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

Early June overview

Yesterday marked the first 110 degree temperature of the year, and it's expected to be equally hot today.

We're still harvesting tomatoes, although most of them have stopped setting new fruit. Cherry and yellow pear tomatoes continue to produce, and I've found producing volunteer tomatoes all over the place. There are two volunteer cherry tomato plants growing out of the rocks lining the streambed, an as-yet unidentified tomato growing out of a parsley plant, and numerous kinds hiding out in the zinnia jungle.

The transplanted yellow squash in the foreground bed produces a nice-size squash every other day or so. The original mound, which lies in the large bed behind Zinnialand, hasn't done as well. The squash it produces are rather small if picked before they begin to darken and harden. I've gotten about one grey zucchini a week from the same bed, and nothing so far from the pattypan. The acorn squash has produced a long vine along the edges of the pond, but no sign of fruit yet. I haven't seen any melons or Armenian cucumbers yet, either. That's interesting, because the bed is alive with bees, hummingbirds, and other pollinators attracted to the zinnias and the artichoke blossoms. Maybe they are too busy with those flowers to bother with the squash and melon blossoms.

Last year's Japanese eggplant is still producing, and the new one is setting fruit. It was supposed to be a white eggplant...one Japanese eggplant is plenty..but it's clearly not. Some of the strawberry plants are still alive and producing, and I actually found a few blackberries that ripened rather than drying up.

Sweet potatoes are showing up in last year's planting beds. Obviously I didn't remove them all when I harvested them last fall. There are enough of them that I decided not to plant new ones. We're still harvesting smallish red potatoes from the bed under the lemon tree, as well as small but edible red onions.

I'm pretty sure our sick apple tree isn't going to make it, as its stunted leaves have turned from green to brown. What remains of the old peach tree appears fairly healthy, although it is a shadow of its former self. We should get the first peaches from one of the new ones we planted last year later this month. And of course, there are plenty of green citrus fruits growing on our grapefruit, orange, lemon, and lime trees.

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.

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)

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.

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.

February overview

Here's an overview of several of the raised beds in late February. A couple of  (yum!) asparagus shoots have come up, and there are now blossoms on the nectarine and apricot trees as well as the peach. The apple tree is beginning to leaf out, there are buds on the fig tree, and I even spotted a couple of buds on the two new bare-root peach trees we planted earlier this month.

Today's gardening tasks included planting more strawberries and spreading several bags of mulch over new plantings of tomato transplants, asparagus, beans, and squash. We are still harvesting several kinds of lettuce, Swiss chard, and snow peas.

Planting, interrupted

We've completed clearing out the raised beds, for the most part and for now. The grass may fade and the flower wither, but Mexican primrose is forever. Once it warms up, we will also be battling Bermuda grass invasions. We got some of our spring plantings completed before we were interrupted by rain, which is always nice, but it would have been nicer if it had waited until we'd finished planting and mulching. Some areas of the Valley actually got a light dusting of snow and/or hail, but not here. It really didn't get that cold, which is also a good thing.

The bed in the foreground, which adjoins a pavestone patio, will contain mostly flowers. Coreopsis, larkspur, and snapdragon seedlings are already coming up, and I added petunia transplants as a border on the patio side. I also planted one hill of yellow squash and one hill of zucchini in this bed.

I planted tomato transplants and bush beans in the left rear bed, and plan to border it with marigolds. In addition to my favorite Early Girl, Roma and Yellow Pear tomatoes, we're trying some new varieties that are supposed to be more heat tolerant- Phoenix, Solar Fire, and Summer Set. The new asparagus trench is in the rear of this bed. The right rear bed contains strawberries and a small fig tree.

For now, I'm waiting for things to dry out a little bit so that I can get back to planting!

