Dallas Fruit and Vegetable Grower

Edible Landscape at Taos Hotel

 

On our way out to Colorado this summer, we stayed at a very nice hotel in Taos called the El Monte Sagrado Hotel.

The grounds of this hotel are beautifully landscaped.  As an added bonus, the grounds contain an edible landscape of fruiting trees. 

 

 

As you walk on  the paths throughout the grounds, you see a lovely landscape of native plants.

 

 But as you closely approach the various trees scattered throughout the grounds, you notice that they are all edible fruit trees.

 

 

Several varieties of apple trees were filled with nicely shaped apples

 

There were also a number of pear trees that had not been thinned and were overwhelmed with small pears.

 

 

 

In the photo below, you can see a nicely shaped Russian Olive that had small, immature fruit on it.

 

 

 

There were several small trees with dainty red, cherry-like berries on them.  I am not entirely sure what these were; however, I strongly suspect that they are Juneberries, also known as saskatoons.  It was too late in the year for them to be cherries.

 

 

 

 

There were also one or two peach trees that were also filled with fruit.

 

 

I was impressed with how well taken care of all the trees were.  There was no sign of pest or leaf damage on any of the trees.  The fruit was also in beautiful condition.  

Onions in 2012

We had a really successful onion harvest this year.

The photograph above is of half of our crop curing after we had harvested them.

In total, we had approximately 90 onion bulbs.  Most of them are 11 to 12 inches in diameter -- the size of a softball.

I planted seeds in October of 2011, and those onions were ready to harvest in June.  However, despite our mild winter, the bulbs were fairly small and the germination rate was very low.

I also planted a 5' x 16' bed in January with onion starts from the nursery.  These starts did great and were the source of our harvest of oversized onions.

This was my most successful year, yet.  Last year was also very good, but my onions were significantly larger this year.   I am not certain what to attribute this success too, but I will venture a guess anyway.  If I had to bet, I would attribute the success to the fact that: I continue to build the fertility of our soil, I provided ample moisture as the plants matured, the plants had lots of sunlight, and there were no really hard freezes during the spring.

Here is a photograph of the onion bed in late March:

I harvested the onions in early May and let them cure on my covered patio for 2 or 3 weeks.  I could not let them cure in the beds because we were having a lot of rain.

Here is nice article on growing onions in Texas: Softball Sized Onions.

On another note, my garlic bed was a total failure this year.  I did not get the bed planted until January, and it was just too late . . . a complete failure.  I should have gotten the beds prepared and planted in October or November.

June Harvest From The Vegetable Garden

 

June was a very productive month for our garden.  We had good  production from our plum trees, blackberry bushes, peach trees, and tomato plants.

I am particularly proud of our tomato harvest this year.

My favorite fruit or vegetable to grow is the tomato.  In my mind, nothing tastes better than a sun ripened fresh tomato sliced and seasoned with a bit of salt or in a BLT sandwich.  The taste has the biggest payoff versus store tomatoes bought because most store bought tomatoes cannot compete in taste or, if you buy expensive heirlooms at Whole Foods, they aren't always in the best shape after shipping.

But I have struggled the last three years growing tomatoes.  Either the varmits got to them before I did, the plants were stunted, or the plants just did not produce much fruit.

That changed this year.  We had so many tomatoes this year that I didn't know what to do with them all.   I think that I can attribute this year's success to a few factors.  First, I got the seedlings in the ground very early in the Spring.   (I did not have time this winter to grow tomatoes from seed so I had to buy seedlings from the nursery).  Second, I think I am finally, really building up my soil quality.  Last winter, I added a significant amount of homemade vermicompost to particular areas of the tomato beds, and I saw much better production from the plants where the heaviest amount of vermicompost had been added.  Third, I irrigated a lot more this year.  Last year, I used small drip hoses to irrigate the tomatoes, but I transitioned back to pop-up sprayers this year.  The pop-up sprayers put out a lot more water, and I think this was a signficant aid to the plants.  The drip hoses just were not putting out enough water over a consistent area.  (For my Fall tomatoes, I am going to use individual mini-spray heads for each plant to try and reduce the amount of spray that gets on the foliage and, consequently, late season blight or wilt.)  Fourth, our plum and peach trees were ripening throughout June, and the varmits targetted the fruit instead of our tomatoes.  Finally, I planted several hybrid varieties that really produced well for me.  SuperFantastic produced a great number of huge beautiful, perfect, tasty tomatoes.  I will be growing SuperFantastic again to see if I can repeat my success.  I also had good success with Green Zebra, but I do not prefer the taste of Green Zebra and will not be growing it again.  Maybe if I fried green tomatoes more often, I would have a greater appreciation for this variety.

