This morning’s view out the backyard window. The California Lilacs (purple!) are out of control. Mandarin in the foreground. Elderberry to the far left.
Orchard
A successful section of our vegetative fence line screen. Elderberry (Sambucus mexicana), California Lilac (Ceanothus), and a Mandarin tree. A few years in the making.
Our apricot had its first bloom today. A few weeks ahead last year. This tree has rarely yielded fruit. 🤞🌳
Our cherry tree had its first bloom today.
2020 Spring: Blooms to Come
2/28/20
Here in the Northern Sacramento Valley of California, the blooming seems to be happening all at once with the unusually dry and warm late winter.
Apricot is about to start blooming:
The cherry will be blooming soon too:
Western Red Bud (Cercis occidentalis) is about to bloom:
California lilacs (Ceanothus ) “Ray Hartman” are about to bloom:
We love this red curry paste. Fortify it with fresh lemon grass! 🌶🌶🌶🥵
Glad I’m not below that cherry picker.
Our cherry tree’s super close **together** buds are opening up! Soon flower buds will rapidly drop on stems, bloom, and then by late May... ripe cherries! If the birds don’t get them first.
The dull spectacle of me trying to figure out the kitchen sink’s plumbing. My iPhone is a handy remote eye, well suited for dark, tight spaces.
Progress. Nectarine is growing!
Hard to oppose California’s almond bloom! ❤️ Our apricot will bloom mid March and the cherry late March (but it’s nearly girdled by boring beetles).
One of two Valencia oranges from the backyard tree 😋
Mid-February 2020 Update: Home Orchard and Native Plants
2/14/20
It has been 19 days since it last rained here. The outdoor temperatures have been in the mid-70s. The area’s almond orchards are blooming in waves about a week earlier than last year.
Our deciduous plants are waking up! We planted a nectarine this winter and it is beginning to grow. Our California Roses, which are in the same family as nectarines — Rosaceae — are also beginning to grow back. The elderberries are starting to fill out and the Ceanothuses are a few weeks away from flowering. The Manzanitas are already flowering white and pink lanterns. We’re still harvesting mandarins and they are very sweet now. There are two Valencia oranges on the verge of being ripe enough.
Sweet mandarins reflecting a whole lot of red showing just how ripe they are. Picked last Saturday to share at work. They were gone shortly after lunch.
No sight distance through the evergreen toyon. It’s very happy. So is our manzanita — getting ready to flower. 🐝🌳
My attempt at an open vase pruned apricot tree 🌳 📷
Backyard Relaxation
1/31/20
Relaxing can mean accomplishing things. The backyard always offers things to accomplish! Accomplishing things makes me feel good.
Today I:
- braved a ladder and pruned the apricot
- cut up pieces of bug ridden wood for disposal (remnant of last occupant of the property that used untreated non-cedar wood for planters)
- weeded to avoid herbicide
- found a Chorus frog!
- turned the entire compost pile
Here’s the Chorus frog (Pseudacris) I discovered:
Tree Chilling Hours and a Bad Bug
1/26/20
We’re around 770 chilling hours this season — almost 100 more than last year at this time. We hope this means we get a good crop off our ~800 chilll hour apricot (it was our first fruit tree and we had no concept of chill hours; with the usual climate and especially with climate change we’re now focusing on <500 chill hour trees). I put compost around the new nectarine, the new asparagus bed, and on the edible garden in advance of last night's rain; the clay loam soil needs some organic matter. We got 0.5 inches of rain last night. Meanwhile, here is a photo of the larval form of a beetle eating our poor cherry tree’s sap wood. It was a few centimeters long. Reminds me of Star Trek: Wrath of Khan.
The beetles really tore up our Lapins cherry tree this last year. It is almost girdled. If we’re lucky maybe one more season of fruit.
Yesterday’s planted nectarine began life here in a rather peculiar way:
Our 2-year old plum died so now we’re trying a “Fantasia” nectarine. 400-500 chill hours is doable here.
We’re trying to propagate lemon grass after dividing canes from our outdoor plant (hope it overwinters). The centers of the canes have popped up — thinking this means positive water pressure and that may mean the canes are taking in water so this may work.
Our Mandarin tree 🌳 is ready for as-needed harvest!
Unearthed and powered up a Raspberry Pi 3. Took a bit of time to remember how I configured it for HomeBridge. Upgrading to Debian Stretch for the heck of it.
Dancy Mandarins are so very close to perfect ripeness. Need to blush a bit more toward red.
- Valencia sloooowly ripening & 2) mandarins rapidly coloring but still a month out from peak sweetness
One more month until these mandarins are perfectly sweet. Patience!
Tree says “It's not fall, but spring!”, Other Tree says “FALL!”
11/6/19
The Lapins Cherry has some confused or mutated buds. It’s probably nothing to worry about. The dormant appearing plum tree, however, did not look well so I checked if it was alive. There’s still some green in a cutting so… I suppose it’s still alive. I needed to prune that branch anyway.
We’re starting to get some color on our Mandarins. These should be perfectly sweet by end of December 🌳
This “Beauty” Japanese plum has been quite temperamental. No idea if it should be defoliated by now - happened last year too. Too much water? Sensitive to daylight time? 🤷♂️🌳
