Cherries, take two

The cherry trees we planted last year got scalded and died in the summer heat. We're trying them again in a new location, an area between the gazebo and the upper pond which gets some afternoon shade. The peach tree that was in this area finally died, and we took it out to make room for the cherry trees. These came from the Urban Farm and are on a rootstock that is hopefully more tolerant of desert soil and heat. We dug a trench around the trees and mulched it heavily, per Greg's instructions. We planted an apricot tree, also from the Urban Farm tree sale, on the other side of the pond where we tried the cherry trees last year. When Mike dug up that area for the tree, he found about a dozen more sweet potatoes I'd missed when I harvested them in November. I expect to see sweet potato vines return again in the hot weather as there are probably still more of them we didn't find.

We're continuing with general cleanup and soil preparation for spring planting. I jumped the gun a little this year and planted Blue Lake bush beans and nasturtiums a couple of weeks earlier than usual, because rain was predicted and I wanted to take advantage of that. This year's winter was rather mild; temperatures dropped into the 30s for a few days in December, but we never got a hard freeze. Hopefully we won't get a late freeze in February, which has happened before.


We're continuing to harvest citrus, lettuce, and Swiss chard, and enjoyed the first of the broccoli for dinner last night. The artichoke has returned, but no sign of any asparagus yet.

Broccoli is almost ready to pick!

When life gives you lemons...

Our lemon tree, planted in the summer of 2002, is very prolific. We give some away and usually freeze enough lemon juice to enjoy fresh lemonade year round. In the past I've used ziplock bags to freeze the juice, but this year I'm using pint Mason jars, which fit nicely on the door shelves of our freezer.

I've tried several recipes for making lemonade, most of which involve the extra step of making a simple syrup with boiling water and sugar. My favorite, a Chick Fil a copycat recipe, is probably the easiest and involves no boiling water. Here's a link to instructions for it:

January overview

I've been rather neglectful in terms of posting for a while, as it's not a particularly photogenic time in our garden. So much for my intent to publish the bad as well as the good!

Most of what we've  been doing involves getting ready for spring planting, which we usually do around Valentine's Day. We had a December frost which killed off the zinnias, so I've been pulling those up and scattering their seeds in several new locations. About the only color in the garden now is from the still-blooming 99-cent Home Depot Black Friday poinsettias, which I moved here from the front yard.

We are harvesting and enjoying salads made from Swiss chard and Romaine, Bibb, and leaf lettuces, and will be harvesting broccoli soon. We're also harvesting lots of citrus. I like to put orange or tangerine sections in winter salads instead of tomatoes.  It's especially good with poppyseed dressing, and tastes much better than store-bought cardboard-tasting tomatoes. I'll wait for my own, thank you.I'm also freezing lemon juice from our very prolific lemon tree so we can enjoy homemade lemonade all year long.

Today I planted red potatoes in the bed in front of the upper pond. Last year I tried them for the first time in another area, and I think this one will be better. While planting them, I found several large sweet potatoes I'd missed when we dug up the bed in November, so I expect sweet potatoe vines will show up here eventually too.  I'm also going to take a chance and plant nasturtium seeds around its border, although if we get another frost they won't make it.