Here are a few more photos of our vegetable garden in June:

 

In the bed above, we have zuchini, buttercup squash, and cucumbers growing.

 

 

In the bed on the left, you can see our Swiss Chard, butternut squash, and sweet corn growing.  On the right is a bed with eggplant and tomatoes.  The two trees in the background are peach trees.

 

 

In the bed on the right, we have okra growing in the foreground and artichokes behind them.  I also have watermelon seedlings beginng to sprout in this bed along with some beets still left over from the winter.  On the left, you can see several of our cucumber cages.  The trees in the background are fig trees.

 

Here is a close-up of the artichoke flower heads.

 

Plums in 2012

It has been an incredibly busy few months which is why I have not been posting very much.  Nevertheless, a lot is going on in our suburban garden and orchard.

We had a huge crop of plums in 2012.

Our biggest producer was the Morris plum, but we also received fruit from our Allred, Santa Rosa, and Bruce plum trees.

The Allred was the first to ripen and produced ripe red fruit  (which  are pictured above)  from approximately May 1st through May 15th.  Our Allred is still a fairly small, young tree.  It produced exceptionally small fruit this year.  The fruit went relatively untouched by the birds because the red leaves of the tree hid the ripening fruit from sight.

The Morris, Santa Rosa, and Bruce ripened approximately two or three weeks after the Allred and essentially ripened at the same time -- from approximately May 20th through June 10th.  The fact that they are ripening at the same time is a bit disappointing to me in that I had hoped to stagger out ripening times to avoid an onslaught of an individual fruit and extend the fresh eating time for each fruit.

The Morris and Allred were planted in 2009 while the Santa Rosa and Bruce were planted in 2010.   The difference in one year has been dramatic, and is even more pronounced because the Morris and Allred were larger trees at planting time.

Prior to this year, I think I may have had a handful of plums on both the Allred and Morris.  When I say a handful, I mean 10 to 20 all of which were devoured by birds, squirrels, possums, etc.

Earlier this year, I posted photos of the Morris in bloom, and it was loaded with blooms:

 

 

 

 

As the Spring progressed into Summer, the Morris became burdened with ripening fruit.  The tree branches which wanted to shoot straight toward the sky like a water-spout became bent and lowered as they were burdened by the weight of the ripening fruit.

 

We harvested a huge amount of fruit over four weekends.  I didn't keep count, but there might have been anywhere from 200 to 400 fruit that we actually harvested.  There was significantly more that was composted or discarded because the squirrels and birds had gotten to them first.

We ate the majority of the fruit fresh and gave away plenty more to good friends.  The rest was made into plum preserves.  Some we just did not get to eat or preserve in time because it was such a large deluge of fruit in a short period of time.

Next year, if I can get prepared, I wouldn't mind trying to make some plum liquour or plum wine.

Additionally, I plan on taking additional steps next year to increase the size of the fruit.  Because we had never gotten a crop of any size in the past, I did not bother to thin the blooms this Spring.  Consequently, we had too many blossoms that turned into fruit which taxed the tree and resulted in smaller fruit.  Next Spring, I will think the blossoms more diligently.

I think I will also prune the tree a little more aggressively this winter.  I will have to read up on pruning plum trees, but I think that pruning more of the smaller branches may help reduce the number of fruit and increase fruit size.  I also want to prune the canopy to keep it lower than 12 feet.  The Morris is now close to 15 or 17 feet.  It was a challenge harvesting all of the fruit with only a 10 foot ladder.

