as we imagined. If we just put the outer support posts into the raised beds, they would probably rust fairly quickly, so we need to redo part of the raised beds and pavestones. In the pictures below you can see how far the posts must go into the raised bed, and how Mike is redoing the area to incorporate them into the retaining block wall.

Gardening projects, like many things in life, are often more complicated than they seem! The trick, I think, is to keep your eye on the goal and not the complications.

Small accomplishments, small annoyances

My gardening goal for today was to weed this bed on the east side of our upper pond. It has two tiers, a narrow upper one near the pond, and a larger lower one formerly occupied by a thevetia which had crowded everything else out and killed a nectarine tree with its shade. We now have three fruit trees in this area...a Santa Rosa plum in the narrow upper bed where the thevetia originally was planted, and two supposedly desert-tolerant cherry trees in the larger lower bed.  Earlier in the spring, there were snapdragons, nasturtiums, and stock blooming around the base of the trees.

 Marigolds, zinnias, and sweet potato vines are now beginning to replace the faltering spring flowers, but there are other things attempting to get a foothold here that I don't want, primarily Bermuda grass and Mexican petunia (Ruellia brittonia) We will probably never get rid of all the Bermuda grass, because there used to be a lawn here, but I brought the Mexican petunia invasion on myself. Pro tip: don't plant desert-tolerant plants like Mexican petunia or Mexican primrose anywhere they have free access to water.They will be exceeding fruitful and multiply, crowd out more desirable plants, and they're impossible to eradicate entirely.

While weeding, I found something else I could do without in this bed: a colony of angry ants, unhappy that I was disturbing their home with my trowel. I try to be as pesticide-free as I can with our garden, and I know that ants are helpful in breaking up and aerating our clay soil, but I do not like it when they bite my hands and feet. And did I mention that at this time of year it's usually approaching 100 degrees by 10 AM? Time for a blogging-cum-water-in-the-air-conditioning break.

Practicing what I preach

I was probably pushing 50 before I really bought into the idea of tackling housekeeping tasks a few minutes at a time each day, rather than letting things pile up until I reached my breaking point and embarked on a cleaning marathon. I credit Flylady for my epiphany. Although I admit I don't follow her system 100%, I have found the principle of doing a little bit at a time over a long period of time both effective and liberating.

Having routines and doing a little bit at a time works well for me in my garden, too. I am rather sensitive to both heat and bright light, so in the heat of the summer the mantra "you can do anything for 15 minutes" becomes more like 5 minutes at a time for me. You'd be surprised how many weeds you can pull in 5 minutes. Often I just take a stroll around the garden, observing what's new and what needs to be done. I may pull a few weeds, give a thirsty plant a bucket of pond water, or pick ripening vegetables. Then I go inside and cool off. I do not spend hours at a time working in our garden. It is a garden built by minutes snatched here and there over the past 12 years.

This picture shows the northwest corner of our backyard. The north wall, behind the gazebo, is a common wall we share with the HOA-maintained entrance to our development. I do not like looking at bare block walls, so we planted honeysuckle on the west wall and snail vine on the north wall. However, the HOA does not share my esthetic preferences, and we have to be vigilant in keeping the vines on our side of the fence. Today I noticed them creeping over the wall into HOA territory, so we trimmed them back. That task should have taken only 5 minutes, but it was an effort to worm ourselves into the back corner due to the fact that I had been ignoring the honeysuckle vine's stealthy creep up into the pear tree for several months. It really was a jungle in there...hot, sweaty, and overgrown by vines. If I had snipped them  back as soon as they sent their first tentative tendrils into the tips of the tree branches, I would have spared myself considerable effort and discomfort.

I will survive

In the process of digging holes for the pergola supports, Mike dug up this basil plant and it languished uprooted all night. It was already suffering from some kind of unexplained chlorosis, and was limp and wilted when I found it the following morning. I put it in a pot with holes in the bottom, added potting soil, and stuck it in the streambed. It has perked up considerably since then.

It amazes me what some plants...and people...can go through, and survive while others, who have more advantages and fewer challenges, don't do so well. I think this basil plant is a survivor.

