Spring Break 2014

Passion fruit vines are spreading fast and so does the fennel

I have not been spending much time on the farm due to my full time + job. Most of the vegetable beds I built have been taken over by weeds. Fennel is considered a weed in my garden. It's constantly competing water and nutrients with my passion fruit and grape!  Yes, under that bushy fennel plant (see photo above), there is a Concord grape plant.  Every time I try to cut off the fennel, I accidentally cut the grape, too.  It happened again today even though I was trying to be very careful.  I ended up using a piece of tape trying to save the mostly damaged grape plant. We will see if it survives again this year.

Lots of fruit and flowers

A week ago, I noticed some partially eaten loquats on the ground. I looked up the tree, and to my surprise, it is full of baby loquats for the very first time. I don't remember exactly when this tree was planted, but it has to be at least 15 years ago. It produced very little fruits year after year, and usually the fruits would be so high up and almost impossible to reach. This time the fruits are everywhere including all the lower branches that are just within arm's reach!

Can you see all the baby loquats?

The tree is full of baby loquats for the first time

The peach tree is once again growing peaches. I spent a couple hours pulling weeds and checking out all my fruit bearing plants. The weather is starting to feel like summer.  

Baby peaches

Spring is Here

Orchids are blooming again

Last weekend when I walked into the farm, I suddenly noticed all the colorful flowers. Unlike other gardens, most of my flowers will turn into food. Many years ago, a family friend gave us a pot of orchid. We have since then separated that one pot of orchids into 3 pots. I even transplanted one pot into the ground.  For a couple years, they did not bloom. Last weekend I was surprised to see the flowers in one pot and buds in the other pot that was transplanted into the garden.  That was a big happy surprise for me!

Mizuna blossom

All the mizuna plants are almost as tall as I am, and they are in full bloom. This is what happens since I didn't eat them all. I love seeing a sea of yellow flowers with a lot of bees buzzing around them. Even though I didn't eat all the greens, the bees now can collect the pollens and make honey.  Later on the flowers will produce seeds, and next year I will have mizuna again without doing any work.

Asian pear blossom

Both the pear and peach trees are blooming. A bunch of bumble bees have joined the honey bees. Thank to their efforts, I will have a tree full of peaches again in the summer. I am really looking forward to it!

Bumble bee busy at work

Avocado Peach Smoothie

People have been telling me how tasty avocado smoothie is. It is quite popular in Vietnamese restaurants. I think it took almost 10 years for me to finally try it. It was not out of fear but simply forgetfulness. Since I started working in Oakland Chinatown in March, I have plenty of opportunities to have lunch in the surrounding restaurants. One of them is a small Vietnamese deli that sells mostly takeout orders over the counter. They also have a few small tables for people to dine in. A few days ago I had my first avocado smoothie, and it was quite good. You know I was watching the woman making it behind the counter - one avocado, crushed ice, and some condensed milk. I think those were all the ingredients.

 

Since I have plenty of ripe peaches, I have to add peaches into my smoothie. I also wanted some vanilla yogurt in it, because I like yogurt. So I put some frozen peaches, fresh peaches, one avocado, some vanilla yogurt and some half and half in the blender. The half and half is just for extra liquid so everything can start to blend together. At the end I also added some honey. The result is some creamy all natural smoothie. The only thing I'll do differently next time is to use a more ripen avocado. The bag of avocado I just picked up from Trader Joe's are all still very hard.  I will let them sit for a few days, and I am sure next batch will be even better.

Kelsey, the Fruit Protector

I was surprised to find whole ripe strawberries in my little strawberry patch that grew back from last year. I had long given up on growing strawberries due to squirrel bandits. However, this year I have Kelsey, who loves chasing after squirrels. I can now grow strawberries! I wish I had planted more this year.

I also find a lot  less partially eaten peaches on the ground this year. I am sure Kelsey has been busy chasing the squirrels away. It looks like in a few days I will need to start picking the peaches. The cherries also managed to ripe without being snatched by the squirrels. I picked all of them today and ate them right away. They were super sweet!

Summer Fruits

Cherry tree

Last July I had one cherry from the grafted part of the cherry tree. The grafted part has grown quite a bit during the past year. Currently, there are about five cherries on that part of the tree. I am so excited! I will be checking on the tree very regularly for the next few weeks and be sure to eat the cherries when they are ripe. Birds love to steal ripe shiny red cherries.

Peach tree

The peach tree is covered with baby peaches right now. It's getting heavy that I am afraid one of the biggest branches might just break off. It's already cracked at the base.  After searching through different piles of found objects on the farm, I ended up using a piece of 4x2 on top of an old garbage can to support the cracked branch.  It would surely break off if I did not hold it up with something.

The apple tree is covered with baby apples as well. Although I don't usually get to see honey bees pollinating my fruit trees, they obviously have been busy visiting all of them hence the fruits. Honey bees are growers' best friends for sure!

Apple tree

The Other Peach Tree

I got home tonight and was reminded that there were a few more peaches on the tree! The other tree! This is the second peach tree that's a lot smaller than the primary one. This tree doesn't get squirrels since it is facing the street.

I found a few fallen peaches on the ground and picked a few more before getting the ladder out. I had not watered this tree even once this year, and I still got about 15 peaches from it.

No More Peaches for the Squirrels

For the last 2 weeks, I have been eating at least 3 peaches a day. For the last 3 days, the peaches have been disappearing faster and faster. I know the squirrels have been feasting on them. At the same time, they were getting so ripe that I broke some of them just as I tried to pick them off the tree. Fresh peach juice would drip down my arm as the peach skin ripped off from the friction of being touched.

Tonight I made the decision to pick all the remaining peaches off the tree, because if I left any of them, they would just become squirrel meals. Not that I want the squirrels to starve. People have been telling me to put some kind of net barrier above the tree to keep the squirrels out. Honestly, I don't mind sharing. This year, I didn't get as many peaches though, so I decided it was time to keep the rest of peaches to myself. As you can see in the picture below, these are all the peaches left that do not have squirrel teeth marks or otherwise heavily damaged (one got slightly ripped as being pulled off).



The squirrels may feel a little disappointed as they discover all the peaches are gone but they will soon switch their focus to big fat figs. Behind the peach tree, on the other side of the fence, there is a huge fig tree. I had 2 dark purple figs last night, and they were great. That is one awesome fig tree. It belongs to my neighbor, but I will get to pick them, too.

I have a bucket of extremely ripe peaches that will become more peach cobbler this weekend.

Peach Season

I tasted a peach that fell on the ground today. They are almost ready. I never buy peaches because every summer I get a full tree of peaches. For a month, I eat peaches every day to the point that I don't want to think about peaches for the rest of the year. There are two peach trees of different varieties on the farm. The big tree grows big fuzzy soft peaches while the smaller tree in the front of the house grows fuzzless crunchy peaches.

I can see that I don't have as many peaches on the big tree as I had in previous years. I believe there are two reasons that resulted in the smaller quantity this year. I pruned the main tree a bit late. Ideally I should have pruned it back after the peaches were gone in November or December. I didn't do it until February because I didn't know how to prune fruit trees. Secondly, it rained more and longer than usual this year. Last rain was on June 8th! Even though I sprayed the trees with copper sulfate twice, the trees are more infected with leaf curl than past years. Peach leaf curl is caused by fungus (see the brown tumor looking blob on the leaf in the picture below).


Nevertheless, I will have more peaches than I can consume in one month. Birds and squirrel will get their shares, and there will be peach cobblers and peach pies.