The Trials of Trees

When we first started our backyard farm, I definitely thought it would be easier than it is. And, when we bought our fruit trees last year, I thought we would plant them and they would grow and we would have delicious fruit.  Alas, it’s not necessarily that easy. Here is our tree lineup.

Our pomegranate tree is not looking great.  My mother (a green thumb and my own personal walking gardening encyclopedia)  said that pomegranates grow quickly. So, I bought this tiny specimen of a pomegranate tree.  And, basically, it hasn’t grown since last year when we planted it.  And, it looks pretty unhealthy.  I contemplated getting a new one, but I thought I’d give it some more TLC and hope it improves.

Next in line is our persimmon tree.  It is a fuyu persimmon.  We love fuyu persimmons.  It is a full size tree.  Last year it got leaves, but bore no fruit.  This year, I’m looking at it and wondering if it’s even going to give us leaves.  It’s not looking very promising.

Next is our Satsuma tangerine (cutie) tree.  We love cuties.  When I buy those wonderful 3 pound bags at the store when they are on sale, I have to limit the kids or they will eat it all in one sitting. We bought a dwarf cutie and last year it gave us probably 20-30 tangerines.  Considering it’s size, I’d say that’s pretty good.

Next is our fruit salad tree.  It’s a 4-in-1 stone fruit – peach, nectarine, plum, apricot. This is my dream tree – how to get all these types of fruit without having enough room for 4 trees. The tree in the picture is actually a new specimen.  The one I bought last year didn’t do anything.  Actually, when we planted it, it didn’t have much in the way of roots.  Dh said I should take it back to the nursery.  I was thinking we should give it a chance, but I should have listened to him. It never even got any leaves.  The other day when the kids were playing, my son accidentally ran into it and broke it right off at ground level.  So, I got a new tree. And, today, one week after planting it and taking this picture, we already have leaves and blossoms coming on. Yippee!

Next is our 4-in-1 apple tree.  Last year it gave us 3 kinds of apples and the 4^th type just barely got some leaves.  But, this year, even that branch is looking promising. And, the leaves are sprouting even though when I went to pull the grass from around the trunk, I realized there were about 3 inches of root showing. Yikes! I added soil and mulch, so hopefully it will forgive me.

Our last new tree is a dwarf Meyer lemon.  It gave us some fruit last year, but not as much as I had hoped for.  When it first started getting fruit, there were tons of lemons on there.  But, most of them slowly fell off as they started to grow.  I found out that a tree will only grow what it can support.  And, since this is still a pretty tiny tree, it could only support a few lemons.  Hopefully it will do better this year.

When we moved into this house 5 years ago, this tree was already here.  It is a navel orange.  It gives us the most delicious, juicy oranges.  We had a huge branch break off a couple of years ago (almost half the tree), but it still gave us tons of oranges this year.  I thought all our trees would be as wonderful as this one if I just planted them in the ground.  I’m finding it’s not that easy, but I still have hope.

Musings of a Back (and Front) Yard Farmer

Here, in Southern California, the weather is starting to look like spring.  Even though it is still winter, there are days when it is 80 degrees outside. The weather tends to flip flop from beautiful, warm and sunny to cool and rainy and everywhere in between.  As the beautiful Spring-like days become more common, I start to think about gardening.

Then, I go outside and start inspecting my little backyard farm … and realize maybe I don’t want to think about gardening. Ay-yay-yay. There is a lot of work to be done.  Granted, I haven’t done much work on it during the Winter months.  But, as I look around, I see I have a lot of catching up to do.

For instance, the Melon Patch, as we affectionately call it doesn't even resemble a melon patch. It kind of resembles more of a garbage patch.  Or, at the very least, it resembles the junk pile on a real farm bigger than the size of a backyard. We have an empty chicken tractor there.  The last chicken vacated that tractor (by dying) months ago. Next to that is the broken up skeleton of what used to provide shade on our patio.  

The plants don’t resemble the corn, beans and melons that I like to plant there.  I found a few ripe tomatoes on a volunteer tomato plant, which is pretty exciting for wintertime.  I also see the remains of a once-thriving butternut squash vine that I didn’t plant … because we don’t really like butternut squash. On the wall are some dead vines. Although, I do see that my berries are starting to make a tiny bit of progress. However, the dragon fruit plant is, sadly, not doing well. And, as you can tell by the weeds overrunning the place, the chickens haven’t even had a chance to work on that area as they usually do in the winter.

I thought I’d do better if I checked out the garden beds. But, alas, not much luck there, either.  The first two beds are looking good.  The chickens have been working the soil there for a while.  We had a nice, thick layer of leaves on top that the chickens have worked into the soil. It’s nice to have the chickens do this work for us, especially since they don’t lay eggs during the winter.  In addition to preparing the soil, they also kindly eat our kitchen scraps for us. Those are some well-fed chickens, I tell ya’. The second bed has a millet plant that not only can I not get rid of, but it apparently doubled in size since last year.  And, the third bed just needs the chickens to work on the leaves.

