For the past three weeks we house-sat for our neighbors. They have a super fantastic backyard with a pool and a garden. And they grow unusual things. OK, not unusual, but plants I've never attempted to grow before. Like asparagus. And golden raspberries. While they were gone we ate the stuff that was ripe. Oh come on, it would all rot otherwise and we certainly didn't want that...
As a housewarming gift a couple years back we received two naval orange trees. The first year we had them in large pots but last year decided to plant them in the ground on the side yard. Turns out that was a good idea because this winter they produced oranges for the first time. Three of them, in fact. We let them ripen on the trees for a few months and picked them this weekend. Who knows how they're going to taste. We'll peel and eat them this week.
We have tomatoes, grapes, basil, red bell peppers, cucumbers and zucchini growing in our garden right now. Everything has taken off and a couple of our tomatoes are almost ready. The roma grape tomatoes look like they'll be the first to ripen and I can't wait to try one!
This past month our snow peas have finally grown big enough to harvest. They're sweet and plump and don't even need dip to eat. Yum! Not many are making it to the kitchen because Chad and I keep eating them while we're outside. We'll keep the plants for another few weeks and then it'll be time to pull them out. Hard to believe we need to start working on our summer garden!
This summer one of our red Japanese Maple trees died. Yesterday we returned the tree (or rather, a tree trunk with a few bare dried up branches) to the store where we bought it. It was one of many maples we have in our yard so we weren't too upset about it, but it was still a bummer. Last week Chad and I decided we wanted to plant a fig tree in its place. We already have one in our yard and we love everything about it. The leaves are beautiful, the branches are funky and weird, and the entire tree has more than doubled its size since we bought it in late May. I hope this new tree does as well as our current one.
We also bought a purple Crepe Myrtle bush for the front side yard. Chad planted it in the dark and did a great job despite the lack of lighting!
This evening Chad and I decided to finally pick a watermelon. We have five more melons in our yard at various stages of growth. Another one (we think) will be ready in the next week or two. After Chad cut the watermelon we weighed it using our bathroom scale.
Today's melon, if you can believe this, weighed 30 pounds! It was huge and heavy.
After we cut and tasted it we realized that there's no way we can eat the whole thing by ourselves. We cut it into quarters and delivered large chunks to three of our neighbors. Hopefully they like watermelon! We had some this evening after dinner and it was great.
All summer we've been waiting to see these guys on our tomato plants. We've been warned and put on notice but haven't seen much of anything besides bees, wasps, moths and grasshoppers. Until today. We went to check on our plants this evening and my eye went right to this big guy. There were actually two of them and most likely even more since they blend in so well with the greenery. They're called horn worms. If they weren't so bad for our tomatoes and so fat and squishy I might actually like them. They have really neet legs/feet and an unusual eye-like pattern on their sides. We're going to let them be. Our tomato plants are about done anyway.
So last spring we planted a million carrot seeds in a small area of our garden. As soon as they started sprouting we read that you have to thin them out in order for the carrots to be healthy and grow. Thin them? No way! We want LOTS of big orange carrots. We're not going to thin them. So we didn't. And now they're popping up above the ground. There wasn't enough room for them to get big because each carrot had to fight for vacant space underground. Bummer.
...a carrot! We're going to plant more in a couple months because we hear they like the cool weather better. Still, this little squirt isn't too shabby.
Last night Chad and I went to the 2008 Annual Media Appreciation Night dinner sponsored by the Fresno County Farm Bureau. It was held at the Clovis rodeo grounds. The food and wine were great, as I was expecting it would be. Harris Ranch beef tri-tip was the main dish, along with chicken, sausage, corn, cheese, stuffed mushrooms, dip, veggies, ice cream and lots of other good stuff. Fresno State wine was served at the bar and their Cabernet was really good. (So far I'd recommend all of the Fresno State reds I've had.) Halfway through the event they gave awards to the local media for excellent stories relating to local agriculture. CBS47 was awarded the first runner up prize. Congratulations! (And thanks to Chad for being a good sport and getting on the tractor for my photo.)
