Fruit trees in bloom and new growth

I swear these the fruit trees waited for me to arrive before opening their blossoms. We arrived on Monday, with just a flower or two open only on the nectarine and by the end of the week, many more had followed. My sweet friend, Jaime Rugh, sent me one of her weavings last year and I've been waiting for just the right tree on which to hang it. I love how the blossoms bring out the pink thread.

Next came the canning plum which hangs over into our yard from next door. I never would have noticed before but these plum trees are all over Sonoma. I've heard they make good jam, we'll see for ourselves.

Then mid-week a little hint that the white peach would be next. I managed to do the final of three copper sprays on the peach trees before they bloomed. I cut it really close this year but I managed it. The previous owners, who were entirely organic, told me we have to give in and spray to protect against peach leaf curl with these trees.

The last day we were at the cottage, the santa rosa weeping plum burst into bloom for us. We trimmed the tree back quite a bit this year but there are plenty of beautiful buds.

 Next will likely be the yellow peach, followed later by the fig, apples and perhaps even the pears, although one of the pears already flowered in November. The other exciting thing that happened this week was almost all of my shelling peas have sprouted. I was so worried someone would come by and eat up all the seeds. I planted them at the end of January and they're growing fast already.

 Next weekend I have more weeding to do. Three more beds left, two of them are 14' long. Luckily, I don't have to plant anything for a few more weeks while I wait for the soil to warm a bit more.

February in the Garden

This is our first week back at the cottage since the beginning of February. My fingers were crossed I didn't miss any monumental changes, including the chance to see the first asparagus of the year. I had read that asparagus can grow several inches in a few hours. I swear these weren't here yesterday.

I have no idea which year these were planted and I know you're only supposed to harvest little, if any, in the first three years. I plan to wait a few days and see what else appears before deciding what to do.

Last night when we came in, it was nice for the first time to not have to run to the grocery store to pick up some fresh produce. We had enough greens for a little feast to make a salad and chard risotto.

We plan to spend the rest of the week here so I will finally have enough time to prepare several beds for planting. Here's a 4'x6' bed I prepped this morning using the square foot gardening method. It will contain peppers, carrots, radishes, chard, lettuce, calendulas and bachelor buttons. I planted seeds for most of them this morning and have some lettuce I will transplant tomorrow.

I planted about 130 pea seeds a few weeks back which are now bursting out of the ground underneath my homemade trellis. I read that birds LOVE pea seeds so I was so happy to see they all survived.

I also prepared this bed nearby with brussel sprouts, thyme and onions two weeks ago. I'm still deciding what to grow in the rest of the bed.

Near the asparagus surprise, I made another discovery. A few weeks back when I was weeding, I came across a monster root that looked quite healthy. I decided to leave it be to see what would grow. And it looks like rhubarb is now peeking out. I'm wondering if one rhubarb plant will do or do I need to add that to my evergrowing list of plants to grow.

The next few weeks will be busy, but it's nice to finally see some of the work I've done start to pay off.

January in the garden

My weekends are being filled up with bed preparation and future planting days. Although I didn't account for getting the flu last weekend. I managed to prepare one bed until my husband made me stop. Sure enough, I overdid it. And now I'm behind on everything, artwork and other responsibilities included. Oh well, I feel good about what I accomplished out there. This is one of the beds ready to go. It will contain onions, spinach, carrots, calendula, basil, oregano, peas and some tomatoes based on the square foot gardening method. My daughter had fun pushing the onion sets into the soft soil.

Planting onion sets in a square foot grid

I've been looking to other local places to see what they've been putting in the ground this month, looking through the farmer's almanac as well as my local master gardener website recommendations. It's all spinach and peas this month and into early February. The Farmer's Almanac seems to me a little early though.

Charming french bistro chairs I found at Maison Reve before it closed, sniff, sniff.

I was able to transplant the remaining stray chard plants as well as some spinach and lettuce I started in the fall into my first prepared bed. I could have spaced them closer, I'll see how much extra weeding it will involve. The spinach will be thinned once they get used to the transplant.

 Chard, spinach, lettuce, radishes, shelling peas and Nigella will live here.
I created a little straw path for pea picking. Next year I will garden more intensely if needed.

The garlic I planted in the fall is growing well. There are a few onion survivors popping up next to some of the garlic but I'll just pull that garlic sooner for some nice green garlic to throw on the grill.

 Garlic under the apple tree with a great resting chair
for when I need a break.

A site plan, sigh, I have about four going right now and am trying to figure out the best way to work. One on the computer, two on grid paper, and one on many different pages of a notebook. For some reason, the notebook technique is winning but it looks impossibly confusing!

And finally, the mushroom compost has arrived! I learned about this compost from reading the previous owner's blog. Now I understand why the soil in the beds and under the fruit trees is so amazing. Why fix what isn't broken!

Every Gardener's January: Reading

I've spent most of this month reading up on edible gardening and am now in the planning stages of what to plant and where. There are several books that have stayed by my side this January. My most used reference is How to Grow more Vegetables by John Jeavons. I kept seeing this book in stores but felt I had enough garden books already. When I realized the previous owners used this as a reference, I knew it would be a worthy addition. It explains a lot about why my garden is planted the way it is. And now that I understand, I can't imagine changing it.

