Life gets busy.None of the winter crops did much; the front yard vegetable strip was removed, due to its proximity to the oak tree and lack of production as a result; there was some rain this winter, but not overmuch, some cold, but not overmuch, and the summer so far has been alternatively a little hot or just nicely warm.
Except for the day or two in early summer when we had hail and tornandos.
Spring saw Spencer and I build a pic-nic bench and a new planter box. The box is about 4' x 12', and about two feet deep, in the back yard. Along one edge we placed a 2 x 12 board as a long seat, to increase the number of places for folks to rest a rump when out back. The box was laid down on grass, covered over with weed barrier cloth, then filled with topsoil and compost. The combination was too "hot" and even though we let the soil mature for two or three months, the first plantings in it did not thrive.
After a couple of months, and some more plantings, the seat-box is full. Miniature pumpkins are emerging on the vine twining up the chain link fence. They started out slow, being part of the original planting, but have gone great guns lately.
Similarly, the yellow crook-neck squash and green squash were the lone survivors of their stunted plantings, but have begun to produce reliable food in the past couple of weeks.
The three bell peppers -- one each of green, orange and red -- were part of the second effort at planting. They started out slow, and set lots of peppers that did not mature, but have a lot of fruit coming on now and I have great hopes.
At the far end of the box, the Russian finger potatoes and single russet plant seem to be fairing well. The fingerlings in particular go well with roasted meats in the fall late fall. Potatoes are one of those surprising, fun backyard vegetables. Relatively hardy, and easy to grow, with free seed in your kitchen vegetable bin in the form of potatoes-to-far-sprouted-to-eat, there is something very satisfying about grubbing in the dirt and coming up with a chunk of something edible!
Lettuce grew but with great resistence, and some very few salads emerged before they gave up the ghost. (Some volunteer oak leaf lettuces on the South Forty (Inches) provided most of the salad greens.)
The hot soil also took its toll on the basil (Trader Joe's basil plants are amazing) which jumped right back into health when removed from the too hot soil. An earlier basil, from Wholefoods, has smaller leaves and an almost lemony smell. It too has boomed, along with a few rows of yellow onions in the old horse trough. (For once I planted the onions in neat rows, and pulled every other one for green onions early, and the rest are doing nicely, thanks.)
The TJ basil makes excellent pesto; I was just struck that the lemony basil would be very good on steamed red potatoes with some garlic and onion greens sauteed in butter. Yum!
The usual south-wall box did not get planted in the spring. A few cucumber plants there were neglected and died, and the grass has taken over. This weekend is dedicated to clearing out the box and putting a second-season crop in . . . not sure what to plant yet. I might take a risk and plant the fall broccoli and garlic crop, even though it is still a little early. Suggestions appreciated .
Meanwhile, the front yard lime tree too suffers from chronic neglect; this spring it set lots of fruit which never matured. If I can just get rid of the Oleander between the back and front yard, install a gate and work out a drip water line to the tree, we might have lots of limes next summer for G&Ts. (Grin).
The loquats this spring went crazy and while we ate a lot of them, many went to the critters and on the ground. Most mornings Hannah insisted on loquats off the tree for a snack, unless she was demanding a Mandarin orange.
The orange crop was fair sized, not as large as some years, but better than many recent years. Good fruit, and only a half dozen were not eaten by us right off the tree for lunch and snacks. The tree has already set next year's fruit -- it is shooter-marble sized, and will mature next January and February. We will have edible fruit from February to May (and even June, if you don't mind the dryness that comes with older fruit.)
The apples set a moderate crop too. Granny Smiths and some Winesaps are coming ripe. Our apples tend to finish in August with first fruit late July, and completely picked by September. The four columnar apples bloom, and set their odd-tasting fruit, later in the year and should be edible in September. Still not impressed with the fruit, and am giving serious thought to replacing the four columnars with one standard sized apple, or even two more of the Orchard Supply four-on-one dwarf grafts.
Boysenberries did quite well this spring. We also snacked on those as we passed in and out of the yard, and had a couple of big berry picking days. The non-fruit canes finally started doing my bidding and have moved down the fence line, dropping roots into the soil in a thick, prickly and poky addition to our back fence. Volunteers from near the original, temporary placement in a planter have come back, under the orange tree, and instead of fighting it I have stopped mowing them down and begun training them in a dense prickly circle under the tree. We should have even more second year canes for fruit next year. Yum!
Lemons have set their third crop of the year and have a fourth in flower. For awhile we could not keep ahead of the windfalls; lately we have caught up as the kids love making lemonade, and we fill a two-gallon glass jug that we keep on the counter in the summer.
A Pasadena neighbor and work colleague borrowed our chain saw to take down a dead plum tree, and returned the saw with a bag of big yellow grapefruit. Not too sour, but definitely not the super-sweet modern varieties. Unfortunately, I am the only one that likes grapefruit in our house; fortunately I discovered that they make great "grapefruit-ade" which I get all to myself!
My recipe is easy as 1,2,3:
ROGER'S MOONTREE GRAPEFRUIT-ADE
1 cup sugar, completely dissolved in warm water.
2 cups fresh squeezed grapefruit juice.
3 cups of water.
Mix Well; serve chilled or with plenty of ice. NOTE: Adjust the water and sugar from here 1/4 cup at a time-- more of each if a little too acid, less sugar and/or more water if too sweet, etc.