Surveying the damage

It's a balmy 71 degrees outside today, and the freeze warning is over, so we took down the spotlights and frost cloth today. I was pleased to see that the lettuce and spinach seedlings (foreground bed) and strawberries (middle bed) survived. The hibiscus and tecoma (along the fence in the background) have turned crispy and brown, as well as thevetia and bougainvillea elsewhere in the yard. Most of the nasturtiums were destroyed, along with a Sweet 100 tomato that came up as a volunteer. Most of the citrus trees look pretty good, with only a few areas of damaged leaves visible, but we won't know the extent of the damage until later. The last time we had a freeze like this, the lemon and Key lime trees didn't produce any fruit the following season, and a tangerine was taken over by its sour orange rootstock. This time we wrapped the bases of our three youngest citrus trees in blankets, covered the smallest one entirely in frost cloth, and aimed spotlights at the graft union areas on their trunks.

The caulifower plants show no signs of being affected by the cold weather, and one is beginning to head. Although the broccoli plants also appear to be undamaged, they did not produce a second growth of florets from side shoots after the main heads were removed. The kale and Swiss chard were only mildly affected (but the Swiss chard was in a bed where we put a spotlight in order to aim it at a tangerine tree). The banana plant is mush, but it should come back from the ground, and I hope the same happens with the calla lilies. Surprisingly, the vining snow peas seem to have fallen down from their trellis. I think that possibly they were pulled down because they had some tendrils wrapped around nasturtiums which collapsed.

We're still squeezing lemons. I did manage to give away quite a few lemons, oranges, and grapefruit, though.

Strawberry fields aren't forever (but mint patches are)

I took a break today from putting up Christmas decorations to mulch the strawberries Mike planted a few weeks ago. We've not had good luck with strawberries in the past, but so far they seem to like the new drip irrigation layout. It's also possible they prefer cooler weather. This is the first time we've attempted to plant them in the fall rather than early spring, and we hope these two changes make a difference. Past plantings have resulted in only a couple dozen strawberries before the plants burned up in the summer heat. By the way, strawberries are delicious in salads. In the cooler months, when we have no home-grown tomatoes, we often enjoy strawberries and/or oranges in their place. I dislike the store-bought tomatoes available in the winter; they taste like cardboard.

This bed also contains broccoli which is beginning to head, and some petunias and nasturtiums for color. What you don't see is the back of the bed, where I planted one small mint plant last spring. It has completely taken over the rear part of the bed, and we had to pull quite a bit out of the front to plant the strawberries. We whacked it off to the ground about a month ago, and it's back stronger than ever; I am quite sure it will be an ongoing battle to restrain it from spreading indefinitely. In case you are thinking of planting mint, take a suggestion I learned too late in a Master Gardener class: plant it in a pot rather than directly in the ground. That way you will have some hope of keeping it at contained. Another idea that I think I may try this year with mint and other invasive but tasty herbs: put it in a hanging basket.

The tree in the foreground is a fig tree, and the one in the rear is a self-fruiting almond. We've gotten a few figs and no almonds so far. Some gardeners make take issue with our trees-in-the-middle-of-the-garden design. Assuming they survive, the trees will eventually produce so much shade that we won't be able to grow the things we're growing now. We know that, but why not use the space now to grow something beautiful and delicious?

Gardens evolve not only with the seasons, but with the years....just like humans, they change and age, and it's good to appreciate what one has in the present moment. Activities I enjoyed in my twenties (skiing and rock climbing come to mind) do not hold the same fascination in my sixties. So I think I'll enjoy the strawberries while I can, and the figs later...but I'll probably be fighting the mint for the rest of my life!

