First Figs

 

Brown Turkey Fig

When I went out to throw something in the trash can, I scared a bird out of the  near end of the fig tree.  So I investigated and found half a dozen ripe, or nearly ripe, figs.  This is the ripest and was delicious.  I need to check the rest of the tree and hope I will find more before the birds get them.

This “tree” is espaliered along the fence on the east side of our property.  So it extends for maybe 20 feet but is only 8-10 feet high. This makes it easier to pick the fruit plus it doesn’t cast shade the way a regular tree would.

Still Alive

I'm not going to try to catch up on the last 14 months all at once but I am going to try to keep up from now on.

We picked this basket full of absolutely beautiful green peppers.  Several went to our daughter and I am planning to roast the rest tomorrow.  They keep really well in the freezer.

The tomatoes keep on coming.  Cherry tomatoes as well as the larger ones.  We had our first Gazpacho of the summer last week.

Winter has finally arrived

This morning we had our first frost of the season and the overnight low on our back patio was 24 degrees.  It hasn't gone that low for several years.  We covered the Meyer lemon, the lime and the tangerine trees.  The other lemon and the two orange trees are just too big to cover.  

Speaking of oranges, we have had a continuous supply of fresh orange juice since last January.  They just keep getting ripe. 

We are expecting more extreme cold tonight.  It is not quite 9 pm and already down to 37 degrees.

YMCA to the Rescue

Since June of last year Mr. B and I have been taking the Enhance Fitness class at our local Y twice a week.  What a difference a little exercise makes!  When we started I couldn’t:

• Get up off the floor without help, either from a person or a piece of furniture
• Walk down stairs one foot after the other
• Turn my head far enough to see oncoming traffic when backing out of a diagonal parking space.
• Take a deep breath without having my lungs hurt

Now I can do all those things, the first two within a couple of weeks of starting the program.
We were so pleased that we joined the Y and planned to use their exercise equipment on a regular basis. 

























The regular basis part hasn’t happened yet although I have used the treadmill a few times.

Last Tuesday we had a pretty good rain and Wednesday morning this was the view of the mountains east of town.
At first I though that white stuff was clouds but it turned out to be SNOW which is a rare sight around here.  Maybe once or twice a year.

 This winter has been much colder than usual with frost almost every morning.  It doesn’t stay below freezing for very long so we haven’t had any damage in the garden, except for some of the Meyer lemons.  But the Washington Navel oranges have been fantastic. 
I usually juice them but this year they are so perfect that we’ve been just peeling and eating.  We’ll probably juice the Valencia oranges, although they are pretty good eating too.
The only other things in my winter garden are parsley and swiss chard.  I really dropped the ball on starting seeds last fall and then I didn’t feel like going out in the garden when it was so cold. 

Time Marches On

What happened to January and February?

Well, January started out with a big mess.  Day after day the front yard and most of the block would be littered with fallen leaves from the larger Liquidambar tree. 

On New Years’ Day granddaughters 1 and 2 spent some time raking the front lawn for us.  They filled two trash cans which we then emptied into the compost bins. 

After that I was on my own, so every few days I would rake the leaves from the lawn and the street into the gutter, then bag them up. 

The compost bins couldn’t handle them fast enough and now the bags are piled by the side of the house waiting until they are needed.

January also meant the start of orange season.  We have two trees:  a Washington Navel and a Valencia.  The Washington Navel is ready first and is supposed to be for eating but I use most of the crop for juice because I don’t want to wait for the Valencia which isn’t ripe for another month or so.

We always have way more than we can use but every year I vow to try.  This year has been a real challenge because most of the WN oranges are too high for me to reach without a ladder.  I think I need to get Mr. B out there to pick what he can reach and, when the danger of frost is over, we should prune the tree quite a bit lower.

Later in January Safeway had a good price on Foster Farms whole chickens so I decided to make Chicken and Noodles.  Daughter’s family was coming for dinner so I prepared the noodle dough and the granddaughters helped me roll it out and cut it. 

