Gardening 2014

It was january, and for some reason winter skipped over israel this year.  i was out in the orchard, making sure everything was ready for spring, and i thought to myself, i want a vegetable garden.  sure, i was playing with plants in pots, doing some hydroponic basil and lettuce tests, but what i really wanted was a  good ol honest veggie patch in the ground.  so, i surveyed the land, and decided that there was a part of the garden that was underused.  and i made the executive decision to start a garden there.

I got some old lumber from someone, and i went to work.  the biggest issue is a lot of the ground here is backfilled dirt, as everything has been built up on a hillside.  so my first order of business was to dig up the clay/hard packed soil, built up a raised bed, and fill the whole thing in with bags and bags of garden soil that can retain water.

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Here you can see my poor iPhone photos as i was starting to dig up the ground after creating the raised beds.  i had to really dig the soil.

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in the picture above i had everything filled in and a square foot system in place, along with the irrigation.  but as you can see everything around it is still pretty crude.

i quickly fix that though

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here is the garden at sunset.  I have now built a bench, and poured a rock path around the whole thing.

and another top view

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at this point i have established the olive nursery on the top left, and on the right side you can see a patch that becomes my green bean patch.  I’ve also put some flowers along the path for bees, and bottom right just out of frame is the strawberry patch.  on the far left i have a bay tree, and some mint growing along with ginger when it comes up.

as for the orchard i keep talking about, here are two pictures that show off all the trees.

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in the one below, you can see the two grapefruit trees.  these are the real workhorses of the orchard.  i have been drinking fresh grapefruit juice almost every day since december.  and i can’t keep up, i keep having to compost fruit that falls.

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the rest of the orchard needs some care, which i have been giving it.  so I’m hopeful this year it will produce better.  technically theres apples, another lemon (theres two lemon trees that are very active behind the yard), apricots, pomegranates, figs, mandarin oranges and olives.  ohh, and a baby mango tree.  the big tree on the far left is also a pecan tree that we totally missed the harvest on this year.

okay, now some artsy photos of the garden…

roses in bloom.  now is the season before it gets too hot

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my favourite tree, the grapefruit

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almonds in bloom after a much needed rain storm

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my prized passion fruit plant.  there used to be two, but one got rotted.  so this is all one plant after i trimmed it back after the last fruiting season.

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fig shoots and first fig forming

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Pea flowers

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Chard

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okay, now for the latest photo of the veggie patch…..

Grand reveal….

 

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and I’ve added a photo with a description of what everything is.  this is really a test bed to see what works mostly direct sowing in the ground from beginning of january….

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types of lettuce available

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I also added a little grass along the side of the yard for me to enjoy.  this section gets hardly no sun, and if any only late afternoon, so no point in growing veggies there.  at the base you can see the strawberry plants.  i suppose at some point i could try planting corn there…  hmmmmm…

on the right side of the path you can see two buckets, which are the beginning of two hydroponic tomatoes.  I’ve buried the reservoir to keep the water cool and prevent algae growth.

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and ill leave with a few more shots of the veggies

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best radishes I’ve ever had.

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Thats pretty much it.  i check in on everything every day, and i enjoy spending time down there.  i try to have a morning tea on my bench if i can.  I’m adding a water feature currently, and I’ve had to separate the irrigation to a separate timer as i need to water every day when its hot and windy.  and I’m always thinking of what else i can do, but I’ve mostly filled in my useable space for the moment.

hope you have enjoyed the grand tour of my garden….