I thought the Morris, Santa Rosa, and Bruce were comparable in taste.  Possibly, the Santa Rosa and Bruce were incrementally superior in taste.  These three varieties were clearly superior in taste to the Allred, in my humble opinion, but I could have been prejudiced by the significantly smaller size of the Allred. 

In going back to an earlier post, here is what I had written about these varieties based upon what others had written on them:

Morris:    A reddish-black skinned, medium-large sized plum with red flesh.  It ripens early, and its flesh is firm, somewhat dry, and crisp with good flavor.  It is a large tree that requires 800 chilling hours and a pollinator. 

Santa Rosa:    Reddish purple skinned, very large plum with reddish/pink flesh.  It ripens mid-season, and its flesh is fine-textured and aromatic and has a very good flavor.  It is partly self-fertile and only requires about 300 chilling hours.  It is a large tree that was introduced by Luther Burbank.

Bruce:    A red skinned, large sized plum with yellow flesh.  It ripens very early, and has good taste.  A medium sized tree that requires a pollinator.  Introduced in Texas, and it is believed to be a cross between Abundance and Excelsior.

Allred:    A red skinned, small plum with red flesh.  It ripens early, and its flesh is sweet-tart that is better for processing.  Its leaves are red making it an unusual and nice ornamental selection.  A medium sized tree that was introduced by Wolf Nursery in Stephenville, Texas.

We are also growing a Toka plum, a Shiro plum, a Cambridge Gage, and a Reine Claude Doree; however, these trees are still very immature.

Here is what has been written about those varieties:

Cambridge Gage:    A green skinned, medium sized plum with greenish yellow flesh.  It ripens in late mid-season with dense, firm flesh and that rich gage flavor.  It is a medium/compact sized tree and partly self-fertile.

Reine Claude (Green Gage):    A green to golden yellow skinned medium-large plum with greenish-yellow flesh.  It ripens mid-season with a richness of texture and flavor and an abundance of juice and aroma.  Considered unsurpassed.  A small to medium sized tree that can be delicate and vulnerable to sunscald.

Shiro:    Bright yellow skinned, medium sized plum with light yellow flesh.  It ripens very early and has a pleasant taste.  Juicy, somewhat melting, sweet and mild flesh.  Medium to large sized tree that can be susceptible to brown rot.  Pollinate with a japanese type plum.  Developed by Luther Burbank.

Toka:    Blue-black skinned, large sized plum with amber flesh.  It ripens late with a mild and medium sweet flavor.  It is a medium to large sized tree that is slightly susceptible to brown rot.

 

Vegetable Garden Photos - Late March

 

Here are a few photographs of our vegetable garden in early spring.  In the foreground above is our Swiss Chard.  In the second and fourth large beds to the left, we are growing tomatoes, eggplant, and peppers that are still very immature.  In the third large bed to the left, we have sweet yellow and red onions growing.   On the right side of this shot are our herb beds.

 

 

In this photograph, you can see our cilantro that wants to go to seed because of our unseasonably warm spring weather, along with immature fennel, dill and parsley.  You can also see one of our artichoke plants on the right, and our asparagus plants that look mature even this early in the year.  We have cucumbers and squash growing in the middle bed with the support towers.

 

 

 

This photograph shows our sweet yellow and red onions that were planted from starts.  They look to be doing well.

 

Our spring vegetable garden also has some color from the earlier blooming perennials that surround the garden.

 

 

Here is a vew looking west.  The vegetable garden is bordered by pear, peach, pluot, cherry, fig, jostaberry, gooseberry, wolf berry, honeyberry, pineapple guava, huckleberry, and kiwi bushes and trees.

Fauna in the Garden

I have not seen any black swallowtail butterflies flying in our garden this year, but it is evident that they have been visiting.  I noticed today that our fennel plants are getting chomped on by three enormous swallowtail caterpillars.  It the wasps don't get them first, these caterpillars should go into their cocoons in another week or two.

Our two passion vines are really doing much better this year and are starting to get more mature.  In fact, we are getting some nice blooms.

 

I was thinking to myself this morning that the passion vines are doing so well that we should expect some gulf fritillary caterpillars and butterflies in the near future.  Within forty-five minutes of having that thought, this little gulf fritillary butterfly started flying all around the vegetable garden and visiting our culinary sage that is blooming like crazy.