I learned to love Chicken and Noodles from my Midwestern husband.  Mr. B’s mother, grandmother and aunts all made it for family get-togethers.  Each one had a slightly different take on it.  The only recipe I have is from his Aunt Georgia and I had to stand next to her and try to estimate the amounts of flour etc. she was using for the noodles because nobody used a written recipe.  I was never any good at rolling out such stiff dough so I long ago bought this Italian pasta machine and it rolls out the dough as thin as I want it.  Unfortunately, the noodles just don’t have the same texture as the old family recipe.  But they are still good served over mashed potatoes on a cold winter’s day. 

Mr. B is coming along well with his recovery.  Every day he spends some time walking up and down the block using the rolling walker lent to him by our neighbor.  Then he rides the exercise bicycle we bought over 30 years ago.  Every time we moved there was much discussion about whether to get rid of it since we hardly ever used it.  Sure glad we still have it!

In February the almond tree bloomed, for all the good it will do us.  We planted it almost 20 years ago and we have yet to get any almonds.  They all get harvested by the doggoned squirrels before we realize it.

Every year we try another squirrel deterrent but so far nothing has worked.  One year it was human hair from the beauty shop, another year it was moth balls (which are surprisingly hard to find these days).  I suggested trapping and releasing him out in the country but Mr. B thinks it would be cruel to separate Mr. Squirrel from his family.  What are you gonna do?

Invasion of the Aphids

 

WARNING:  PHOTOS ARE NOT FOR THE SQUEAMISH

For the last several weeks we’ve been noticing more and more nasty little aphids on the two artichoke plants that our daughter gave me for my birthday last spring.  I’ve been hoping that the local insect population would find this easy source of protein, but it hasn’t happened. 

This morning, however, I did spot a single red ladybug and that gave me an idea:  why not buy more ladybugs?  So off we went to OSH and for $7.49 we bought a container of the little gals.  They keep them in a small refrigerator in the garden department and the bugs were pretty logy when we took them out  but very quickly got more active as they warmed up. 

This evening, after the winds died down,  Mr. B shook them out of the container onto the plants and we are now hoping for the best. 

Summer is Finally Here

With a vengeance!  Yesterday our high was 98 and today 109.  Tomorrow is supposed to be 100.  However, those in the know say we should be back to our 2010 summer coolth by the weekend.

I seem to remember that we had a couple of 95 degree days back in late June but since then it has been much cooler than usual.  Everyone on the central coast is complaining that their tomatoes just aren’t ripening.  I think that’s a result of nighttime temps being below 55.  But this little hot spell should produce enough tomatoes for gazpacho which we are really looking forward to. 

Yesterday we had the first swiss chard from our garden.  Usually summer would be too warm for good chard but not this year.  I picked all the outside leaves; hope the hot spell will be over before the new leaves are formed.

That’s My Boy!

Even 46 years ago he had a consuming interest in produce.  Here he had crawled into the pantry and found my potato bin while I was fixing dinner.
Now he is gardening in his own backyard and is doing very well.  His house is on an average-sized suburban lot which, in California, is not that big.  Plus his backyard is mostly downhill.  But our boy is persistent and has been terracing the ground to get level areas for planting vegetables.  This year all that work is finally bearing fruit, so to speak.  They are making salads with their own lettuce, cucumbers and tomatoes.  And yesterday he arrived at our house with this:

13 ears freshly picked.

Tender and sweet

Two of the ears weren’t developed properly, but the rest made a very good dinner last night.  Mr. B managed four ears, I had two and Mom ate one.  I stripped the kernels from the remaining four and added some of them to today’s zucchini.  Yum-yum.  Son suggested using the leftovers in a salad, so that’s what we’ll have tomorrow.

Speaking of Zucchini, this year we planted two squash plants from Wegman’s Nursery in Redwood City.  The reason we drove that far to buy squash plants is that we were hoping to reproduce last year’s zucchini experience.  We planted a Romanesco that, while it didn’t look like the images I found of that variety, was so prolific that we ended up with over a hundred squash from one plant.  And it was the most delicious zucchini we had ever grown.

This spring we bought one Romanesco and one Ronde de Nice.  The Romanesco looks like its images and is just as prolific and tasty as last year.  The Ronde de Nice is also very tasty and even more of a producer than the Romanesco.  We are eating squash several times a week but still haven’t grown tired of it.

