The First Garden In Full Year Of Retirement
Yeah, I know... we retired 3/21/2007 so "officially" last year was a retirement garden but in fact... we were so busy slowing down that we decided this year would be the first official retirement garden!
We went to H&H Nursery, the Fullerton Arboretum and of course, Roger's Gardens to pick this years plants!
We got fairly busy early and now (May) have a garden going wild with summer squash almost popping of the bushes! String beans are just days away and we already have some of our tomatoes!
Strawberries and blueberries have been plentiful and Sue picks them fresh every morning for breakfast!
Here are some photos from mid-may... please enjoy
She begins by picking out special tomatoes and peppers at the Fullerton Arboretum.
See the garden in June and also when we prepare for winter !
Mid May Garden Photos
Then we get rid of the winter garden and till the soil. After years of work, tilling the soil is not band anymore.
We had fresh cabbage for St. Patrick's Day. Cabbage is so very sweet when fresh. The cabbage (Brassica oleracea Capitata Group), is a plant of the Family Brassicaceae (or Cruciferae). It is a herbaceous, biennial, and dicotyledonous flowering plant with leaves forming a characteristic compact cluster. Cabbages grown late in autumn and in the beginning of winter are called coleworts.
Did You Know? - The cabbage is derived from a leafy wild mustard plant, native to the Mediterranean region. It was known to the ancient Greeks and Romans; Cato the Elder praised this vegetable for its medicinal properties, declaring that "it is first of all the vegetables".. The English name derives from the Normanno-Picard caboche ("head"). Cabbage was developed by ongoing artificial selection for suppression of the internode length. The dense core of the cabbage is called the babchka[citation needed]. It is related to the turnip.
We had so many beets we were giving them away and finally had to compost about 200 or so!
We got the last of the winter onions out. They were picked, sliced, and frozen!
The New Garden Arrives
Two and a half bails of straw was used for the mulch! Mulch keeps weeds out and water in... good in California!
The foreground is egg plant and peppers with tomatoes and green beans surrounding them.
The squash just goes wild for the next several months producing all we can eat and then some!
The back wall gets a lot of heat in the afternoon as it faces west!
Blue berries with netting over them to keep out the little fat birdies! We have 14 barrels of blue berries
which keep us in blue berries throughout the summer!
Concord grapes being born! These beauties will ripen into the greatest grapes within the next couple of months!
Blueberries galore!
Yuck! Compost in the process! We have three bins always going and this goes back into the ground making the soil rich and ready to produce year around!
The big leaf is a pumpkin which is going a bit wild already while the smaller plant is a water melon
which will begin to spread within a few weeks!
Front Yard Is In Full Production
Strawberries ring he yard and tomatoes spring up out of the ground!
Look carefully... the avocado tree is loaded. The avocado (Persea americana, also known as the avocado, butter or alligator pear) is a tree native to Mexico, Central and South America, classified in the flowering plant family Lauraceae. The name "avocado" also refers to the fruit (technically a berry) of the tree that contains an egg-shaped pit. Avocado trees were cultivated in pre-Incan settlements with archeological evidence dating to 750 B.C.
Did You Know? - Avocados are a commercially valuable crop whose trees and fruit are cultivated in tropical climates throughout the world, producing a green-skinned, pear-shaped fruit that ripens after harvesting. Trees are partially self-pollinating and often are propogated through grafting to contenttain a predictable quality and quantity of the fruit.
Avocado fruits have a smooth, creamy, greenish-yellow flesh with an unusually high amount of fat that is primarily monounsaturated. They also contain a high concentration of dietary fiber, vitamins and potassium.
We make orange and tangerine juice from these little babies all winter and spring long...
No I have to climb up a bit to get the juicy ones!
Down the driveway is our plumb and kumquat trees.
Did You Know? -
The kumquats or cumquats are a group of small fruit-bearing trees in the genus Fortunella related to the Citrus in the flowering plant family Rutaceae, often segregated as a separate genus, Fortunella.
The edible fruit (which is also called kumquat) closely resembles that of the orange (Citrus sinensis) but is smaller and oval. They are slow-growing, evergreen shrubs or small trees, from 2.5–4.5 metres tall, with dense branches, sometimes bearing small thorns.
The leaves are dark glossy green, and the flowers pure white, similar to other citrus flowers, borne singly or clustered in the leaf-axils. The kumquat tree produces 80-100 fruit each year.
We had so many this year we had to walk around the neighborhood giving them away!
The plum tree is so loaded we have to brace up the tree! Plum fruit is sweet and juicy and it can be eaten fresh or used in jam-making or other recipes.
Did You Know? - Plum juice can be fermented into plum wine; when distilled, this produces a brandy known in Eastern Europe as Slivovitz, Rakia, Tzuica or Palinka. Dried plums are known as prunes. Prunes are also sweet and juicy and contain several antioxidants.
Can't be without our peach trees in the front and back yards!