However, beds 4 and 5 seem to be getting the best of me.  I can’t figure out how to keep them from getting completely overrun by grass. You actually can’t see all the grass because it’s covered with leaves. I’ve tried pulling all the grass out by hand, roots and all, but it still crept back in from the surrounding grass. I also tried covering the grass with cardboard and then dirt before planting. That didn’t work, either. I covered the walkways around the beds with thick, black plastic, but it doesn’t seem to help. And, that last bed has really not grown much of anything for me since we started the garden several years ago.

On the bright side, though.  I do have one beautiful specimen of a chard plant growing in one of the beds.  It supplies me with lovely greens for my green drinks.  I even manage to get a leaf or two into the kids’ smoothies. Try not to be distracted by the farmyard junk in the background.  We're just trying to keep it the ambiance right.

Moving to the front yard, I find climbing roses which have never quite looked healthy; although, last year we got several beautiful roses out of it.

 I have my Nuccio’s Pearl Camellia that I splurged on because I love the flowers it is supposed to grow.

However, for the last 3 years, the best I have gotten is buds that end up turning brown and falling off.

I even managed to kill a mint plant, which, I think is a pretty impressive feat in itself. I didn't think anyone could kill mint.

And, last, but not least – my parkway. It’s supposed to be filled with thick, lovely creeping thyme ground cover like this.

But, sadly, I have never gotten it to look any better than this. I will even admit that this picture was taken immediately after weeding the parkway.

I can’t really explain to you the incredible amount of hours that I have put into weeding this parkway.  It began when we had heavy rains that flooded the parkway after we planted the seeds.  I didn’t know which plants that grew after that were weeds and which were thyme.  When I finally figured it out, I had quite a weeding job to do.  And, I’ve spent countless hours weeding it ever since.

The yard isn’t looking too bad considering we’re just coming out of winter.  And, over the last several years, I can slowly see the goal coming into bloom.  I see I have my work cut out for me in the months to come.

I did find one exciting thing while I was out there, though.  The freesias are blooming!

The Steps of a Good Man

For several months, I've been thinking about writing scripture on our stairs.  You know how you see those clever pinterest posts or other internet ideas that you think are great, but you never get around to doing them?  Well, I finally got around to doing this one.  First, I had to decide which scripture to do. As I was perusing the Bible for a good candidate, I came across the perfect scripture. It is one of hubby's favorite scriptures and it's perfect for the stairs.

I wanted to surprise my hubby. So, when he went to a Bible study conference for a few days, I knew this was my chance. Of course, this was a late night project.  I had to do it after the little guys were in bed.  So, sometime after midnight, I started painting scripture. When I got done, I realized two things: 1 was that I needed to make the words on the top step higher up so they could be seen from the ground level; 2 was that I had skipped a line. O.o So, after scrubbing off almost half the steps, I redid it.  And, I must say, I was very happy with the final results.

This is the view from the front door.

 Ps 37:23-24

23 The steps of a good man are ordered by Yahweh,
And He delights in his way.
24 Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down;
For Yahweh upholds him with His hand.

Be Careful Where You Get Your Advice

I was doing Elijah's reading lesson with him the other day.  He mentioned that he had gum in his hair and showed me the gum behind his ear.

I told him we would get it out in a little bit and I continued with our lesson. But, as he was reading, my mind started mulling over the large clump of gum he had behind his ear. And, I asked him, "were you storing your gum behind your ear like Violet Beauregarde?"  Sure enough, that was his plan.  As Violet says, in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, "Well, I'm a gum chewer, normally. But when I heard about these ticket things of Wonka's, I laid off the gum and switched to candy bars, instead. Now, of course, I'm right back on gum. I chew it all day, except at mealtimes when I stick it behind my ear."

It wasn't a very good plan.  And, he didn't enjoy the process of me getting the gum out of his hair.  But, I sure found the whole thing entertaining. :)

Today, my baby turns 5. Which also means … I have no more babies. For some reason, I’ve always thought of age 5 as a milestone for my kids. I mean, they’re not a baby anymore. They are somewhat independent. Diapers and diaper bags are a thing of the distant past. If I ask them to get their shoes and get in the car, they can do that entirely on their own. They can even buckle their own seatbelt. They pour their own drinks – unless it’s from a full gallon container. They toast their own toast. Serve their own cereal. Do school work. They can sit quietly. And, usually, they can even listen to reason.

Even though it’s easier in a lot of ways – I can’t help but miss those babies. No more babies for me. The baby factory is apparently shut down. It’s a new chapter in life. We’ll see what exciting things God has for us in the future. Happy birthday, Arianah!