Tally as of August 1: 

Romanesco = 43 

Ronde de Nice = 69

Our tomatoes are singing a sad song this year.  We planted them in May and they grew well, producing lots of tomatoes.  However, they just sit there looking green.  So far, out of 7 plants, we have only had three red tomatoes.  In addition to that, at least two of the plants that we bought from Costco have what looks like verticillium wilt.  So their days are probably numbered.  The four tomato plants that we bought at the Santa Clara Master Gardeners sale seem to be okay.  We also have a few volunteers coming up here and there from last year’s seed.  One, in the squash bed, is a yellow pear so I’m looking forward to that, if any of them ever ripen.

The exception is the little currant tomato that we planted in Mom’s waist-high planter on the patio.  That didn’t go in until early July and is rather sparse as to foliage.  But it has several clusters of ripening fruit.  Of course, being currant-size, if I picked them we probably wouldn’t even have enough for one person.  But this variety is supposed to keep its fruit until all tomatoes in the cluster have ripened.  We’ll see.

The peppers are all doing well.  We planted mostly sweet peppers this year, although I did throw in some Fresno and Jalapeno at the last minute. 

Nightgowns Completed

Ready for the girls to try on next time they come down.

I’ve changed my mind about my next project. I have 5 yards of a crinkly polyester in a splashy “vacation” print – has sort of a Mediterranean look. I bought it back in the late eighties when we were all wearing those windbreakers and pants made out of crinkly nylon. I think my plans were to make a jacket. Not interested in that now but the fabric is so light that I think it might be good for a backpack from Butterick 4147. The pattern calls for interfacing so it should be sturdy enough. That would use up a little over a yard and I could use the rest to make supermarket bags from Butterick 5338.

Suddenly our tomatoes are ripening like crazy. Looks like gazpacho this weekend!

Where Has the Time Gone?

Summer is almost half over and I don’t feel as if I’ve accomplished even a tenth of what I had planned. I don’t know where the hours go.

This sunflower is one of at least a dozen that popped up as volunteers this spring. I don’t remember ever planting sunflowers in the backyard, so they must have come from birdseed. I hate to pull up volunteers if I know what they are, but next year I’m going to have to get ruthless and yank them out as soon as I see them. Most of the plants are single but this one just keeps putting out the blossoms.

The tomatoes are finally starting to produce. Not enough to make Gazpacho yet but I haven’t had to buy tomatoes for over two weeks now. I’m thinking about Panzanella for dinner tomorrow. We have some leftover Pugliese bread from Costco that should be perfect for it. The amazing zucchini plant has now given us at least 5 dozen fruits, ranging from 4-5 inches to “too big for stuffing even.” I haven’t let many get big because this is the absolutely best zucchini I’ve ever grown. The plant came from a nursery in San Carlos and was part of the batch of plants our son gave me for Mother’s Day. The label said it was an heirloom variety called “Romanesco” but it doesn’t look much like the photos I’ve found online.

I planted a six-pack each of lemon cucumbers and Armenian cucumbers. However, the Armenian must have been mislabeled because we now have twelve lemon cucumber plants, each producing what seems like several fruits a day. I swear, you lift up a branch and the cucumbers are growing in clusters, like grapes only a lot bigger. Thank goodness they are so good – we are eating two or three a day and have been able to find takers for the rest.

I didn’t get any beans planted this year although we do have some volunteers that sprouted from last year’s crop. I think I might try to get a small batch in next week if I can find the space. The moon is waxing which means it’s a good time to plant beans. I’ve never tried planting by the phases of the moon but I’ve always wanted to experiment with it.

The Husband picked our first apple this evening – no photo because he ate it too quickly. It was an Early Summer Red according to the label. There are several more that look ready, so I’ll probably try one tomorrow.

The Blenheim apricots were very small this year. I think we should have thinned them. Also probably should have pruned them last winter. I checked a book on pruning fruit trees out of the library this week. It appears to have a lot of information on the kinds of trees we are growing, so maybe we can improve our harvests.

