Mostly Naked Trees

Spring is starting to settle in here in South Texas, there is sweet evidence blooming in my yard. I realized that doing one whole blog post dedicated to the garden is a lot. I am going to do going to do a couple of different updates on the garden. Today I will show you our lovely trees, who are hoping for a wetter year than the one we had last year. Hey did you know that the only year on record that can compete with our horrible 2011 weather is back in 1787. Can you imagine how bad it is when the researchers have to look back 224 to find a simular year. We had a total of 17 inches of rain last year and 10 inches all happened in November/December timeframe. I am hoping that this summer is better. Before I start showing you the pictures of the trees I have to tell you that we lost both of our pear trees. I guess pear trees planted down here are just looking for a reason to die. On the bright side at least we found a great nursery who can and will answer our questions honestly. That is a relief!

Okay so this is next to a tree but my mint is so Happy!

This is four different kinds of apples. Each branch is a different kind. I can not wait to take a bite out of one very Delicious apple. We are picking off the flowers when the petals fall off so that the tree will focus it's energy on growing roots. So I will not get any apples until maybe next year. Roots, shoots, and then fruit.

This is a Pakistan Mulberry tree. There is a very good chance we will get a couple berries this year and a lot next year.

This naked tree is a Super Berry Black Mulberry. It is supposed to be the fastest growing tree fruit tree. We will see. This tree can live for hundreds of years. This little tree will produce food for 200 years. I guess that makes up for the $80 dollars we invested in it. Short term I can't wait to see leaves.

This a Chocolate Persimmon. It blends into the fence, leaves will make this stick look more like a tree. Oh spring I am ready for you!

Fuyu Persimmon. It is short but I have high hopes that it will grow a couple of feet this year.

This is our friendly orange tree. He says hello and stays green for me. Maybe it is because we wrap him in Christmas lights during the winter. It gets cold here for about a minute.

Pomegranate. These are new leaves. Oh yes, I am not the only one ready for spring.

Lemon Eucalyptus. She is a heavy sleeper but when she wakes up she will grow. Last year she grew 3 feet. That is how we found out this small herb was a tree.

Jujube tree. Rob says it is like a small date tree. All I know is it has thorns. 

This is one out four Olive trees.

This is two out of four Olive Trees. I hope they grow fast because right now they are barely two feet tall.

Celeste Fig. Check out that top leaf. I think it looks like a butterfly.

This is a branch off of the Brown Turkey Fig that wanted to be a tree.

This is the sister branch of the Brown Turkey Fig. It has a little frost damage but it is still strong.

This is the Orignal Brown Turkey Fig.

Finally The Pecan tree. This is the only tree that looks like a tree. It is seven feet tall and is just itching to grow. Or maybe that is me. I think this tree is going to steal the show.

Those are our fruit trees. I like to watch them grow and see the changes that they make and dream of fruit pie, sweet jellies. and bowls of homegrown fruit. We do have two oak trees and a crape mertle that are not featured. They look like trees and I don't want to give the other trees a complex.

I hope that your day is filled with Wonder, Love, and Laughter. Be well my friends.

Garden news. . . October 6

So for our weekly garden update I have lots of pictures. Some of them good, some of them okay, and maybe a few that are not. Believe it or not I am not posting all of the pictures that I took of the garden this week. I went a little crazy with all of the baby squash that we have growing. It is exciting to see something growing that we will be able to really eat and maybe we will have enough to freeze some for later meals. I hope you don't mind my excitement. We may not, will not retire here so it is encouraging to grow something in the mist of the worst drought in history, and in clay soil with nothing living in it except for ants. I have also noticed bees flying around and landing on flowers in the garden. I did not take pictures of that yet. It is nice to see the yard slowly transform from the barren landscape we bought to a garden. We still have a lot of work ahead of use in the three years we are for sure going to be here. So I hope you can join us on this journey, and that you might be encouraged to plant a vegetable garden of your own. If we can do it here, so can you where ever you are.Now for the pictures of the garden.

First up is the boys' garden bed.

 Peppers

 I spy a carrot top.

 Radishes popping up

 Jelly bean Tomato

 More radishes they are happy little plants

 Green beens I think.

 Here is a picture of their whole bed. A lot has grown since this picture.

 Now to the squash. I just love this picture.

 This is all from one plant!

 Even with so many squash growing I still love little baby squash

 Almost as much as these big squash. I might start picking them next week or so.

 Zucchini. You are lucky that I didn't post more then this picture of these lovely plants!

 Our melon patch has flowers, I hope that they will fruit for us too.

 They are creeping out into the path

 This is a female flower. The only flower that has the potential to fruit. I hope that is a baby melon.

 We had a storm roll through here and we lost one melon plant.

 We have two grapes growing on this arbor. This grape is happy, the other one is growing slower.

 This crack is in the middle of our yard. We have a lot of them hidden by the grass. It is from the drought, the deeper clay dries out and causes the ground to open up. All we can do is water, water, water. We found on next to the house. So our water bill will be going up. So we will be praying that it works. Praying for this drought to end. Praying for rain. I guess the frogs that live in these cracks are happy where they are. I would find them new homes.

 Remember the stick in the ground I claimed was a fig. Well this year it has grown branches and a few inches taller. When our grass isn't mowed for a couple of weeks it is taller then this poor tree.

 Bleeding heart amaranth and pie pumpkin plants

 Another sad looking tree, The Persimmon. Around we are growing onions. We did get on persimmon off of the tree this year. The boys shared it and loved it. You can see the vegetable garden behind the little fence. That squash looks nice from here too.

 This is a Pomegranate tree. It has grown but with the drought everything is slowly growing.

 We put this orange tree on a drip system and it just started to grow. It is still small but it is happy. After we got the snow last winter we thought it might not make it.

 This is some kind of winter squash. I let you know more when I know more. They are pretty.

 Pumpkin plant.

 Rob planted two new baby fig trees.

Now all we can do is fawn over them and water and hope.

We also planted the Gogi berry outside and it seems to be doing okay. I didn't feature our pear trees. This winter Rob is going to take out our Bartlett Pear because the fire blight is in the lower branches. It can't be saved. Really the only reason it is still there is because I wanted to give it a chance and I thought it had survived the attack. I am a hopeful soul and I always try to think of the best of everything. Also I can be a little looney and I didn't want to kill the tree. I wanted it to grow. We ordered a mulberry tree which will becoming in December, we are planning to plant another persimmon, a couple of lemon trees, and pomegranate in a hedge row along our fence line. We also want to add a nice deck where our patio is now, and more importantly a sprinkler/water system. We have big dreams and plans. We are going to try to do as much as we can before we have to sell the house. Like I said before we are guaranteed to be here another three years and we could end up here longer then that. It all depends on what the Air Force decides for us. For now this is home.

I hope that your week is filled with lovely fall colors or bright yellow squash flowers, and as always Love, and Laughter. Be well my friends