The return of the sweet potatoes

I didn't dig up all the sweet potatoes from this area last year. They're back!

Yes, we have no bananas

No bananas on this tree, which we planted about two years ago, but it adds a tropical look to the lagoon sitting area in our pool.  We planted the "Little John" bottlebrush at the same time.

Yellow plumeria blossoms

This one fooled me. I thought it was going to be the pink blossoms, but a couple have opened and proved me wrong.

Today's harvest

This morning's pickings included a bowlful of yellow pear tomatoes, three Early Girls, one Purple Cherokee, one mystery tomato, the first two cherry tomatoes from the volunteer plants that are sprouting like weeds everywhere, and a nice batch of green beans. Not shown are the yellow squash and Japanese eggplant we picked and ate last night in an adaptation of this Julia Child recipe.

 I also found four strawberries and two blackberries which actually ripened instead of drying up. They were eaten before I could get them to pose for a picture.

First plumeria bloom of the season

We have four plumeria trees growing in large pots on our back patio. They are in pots so we can move them into the garage when we have a freeze warning, but they are really outgrowing the pots. This one, a white variety, is the tallest. That's the tip of a portable gazebo in the background; I think it's at least 10 feet high.

We also have pink and yellow varieties, all purchased from Lowe's when they were about 12 inches tall. The pink variety should bloom in a few days. Last summer its pot broke, and I decided that I wanted to see if they could survive in the ground, so that's where it's growing now. We'll try frost cloth on it this winter, and see how it does. If it lives, we may plant the others in the ground as well. I think they'd be particularly nice in the beds around the pool.

Plumeria lose their leaves in the winter, and look like dead sticks for several months. They're one of the last things to leaf out (late April) and they smell like Hawaii to me. At least in the pots, they've done very well for us. Here's a link to the Valley of the Sun Plumeria Society for more information.

Swallowtail butterfly on zinnia

We have lots of butterfly visitors in our zinnia patch, but it's hard to get a picture because they're always moving. The trick is to stand still and wait until they come close.

If you're interested in butterflies native to the Sonoran desert, here's a link to an informative article, or you can download this pdf on Pollinators of the Sonoran Desert, which has color pictures not only of native butterflies, but also hummingbirds and other pollinators.

Hummingbird on zinnia flower

Hummingbirds are usually drawn to tubular flowers, but this one (on the orange flower in the middle) seemed to be finding something worthwhile in these zinnias. He spent quite a bit of time going from flower to flower this morning, and I'm wondering if he wasn't looking for insects. Hummingbirds don't live on nectar alone.

Berry disappointing

I love home grown strawberries, which taste so much sweeter than store-bought ones. But our climate isn't the best for them, so we never get more than a few each season. I picked (and ate) six today.

As far as other berries go, blackberries are the ones most suited for our climate but even then getting edible fruit is a challenge. Unlike blueberries and raspberries, which prefer a more acid soil than I can provide with any amount of amendments, blackberry canes thrive to the point of being invasive. We bought one plant when we first put in the raised beds, and I later realized that putting them in the same bed with asparagus and roses was a mistake, so I dug them up (or so I thought) and transplanted them to three different places where they would have more room. Not only are the transplanted plants growing and spreading, blackberry canes continue to pop up in various locations in the original bed.

Unfortunately their vigorous vegetative growth has not led to an abundance of tasty fruit. They have no problem setting fruit, as you can see in the picture on the right, but unfortunately the berries sublimate from an unripe and sour red to a dessicated brown, bypassing the juicy, sweet black stage I was anticipating. I did a little research via my friend Google and found the problem might be caused by (a) too little water or (b) too much sun. Shading is suggested, and I haven't done that. I also haven't given them extra water during flowering and fruiting time, because the leaves haven't shown any signs of water stress.