Our friends brought us a box of their wonderful Blenheim apricots a couple of weeks ago, so I tried making jam for the first time in many years. This is the first batch. A few days later I found a recipe for Apricot Riesling Jam and decided to try it. I didn’t have any Riesling but I did have 1/2 cup of Grand Marnier so I used that. I got 2 small jars and a bit extra from that batch. We had a little of the extra over some vanilla ice cream the other night and it was pure heaven.

I’ve rearranged my sewing room again and now have room for a cutting table. It’s so nice not to have to use the dining room table when I want to cut something. All this is so that I can make GD1 and GD2 summer nightgowns. I’ve been planning this for weeks and was just about to put it off until next year. But when I asked one of them if that was okay, she said she would really like to have it this year and it didn’t matter that summer is half over, she could wear summer pjs all year, no problem. After that, I couldn’t not make them.

Some quilting has been going on this summer. Big Busted and the twin-size POM are ready to baste. I pieced the back of the POM quilt, so that took longer. I’m going to try the Sharon Schamber method of basting. I’ve read some good reviews on my Yahoo quilting groups. I’ll probably try it on a catnapper first.

Catching Up Part 1

Not much blogging going on around here, but lots of other stuff happening:

FAMILY

Mom has come to stay with us again, so life is a lot more structured – 3 proper meals a day, no peanut butter sandwiches with hot chocolate for dinner. But we are settling in just fine (and definitely eating better).

It has taken about a month but we are now into a workable schedule as to baths and laundry. We replaced the bathtub in the family bathroom with a new shower. Big improvement in looks and comfort. The shower in the master bath is quite small so The Husband prefers to use the front bathroom. I didn’t get a before photo but here is the new shower.

GD2 made her First Communion in early May. She was able to wear her sister’s dress with just a few alterations to the underslip. We thought the crowded church would be too much for Mom, so she and I stayed at the house. That worked out well as I was able to help with the meal preparation.

I did not make the cake but forgot to get any photos of the other food. The purple roses were very much in demand among the children present.

GARDENING

The summer vegetable garden is partially planted. Our son came down the day before Mother’s Day with a box full of plants.

There were 3 different kinds of tomatoes, a summer squash, 3 six-packs of lettuce and a variety of peppers, including one habanero.

We had already planted 4 tomatoes, 6 eggplants, 12 cucumbers and 6 Anaheim peppers. There are some volunteer beans in with the Costco tomatoes, Santa Maria pinquito I think. Still need to plant more beans, onions and some more squash. Also mesclun and arugula for summer salads.

Mom wanted to give me a pomegranate tree/bush for my birthday, so we caravanned out to the nursery on Southside Road. They had two very small plants, each in a 5 gallon can. We bought the taller one and it is now planted out by my greenhouse. Probably no fruit this year, but we are hoping for some next year. When I was a child, I remember visiting my step-grandfather’s sister Marie Trescony. She lived in the old adobe house on their ranch near San Lucas and the walled garden was very old California. The big attraction for me was the pomegranate. As a city girl, I was really impressed about being able to pick something off a tree and eat it. In those days it seems I was always hungry, no matter how often I was fed. Actually, I guess I haven’t changed that much…

For Mother’s Day 2008 we gave Mom a self-watering planter box with a rolling stand to raise it so that she wouldn’t have to bend. She grew tomatoes, peppers, onion and basil that year with pretty good results. This year we did the planting for her: a cherry tomato and a mild green pepper. We’ll probably add some basil seeds and maybe a few green onions.

The sunflower seeds we planted in April are growing up nicely. They need to be thinned but I just can’t make myself pull up a healthy plant. I know it needs to be done for the health of the remaining plants, but it’s so hard.

We also planted over a dozen dahlia tubers on the other side of the front walk. They are almost all up and growing fast. We should have a good supply of cut blossoms for the house this summer.

GENEALOGY

Nothing has been done in this department but I really need to get my Spencer Stout info together because I hope to visit Montague Co, TX and Cedar Co, MO on our vacation this year.

I cancelled my Ancestry World Deluxe membership and went back to the US Deluxe. There is just so much information still to find in this country, that I don’t see myself using it enough to warrant the price difference. I need to check with the Gilroy library to see if they have World in case I need it on down the line.

