Apricot Tree

Following the advice on the label, we planted a Blenheim Royal apricot tree about four years ago. It had bitter fruit every year, and more of it each year. This week we pulled the tree out of the ground and replaced it with a Gold Kist apricot which is one of the two highly recommended varieties for our climate in the Salt River Valley. It was hard to find, and perhaps that is why we trusted the label instead of our research when we planted the Blenheim, but it cost us four years of effort. Let that be a lesson. Fruit trees take time to grow and one needs to be sure they are planting the correct variety in the correct spot in the yard.

Garden Progress

We transplanted into the garden on February 8. Photos today show that so far everything looks great!

Tomatillo

Early Girl Tomato

Emmy Tomato

Seedling Photo

Here is a picture of the tomato and tomatillo seedlings. Tomatoes were started the week after Christmas, and tomatillos about a week later. These really started growing quickly once they got some direct sun outside starting two weeks ago. The tomatoes are easily four inches tall. We moved the lights a bit higher after taking the picture.

New Seedlings for 2015

We are giving the tomato crop one more try this year, and have started two trays of early girl (with some gurney girl mixed in), as well as six each of another dozen varieties, some we have tried before and really like and others we just want to try. Emmy is one we really liked, as were the cream sausage and pink brandywine varieties. We always want to  try more varieties than we have room for. Yellow pear is another we have really enjoyed with salads. Tomatillos in the photo, as well as onion, watermelon, and cucumber. This photo is a couple of weeks old, and the tomato plants are 3 to 4 inches tall now.

New Drip System

After years of using quarter inch tubing with 2gph emitters, we are switching to in-line emitters. It seems that every time we moved a line to till or plant, tees were breaking or they would catch on something. This new line wont break, and wont get stuck on things. The only downside is the emitters cannot be cleared if they plug. Cost is the same, so we will see how things go.

Frost

It called for cold weather last night, so we harvested all the lemons and tangelos. We had so many lemons this year that three large branches broke and fell off the tree even though we had pruned back 200-300 lemons in late summer. We picked over 1500 lemons yesterday! These would all have frozen in the cold. Our outdoor thermometer read 21 degrees this morning.

It's a new season

So the fall tomato experiment was a total failure. We had lots of rain that splashed mud all over the plants, and after that, even though we washed them off and sprayed with an anti-fungal agent, the plants just seemed to hibernate. They lived until the frost came, but never thrived and we harvested only a few tomatoes. Today we ripped them up and put them in the garbage. New seedlings are planted in the growing shed and we are hoping for a better season in 2015!