 

 

Our asparagus plants are full sized already and are filled with tiny, dainty greenish-yellow flowers that are really attracting the bees.  The flowers are so small that I would not think that a bee could get much pollen out of them; however, they are plentiful.

The bees working on these flowers this morning appeared unusual to me.  In particular, they all had these bulbous orange sack-looking things on their back legs.  The orange bulbs were different for each individual bee.  Some were larger than others.  Here are a few photographs of different bees in which you can see these sacks.  As you can see, the sack is much more pronounced in the second photograph.  It almost looks like a tiny little orange balloon attached to the leg.

 

 

In doing some looking on the internet, it appears that these bees are just normal bumble bees, genus Bombus, and the orange bulbous looking bags on their hind legs are "loads of pollen and nectar that they pack into their 'pollen baskets.'"  

http://en.allexperts.com/q/Entomology-Study-Bugs-665/2008/6/Multi-coloured-bees.htm

This pollen basket is also called a corbicula.   It is a "polished concavity" surrounded by hairs, into which the pollen is placed.  The pollen is "combed, pressed, compacted, and transferred to the corbicula . . . ."  A single hair secures the pollen load.  Wikipedia (citing Cedric Gillott, Entomology, Springer, 1995; 798 pages; pg. 79; Dorothy Hodges, The Pollen Loads of the Honeybee, published by Bee Research Association Limited, 1952).

I have been watching bees and insects pretty closely in the garden for at least the last fifteen years or so, and I have never noticed this before.  I am very surprised that I hadn't.  I wonder if it is the particularly light colored pollen that they are collecting from the asparagus that made the pollen basket appear so striking this morning.  Or maybe some of these bees were being overly industrious in filling up their pollen baskets to the point of looking like they were going to explode, that made them more noticeable today as opposed to other days.  I am definitely going to keep my eye out in the future to see if I notice these little pollen baskets on other bees in the garden from here on out.

Apple blossoms

Our apple trees are finally starting to bloom.  Our peaches, plums, apricots, and hybrids have already finished blooming.

Our Anna apple is in full bloom and really has a lot of blooms in comparison to years past and given that it is only three years old.  Our Granny Smith is also starting to bloom, but it does not have anywhere near the number of blooms as the Anna.  Our Newtown Pippin similarly starting to bloom, but I will not allow these blooms to fruit given that the tree is only one year old.  I want the Newtown Pippin to direct its energy to building its root system and branch structure - not fruit.

The remainder of our apple trees have not yet started blooming.

The photograph below is the Anna.  I had a hard time exposing this photograph so you could clearly see the blooms.  Given the background in this photograph, they are difficult to see.

 

Spring Vegetable Garden

Our late winter / early spring vegetable garden has been a little hit or miss.  However, our asparagus is definitely a hit.  This is the third year since I planted our asparagus crowns and they are going bonkers.  This is on target with what the "experts" say; expect your first truly big crop in the third spring.

I left the asparagus unattended for a couple of days, and some of the spears were already too mature to harvest.  These spears are really stout . . . about as wide as a big toe!  And so sweet.  They have so much sugar content that I like to eat them raw.  Our 8 year old daughter even likes them, and she is pretty discerning.  I definitely include asparagus in the category of foods that definitely rewards growing food at home.

The other vegetables that have done well are our perennial artichoke plants.  Over the winter, I moved seven artichoke plants from a flower bed with fairly anemic soil into two of our raised beds.  It is unbelievable how big these plants have gotten in a few short months.  One reason is because we did not have a killing freeze this winter, so the plants did not go dormant.  Additionally, I think the plants have enjoyed the raised bed soil which is heavily enriched with compost and composted manure.

The only problem is that these plants have gotten so large that they preclude me from growing anything else in two of my nine large raised beds.  Consequently, this past weekend, I moved them back into another flower bed.  I cut the leaves way back, but the plants still suffered some shock from the transplanting.  The torrential rain that we received the other night, however, brought them right back, and they look very healthy.

