Garden Journal

I love lazy Sunday mornings when we feed the chickens and ducks, collect eggs, and check for any edible fruits in the garden. Our raspberry season is now over, and the gooseberries are on their last legs. We’ve already eaten most of them. The blackberries are ripening up, and I bet they will be ready in a week or two.

Sufian checks on how fat the pears have become every time he visits. I am thinking of wrapping each fruit of the pears, as many Japanese pear farmers do. I read that it will protect the fruits from insects, as well as scars from the elements. I have never seen American farmers wrapping their fruits in paper bags. In general, fruits sold in the USA are smaller and less sweet. Japanese fruit farmers tend to prune and reduce the number of fruits, so the resulting fruits (pear, apple, peaches) are larger. Anyway, I planted these pear trees last year with the hope that one day they will produce many pear fruits for the kids to enjoy.

Other Plants

Zucchini

I see the zucchini plant is getting bigger. It is one of those plants that are very hard to get started in the spring, as they do not fare well in cold climates. But once the weather gets hotter, they grow very fast. This is a lesson I need to keep reminding myself of – you don’t really need to start heat-loving plants too early. You can just start them later in the season when the weather is much warmer. Especially fast-growing plants like zucchini.

Tomato

I did not have much success with tomatoes this year as I neglected my tomato seedlings. Perhaps next year, I will set a calendar and start seedlings of different plants at the right moment. I still want to grow more tomatoes, especially mini tomatoes and a tomato species called “Old Sea Man,” which is my favorite tomato from the Caspian and Black Sea area.

Beans

So far, my provider beans are growing very well. I have also planted Romano beans from the seeds I collected last year. However, I did not see any of them in my planter, and I wonder what happened to them. The plants are meaty and have an interesting shape, and I really loved them. Perhaps I can reorder seeds from the seed producers next year.

I also saw at Finca Momota that they were growing pole beans, using string as support. I can see the benefits of pole beans as they utilize vertical space rather than horizontal space. I think the poles for the electric fencing can make quite effective seasonal fencing for the pole beans, although I wonder if the fencing may need to be taller. I would think the ideal height for the pole beans is about 6 feet.

Other Miscellaneous Plans

I found Purslane growing in the disturbed area of our front yard, in the devil’s strip area. This is where the gas contractor dug up the ground to replace gas pipes and later filled up the soil. Purslane is a very strong plant that is drought-tolerant, so it makes sense that it grows there. I am thinking I can collect and eat it for lunch sometimes.