Saturday, March 13, 2010

Garden Pictures - March, 2010

Well, seeing all the garden shots and having beautiful Spring weather inspired me to share some of my garden photos in this early season. Many of the pictures will show just newly budding plants that will soon bring forth abundant goodness. God was so creative and thoughtful when He designed nature and all that comes from it. There are captions under each photo, so take a look and let me know what you think. I'll post a recipe in a few days. I hope everyone is enjoying their weather.

This is our baby nectarine tree that we just planted a week ago. Look at the pretty pink buds on it already! It's orange flesh, my favorite, and I'm still getting used to the fact that I'm growing my very own nectarines! The branches in the background are from our neighbor's mulberry tree that my husband pruned. I have a very hunky picture of him doing this, by the way, but I'm still hesitant to show family pics on the Internet. My girls, however, would love their pictures on here! As you can see the lawn isn't the greatest. We paid a pretty penny to have our backyard landscaped a few years ago, but with animals and kids that didn't last long. That's okay, I prefer them than being overly concerned about how my yard looks.


This is one of our garden beds. In the corner is our giant artichoke plant and next to it is a younger one. In the near corner is parsley. Next to it is kale, and in the back is lettuce.



This is another garden bed full of healthy carrots that my children love to pull and eat. In the back are Brussels sprouts and strawberries. Last Summer this bed and the first one were so lush they looked like a rain forest with the crookneck squash, tomatoes, corn, cucumbers, peppers, eggplant, basil, cilantro and more. This is still early in the season, so I'll take some shots a little later and show you the progress. I'm sitting on the corner of this bed in my blog picture.


These are garden beds that my husband built. The one on the left he dumps in weeds and anything large to sort through. We'll grow stuff in it, as well. The one in the back right with the plant pots on it is our compost bin. The three small ones connected to it will be used, as well. He also built the fence and gate you see in the back because our sweet dog Earl was leaving too much of himself behind, if you get my drift. Now, Earl can only come in while supervised.


The next three pictures are of our almond tree. I put several shots of this tree in because my oldest daughter was trying to take a picture of a bee pollinating and inadvertently took some breathtaking shots, I think.


Another shot of the almond blossoms.


Our almond tree - isn't she pretty? By the way, my husband is a proud squirrel rancher.


This is our mandarin tree; it's still a baby. Underneath are the ashes of our bunnies.


This is our young ruby red grapefruit tree. Underneath are the remains of our hermit crabs, and the rock is painted by the children for one in particular: Frederick.


I have a large flower bed, but I'm showing you my freesias (which were the flowers from our wedding) because my three-year-old son who normally gives me rocks and sticks as surprise gifts has been bestowing flowers on me recently. Yesterday, I received several freesias - hmm, where do you think he got those? When the second gift was bearing several unopened buds, I gently asked him to not pick so many of Mommy's freesias. So, they deserve a shot, too.


This is our dog, Earl. He's been on before, but he followed me diligently around while I snapped pictures, so I wanted one of him. It wasn't as easy as you might think since he's terrified of cameras. In the background you can see the mulberry branches again and a corner of one of the doghouses that my husband built with shingles, a hallway, the whole bit. In front of Earl is a corner of one of our two play structures for the children and their friends.


Well, since Earl got on we have to include Sparkly. Her expression here generally matches her disposition: not so sparkly, if you know what I mean. My oldest blessing named her several years ago - her name is quite ironic.


And, lastly, you gotta have Charlene, who was named after another cat, Charlie. Charlene is definitely a cat after Mama's own heart.

So, there you have it - a quick tour of the latest things growing at my house. Hope you enjoyed it! I had fun doing this, so I'll do it occasionally.

16 comments:

  1. Your trees are gorgeous. I love it.

    http://nuestracena-vegancuisine.blogspot.com

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  2. your almond tree is gorgeous! I wish I had a green thumb!

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  3. Thanks, Millie and Judy! I love having fruit trees. It's not so much a green thumb yet. I'm just jumping into the gardening thing and trying to get a hang of it. :)

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  4. Your garden must be pure paradise...thanks for sharing the pictures...almonds, grapefruit, nectarines...what luxuries...your raised beds look prime growing spots. I'll be waiting for more updates as the year progresses.

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  5. Hi, Rose. I was hoping you'd stop by! You're one of the reasons I did this post. I'm hoping to have a small orchard some day. If I had known years ago that I would still be in this home, I would have planted fruit trees then. But, I just have to focus on now and the future. I'll post some more pictures in the upcoming months.

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  6. What a great garden. You have much more of green thumb than I do. I am SO jealous of your artichoke plant. I wish we lived in a climate where I could grow them! Or in my case, try to to grow them. ;-)

    Can't wait to see the garden come to life.

    Alicia

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  7. Thanks, Alicia. I love artichokes, so I had to give them a try. I had no idea it would get so huge, but I can already taste their sweet flesh in my dreams - yum!

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  8. You're certainly in a different climate zone than I am. I'm in 6B, and so I can grow Apples, Pears & Peaches, but not citrus. Must be nice to have so many options.

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  9. See, S.V., you know more about gardening than I do b/c I have no idea what 6B means. I just work clossely with my gardening store - I'm there often, and they help me stagger along the gardening path. But, yes, I am happy that I can grow a lot of things, but not bananas, sugar cane or pinepapples - my children's requests.

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  10. Your garden beds look very neat & trim. Hope you'll post more pictures of their progress throughout the Spring & Summer.

    I think your almond tree is pretty! Actually, I'm not sure if I've ever even seen a picture of one. Well, I guess I've seen one now.

    Thanks for coming over and visiting my blog... yes, I changed the background! I thought it was time to brighten up for Springtime.

    ~ Tarissa
    P.s. Sparkly looks like a grand cat. :)

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  11. Hi, Tarissa! Thanks for the comments. We had just finished weeding a couple of days before the photos, so it was good timing. And, yes, Sparkly is certain that she is indeed grand and deserves treatment as such.

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  12. OOOH, I love gardening and landscaping. Ours was done last fall, lots of tropicals, paths and rock walkways! I love all your photos!

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  13. Nice. Your gardening is coming up quite nicely. Blessings as it continues to grow.

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  14. Thank you, Sarah, and Fruitful Vine. Gardening has been fun and the benefits have been yummy.

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