Our Garden

OUR BELOVED…..

Our beloved garden.  We started a garden this year.  It all began with the purchase of five fruit trees.  We were thinking of fruit that most neighbors did not grow. 

In our neighborhood most of our neighbors grow citrus trees.  The majority are lemons, oranges and grapefruits.  The idea was to swap with them the fruit we have for that they have.  We settled on a fig tree, a plum tree an apricot tree, a sweet lime and a tangelo.  Three of them were purchased as bare root trees.  With good advice from our local Home Depot we planted them in January to allow for the proper amount of root growth so that our trees could endure the very hot summers in our area.

I’m happy to say all the trees are doing well and our little fig tree is making us proud by growing some figs the very first year.  The sweet lime is filled with buds.  A good indication that we will have fruit from that tree as well.

I knew that we would enjoy gardening but the biggest surprise was how much my husband would enjoy it too. 

Soon after our trees were planted I mentioned to my husband that it would be great to have a couple of planter boxes and he liked the idea.  He built two planter boxes around March and soon after that he added a third and soon after that he added a forth and now he is talking about adding a fifth and maybe a sixth in the next month or two.  This is music to my ears as I love growing our own vegetables and we need more space.

One of our greatest joys this year is our sunflowers.  I must make a pause to say that I don’t really know what I’m doing but I’m learning as I go.  My husband suggested we plan sunflowers.  When the idea first came to us I had no clue how much space they would need.   I had read somewhere that you needed to plan twice as many seeds as the number of plants you intended to have because not all of them germinate.  In our case, I think, all the seeds germinated because our planters are filled with sunflowers.  As I said, I’m learning so next year I will do it better.

They are super tall and wonderfully cheerful.  Jim is over six feet tall and they are about four feet taller than him.  We love them and so do these little yellow finches that have decided that the leaves make a good meal.  So in spite of the bird attach and the insect attach,  they have survived and they are looking wonderful.

I don't know if you can see the bird towards the top center of the picture but this bird and many of it's friends have been feasting our beautiful sunflower leaves.

                                       

Finally our tomato plants are bearing fruit.  It took so long this year that I was wondering if we would have any tomatoes.  We are now harvesting summer squash and yellow squash as well as radishes, cilantro, tarragon, sage and parsley.  I think the tomatoes I grew from seed are doing better than the ones I bought at the store. 

       

                                    

Our garden likes hot summers but us...? not so much.