 

 We have some cauliflower, brussel sprouts, lettuce, spinach, and kale growing from seed; however, a lot of the seed did not germinate for me.  I was a very lazy gardener this winter and did not use the greenhouse tunnels.  Nevertheless, given how mild our winter was, I don't really think it impacted the garden that significantly.

Our sweet and red onions that I planted from onion starts are doing great.  They should be ready in another month or so.

It is a different story with the garlic.  I planted my garlic cloves saved from last year's harvest, two months late!  They do not look good.   I am still holding out hope that more will sprout shoots from the ground, but it may be a lost cause.

This is a photograph of our blooming rosemary with a blooming plum tree barely visible in the background.  The rosemary is blooming a lot more than in past years.  In fact, I don't recall it blooming before.  The sage is also blooming, and our cool weather herbs like dill, fennel, cilantro, and parsley are all growing like gangbusters.

 

Our lone, surviving alpine strawberry is already producing its tiny, sweet berries.  I lost the remainder to last years remarkable heat and drought.  I transplanted this plant into the asparagus bed, and I am going to plant about 10 more plants with it.  On the other side of the asparagus bed, I transplanted about 15 musk strawberry plants to make them easier to harvest.

This past weekend, given the warm temperatures that appear to be here to stay, I started interplanting hot temperature vegetables.   I planted my favorite, charentais melon, from seed among the onions.   I am interplanting cucumbers into the garlic.  And I planted about 12 tomato plants and pepper plants (I am shamed to admit that I bought tomato starts from the nursery, but we were too busy to start the plants from seed this january).

I will try to get the rest of my seeds planted in the next few weeks: eggplants, squash, corn, pumpkin, etc.

 

Early Fruit Set

After being out of town for close to a week, I came back to find several of our fruit trees having set small immature fruit.

When I left, the majority of our spring blossoming fruit trees and bushes were blossoming with the exception of our apples and a few of our pear trees.  Upon our return, most of them continue to bloom, including the peaches, several  of our pears, plums, cherries, nanking cherry, blueberries, honeyberries, and grape vines.  Our apricots have finished blooming.  Several of the earlier blooming peach trees are starting to have their blossoms fade.

But in walking through the garden, I was very, very surprised to see many of the earliest blooming fruit trees already setting fruit on March 18th.  This is much earlier than in years past.

The photograph above is of some of the immature fruit on our Reliance peach.  I frankly do not remember the reliance producing very many blooms, so I was surprised to see these fruit.  Our other peaches are also showing immature fruit, but on a much smaller scale.

 

Both our Moorpark and Blenheim have also set a lot of small immature apricots.  This is gratifying to see given that we really did not have any production from either of these trees last year.  The photograph above is from the Blenheim.

 

 

Our hybrids are also showing small fruit, including the pluots, apriums, and nectaplums.  The fruit in the photograph above is from our Spice-Zee Nectaplum.

 

Our figs are also starting to show some breba fruit.

 

I am just blown away by how early the fruit are coming in.  I was somewhat worried by our mild winter and early spring that we would not get much fruit this year.  However, it appears that some of my fears were misplaced.  While the jury is still out on how our apples and pears will do, we should get a pretty good crop from our apricots, plums, hybrids, and peaches . . . as long as we can fend off the varmits and insects.

This also goes to show that pollination was not an issue.  Our local insect population is doing their job, whether it be honeybees, mason bees, other bee types, or moths.

Dallas Fruit Trees in Bloom - March 5, 2012

A week ago, some of my plums, pluots, and apricots were beginning to bloom, and I wrote about how I was worried that they would not be pollinated because of the lack of pollinators that had emerged from winter and because there were not enough cross-pollinating fruit trees to lend a hand.

I went out of town at the end of the week and returned to an abundance of blooms.  Also, the native bees were out in force, industriously visiting all of the blooms.  If you look very closely at the Morris plum in the photograph above, you can count at least eight bees swarming in the air around these blossoms.

A large number of our plums are now in bloom, including the Morris, the Bruce, the Santa Rosa, and the Allred.  Here is another photograph of the Morris along with a photo of the Allred in bloom seen through the still-dormant fuzzy kiwi vines and burgeoning Jefferson peach blossoms.

 

 

 

Although the Allred above has pink blossoms, our other plums have beautiful, white blossoms as you can see below. 

