It’s the first week of April! Have you been able to start your garden this year?
Here, the temperatures are hovering in the mid/high-80s and rainfall has been plentiful (a big, fat Praise the Lord! for that one). Nearly everything in the garden and backyard is green!
Except the Pink Lemon Tree. But I’m hoping some aggressive pruning will bring it back from the brink.
It has been absolutely gorgeous lately. Much grilling has happened. I would pay big, big, big bucks for this kind of weather year round.
And I’d take on a 13th and 14th job to pay for a mosquito-less version of this kind of weather, year round.
This week’s garden plan involves some light weeding in the garden boxes, caging the two larger tomatoes, pruning the pink lemon tree, and transferring the blueberry bushes to a more permanent home in-ground in the sad, empty, neglected bed near the deep end of the pool. Oh, and seriously heavy weeding of sad, empty, neglected bed near the deep end of the pool.
On/Around the patio
Key Lime (2)
Mexican Lime
Pink Lemon
Grapefruit
Meyer Lemon
Eureka Lemon
Blueberries (4)
Pomegranate
Fig
Avocado
Carrots
Last year, I really struggled with getting the carrots to grow past seedling stage. The first signs of life appeared this week, in my large pot of homebrew compost and rainbow-colored carrot seeds. The carrots have been put on notice – they either survive or get replaced with an eggplant or one of the rogue oregano plants.
Our citrus are potted, dwarf varieties but we’re in the middle of a backyard project to make room for a few of them in-ground. We’ve seen a few of them hit their ceilings as far as what a potted root system can support above ground. We want them to continue to flourish. My margarita habit depends on them 🙂
Backyard & Garden Boxes
Our white peach tree, the youngest, lost the single peach it was growing. It’s still a little young but should be more established in the next 2-3 years. I’ve been hand-pollenating the blossoms as they open on peach tree #2, a June Gold – the bees didn’t return after the citrus trees blooms wilted. I got a late start with the plum tree but did manage to pollinate a few of the last blossoms and did spot at least two plums.
Our bee situation was pretty sad last year due to the drought and probably the overall general decline in bee population. Things looked promising with impressive bee activity when all the citrus trees were in bloom.
Box #1 Strawberries! All strawberries! The 2-year old resident strawberry picker got to pick her first backyard strawberry this week.
Box #2 A few pea plants, 3 cauliflower, 1 watermelon, cherry tomato (died, needs replacing), a tomatillo, and a slicing tomato.
Box #3 Herbs: green and purple basil, green onions, Texas sweet onions, chives, lavender, oregano, thyme, and sage.
Box #4 Lots of green beans, yellow pear tomato (died, needs replacing), serrano, Roma tomato, and I spotted some tiny stray basil plants popping up where I grew basil last year.