If you're interested in growing berries in the desert, here are some links for further information:

Phoenix Permaculture Alliance thread on growing strawberries
UA Cooperative Extension publication on growing blackberries
UA Cooperative Extension publication on growing fruits in the low desert (Scroll down to the very bottom to see recommended varieties of strawberries and blackberries)

Tomatoes to the fourth power

I picked four kinds of tomatoes this morning. The dark ones in the upper left are Purple Cherokee, an heirloom variety I tried for the first time this year. The bright red ones at lower left are Early Girl, one of the most consistently reliable varieties I've found. The lighter red ones at upper right are from a plant that survived the winter and put out new growth this spring. Its marker label disappeared, so I'm not sure what kind it is. The yellow ones are Yellow Pear, which is probably my favorite taste-wise because of their sweetness and low acidity.

No sign of blossom end rot on any of these tomatoes, although one of the mystery tomatoes has a little sun scald spot. You're supposed to cover tomatoes with shade cloth this time of year, but these are all uncovered. With the exception of the mystery tomato, they are all on the north side of our house, so they get some natural shade.

One of my favorite ways to serve fresh tomatoes is to chop them up and marinate them in a little olive oil and balsamic vinegar, along with whatever chopped fresh herbs I might want to toss in. Using different varieties provides a nice color contrast in the presentation, too. And they are so much better than store-bought tomatoes, which I think are flavorless and mealy.

Tecoma

Tecoma is one of my favorite landscaping plants for the gravel areas of our yard. The yellow (Yellow Bells) and orange (Orange Jubilee) cultivars are the most commonly seen around here, although "Sparky" is a new hybrid in ASU colors of maroon and gold.

I like these plants for their colorful tubular flowers, which attract hummingbirds and butterflies. They are also fairly large, spreading plants as you can see from this picture. I don't particularly like looking at concrete block walls, and they make a great screen for those. They tolerate heat very well, but can be damaged by subfreezing temperatures in varying degrees. Last year, they were only mildly frost nipped but even in years when they are killed off to the ground, they vigorously regrow in the spring.

Of zinnias and Eden

"And God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed... And out of the ground God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food...And God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it."

As larkspur, nasturtiums, and hollyhocks begin to set seed and die, zinnias are beginning to come into bloom. I didn't plant these zinnias (or the larkspur, hollyhocks, and most of the nasturtiums either for that matter). Flowers from seasons past dropped seeds that lay dormant until the instructions encoded in their DNA told them that conditions were right for them to germinate. The time of year they show up varies somewhat, but zinnias like warmer temperatures and longer days.The main thing I've had to do in this bed is pull out zinnias in places where they were crowding out the beans and squash I did plant. There are also a lot of tomatoes I didn't plant mixed in with the zinnias, and in some cases I've had to pull them out too.

In the story of the biblical Garden of Eden, God planted the garden and Adam and Eve were supposed to take care of it. God did all the heavy digging, so to speak, but from the way I read the story, humans were supposed to tend the garden. The work wasn't meant to be burdensome, but enjoyable and creative. That's how I like to think of our garden. I like to let nature take its course as much as possible, making adjustments as I see fit.

That means I let plants nearing the end of their functional lives get a little straggly as they set seed and provide food for birds and insects. My HOA probably would object to this were the plants in our front yard, because their emphasis is on maintaining appearances. It means I probably don't get the maximum yield in terms of fruits and vegetable production, because I like to leave room for flowers in my vegetable beds. I also allow birds to eat some of our excess peaches and other fruit, because I like to watch birds. Farmers might see this as wasteful, because their emphasis is on growing enough to make a profit.

 I like a garden that is both pleasant to the sight, and good for food, not only for me, but for other living creatures. It provides enough fresh fruits and vegetables for us to enjoy and some to share. And it's not burdensome to take care of it, but enjoyable and creative.

Squash

It looks like will we get at least one zucchini this year. The urban legends about zucchini that multiply like tribbles haven't usually been born out in our experience. Generally, we have more luck with yellow squash than zucchini.

No fruit yet on the pattypan or acorn squashes, although the plants seem healthy. I'm seeing an abundance of female flowers and a deficit of male flowers on all the squash plants so far, and it takes two to tango, or to make squash. Thanks to zinnias, alyssum, and other heat-tolerant flowering plants we have plenty of bees and other pollinators. So, if the female:male ratio improves before it gets too hot, we ought to see more in the way of squash.