 

 

Our Royal Lee low-chill cherries also have lovely white blossoms as featured below.

 

 

 

 

I must say, however, that our Royal Lee and Minnie Royal trees have been very disappointing to me this spring.  We planted 5 of them last spring in 2011.  They did very well during the growing season despite the intense heat and drought, and they put on significant growth.  Nevertheless, this spring, the majority went straight to leafing out without any blossoms.   A single Royal Lee was the sole exception, producing the blossoms that you see above.   

If you look very closely at the photograph below, though, you can see that the tree has very few blossoms.  It is not clear to me why these trees did not produce more blooms.  It should not be a result of the mild winter weather because these cherry varieties should only require 200 to 300 chill hours, which we had.  It is not the result of my pruning, which was very light.  I am perplexed.

 

 

Our remaining cherry tree, the Compact Stella, has neither leafed out nor blossomed at this point.

 

In contrast, all of our peach trees have burst into bloom, or are about to do so.  Our Sentinel peach  has the greatest number of blooms followed by our Saturn.  The Springold, Ranger, Jefferson, Redhaven, and Reliance are just a bit behind the Sentinel.

 

The tree and blossoms below are of the Sentinel peach.  As you can see from at least one of these photographs, our local bee population is hard at work.

 

 

   

 

 

 

The photograph below is of Redhaven peach blossom buds that are very close to blooming.

 

 

As I mentioned a bit earlier, the Saturn peach -- also known as a Peento -- has really had a dramatic bloom this Spring.  It is still a very small tree, but the number of blooms and the striking color of the blooms have impressed me.

 

 

Our two mature apricot trees continue to flourish in bloom.  The Blenheim added more blossoms since the last photographs that I shared, and the Moorpark apricot is also now in bloom.  The first photograph is of the Blenheim and the remainder are from the Moorpark.  My guess is that I'm going to get a good set of fruit from these two --- but we'll see.

 

 

 

 

These apricot blossoms remind me somewhat of fuschia flowers with their combination of red and white coloring.  The blossoms are also somewhat akin to an apple blossom that starts pink and matures to white, but differ in that the apricot blossoms maintain the red coloration much longer.

Nearby, our Cot-N-Candy aprium has really had unusual bloom structure this year.  With the way that the blooms completely cover the branches, it almost reminds me of a delphinium flower.  You can see what I mean from the photograph below.

 

 

 

These blooms have been particularly attractive to the bees.

The apricots, apriums, and pluots are all near each other, and they are producing a heavenly scent in the air.

 

 

 

We have several Blue Velvet and Blue Pacific honeyberry bushes growing around the vegetable garden.   Although they are three years old, they are still very petite bushes.   Indigenous to northern climates, I think they may be stunted by our intense summer heat.

The photograph above is of a honeyberry blossom before it opens.  The photograph below is of opened blossoms.

Also known as blue honeysuckle, you can see the similarities between its blossoms and a honeysuckle blossom.

 

 

Our blueberry bushes have set many, many blossoms.  I love the bell shaped look of blueberry blossoms because they are so unique.

 

 

Our Nanking cherry bushes are also filling with delicate white blossoms.  These are still very young bushes, so they look rather sparse in the photographs.  Later in the year, these 8 or 9 bushes will produce white cherries which are less attractive to the birds; however, I also plan on planting two red cherry varieties to help with pollination.  Last year, although the white Nanking cherry bushes bloomed prodigiously, they did not produce any fruit.

 

Last, but not least, at least one of our pear trees is blooming.  Our Orient pear has set a fair number of blooms.   Because of the sunlight, you have to look very carefully to see the blooms in this tree, but it actually has a decent number of blooms.

 

 

We have a fair number of pear varieties growing in our yard -- Orient, Warren, Monterrey, Moonglow, Pineapple, Kiepfer, Seckle, and Magness -- however, only the Orient has bloomed this Spring.  Last year, we did not have very many blooms, either.  I am concerned that the trees may not be getting enough sunlight because they essentially have a northern exposure resulting from nearby ornamental trees and bushes.  Until these pear trees grow a little taller, they may continue to be sunlight challenged.