Citrus season

The grapefruit is ripe and I pick a bag full every week to take to work. Two fruit a day for breakfast from now until April when we will harvest whatever is left and bottle the juice. Citrus is one of the great advantages to Arizona gardening. The trees are evergreen, require very little care, and produce large amounts of fruit. Water deeply and fertilize four times a year and you'll be successful. No pruning required except to keep them from leaning over the fence. Compare fresh citrus juice to the frozen stuff from the store and you might have a hard time enjoying anything but fresh from the garden ever again.

We moved a 10-year old Tangelo tree last year from the side yard to better spot where it gets more sun. This was a feat, taking four people to get it out of the hole and then slide it across the yard and roll into the new hole. We trimmed the top severely so the roots would have less to support and prayed over it, watered it nearly every day all summer, and are so excited that it made it through the first hot summer and even ripened a few fruit that escaped the pruning. We are hoping this year it grows new branches and solidifies it's presence in the yard (my wife's favorite citrus). If you are going to plant a tree, it might as well be something that will produce fruit.

The perfect season

This has been the perfect season for a winter garden. Twice a week the zucchini are ready to be picked, and broccoli is every other day with secondary growth starting  to mature on the ones we first picked. Tomatoes have been less speedy to ripen, probably because they like warmer weather to really get their metabolism going. We do have several ripe early girl tomatoes, but discovered that they are rock hard compared to summer season fruit - something we never anticipated. Flavor is strongly acidic and not as sweet but they are nearly as hard as a ripe apple. Still, a wonderful addition to dinner.

Seedlings

The stores have vegetable plants in stock now. If you want to save a few dollars go to a nursery where they have 6-packs of tomato plants, which run about 60 cents each (instead of the $3+ per plant at the big box stores). It is a bit early to be setting out tender plants like tomatoes - we could still see a frost this spring in spite of how warm its been lately. Sadly, the tomato seedlings we had raised since December met an untimely death so we bought some Roma and Early Girl tomato's from a local nursery, along with some peppers.
Onion starts are also in stock and if you use onions and haven't grown them before, give them a try. We found out these are so easy to grow and have so much enjoyed having fresh onions whenever, right there in the back  yard.

Broccoli

We have had such a wonderful winter for cool weather crops this season. The broccoli and peas are flourishing. Normally we have to wait another month or so to harvest large broccoli heads, but not this season. With weather in the mid-70's for a few weeks since Christmas the peas have been blooming and setting pods and the broccoli has been quietly growing larger. Pictured below is the largest broccoli head and a few zucchini picked today.

Heaven in January

We have preserved the tomatoes and zucchini through frost thus far this winter (fingers crossed that we can continue this luck through mid-February). Last Sunday we enjoyed braised cherry tomatoes and fried zucchini. That one meal made the entire winter garden effort worthwhile!

This is going to be a record year for peas. Our edible-pod peas are now waist high and blooming, which means we have another three months of growth. There has only been one other year we had this kind of pea crop in the last 22 years - that year they climbed over a 4-foot trellis, fell to the ground and grew back up over the trellis again. We picked our largest mixing bowl full of peas every week for about a month. The kids still talk about that year. Isn't it great to create happy memories with a garden!?

The broccoli has heads about the size of my fist, one of them about twice that, so we will soon enjoy wonderfully fresh, sweet broccoli from the garden. We love winter gardens!

Frost Warning

Frost warning this week, especially for tomorrow night. In our experience, those who live in outlying areas experience temperatures up to several degrees cooler than predicted for downtown so be prepared. We will likely not see any fruit from tomatoes (heavily set with green tomatoes), corn (still silky), or zucchini (blooming). The rest of the garden (broccoli, onions, garlic, peas, sage) will be just fine.

Fall Gardening

This is another first attempt - Brussels sprouts.

We picked one red cherry tomato yesterday. That's a first and a very welcome addition to the Phoenix gardening experience! There are lots of others coming along so we should enjoy fresh tomato salads this fall until it freezes. Our weather is still in the 50's to 80's so the plants are happy. They have completely overgrown the wire cages shown in the October post.

Zucchini plants are finally up. As you may recall from earlier posts, we had trouble with birds picking the sprouting seedlings out of the ground, followed by trouble with germination, followed by placement of a net over the area which we left until the plants were finally big enough that the birds would ignore them. They look healthy and will soon blossom, but need to hurry or the first frost may rob us of zucchini. You can also see the broccoli off to the right of the picture (Brussels sprouts in the middle, garlic in the foreground). We also have peas about six inches tall in another part of the yard. I love all the different colors of green in the garden, the miracle of how things grow and the anticipation of eating fresh food from our very own back yard. And of course the broccoli, brussels sprouts, and peas will all continue to grow through the winter even with our occasional frosts, and then when the weather warms in spring we will have sweet prolific vegetables to eat.