Landscape projects

My friend Darlene came over yesterday to help me in the garden. With the unseasonal rains we had last week it was the perfect time to weed and start planting the new landscape. We weeded for a couple hours took a break then started planting. The first item in the ground was my Reed Avocado that Tina and Andy gave me.

Next we planted the sour orange. We were on a roll!



After that, we put in the agapanthas, salvia, day lilies, scented geraniums, flag iris and heliotrope, all drought tolerant, just outside the corner windows in the dining room. It will make a pretty display when they take hold.



Time for another break...next I dug out 4 bottle brush plants (hate them things!) and a small fan palm. Darlene likes the bottle brush so in her car they went, soil and all. In their stead I'm planting pink and purple flag iris. The bottle brush were near my Panachee fig outside my kitchen so I think it will be pretty in the spring, iris surrounding my favorite fig.

Next we planted the bare-root flag iris rhizomes I had in the garage, maybe 75-100 of them! We dispersed them randomly across the front hill. Again, come Spring, it will be beautiful. After that, we planted a Paradiso fig by the seasonal stream and 3 pomegranates across the top of the hill along the roadside for a little privacy.

Yes, I'm exhausted and can feel every muscle in my body and not in a good way...where's the advil?

By now it's close to 5:00, time to stop, pour a glass of wine and watch the sunset. Yep, another spectacular evening show.

I fixed a nice spaghetti dinner with Italian sausage and parmesian reggiano, warmed some rosemary/olive oil bread and poured a good Sangiovese wine from Orfila winery. Not too bad a way to end a very productive  day!

Cookies

Last night I made chocolate chip cookies with pecans and walnuts for the first time in many, many, many years. I think I was in high school or college the last time I made any.

I was anxious to try out my new mixer and it worked great. The cookies did get a bit over cooked though. The directions were to bake at 375 for 10-12 min. I put them in for 10 min and they looked done so I took them out. I didn't really notice they had started to scorch on the bottom as they looked good on top. The final batch was baking when I tried one that had cooled. They are edible but I sure wouldn't offer them to anyone. So now I need to get a thermometer to check the actual temp of the stove. I'm going to bake a second batch tonight and check them at 8 min. Maybe I should change the temp to 325 and cook for 10 min? This time I'm using butterscotch chips with pecans and walnuts. Yum!

Rainy weekend

This past weekend I was over at my folks to help out as Mom is still not on her feet after surgery. On Saturday I tore down her sewing machine/surger table and reassembled it into the spare bedroom. Whew! That was a job. I also vacuumed and dusted her room, moved the day bed under the far window and generally tidied up.

On Sunday I pulled a few weeds at my place while waiting for a 1/2 cord of oak firewood to be delivered. Wow! I didn't realize how much a 1/2 cord was...I think I'm good for the winter. ;-) In the afternoon I went back to the folks home to tidy up the rest of the house; vacuum, mop and dust. I also made a potato-leek soup for mom for the next few days. I should not have added the oregano. It overwhelmed the leek and thyme flavors. Last week's soup was better without it.

When I got home my neighbor Matt, the cabinet maker, came over with samples of my kitchen cabinetry. The kitchen was never finished off at the base and he mentioned he had the materials to do so. He brought samples of a railing that can be installed under the cabinets to hide under-cabinet lighting and molding across the top of the cabinets as well. The molding were only 1 1/2"-2" and too short for what I want. I'm thinking they need at least a 5" cap due to the height of the ceilings and cabinets.  He's going to bring over his catalog of moldings. He warned me they were EXPENSIVE...how expensive could the be? Stay tuned...I'll post when I find out.

I settled into watching Dexter at 6pm but the sunset was so spectacular I had to go outside to watch and photograph. The second image is a bit later in the evening. Wow! It sure was pretty. :-) I taped Dexter but he's on several times during the week so no biggie.

