It's beginning to look a lot like spring

March 1, 2016

"As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease."

As blossoms on peach and apricot trees fade and begin to (hopefully) set fruit, the pear tree behind the gazebo is white with blossoms, and the surviving cherry tree is also flowering.  Citrus blossoms should follow within a few days; I can smell them already. A freesia, which I planted several years ago pondside and comes back year after year, is blooming, as are many of the nasturtiums and the first larkspur.

It's fun to stroll through the garden this time of year and see what new surprises it has for me. I picked enough asparagus for tonight's dinner today, which we'll have with the peas I picked earlier this week. Bush beans are beginning to poke their way to the surface, along with squash, melon, and cucumber seedlings. New leaves are appearing on the fig trees and grapevines.

Today is "Super Tuesday" and the news on TV and social media is full of opinions and predictions, I think I'd rather spend time in our backyard. Gardening keeps me grounded.

Asparagus

Royal Lee Cherry blossoms

Freesia

Green Bush Beans

Nasturtium

Larkspur

Artichoke

Pear blossoms

The resurrection of the artichokes and the genesis of the peas

We've gotten some rain the last few days, which is helping new plantings and making weeding a bit easier. Of course, it also brings out ants, which makes attempts at weeding somewhat unpleasant. I cleared out a lot of mint and Mexican primrose from the area lining the streambed, and discovered that our oldest artichoke has already started to come back. There's no sign of the one I planted last year yet; we'll have to wait to see if it shows up.

The sugar snap and snow peas are beginning to break through the soil. I planted heavily because I didn't know how old the seeds were, but they're coming up pretty thickly. Nasturtiums and hollyhocks are popping up everywhere too. Perhaps this year will be the one I manage to keep them under control. The nasturtiums aren't as much of a problem as the hollyhocks as they are low growing (and edible) but the hollyhocks will crowd out everything else if I don't aggressively go after them.

Here's a line of lettuces (along with more nasturtiums) sprouting along the drip line where they were planted. As with the peas, I threw everything I had left over out there- a mixture of romaine, leaf, buttercrunch, and who knows what all else. Because I haven't had much luck with spinach germination, I'm attempting to start that inside in peat pots rather than sowing directly into the ground.

In other gardening news: I spent several hours Sunday afternoon precooking eggplant for parmigiana and freezing it, and now I need to pick eggplant again. I gave up on the tomatillos and honeydew as the vines were dying back, and pulled them out so they'd stop blocking the sun from the pepper plants, which are beginning to produce. And I noticed a young citrus tree growing behind the waterfall that I'm guessing came from a key lime seed, but who knows what it might turn out to be? Most citrus is grafted onto sour orange or lemon rootstock; it doesn't do well when grown from seed.

Fruitfulness

Zinnias (and beans, tomatoes, squash, eggplant, even if they aren't obvious)

"The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness, and self-control"

I've been thinking about this verse as I watch beautiful and delicious things grow in my garden. It's always been one of my favorites, but my understanding of it has changed over the years. I used to think of it as a checklist of qualities I was supposed to have, and berate myself when I felt depressed, anxious, or otherwise lacking in any of them.

But as I've watched my garden grow, and as I've grown older, I've come to the realization that I can no more will myself to bear spiritual fruit than the flowers, fruits, and vegetables in my garden can will themselves into being. A tomato plant creates tomatoes because it is a tomato plant, not because it decides to do so. Given the right amount of sunlight, warmth, water, and nutrients from the soil, it has no choice but to produce tomatoes. It is true that I planted some of the things growing in our backyard, but others have come up entirely on their own, from seeds scattered by the wind or birds, or from vegetable scraps I threw out for compost.

I think "the fruit of the Spirit" manifests itself in us like the fruits in a garden. It's not something we strive to achieve, but something that grows out of our relationship with God. As we nurture that relationship in whatever ways we've found work best, the "fruits of the Spirit" can't help but grow in our lives.

Tomatoes

Artichoke

Fig

Green beans

Strawberrie

Yellow squast

Peaches

Red potatoes

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.

Why we haven't eaten any artichokes yet

Look what I found in the garden today!

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.

Artichokes take two

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

Artichoke plant

 I've never tried growing artichokes before, and thought it might be fun to try. This plant is about a year old, and I think it's an attractive addition to our outdoor decor, even if it never produces anything edible. This morning I noticed an artichoke bud beginning to form in its center, so stay tuned!

Something old, something new, something borrowed, and something that needs weeding

Well, maybe not exactly borrowed, but my friend Lisa gave me two plants from a pony pack of a kind of squash that's new to me, a pattypan variety that look like little flying saucers. I found them a home in an unplanted spot of this raised bed.

Behind the newly planted squash plants is an artichoke I planted last year, and a Japanese eggplant that made it through the winter and is showing evidence of its resurrection by its vigorous new growth. And unfortunately, there is also a lot of Bermuda grass and mint that needs to be removed!

More weeding and a strawberry update

I weeded the second half of this combined bed today. In addition to Bermuda grass, it contains several other troublesomely invasive weeds including mint and nutsedge. I made the mistake of planting mint last summer (you can read about that here, and also see how the bed looked last fall), but I have no idea how the nutsedge managed to sneak in. All three plants reproduce quite prolifically by stolons and runners, and don't even need to resort to the bother of producing flowers and seeds, although the sedge and mint can do that as well. The underground stolons are designed to break off easily when disturbed, which means that when I try to pull them out, some little piece is inevitably left behind. Each little piece will  then regenerate Hydra-like into many more obnoxious plants.

This bed contains small fig and almond trees and strawberry, artichoke, rosemary, Japanese eggplant, and pepper plants. The hollyhocks just appear as if by magic everywhere in the yard, and I leave them alone if they aren't crowding out something else. I think they may have actually helped the strawberry plants by shading them a little. It will be interesting to see if the strawberry plants survive the summer as most gardeners treat them as annuals here and replant each fall. We're still getting a few strawberries each day, most of which do not make it into the house. I ate the three I picked today while I was doing battle with the Bermuda grass.