Things are changing very quickly here. After almost two full weeks of 20+F over the average temperature (so high 80F) the sunny weather means the plants are moving into full on summer mode. Too bad it is going to cool down and get cloudy and rainy again although that sits fine with me. I still have 3 lettuce plants hanging in there, a ton of collard greens and some peas for my winter crops still trying to mature. Spring in this region is always quite iffy. Some years we get no spring, sometimes two weeks of spring, a couple weeks of summer, and then back to spring again. It has been pretty hot though so we have had to start watering again. Dave almost has all of my bins full of good planting soil, so I will plant soon. I did start my sunny herb bin with thyme, oregano (Zaatar style), basil and a lavender plant. The others were from seed. I also have three sprigs of rosemary from the Shingle Springs house but I am not sure they are rooting out well. I have rosemary seeds so will shall see which way that goes!
The permanent garden berries are going insane. We are getting strawberries from the 40 small plants I plants just a week ago and there must be well over 100 blackberries growing. Two of the blueberries are setting while the third is just starting to bloom; that was the plan that they would not all ripen at one time and it sort of worked this year! The boysenberry has a ton of flowers and the raspberries are flowering and setting. So many thorns though🤨. There are three different raspberries also so again they do not all ripen at once. We will see how this all works!
Also in the permanent garden we have the artichokes growing so many chokes, the grape stems are exploding out, the kiwi are growing inches each day and last year’s calendulas have come up everywhere. Lots of native bees and bumblebees out there. I’ve seen a couple hummingbirds too.
The orchard has also started to grow. We still have a few mandarins, three oranges,and lemons from the winter. And now we have APRICOTS AND PLUMS galore setting. I knock some off every day! We have a few apples, cherries and pears but not a ton. The cherries and pers are only three year old trees so next year should be their first real production. That is the hard part about fruit trees! The persimmon and pomegranate trees flower after leaves so we shall see what happens there. I still want a lemon and cherry tree on our”property,” i.e. near the ADU.
The flowers around the property are also going to town. Jenny planted several pots and they seem to have taken. My irises from Shingle Springs seem to mostly be growing well and producing amazing flowers. I can’t wait to see how much they spread next year! We also have a couple tulip trees in the pasture with the chickens and they have a limited amount of small flowers this year. I forgot how pretty the color we chose is!
So overall, things are going fast here right now. I hope to plant my bins this week and then we should be exploding with growth. Makes you feel good juicy walking around everywhere breathing in the good pure oxygen out here!