My new Kitchenaid heavy-duty stand mixer arrived last week. It's RED! I'm anxious to try it out. I'm going to stop at the store tonight and get makings for chocolate chip cookies. I'm adding pecans and walnuts, maybe cranberry too. Mom and Dad will like a little taste treat...I'll leave the cranberries out of Dad's...he's so fussy.

Oct 22, 2010 sunset

An image of last night's sunset was hard to capture on my camera. With the dark and heavy rain clouds just above the horizon the sun had but a few moments of drama before setting. The momentary deep lava-red glow of the sunset was stunning. My camera just didn't capture it in all its glory.

More fruit trees

With the rains we just had, the soil will be ready to till in a couple of days as it starts to dry out. I'm getting the bug to get the soil amended readying it for fall planting. In addition to the citrus I mentioned in my last post, as most know I have an unusually large collection of figs. I have over 90 varieties and multiples of most. Not all of these will go into the ground but I do have a list of 30-35 must have varieties to plant. The hillside I am on will need to be terraced and irrigation installed. I'm hoping my neighbors are willing to help me out with this task as they have the heavy equipment for a job this big.

With the number of figs I have planning a permanent layout is important. Do I plant the figs by color of syconium (fruit's skin), by the country they are from, by height of a mature tree; larger on the north side of the row, dwarf on the south, or how? I’m leaning towards a hybrid of country/height for my plantings. All my Portuguese trees in one row the tallest if known on the north end. I have Italian, French, American hybrids, Spanish and Middle Eastern (combining Syrian, Turkish, Iranian in one row) figs as well. This will be a fun adventure planting my own private germplasm!

Other fruit trees I want to get include a loquat, apricot, anna apple, maybe a peach and another avocado, mexicola, hass or bacon. I also want to get a few unusual plants like an allspice, coffee and kaffer lime.

Then on to the flowers. I've already planted over 100 German iris. I want lots of drought tolerent but flowering plants on the front hill. I'm thinking Pride of Madeira, Day lilies in yellow, agapanthas, honeysuckle, star jasmine,  pink babies breath, Aust tea tree in pink or red, etc. Lots of garden dreams on a drizzly day!

A Sua Casa

It has been raining this week. It is unusual in that this is the season for hot Santa Anna winds to blow in from the desert. Instead we received 3" of much needed rain. Yes the climate is changing due in part to El Nina. It has been predicted by the weather forecasters to be a drier year that last. It's not starting out that way!

I wasn't sure I wanted to get into blogging because I just don't have that much news to pass on. I think I will use this blog to post daily views of the sunset from my home and/or any other interesting happenings around my little hobby farm. Today's image is from a few days ago when we got over 2500+ lightening strikes. This is a rain cloud passing between my home and the view of Mt. Woodsen around 10 miles away. It was a beautiful day.



I was talking to my mom the other day when the subject of finding a good linguica came up. I haven't found one to my liking so I thought to try my hand at making it. Mom mentioned grandma used to make her own and used sour oranges to marinate the pork before stuffing into the casings and smoking. I thought she meant any orange that wasn't quite ripe and therefore would be sour. Nope, there actually are sour orange trees whose fruit never sweetens. This orange is what is used to make marmalade! I never knew that. So the hunt for a sour orange tree was on.

I started my search on the internet finding only descriptions of a sour orange and that the Seville was the most popular variety. I put out a request for help in finding one, since the Net let me down, to the Citrus forum on Gardenweb. One reply did come listing a nursery that had several varieties of dwarf rootstock. I was ready to order one when another post came thru to check Weidman Nursery in Encinitas. I called them, no luck but they said to try Clausen’s in Vista. Again no luck but Clausen's turned me on to Atkins in Fallbrook. Guess what! They had one 5-gal Seville left. I took a long lunch that day and headed to Fallbrook and picked it up. So now, I have my first citrus tree to plant this weekend. I plan on getting 2 more oranges, a Naval and Valencia, 2-3 lemons, Eureka, Meyers and/or a Lisbon, at least 1 lime and maybe a tangerine. No grapefruit for this gal!

One should learn something new every day and I did. Sour oranges do exist. ;-)