Last week I had the award of hosting Jere Gettle ( as intheJere Gettle fromBaker Creek Heirloom Seeds , pictured at mighty ) and Paul Wallace ( theman in charge of Baker Creek ’s west coast branch , thePetaluma Seed Bank ) at my lowly little dwelling house . They were only in town for a day or two , and adjudicate to swing by for a sojourn and see what this whole Garden Betty deal is all about .
There was just aslightproblem , though . Most of my garden looks like this justly now …
Or this …
But Jere and Paul were gracious and kind enough to humor me !
My garden is in that in - between season where all the downfall / winter crop are start to come out , but all the leaping / summertime crop are still in the come - starting leg .
I ’ve left a few pitiful - appear plant life in the land to wither by so I can gather the seeds .
On top of that , we ’d just had abig , blustering violent storm , so in the hours before Jere and Paul ’s arrival , my nurseryman ( the one who does all the chores I hate , like tree - trimming and leaf - blowing ) was tree - trimming and leafage - blowing the whole property away . My fiancé was busy cleaning out the chicken cage and raking back themulchthat the chickens had kicked up , and I was making Maroc iced tea and getting mygrapefruit - rosemary breadgoing in the oven … whew . It was a squad exertion to get the half - empty and half - beat garden see as presentable as possible !
There were a few signal of Leslie Townes Hope , though … like the orchard apple tree blossoms on our Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree …
And the new leaves coming back on the grapevines …
And the chard , carrots and common beet still hang on …
The nice matter about living in Southern California is that there ’s alwayssomethinggrowing … like citrus . Citrus is the superbia and joy of our winter .
And yes , those are Citrus paradisi blossoms circumvent ripe , quick - to - be - pick grapefruits . Our grapefruit tree is amazing . It bears fruit nearly class - round , and there ’s only a span of three months where we do n’t pluck any fruit because they ’re still green . The rest of the class , the juicy yellow globe fall from the tree an armful at a time .
Last calendar month , we put in three types of blueberry bushes ( Misty , Sunshine Blue , and the cotton wool candy - hued Pink Lemonade change ) and I really can not look for them to start raise yield !
We also have tomato . Bushy , sound tomatoes over 2 foot tall , which I ’d started over the winter as an experiment . They got off to a slow start , but with the longer day and warmer night of give , they seem to be growing column inch a Clarence Day now . I had set forth a mixed bag of Siberian and Russian tomatoes , think they would fare better in coolheaded temperatures , and it looks like I was right ! The four plant life all have peak now , so I ’m crossing my fingerbreadth for the first love apple to set in a few weeks .
think back myrogue tomatoesfrom last summer ? They ’re back — and there ’s more .
We had left a few tomatoes to rot in the flat coat over winter , and volunteer plant get down springing up a few calendar month ago . At last tally there were 14 plants , mayhap more … and we decided to let them all develop and do their thing .
Despite being semi - neglected , they ’re turn even faster than our “ designed ” tomatoes and are threatening to take over the vicinity once again . We ’re not staking or pruning them , but we did erect a little fake - scaffolding with cargo ships pallet to keep some of the vine off the ground .
OurPurple of Romagna artichoke , a recurrent beauty , is beginning to flower again .
A twelvemonth ago I started two artichoke plants from seed , and now have eight plants as they ’ve died back and regrown with a vengeance each time of year . It ’s initiate to get a little crowded in this bed , so I ’ll probably separate them at the last of the year , and start a new globe artichoke patch elsewhere in the garden .
While the C. P. Snow pea plant vines have started to embrown , theTall telephony garden peasare as souse and green as ever . Our plants reach over six feet marvellous and are full of brisk , yummy pods that I split receptive and eat right off the vine .
Our onions and ail are also doing well , but I need them to zip along so I can pull up them up and make room for all our new plants !
Thechicken salad Bari coming back to aliveness , with what could possibly be the cosmos ’s biggest nasturtiums . The leaves are bigger than my hand !
So far , the poulet have left most of the nasturtiums alone but they love to nosh on the clovers and peas coming up . Every couple of weeks , I discard another handful of seeds into the bed to replenish their buffet .
Jere and Paul snap a mini tour of my garden while they were here , and video snippets will be place on the Baker Creekblog . I ’m hoping they ’ll add up back in the summertime when the garden is in full swing music !
What ’s going on in your garden mighty now ?
