A dramatic sky.
The sculptural remains of a logged and burned eucalyptus tree.
A blade of grass growing from under the bark of a pine stump.
Category: plants
Boo!
Unplanted flowers
If you look closely at the second, you might spot a volunteer tomato plant in the box, which I originally built for worms. Turns out they thrive just as well, with no attention, in the ”compost” barrel which never gets hot enough to actually compost anything.
Around the garden
Posting about the squash plants yesterday inspired me to survey the area in which I plan to plant them.
Surprise!
They’re already growing there! And the more you look, the more you see.
Here’s a nearby clump in the shade of one of the little orange trees.
Nearby, under the pine tree, a pigeon egg met its demise in yesterday’s very strong winds. Note the epiphyte as well.
My squash garden
Some time ago, after preparing a calabacín (here butternut squash, not zucchini) for dinner, I took the “guts” with the seeds, threw them in some dirt in a flower pot, and said dare you to grow!
They took up the dare, and before too long I found myself having to replant 35 seedlings.
Of the five or six I planted alongside the house, only one appears to have survived.
And I notice we have a volunteer avocado tree there as well, which needs a better location.
A few months ago, when we had avocados daily, I tried starting quite a few of the seeds. None took. So here’s one apparently spilled out of the “compost” barrel (which never gets hot enough to actually compost anything), thriving.
This is why I don’t take gardening too seriously. If things want to grow, they grow. If I want them to grow, well, maybe. Still: time to get those babies into the ground!
The little things: baby paltas
Baby avocados: the beginning of our third harvest.
Baby orange — first time from tree #1:
Baby oranges — first time from tree#2.
This is what our avocado trees looked like in August 2015:
Note the large pine tree in the background to the right. It’s still there now:
The two little orange trees are front right. I had to transplant them from the country because wind and hard soil there were just too much. It’s taken them a long time to get comfortable here. Very cool to see fruit starting to form!
The clothes line
Friends did a lot of clearing in the overgrown yard of the house they’re renting here.
One long piece of wood that was perfect for their clothesline …
…decided to start growing again.
Yellow flower season
Well, that’s what Syd called it. Season? Maybe a couple weeks? Couple days? But lots of bunches of yellow flowers in the sandy scrubland where we walk with dogs almost daily. A few weeks ago it was purple flowers on ground-hugging succulents, but they’re past now. And I didn’t take a picture.
For some reason, I expect it would benefit me — or at least be interesting — to pay more attention.
Half a lemon times two
Some people consult the Farmer’s Almanac and moon phases for best times to prune trees. I don’t.
For me, there are two “best times“ to prune a tree: 2) when I feel like it, and 1) when the wife tells me to do it, as she did today.
So, log-handled loppers in hand, directed by her, squinting into the sun, I lopped off the biggest branch first. As it fell, so did a lemon. But when I picked it up, I found half a lemon — seriously, almost exactly half a lemon, neatly sliced lengthwise.
Where was the other half? You guessed it: still attached to a branch overhead.
What are the chances of perfectly cutting in half a lemon you didn’t even see?
Well — maybe greater than one would expect with a tree that seems to be trying to communicate with us.
Treework
Amazing to watch tree workers in action. Yesterday (yes, Sunday) involved removing all the lower branches from pine trees at the house of friends.
Quite a show.
His brother removing an acacia that was leaning over the roof. Not a bit fell onto the roof in the process.
An old stump five meters high had a non-functioning light fixture on it. That was removed, stump cut down, and birds flew in to feast on the ants inside, mostly oblivious to me standing two meters away.
And another surprise: look at how the rings grew on that angled limb in the first two pictures!
I find it quite amazing that none of these trees has come down in severe windstorms during the six years the owners have been gone, but it seems much less likely now. And, a lot fewer pine needles to clear off the roof.
