We are very lazy gardeners. We plant a few things, water them occasionally and then harvest whatever survives our indifference. This year, it was worse than usual because we planted things and then left on vacation. Today I gathered a nice bowl of tomatoes (red Early Girl and San Francisco Fog, as well as orange baby tomatoes) and cleared out the dried up sugar snap pea vines, as well as the yellow zucchini plants which have stopped producing. Our herbs are doing okay, and we have one pumpkin that's reached about six inches in diameter. The biggest surprise this year is a bumper crop of red onions!
We've never planted onions before, and I gathered a few today to practice my sketching. These two sketches were done with black ink and water color pencils.
We also have a variety of fruit trees. The plum tree was a good producer this year, and the apples are coming along (we have two apple trees). I haven't noticed any pears on either of the pear trees, but they bore a lot of fruit last year, and they tend to only bear heavily every other year. Our Meyer Lemon tree has been a great producer for almost fifteen years.
We have a few consistent perennials (lavender, hydrangeas, rhododendrons, surprise lilys and jasmine) and a variety of annuals which go in and out.
That's the report from our garden. What's up with yours?
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15 comments:
Our theory towards gardening is that if it survives it is worth keeping. This takes into account our climate and lack of water along with our skills!
Our garden is a bit sad right now, it's been dreadfully neglected through the renovation, we are just starting to work out our plan of attack - one that requires the least amount of upkeep!
I'd love to have the climate to grow lemons in! Sadly the weather this year doesn't seem to have been good for fruit....the apple trees have a fair few....but the plums and cherries are not happy at all.
We have a plum tree in the garden but never get to eat them as they are always full of plum moth grubs. A plum moth trap is so expensive that it is not worth buying so we look at the pretty flowers, admire the fruit and them curse as we clear up the mess of the fallen fruit.
Love how your sketching and painting is developing.
My "garden" is 18 feet by 15 feet and there is nothing green below chicken head height. I have three rescue chickens who have eaten all the weeds and all the Fuchsia plants and neatly trimmed off the Virginia Creeper and the Wisteria Sinensis. When I stop keeping chickens the garden will explode into greenness after all that nitrogen filled chicken poop. I'll take pictures
those sketches are good. Our garden looks nice and full at the moment with all the rain we've had this year x
Hi Rinda ~ First of all, I LOVE that you sketched your crop to share with us rather than photographing it. SO Rinda and I love that.
Our tomato plants didn't survive the heat so those have been cleared out. Sunflowers are on their way out too - they are all bending downward with the exception of one stalk that hasn't bloomed yet and stands taller than Doug! Basil is doing well but something is busy eating little holes on every leaf. We have two blood orange trees that were almost dead when we bought the house a year ago, but we are going to have a bumper crop this fall. They are covered with little green fruit. Yay!
That sounds like a good harvest to me. Our garden has produced nothing really worth talking about this year. It has been too wet. But on the plus side, the rain has brought us a frog. Never had a frog in our garden before
The weather has not been kind to our garden this year. About the only thing surviving is the wave petunias! Your vegetables drawings are beautiful.
delightful drawings from your neglected garden. love that food comes to you cared for or not.
many years now since I've vegetable gardened. that was a passion at one time.
my fruit tree is fruiting right now, but we had it cut back last year and I need a chair to reach what I can reach, and the rest will go to the birds.
the figs are delicious.
peaches have come and gone and we were on vacation for most of that so the neighbors got the harvest.
red trumpet vine is in bloom. waiting for purple sage.
Mexican primroses down to just a few, honey suckle too.
one lone holly hock or is it two?
think I'll go draw some figs, you have inspired me to.
we have a lemon tree but that's it. i would love to have home-grown tomatoes - yum! your onions look fun to sketch/paint with all their lines and pretty colors.
I've had cherries(birds got THEM) and apricots (wasps got most of THEM)my little orange tree LOOKS great, but has no oranges this year:<
Glad you garden survived Rinda
Alison xx
Great Drawings. We harvested our little Red potatoes today and picked lots of green beans and a few cherry tomatoes. our big ones are still green yet. I should have drawn the potatoes as I pulled them up roots and all. I did photograph it tho. :)
We planted nothing this year and I'm glad, I don't think anything would have gotten the needed attention. Have missed seeing your sketches, thanks for sharing these!
I garden has taken a big hit this year. May have something to do with the lack of water and beautifully, hot summer days. I think we are mostly growing Jack Rabbits. They keep they show up various times of the day to eat anything green and even now they are not beneath eating the dead weeds from our yard. If there can be a bonus in all this I'd have to say it is all the little rabbit droppings left behind. Do you think that'll help with fertilizing the ground? :)
Unfortunately as our trees grew our veg garden got smaller and smaller till we finally had to change it into a shade garden so no home grown veg anymore here. I do so miss the home grown tomatoes, nothing else tastes anywhere near as good. Our apple trees haven't done well this year because of the very early spring temperatures followed by some hard freezes but hopefully they'll be back in all their glory next year.
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