I spent a few minutes clearing out mint and Mexican primrose that was encroaching on the pattypan squash's access to water and sunlight. I do believe if a giant asteroid were to wipe out most life on earth, mint and Mexican primrose would survive, along with cockroaches. While doing so, I found a surprise in the way of a pepper plant I didn't know was there. I had pepper plants in that spot last year, so I assume this one either self-seeded or came up from the roots of a plant that appeared to be dead. I often just cut away dead or spent-looking plants, rather than uprooting them, so I don't disturb the roots of other things growing in the same area.

Why we haven't eaten any artichokes yet

Look what I found in the garden today!

Grapes

There are about a dozen grape clusters on this Thompson seedless grape, which is in full sun on an arbor that hides our pool equipment. The grapes are smaller than they appear in this photo; and I'm wondering how much bigger they will grow. In the past, they haven't been much larger than peas, although they taste good. Last year we didn't get any, I'm assuming because of the same drip malfunction that killed the vine on the other side of this arbor. This year I am taking extra care to make sure they get enough water by adding a bucket of pond water to each plant on an almost daily basis.

We have two older grapevines at the opposite end of the yard, but never have gotten any grapes from them. The lemon tree has grown so big that it's probably too shady for fruit production, but they produce long vines that grow up into the lemon tree if we aren't attentive.

Another backyard visitor

I'm not very knowledgeable about bird identification, but I enjoy seeing many different kinds enjoying our backyard. In addition to hummingbirds, which are always fun to watch, our yard attracts a number of finches and other seed-eating birds. This fellow sat quietly for quite a while on a dead peach tree limb.

Some people like perfectly manicured gardens. They rip out and replace flowers as soon as they begin to show signs of decline and wouldn't think of letting them go to seed. I think they miss out, on birdwatching and on other things. I did cut away the dead peach tree limb today, though.

Artichokes in bloom

We still haven't eaten any. The artichoke is in the thistle family, and produces rather spectacular blossoms when left to its on devices.

The independence of plants

Last year I carefully saved the seeds from a bright red hollyhock that appeared in our yard for the first time. I'm not sure what the genetics of hollyhock color is, but it must be more complex than that of Mendel's pea flowers as i see new color combinations pop up all the time.

None of them came up in the places I scattered seeds. Instead, they came up in the gravel part of the yard where they were lucky not to get sprayed with Roundup in their infancy. Sometimes being a lazy gardener has its advantages.

Hummingbird in the pond!

I've been trying to get a video of a hummingbird for several weeks, and lucked out today. Hummingbirds love water, and this one conveniently decided to enjoy one of the waterfalls in our pond system.

Plumbago and pears

The blue plumbago at the base of our Asian pear tree looks particularly good this year, probably due to the mild winter. There are dozens of ping-pong ball size fruits on the tree, too.

We never know what we'll find in our backyard

I'm not sure what kind of snake this is, but he didn't seem camera-shy.

May 1 Overview

As the peak gardening season begins in other parts of the country, it's winding down here. I removed the last of the broccoli and cilantro yesterday, and planted another melon in their place. I've stopped harvesting asparagus and let the ferns grow to provide food to sustain the plant for next year's crop. Very few lemons remain on the tree, the first flush of rose blooms have come and gone, and nasturtiums and petunias are pretty scraggly looking. In their place, zinnias, marigolds, alyssum, coreopsis, and galliardia are appearing. Hollyhocks are still going strong, and sweet potato vines are spreading into the streambed and the floor of the gazebo,

I harvested the first of the green beans, tomatoes, and eggplant this week, and should be picking yellow squash in another week. I've picked the half-dozen apricots our young tree produced, along with about two dozen smallish peaches. The remaining ones are even smaller, so I think I'll let the birds enjoy them. There are about a half-dozen green plums on our Santa Rosa plum, which is somewhat of an improvement over most years, and dozens of developing Asian pears. The apple tree is, surprisingly, still alive, but unlikely to produce any fruit.

The black metal structure in the upper left is the framework for one of our two portable gazebos that we use to shade the side patio in summer. We have to take down the canopy when the wind kicks up, as it has been doing for the past week. One of our future projects will be to replace these with a permanent pergola, which should be more functional, attractive, and stable.