Damage Control

We noticed today that a large, heavily fruit laden branch of our lemon tree had broken. It could have been damaged by some of the monsoon winds, or it might have broken under the weight of all the fruit. The branch was undoubtedly weakened by neglectful (read: nonexistent) pruning practices. Several branches were growing far too close to each other, and had actually grown together where they joined the trunk. Wind or no wind, that's a bad thing because the cambium on both branches is compromised. We should have removed the smaller branch long before it got to this point. Now we need to take both of then out. The photo below, taken from another angle, shows the crowded branches clearly.

The lemons are mostly full sized, but still green. I've read mixed reports as to whether they will ripen off the tree, but we're going to wait and see what happens. We cut into one and there is plenty of juice, so they may be perfectly fine for the normal uses we'd make of them. If they were oranges, it might be a different story, but I don't expect lemons to be sweet when fully ripe. As you can see in the picture below, there are a lot of them!

October surprise

I found this watermelon growing from a vine that came up as a volunteer. I knew the vine was hiding beneath the zinnia jungle, but it didn't do much until we cleared out some of the zinnias and the watermelon vine had access to sunlight.

I don't know that it will reach an edible stage this late in the year, but it made me wonder. What kinds of hidden treasures might we find in our lives if we look closely, clear away some of the overwhelming busyness, and give overlooked possibilities an opportunity to flourish?

Companion Plantings

End of September/beginning of October overview

We're continuing weeding and fall planting this week. The sugar snap peas and a few lettuces are beginning to come up in the center bed, and I planted garlic in front of the roses in the bed in the foreground. The roses look pretty sad right now but should produce another flush of blooms and leaves in the next couple of months.

Here's a link to an interesting article I found on companion planting. This is the first time I've tried growing garlic, and I knew it was a good companion plant for roses, but wasn't sure how it would affect the broccoli which is also in this bed this year. The article also talks about the beneficial effects of nasturtiums, which are one of my favorite plants to line the perimeter of the raised beds. They are colorful, low growing, easily reseed themselves, and you can eat them too! It's always a trick (and a bit of a gamble) to plant them at the right time. A hard frost will kill them, as well a lesser frost if they aren't big enough, and they also die off in the summer heat.

Fall is finally in the air!

October marks the beginning of the nice time of year to live and garden in Phoenix. It actually gets down into the 70s during the night, rather than our summertime lows in the 90s, and it's entirely possible that  the temperatures won't reach the 100 degree mark during the day.

We are continuing to work on clearing out the beds and doing fall planting. Some of the sugar snap peas I planted a week or so ago are starting to come up, along with assorted other seedlings that I can only hope are lettuces. It's always somewhat of a surprise what comes up because there are so many plants that reseed themselves. It might be what I planted, or it might be something else I planted a year or two ago, or it might be a weed.

Today I planted broccoli and petunia transplants. The photo above shows the design we are currently using for drip irrigation, with 12-inch drips spaced parallel to each other 12-18 inches apart, and 6-inch drip tubing running around the perimeter of the bed. Each transplant is planted right under a drip emitter. In this bed I planted petunia transplants and nasturtium seeds alternately on the 6-inch perimeter tubing, and the broccoli is behind it, spaced every 12 inches on the 12-inch tubing. It's similar to "square foot gardening" in concept, but modified to fit our rounded bed setup. After I took this picture, I finished it off with mulch, which (mostly) hides the drip tubing and helps conserve moisture.

Fall plantings

We finished clearing out this bed, except for the Survivor Tomato and a plumbago that we'll move elsewhere this winter. The recent rain was helpful in watering in the sulfur and ammonium phosphate that we added prior to planting. I planted romaine, buttercrunch, and Salad Bowl lettuces, arugula, and Oregon Sugar Pod II peas in here, along with a few cilantro and bunching green onion seeds that were left over from a "salsa pack", and topped it all off with a light dusting of mulch.

