Garden Pictures - January, 2011

Time for more garden pictures! When I started posting pics of my garden last year, I made a plan to do this every five months to illustrate what can grow in a Sacramento garden throughout the year. Well, apparently January gives us a pretty dismal garden, but it's a pact that I made with myself, so it cannot be broken! We had a pretty hard frost that lasted about a week that really took a toll on some of our plants, as you'll see. I didn't photograph everything because some of our trees, as adorable as they are, are just sitting there. So, I'm showing stuff that actually has some action, or I have questions about, and then a strangely sparse ground that has something to do with my husband, G. Oh, and some new pics of the pets, of course!

This is our nectarine tree. We planted her last March, and over the summer she gave us one beautiful nectarine that we shared. I'm not sure what these little bumps are, they aren't quite green buds, but I like 'em!

This is our grapevine. We're not sure if it's dead from the frost, or just dormant. We're new at grapes. Anybody know?

Okay, this shot has a story. I planted rows and rows of seeds for short, stubby carrots. As planned, up sprouted blades of green, boldly reaching for the warm sky that was lurking above the gray pillows hiding it. So, I come out one day to check on them, and they're all gone! It turns out my dear G weeded that nasty grass for me that was growing in my garden bed. I couldn't thank him enough! Now, instead of grassy, non-existent carrots, I have several of these things coming up, which mysteriously resemble my bulb flowers from the front yard. Did they migrate here, over the fence, and around the corner? I'm curious to know what these little buggers will turn out to be. Maybe they're really mutant, husband-resistant carrots, come to plump up my salad bowl!

Oh, this pathetic bed has tried and tried to provide good service to me over the past several months. G has transplanted our too tart, too small strawberries, that nobody likes, in here in the bottom left corner and upper right corner. That sprig of lettuce in the upper left corner has been growing for about a year and hasn't gotten any bigger. Can you make out the purply leaf near the upper middle? That's a beet plant. I planted dozens of seeds, and most of them came up, only to be gobbled up by pesky slugs. This is the lone survivor, but he is badly chewed, and hasn't grown since the frost. I may harvest it just to see what's underneath. In the bulk of the bed, I've just planted green onion seeds. Gulp...they look like grass when they grow, don't they?

Okay, here's the bed that houses my once flourishing artichoke plant and kale. In the foreground is my once thriving artichoke. That big stalk is the original trunk. Well, I wanted to let one thistle completely bloom to see what it would look like, and apparently that's a sign to the plant that it needs to die. And, it did. We were going to pull it, when we saw new signs of life near the bottom; so here it is again, springing forth anew. The one just behind it, we planted last year. They probably won't give us new flowers until next year. Our kale, to the right of the artichokes, has been hit hard by the frost. I'm hoping for a resurgence in the Spring.

This is our little Mandarin orange plant. Look at the cute, little presents she's giving to us!

Here's Mindy. She and Abby are 9 and 1/2 weeks old now.

And, Abby.

Last time I took pics of the cats, their tags showed our info, and I didn't want all you guys, er, I mean the Internet calling me, so I didn't print them. Now, my kitties are private, so you can see them again. Here's Charlene, on our car, looking superior, as she should be.

This is actually a neighbor's cat, Fancy, who's here 95% of the time, so I included her.

Here is cranky Sparkly in one of the three cardboard boxes that we keep putting out for Fancy.

And here is one of the two brand-new cat houses that G made for Sparkly and Charlene, complete with a porch and roof, a scratching post, and a ledge for their food. The blanket is sticking out of their cozy home. But they sleep in cardboard boxes. And, Fancy sleeps on the soil underneath a folding chair by the door. Silly cats.

Garden Pictures - August, 2010

Well, it's time for another update on our garden to see the changes and what's growing now. Hope you like the pictures.

This is our nectarine tree now! If you look at my March garden pics of this year, you'll see how much it's fluffed out. We're so proud of her. She produced one nectarine this year, and let me tell you, it was the most amazing, sweetest nectarine I've ever had. Everybody but G took a bite - he wanted the rest of us to enjoy it. I'm looking forward to more next Summer.

For Mother's Day, my family gave me these two avocado trees. The one on the left is a Stewart, and the one right in front here is a Bacon, so we've named it Kevin. Stewart and Kevin will have a long life together here on our plantation. Poor Kevin almost died when we first got him; that's how come he's so much shorter than his brother. On the fence is the grapevine that G planted a few weeks ago.

Here is just an example of our extensive pumpkin patch. They take up two short beds, a long bed, the ground, and stretch beyond the short fence onto our patio. The seeds came from our pumpkins from last Fall. GR's been cultivating her special pumpkins, while the rest of us maintain the rest. They are several varieties.


Here is an example of one of our white ones. We also have gray, orange, and striped.

Here is one of our strawberry plants. We didn't know it when we bought the seeds, but apparently this variety is small and tart. Hmm. I'll pay more attention next time, but they still are pretty.

Okay, there are several things in this picture. In the front right corner is our old artichoke plant. You can see the faded trunk extended several feet. It produced several artichokes for us, and they were all big and delicious. Well, I let an artichoke flower go into full bloom to see what it looked like, and it apparently killed the plant. I was going to pull it when G saw new growth at the bottom. Sure enough, we've got a bunch of new growth at the bottom there, and it's just as big as the plant next to it that we planted several months ago. It's coming back, and it's coming back strong! Behind the artichokes in the same bed are red cabbages and kale. We actually left our old kale plants in the bed to go to seed. I read that in Scotland it grows like a weed, so I wanted to see if it would replant itself. It seems to be doing so. In the bed behind this one, you can see our zucchini plants. We actually planted tomato seeds which had begun to sprout, but then the zukes totally surrounded them and they never took off. We've also grown and eaten sugar snap peas, as well. The children made an attempt at sunflowers, but they didn't do very well. I think I'm going to designate one plant to each bed from now on, except for beds with already established plants. We'll keep trying our hand at this gardening stuff!

This is our almond tree, which we were actually able to harvest a couple of dozen nuts from before the squirrel got them.

A new baby almond tree that SR is growing.

Our ruby red grapefruit tree is still growing...

...as is our mandarin tree.

We got this golden delicious apple tree free from a friend, and you can see white apple blossoms just beginning to grow on it.

SR is growing the pink lady apple tree in the middle, and G is growing the black walnuts on either side of it.

(The pics I posted of our furry family members showed their tags with all our info, so I had to delete them. Next time, I promise.) Hope you liked our photos and that they encourage you to keep on gardening!

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.