Garden Updates-Front Yard Trellis

We've been waiting, and my brother finally had some time to work on the foundations for the grape trellis that will go up in the front yard.  Here, he and Tim are measuring to level the posts since our property has a gentle slope downwards towards the street. The bucket and the bag have gravel we sifted out from the dirt we hauled in from San Dimas.

Here they are using some tools to levy the heavy concrete foundation post.

Here they go, into the hole!

Trying out the wooden post, temporarily to see how it looks.

Now this is exciting!

Harvest Updates January

So the napa cabbages look and taste more like Bok Choi... I guess our seeds got crossed last year. Below that is Yu Mai Kai Lettuce, some mandarines and strawberries

Snow Peas, yummy in stir fries.

The greens are Romaine Lettuce and Broccoli Greens. The big bowl in the back are the carrots that we battled the nematodes over. I should say the final result, a tie. They got some and we got some.  They're not pretty but will be good for stew.There's a tiny bit of yam in that bowl too, Mom found some while digging this morning while planting some geraniums. She said she's tired of seeing edibles being yanked out as soon as their beautiful. We'll try her way for a little while to appease her. There's more mandarins and a bunch of navel oranges this afternoon

Here's our son munching on one of the better carrots, sweet and crunchy!

Happy New Year! Well, late of course...

We're still getting lots of mandarines

Here's more

We're not short on any citrus, that's for sure

Root knot nematodes are winning....sigh

Harvests December

lots of mandarines!

Navel Orange: told'ya they're soft ball size!

Below, the dark magenta colored berries are (Scrub cherry, brush cherry) Eugenia myrtifolia berries. They are not very tasty, mostly tart, but nevertheless edible. Tried cooking them in a little sugar and it had a brilliant magenta hue, then I mixed them into gluten free muffins along with left over cranberry sauce, but it turned green inside the muffin. :-(  It didn't taste bad.

Breakfast strawberries

This is just a small sample of the amount of oranges we have. These are decent ones without the mealy bugs so we're gifting them.

Garden Updates, January 2011

Poor plumeria! The frost really gave it a good beating.

Banana plant heavily damaged from frost...the seedling papayas (not pictured) are barely hanging on to life. :-(

Front garden planted with Napa Cabbages, Broccoli and Primroses.

Lettuces loving the morning sun

Fenced off! We're trying to keep the dog and cats out of our raised beds, esp while the soil has just been tilled and seeded. This has been planted with carrot seeds

Cabbages relishing the glow of the gentle sun

Snow Peas, this year the production is really low compared to last year.

Learning the trade young. Our son stripping leaves from the White Guava tree so we can use it as dry matter for the compost.  We give him a little $ to do some chores, which he stores up for college.

Me looking mighty frumpy, trimming the orange and guava tree

December Garden Update

So, this post has been in my cue since before Christmas madness kicked in. I apologize for my absence in the blogosphere.  I hope everyone survived the madness of the holidays! Anyhow, these pics were taken before 9+ inches of rain doused us for nearly a month, then really cold weather (considering this is SoCal.) We had tons of frost damage. I'll post those soon.  We still have TONS of navel oranges. The mikan mandarines are starting to wane, but we're set with citrus for a few more months since we still have the kumquats coming in to season soon.  Unfortunately, we have mealy bugs infesting the navels of these softball sized fruits so we couldn't use them as Christmas gifts.  We're not in the quarantine zone for fruit flies so exchange is possible if you don't mind cutting off the mealy bugs and are in the region.  :-)

Here's Mom with Lori

Peas before the frost burnt the new shoots

The new strawberries for the offsets growing fine

We love our lettuce! We're staggering the sowings so we're not inundated with too much lettuce. Last season, I planted a whole bed of lettuce and it was just too much! I was giving them out to anyone that would take some.

This is a volunteer tomato. It did suffer frost after this pic.

My brother Andrew is making the concrete bases for the front garden Grape Trellis.

Tim sanding down the sharp edges of the metals that will support the columns of the trellis

Front yard:Tim digging out the areas where the concrete bases will be sunk into

Here's a wider picture. This area beneath will eventually be tiled with brick = less water consumption.

Closeup on the hole.

There's giant mole in our yard!