Bare Root Trees

May 30, 2014

Taking advantage of jet leg to catch up with my blog posting! Even so this week two of vacation....

Recently, in April I purchased a number of bare root fruit trees and shrubs from Starkbros for our Temecula Orchard. Very exciting. I had previously purchased fruit trees from them when I lived in New York. This was my first time purchasing for California and also first time purchasing currants, elderberry, jostaberry and gooseberry plants. I have dreamed about planting these fruit trees for many years. Not that I have seen these trees in person or tasted the fruits. I have just spend so many years reading about them in gardening books, that they have been part of my "dream" orchard. 

For those of you who have never bought bare root trees, I strongly encourage you to. You get a better variety of fruits trees which cannot be found in local nurseries. They are often cheaper than potted trees. The trees undergo less transplanting shock and establish quicker and better. The only caveat is you must plant them as soon as possible after they arrive. If you cannot plant them immediately, you must take them out of the carton and wrapping, keep them moist in the shade until you can do so.

The Little Meyer Lemon Tree that could.....

May 8, 2014

I let my lemon remain on the tree until I need them. Generally, this works out well but sometimes there are so many fruits, that I am forced to harvest them and find ways to use them. The Meyer Lemons are so juicy thatyou can easily squeeze the fruits with your hands, and the fruits literally flows out. The juice is fragrant, sweet and citrusy.

 The tree is full of lemons from 3 season; ripe lemon, maturing lemons and green lemons. You can also see flower buds for yet another season of lemons.

Blood Orange Harvest

May 8, 2014

It is hard for me not to blog in chronological order!! Everytime I think ablout blogging, I think about events that have passed that I had not blogged.That sentiment however, just makes me lag further and further behind in blogging. I miss sharing the little bits of gardening I have done this spring. So today, I will share photos of this afternoon's Blood Orange harvesting.

Goji Berry

In November last year we purchased a couple pots of Goji berry Lycium Barbarum plants. Due to problems with the irrigation system and our work and travel schedule, we left them in pots.

The plants gave us teaser quantities of Goji berries while they were in the pots as seen the pictures above. Finally, we got around to transplanting the Goji Berry plants into the ground about a month ago.

Frasier's life in the country....

We have been bringing Frasier with us to Temecula of late. My city dog has been getting use to the wide open space of the countryside with its strange sounds, sights and smells. His first night he heard what we were told the next morning by our neighbors were sound of the chickens squawking, rattled by Coyote making away with two chickens from the coop. We kept Frasier in our walled courtyard garden so he was safe but no doubt scared by all the strange sounds.

As you can see his tail is down... wide open space is not what a city dog is used to. After awhile he did settle down once he saw us out gardening like we do at our "city" home.

Critters a nibbling

It looks like I have not seen the end of the Tomato Horn Caterpillar this season. Many tomato plants were displaying stalks stripped off leaves and browning leaves. The number and size of tomatoes have decline as the ravaged tomato plants battle the stress. I try to remove as many caterpillars I can but they are so well camouflage that invariably miss many caterpillar.

I saw these grenade shaped dropping on the eggplant leaves and knew that a caterpillar was involved. I just did not expect that it would be the same type of caterpillar. It was devastating to discover that the Tomato Horn Caterpillar was feasting not just on the tomato plants but also on my eggplant.

Lost clip found - baby ladybug

While cleaning up the files on my computer this weekend, I stumbled upon a video clip I took of a baby ladybug emerging from the chrysalis cocoon. Enjoy!