A long overdue gardening update

I've neglected posting updates here for several months, primarily because I've essentially been working as a long-term sub for most of this school year. Where time constraints force me to choose between writing about my garden, and actually working in my garden, I usually choose to work in my garden. But I'm inspired to start posting again, because I just submitted our garden as a possibility for a future Master Gardener Real Gardens for Real People tour. If our garden is selected for the tour, I think it would be fun to do a kind of "Julie and Julia" blog and try to write something nearly every day for the next year (or two...they plan these things quite a ways in advance!) There is a science and an art to gardening, but there is also a lot of trial and error and experiments that don't work. I think people might be entertained and informed by reading about those- not just seeing the finished product, and thinking "I could never do that!".
So here's the several-months-overdue update: Yellow squash was a smashing success, producing a continuous and abundant crop until this year's December frost, as did our one Japanese eggplant. The six summer-planted tomato plants that I coddled with shade screen until late September were loaded with green tomatoes at the time of the frost, which was earlier than usual this year. We experimented with various suggestions as to how to save the tomatoes. We attempted to protect two of the plants with frost cloth and left them in the ground, we pulled up two of them by the roots and hung them upside down in the garage, and we picked all the green tomatoes off two of them and put them in baskets on the kitchen counter to ripen. The counter and garage tomatoes ripened gradually over a period of weeks; we still have of some of those left. The frost-protected plants were still hit pretty hard, and the tomatoes never ripened. I finally gave up on them so I would have room to plant another crop of lettuce as the first one went to seed in January. (I almost never have to buy grocery-store lettuce, except in the summer.)

We planted broccoli, cauliflower, and bush sugar snap peas in place of the tomatoes, eggplant, and squash. The broccoli did really well....we enjoyed fresh roasted broccoli, broccoli cheese soup, and wound up freezing 23 quarts to enjoy later. (Here's a link to my favorite roasted broccoli recipe. If you haven't tried it that way, it's amazing!) The cauliflower didn't do as well, although we did up with a bit fuller heads than we did last year. Because I was working, I didn't have sufficient time to address the never-ending Mexican primrose invasion into the place we'd planted the sugar snap peas, so the number of surviving plants was limited. However, the half-dozen plants that weren't choked out produced a surprising number of pea pods.

What didn't work? The picture above shows where I planted several varieties of lettuce and spinach, along with the vining variety of sugar snap peas. Note to self for next year: If you are going to put ground-up spent hollyhock plants in the compost bin, make sure all is well-composted before using it as mulch. There are actually a few lettuce and pea plants among the fine crop of hollyhocks you see growing here. Not exactly what I had planned, but then a garden seldom is.

Backyard wanderings and musings

Enjoyed my backyard walk today, although I'm feeling rather morose in general about many things. Lots of zinnias coming up in the raised beds; most other things unrecognizable. Spent some time deadheading marigolds and snapdragons and scattering their seeds, in hopes that they will grow.

Roses are in full glory now; mostly Queen Elizabeth and Iceberg. The Black Cherry looks really good; Mr. Lincoln and Peace aren't doing much yet. Won't be long before the heat gets them, though.

Speaking of full glory, the invasive Mexican primroses look wonderful now. This includes the ones in the lawn and growing up the hibiscus, thevitia, and other places they do not belong. Too bad they won't (a) stay where I put them and (b) bloom for more than a few weeks in the year.

Grapevines over the arbor trellis may actually make it into an arbor this year. We're trying to prune the older ones, on the fence behind the lemon tree in hopes of actually getting edible fruit this year.

Hollyhocks are blooming; mostly yellow, some tinged with pink. No Punnet square representation here. I guess if I want red ones again I need to purchase new seed.

Romaine lettuce is still edible; everything else has gone to seed. We've picked a few strawberries, mostly from the hanging basket thing...those in the ground have been eaten by various nonvertebrate species. Peaches are golf ball size and although we aggressively thinned this year, probably too many for the tree. Apricots and nectarines are much smaller; a little more than marble sized for the most part. There are some mystery plants growing in the vegetable garden area that I haven't identified as yet.

One of the plumeria looks like it may actually put forth leaves. The other one has a dead-looking top that I cut off, hoping to inspire growth on some of the lower nodes. There are blossoms (I think) on the avocado tree that we are trying this year. The Carolina Jessamine I cut back is vigorously regrowing; that was obviously the correct thing to do and I should attack the others when I get the time and energy to do so.