Knitting, Quilting and Sewing catch-up will follow soon.

Sunflower Bed

Sunflower Bed
Originally uploaded by sarahjb2007

Finally got my spring planting going. I used Flickr to add notes to this photo to show what seeds I planted where. The notes don't show up in this photo but you can see them here.

This parking strip is especially difficult to grow anything because it's so dry - no irrigation system, although a couple of years ago when the city replaced the sidewalk, we laid a pipe under it so that eventually we can add one more easily.

There is another strip beyond our front walk but I'm thinking of putting dahlias in that one. They don't require too much water once they are established.

This Is a Test

 

I was catching up on the quilting blogs that I like to read and had an epiphany when I read this.  It may be just what I’ve been looking for to make Blogger more user-friendly.

  Blogger has been notoriously hard on my photos – even when you do a Preview, you never really know where they will end up in the final posting.

I just checked this posting in Live Writer preview mode and the photo is encroaching on the previous posting.  I’m not sure how to  fix that, other than by typing in a lot more text, but I’m sure I’ll work it out eventually.

By the way, the photo is one of the Dutch Iris that I planted several years ago.  This bed is right up against the house and there is enough of an overhang that it doesn’t always get rained upon.  And we tend to forget to water it because it’s the middle of winter and the rest of the garden is water-logged.  So the only plants that survive here are drought- tolerant.  So when spring bulbs pop open, it’s always a surprise.

Closing Days

This is the larger of the two liquidambar trees in our front yard. When we moved here, there were two of the same age but, several years ago we lost the western tree during a bad windstorm. The tree we replaced it with is also a liquidambar but always loses its leaves in November. This one hangs on into January or February and even then doesn't lose all its leaves until the new spring leaves push them off.





The Lisbon lemon also in the front yard was picked clean about a month ago by an elderly couple with a shopping bag. This is the second year that they have been around here. Last winter I first saw them picking oranges from our next-door neighbor's tree; I didn't say anything because he never picks them anyway. Then we noticed that we no longer had any ripe lemons less than six feet from the ground. Now it was a different story because we do use ours. We've been trying to keep any eye out for them this season, but have not been able to catch them in the act. Actually, I'm not sure what I would say if I did catch them. These lemons are almost ready, so there may be another raid soon.

We had a good bit of rain right around Christmas but since the weekend, it's been cool and clear. The baby tomatoes in the greenhouse haven't started ripening yet.

We still have to paint the hallway but have decided to leave it until after New Year's. Meanwhile, I've started my sewing project for the grandchildren: old-fashioned nightgowns for the girls and a pair of pajamas for OJB. I bought the flannel for the girls a few months ago but the knit for the pajamas came from my stash. Two yards busted! I also cut out a kitchen smock for myself - another 3 yards busted. I haven't done a count of how many yards are in my non-quilt fabric stash, but this doesn't even make a dent.

Today is the start of my second year of retirement. I haven't accomplished much of what I had planned to do but hope to do better in 2009.

Christmas Surprise in the Greenhouse

Last spring I planted seeds for this Jelly Bean grape tomato. They took their time germinating and, by the time they were tall enough to plant in the garden, summer was almost over and we were about to leave for two weeks. I planted one seedling in the raised bed between the two Italian tomatoes and left the other in its pot. When the weather started to get cold, I moved it into the greenhouse but wasn't very faithful about watering it. I noticed the two blossoms last month but, even then, I didn't manage to water it regularly. Today, just a few days after the shortest day of the year, I found these robust fruits in an almost dry pot. I immediately gave it some water and am hoping they will ripen. There are very few leaves on the plant and the fruit are on a foot-long stem, so I don't think I will get any more. But it does give me hope for growing tomatoes in the winter even though the greenhouse is unheated.
Also, this reminds me that in a few weeks it will be time to plant tomato seeds for the 2009 season. I will definitely plant this variety again!

Meet the Goats

I went to the LDS Family History Center this afternoon to order a microfilm for my Stout family research and when I left I heard a rustling coming from the edge of their parking lot. Of course I had to investigate, and this is what I found. Four goats foraging, two were eating grass and two were nibbling on the bark of some small trees.