I've had a really old, dog eared copy of Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew on my shelf for years. I would love to have the new edition, shown here, with much better pictures but the text seems the same so I can't really justify the upgrade.

Square foot gardening is kind of a revolution gone mainstream theory around gardening. In addition to maximizing space, it saves gardening time by reducing weeds and hopefully pests by using companion planting.

For the eye candy and pure inspiration, I love looking through From Seed to Skillet by Jimmy Williams and Susan Heeger. The gardens featured are beautiful. I love his recommendation on varieties, a lot of my favorites and a few that are new to me.

And while I was at Baker Creek, I had to buy their new book, The Heirloom Life Gardener by Jere & Emilee Gettle. This offers in-depth descriptions about the heirloom seeds they sell.

 

I've got a plan now for the garden, based on all of these books which will be coming soon.

Seeds

My vegetable patch in San Francisco is a tiny 40 square feet. A few weeks ago I sat down to wrap my head around the new garden. Umm, this one is a little bigger, weighing in at 420 square feet of raised bed growing areas alone. Yikes! I debated on just starting out with a few beds here and there, but then I began to worry about wasting all that amazing dirt just sitting there, calling out to me to fill it.

At least one bed has been taken. This is her garden bed.

So I figure this, most people who have a garden, have day jobs, right? They are likely only able to spend most of their time in the garden on the weekends. Just like me. Yes, I'm sure I'm going to miss a few crucial times when I should be ready to pluck those just ripened peas off the vine before they go starchy or when the birds get a hold of the cherries before we get a chance to (aparently, this will happen).

The 60 year old cherry tree that still produces fruit. Stay away birds!

But you've got to give things a try. Take some risks. What's the worse that can happen? You lose a lot of money on plants you've bought. Which isn't good. So, this lead me to realize that it was going to cost A LOT of money to fill all those beds up with store bought plants. Not to mention I'm picky when it comes to choices. Quality counts. So it all comes down to seeds. A lot of this garden will be grown from seed. I can only start seeds in the ground, no transplanting since I won't be around to baby them all week. There certainly will be some storebought plants. I'm looking forward to this Tomatomania in a few months where I plan to stock up. Peppers will be bought too. But the rest, all seeds.

Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds to be precise. It just so happens that we live one town away from the Petaluma Seed Bank, where you can spend hours pouring over seed packets among other seed-crazed fools like myself. We went over last month and I stocked up. I was kind of shocked by the $45.00 price tag but then I realized these seeds could provide most of our vegetables for a couple of seasons. Think of what that will save in trips to the grocery store and farmer's market. A lot. Check out Baker Creek's site and be sure to order their catalog, it's 196 pages of incredible seeds. They have a new book out too which is a nice read.

Healdsburg : The Gardener

My favorite garden/home store is  The Gardener in Berkeley. I finally had a chance to visit their Healdsburg location last year and was not disappointed. This is the only location that has a garden and it was well worth a visit.

Sunflowers will definitely be on the plant list after seeing these. I could have spent hours wandering down these paths.

I just came across these images again and it made me pine for summer in the wine country. The ball sculptures were all over the site, they would really make a modern statement in an edible garden.

Hidden paths made by sunflowers and pots would be another nice idea to try.

The outdoor lounge areas were equally inspiring. A little sculpture, some old furniture all bordered by greenery.

This was my favorite spot of all: the outdoor fireplace made modern with the addition of two bright red chairs. It doesn't take much to make a space inviting.

Of course, it never hurts to add a hammock!

Or some amazing sculpture. One can dream, though.

The Gardener has three locations: Healdsburg, Berkeley and San Francisco. The Healdsburg store is closed through January 31st but is usually open every day through spring and summer.

Fruit Trees!

One of the really appealing things about this property was the sheer number of fruit trees that had been planted by the previous owners. As we toured the property as potential buyers I knew that there were quite a few. But after buying the property we had the chance to walk around with the previous owners while they pointed out all of them and told us all the varieties. I hastily wrote things down as we wandered from tree to tree.

Here's the list:

A sixty year old cherry sits proudly on one side of the lawn. Cherry trees aren't supposed to do well in this area and this one isn't looking so beautiful anymore but apparently it still produces lots of tasty fruit. I just hope we can get to them before the birds do.

Golden Delicious apple

Fuji apple

White peach (I love white peaches and have a hard time finding them in markets here)

Yellow peach

Italian Plum

Santa Rosa Weeping Plum

Canning Plum (these grow all over the county but are great for canning)

Nectarine

Black Jack Fig

2 Lemon trees

Orange (more like a bush)

Fuji apple

Golden Delicious apple

Pear (perhaps a Comice or Bosc)

Asian Pear

Kumquat (a teeny, tiny one with no fruit yet)

Fuyu persimmon (also small and not sure how it will do)
3 Grape vines

Blackberry bushes (not a tree, obviously, but they're all entangled in the trees)

There is enough of everything for our small family plus extra to share with friends. It's better than an orchard of one variety. And they're all fruiting! It usually take about four years before you see a yield and we're coming in around year six. The oranges are almost ripe now, just a few more weeks and we can start harvesting those. And a few lemons are ripe too.