The irrigation setup for this bed is a combination of 6 inch and 12 inch drip tubing. The 6 inch tubing runs around the perimeter of the bed and the 12 inch tubing is laid out in a grid pattern about a foot apart. The seeds are planted directly under each drip emitter. I planted several seeds in each planting hole because these are all leftover seeds and I'm not sure about the germination percentage.

For design purposes, I usually like to plant flowers around the edges of the raised beds, particularly this one which is right next to a sitting area on the patio. The last two years I planted nasturtiums here, only to see them destroyed by frost. I may try petunias this year, but I'll wait a few weeks before planting them...it's still over 100 degrees on a regular basis here!

Survivor (Phoenix style)

Summer is for my gardening motivation and success as winter is in other climates. Yes, I know it's theoretically possible to both plant and harvest something every month of the year here, but it is not enjoyable this time of year. High temperatures are still well over a hundred, and many days the monsoon adds humidity to the discomfort level. So I don't do a lot, and the garden shows it.

The largest plant in the foreground is a cherry-type tomato that came up as a volunteer, and deserves the title Survivor of the Summer. Although it currently isn't setting fruit, it is much healthier than most of our other edibles and I am hopeful that it will begin to produce again when the temperatures cool down a bit. Most of the other tomato plants I planted last February haven't made it this far.

We are also still harvesting Japanese eggplant and Armenian cucumbers. Unlike me, those plants seem to love the summer heat. The bed in the background has been overtaken by zinnias, which are on their second round this year. (They happily reseed themselves without much effort on my part). The sweet potato vines around the gazebo are going crazy, covering a fair portion of the gazebo floor and rooting themselves in the streambed.

I'm a little worried about our apricot, peach, and nectarine trees, particularly our oldest, largest apricot tree. They have lost most of their leaves, which is not uncommon for them to do this time of year, but I don't see any new leaves coming out on the big apricot tree yet, and that might indicate a larger problem. The leaves look as if they are suffering from salt burn, which is more likely in the summer when we have to water more frequently. Texas root rot is also a concern in our area, and there isn't a cure for that, other than not to plant fruit trees.

We (or rather Mike, who is doing the heavy digging) are currently preparing the raised beds for fall planting. That means digging out as much of the Bermuda grass as possible, working in soil sulfur to help alleviate the high soil alkalinity, adding nitrogen and phosphate, and checking that the drip irrigation system works properly. If you're interested in doing some fall planting of your own, here's a link to the Master Gardener publication, "Ten Steps to a Successful Vegetable Garden".

I'm looking forward to cooler weather when I can once again enjoy myself in the garden.

Things that grow well in the heat (3)

I haven't neglected the garden quite as much as I have this blog, but close. It's still far too hot to enjoy working outside, with highs still over 110 almost daily. This time of year, we also add humidity to the mix. It's definitely not a dry heat....it feels more like a sauna than an oven outdoors.

Most vegetables have long given up any attempt to stay alive, but Armenian cucumbers and eggplants apparently love the heat. I picked these Japanese eggplant from one plant today, and the Armenian cucumber was hiding in an unexpected location, allowing it to grow to giant size before I spotted it. The nice thing about Armenian cucumbers (which are more closely related to melons than traditional cucumbers) is that they still taste good even at this size. They never turn bitter and don't require peeling. Just wash, slice, maybe take the seeds out when they're this big, and enjoy dipping into a favorite veggie dip.

I usually make crockpot eggplant parmigiana with the eggplant. It's not necessary to peel or fry the eggplant; just slice into rounds, put in the crockpot and add a jar of spaghetti sauce. About an hour or so from serving time, top with grated mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses. However, since Mike is trying to restrict his sodium intake, I went looking on the internet for recipes that didn't use processed spaghetti sauce or a lot of cheese. I found this recipe for a vegan eggplant stew and decided to use it as a base for tonight's dinner. Instead of canned tomatoes, I'm using ones from our garden than I froze earlier this summer, and I'm going to add some fresh basil (another plant that likes the heat) in addition to the Italian seasoning suggested in the recipe. And since we aren't philosophically vegan, I'll add a little cheese towards the end of its cooking time.