We have some dried up corn still on our cornstalks, so we are going to ask the goat owner if he would like to have them. I don't think they would be much good in the compost bin anyway.







This is the third time I've planted microgreens and I haven't managed to actually put any on the table yet.
I'm not even sure how to use them or if we will like them. Supposedly they are being used in the finest restaurants and, being as they are the plant stage just past sprouts, they've got to be healthy.

The first two time I planted them I didn't get to use them when they were ready and then it was too late. To tell the truth, I'm so used to having a couple of months between sowing and harvesting, that I forgot about them. I planted these in the greenhouse on 9/18 and this is the amount of growth just five days later. Most seeds haven't even sprouted in five days! This time we are going to eat them. This week. Guaranteed...


The Burger Queen Mystery quilt has its borders. The rust border is 1", the 2" middle border matches the stars and the 3"outer border is a different fabric from the background but the color is close. I ran out of the blue basketweave, unfortunately because I really love it. Now to plan the backing.

Back to Normal

We've been back home for almost a week but I'm just now feeling that the trip is really over. I think it takes a while to come down from that feeling of being free, with no responsibilities. When I was still working, the job brought me down immediately, but now I can sort of coast in.


The garden was well taken care of while we were gone, even though the temps were close to 100 for several days in a row. Our neighbor watered regularly and our daughter and her family came over every weekend to do what needed to be done. The green beans appear to be pretty well finished. I think this is way too early for them to give up, so today I picked every bean I could find and tomorrow I will give them a good watering and some fish emulsion. Maybe I can bring them back for another month. The tomatoes are flopping all over the place which makes it hard to pick them. But they are producing like crazy and we should have enough to supply the family as well as the freezer. The figs are ripening slowly. We get a few every day and they are really yummy. The zucchini are still poking along but nothing like they did a couple of months ago. We pulled up the cucumbers and most of the lettuce before we left, so we are reduced to buying lettuce until my new crop is ready.


On the knitting front, I've finished Clue 1 in Mysterystole 4 knitalong. I know I already have two unfinished lace projects but this one has beads and I just couldn't resist it. I found the beads at Sun Country Gems in old town Albuquerque on our way home. I've never knitted with beads before but it's actually quite easy. These 29 rows only took me 3 evenings. What a difference from the Anniversary shawl - one row takes about an hour, assuming I don't have to correct a mistake. I'm hoping to get caught up with Clue 2 before Clue 3 is released Friday, and then stay caught up, using any extra time to work on the Anniversary shawl. The Spring Surprice shawl will just have to wait until these two are finished. It is by far the most difficult and I should be a much better lace knitter by the time I go back to it.

Today was the first time I turned the sewing machine on since we got home. I finished the extra blocks for the Burger Queen quilt and now they are waiting for the grandchildren's next visit. I don't do random very well so I'm going to have them arrange the blocks in a 4x5 rectangle, then I will sew them together, add the border, and they'll be ready to baste and quilt. Actually, I will probably do a pieced backing to use up even more of my stash. That's the same stash that was somewhat enhanced by visits to four quilt shops in Missouri and Arkansas. But that's another story...

Bringing in the Corn

Nine ears harvested this afternoon and served at dinner; they were quite tasty, with all kernels present (unlike most of the local corn we've tried this summer) although one had immature kernels. We have no experience growing corn and have found it really hard to tell when an ear is ready to pick.

The Husband's corn patch is at the north end of our garden area. It topped out at about 8 1/2 feet tall. I almost tried to discourage him from trying corn because I thought it needed a lot more space than we have. I'm sure glad I kept my mouth shut!

He is already making plans for next year: He is going to dig up some of the lawn closer to the house and plant yellow corn, which should be ready earlier than the white he planted this year. When we get back from our road trip, he is going to use this year's corn patch to plant a winter crop of fava beans. We can eat the beans next spring, then he will plow the plants under to enrich the soil and then he wants to plant melons. Variety yet to be decided.





This is a photo of the immature corn that we picked about 10 days ago. It looked good with the kernels all well-formed, but they were tiny, with nothing to them and not sweet at all.