Yes, that's Mom climbing the Guava tree... she's 63 and still climbing trees!
Climbing trees must be in the genes. Can you find a face in the Orange Tree?
Finally! A bed goes into the newly opened 20'x20' area. We planted some Cucumbers, Zucchinis, Pumpkin, Lettuce and direct-seeded some Okra.
The Brassica bed sprouted! There's Daikon Radish, regular cherry red Radishes, Broccoli, Bok Choi, Yu Choi, and Komatsuna. All have different harvesting rates. The regular Radishes and Komatsuna will be harvested first, then the Bok Choi and Yu Choi, then the Daikon and finally the Broccoli. If all works out well. ;-)
Carrot bed is lush and growing fast!
The potted strawberries are going crazy. The front garden berries were about 2 weeks later than the backyard ones.
Green Grapes have flower buds!
In the foreground is the Celery, Parsley and Cilantro bed. In front of the raised bed are a bunch of Rainbow Chard growing in small pots. Behind it in center is the Edible Chrysanthemum, on the left side, the low growth is day-lily which is also edible (greens and flowers). The Fig tree has filled in nicely behind the lower plants, and on the right is the Kumquat tree. Between the fig and kumquat against the wall is a volunteer Roma Tomato bush. This is in an area that is about 12' square.
The volunteer Roma Tomato decided to sprout by the warm wall and has survived winter
Kumquats glowing in the sunlight
Off limits! We put a fence around this little bed to keep the animals out. I also put lots of sticks in the ground to discourage the cats from using it as their litter box. (it works!) I'm trying to sprout Echinacea. Always have a tough time with those seeds, even though I give them plenty of chill time in the fridge to mimic a cold winter.
Broad beans getting thicker.
Beautiful Sage flowering
Cream California Poppies
Myoga (Japanese Ginger) under the White Guava tree enjoying the morning sun.
I'm also excited that I found Lupini Beans! Here they're soaking for a few days. Lupinis are eaten in the Mediterranean regions as a snack with beer. I'm not really a big beer drinker, but no matter. They have pretty white flowers AND fix nitrogen into the soil AND they produce an edible bean! What more can you want? They DO need soaking with several changes of water to ensure that the alkaloids(toxins) are leached out. Changing the water after boiling them is important too. Yes, tedious crop, but great Front Garden "ninja" style plant that looks pretty but does something besides just that. They are related to the wild Lupines here in CA.
Trying to grow "slips" from Sweet Potato tips.
Got more seeds~! The unusual seeds I'm trying NEW this year are the Yard Long Oriental Wonder Beans, Short Burdock root called "Salada Musume" and Toraji (Balloon Flower) Which the roots are eaten in Korea and China. I'm always on a lookout for beautiful plants that also serve an edible purpouse, so I love the Balloon Flower!
2 comments:
I can't seem to see your pictures but your words were more than enough for me to visualize all the wonderful plants you have growing. We are also trying to grow slips from sweet potatoes this year, hope yours do well. Your garden sounds like quite the paradise.:)
Thanks for letting me know Mr. H. I don't know what's wrong... I'm not doing anything different than before. I'll keep fiddling with it, but perhaps it's Blogspot's server? I keep getting a "localhost" upload instead of the blogspot server code when I look at the html. Sorry!
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