Anyway, the other day, on my way home from work, I thought of having a hearty neck bone soup for dinner. We have been having a cooler weather here so a soup dish would be a good idea and would definitely stick to our ribs.

The moment I got home, I shouted to my husband. He seemed to be nowhere in the house. So, I looked for him outside, and sure enough, he was out there wheel borrowing a load of soil up to the garden area.

Me: Could you get me a white cabbage please?

S: How many?

Me: Just one plant.

He brought me a single plant but turned to be an arm load…hehe

typical salad on a daily basis

Lately, we have been eating tons of vegetables and plenty of fresh crisp salad. Sometimes, it is too much of a good thing that we have to give a lot of them away. Sometimes, we give our tummy a rest and skip a day of eating veggies. And after a day’s rest, we crave for it.

The cold weather doesn’t seem to hinder the growth of the plants. Some, like the lettuces, spinach, kale, asian cabbage, and even the mache are exploding. The brocolli raab which is one of the better tasting vegetables, is doing extremely well. We never expected that the plants would survive in the cooler weather, down in the 20′s.

So far, we haven’t bought that much vegetables since summer. The ones I buy from Oriental store in Phoenix now and then, stay in the other refrigerator until they spoil. And my husband throws them eventually in the compost pit. I think our garden would last through winter and continues until May. By then most of the plants will bolt. And then comes the beginning of the summer garden which includes the melon, tomatoes, beans, eggplant, peppers, etc.

Now, we just prove that there is no reason for people to go hungry. And it doesn’t even require a huge garden space to produce an ample supply of vegetables.

Lately, I haven’t been visiting the garden because I have been coming home late, and also, I have been busy with my yoga, late appointments, and Bible study. Today though, I came home on time, and while still in my uniform, I rushed straight to the garden.  The last time I saw them, they were recuperating from the frost. I thought I would take a peek and see how the veggies are doing. Boy, was I in for a big surprise.

Take a look:

Chinese cabbage

Bloomsdale spinach

Thumb-thumb lettuce (right), and Grand rapid lettuce (left)

Turnips

Kale – frost worst hit as shown in the picture.

I couldn’t believe the transformation of the plants from few days ago. They look so healthy and vigorous, and have gotten huge. My husband said that he gave them a drink of compost tea.  Yes, a compost tea that he brewed for about a day and a half out of hay, cow’s manure, kitchen’s waste products, and whatever he could find. Even used tea bags and banana peel get thrown in.  It is truly what I call an organic gardening. Not a bad thing to have in the sunny spot of your backyard.

sweet and juicy persimmons – make excellent salsa, too.

Just because we live in Arizona, where scorching heat is a plenty, and rain is scarce, doesn’t mean we are unable to enjoy organic gardening.  Particularly now that organic vegetables are not only expensive but very limited, and some varieties are hard to find because of modern agriculture in which vegetables are grown for their appearance, shelf-life, and not for their taste and nutrients, these babies are delicious and refreshing treat. For example, the freshly ripened figs have only a shelf-life of 3 days and bruise easily on shipment, and so you rarely see these in the market. Yet, they taste mightily awesome especially when eaten fresh. I don’t care though for the dried ones and the fig newton cookies, which are considered processed figs. Nothing can really beat tree-ripened fruits, more so if they are raised from your own garden.

Earlier, in one of my blog posts, I explained methodically the mechanics on how to build a raised bed for those of you who may be interested. It isn’t easy, but it isn’t hard either. It involves cunning and hardwork, lots of hauling gravel, dirt, manure, and hays. Results are phenomenal as shown in the pictures below.

We expect to have an all-year-round gardening even on the harsh winter days this year. Yes, we do get snow as it can get down to zero here, but the good thing is, it warms up during the day time which is essential to growing plants. Right now, we are using a 40% to 50% shade cloth to cut down the heat because most plants simply can’t bear sweltering heat of Arizona. Eventually, when the weather gets colder and below freezing point, we will replace the shade with the plastic cover, which will then resemble a green house. Of course, we had to carefully select the cold-tolerant plants like kale, lettuces, radicchio, and many more. It is like a trial and error to see which ones grow best in our climate. We did this before many many years ago, and I remember having supply of organic salad in the cold winter months. You can’t beat that, right?

Anyway, without further ado, let me show you our garden.

chard- eat your heart out guys.

carrots

this bed supplies us with fresh veggies every other day, and now and then, to some of my friends.

one of my favorite vegetables- spinach

Chinese lettuce ready for harvest by end of October

there are probably 15 kinds of veggies planted in this bed which has inside dimensions of 32 feet by 4.4 feet.

That is what we did for a while when the gophers practically demolished every single plant in the garden last year. It was a devastating feeling knowing that our gardening days were over. My husband even thought of moving to another state like Oregon which boasts of mild climate, and deep-top soil – a gardener’s paradise. But, we invested so much time and effort on this garden, we can’t just give up and leave, right? There must be another way of beating all the odds, thus, the idea of raised bed came to mind.

I tell you, it isn’t easy. It is a back breaking job. First, my husband dug down below ground level, spread the hardware cloth to ward off gopher, and laid the cement blocks three layers high. Then he filled the bottom with rocks for drainage, followed by a combination of sand, top soil, and compost. We had this compost pile for years and finally found a use for it. A very very rich soil, I must say. The idea of including the sand is for the water to penetrate down to the roots instead of settling on the surface and because of our dry weather, it evaporates in no time.

Let me tell you first how pocket gophers operate. They remind me of the Taliban fighters-very clever. They build a centralized hole underground and from it, they branch out and create tunnels all over, and cover the end of the tunnels with soil to conceal them from the gardener.Hmmm, I am beginning to think that Taliban must have gotten the idea of underground operation from these creatures. Notice the similarities? So, when you finally spot a hole, you try to stick a piece of lean wood to try to corner them, but they just go to the next tunnel and exit at the other end. Just like the Taliban, they are extremely hard to fight because they attack from underground engaging in a methodical and perplexed operation. So frustrating!

Anyway, going back to my story:

Seeing that the first bed was doing extremely well, it gave my husband the inspiration to build a much larger one. He has been working on it for about a month now and is only half way through. In other words, he had the bed built but hasn’t filled it up yet. Two days ago, I talked him into visiting our friends’ garden in Roosevelt (an hour-drive from home), and gladly obliged with the utility trailer hooked behind our truck. He said since we were going to that direction, he might as well haul some cow’s manure for the second bed.

When we got there, he said, “honey, i brought an extra shovel just in case you want to help.” “Huh, I am not wearing the right shoes!” I squalled. And I am talking about temperature in the 100′s with practically no humidity! But I relented, and started shoveling away filling up the front side while my husband took care of the back side.

Here are the pictures:

You see the flip-flop I was wearing? Definitely not suitable for shoveling.

A shade cloth is used to cut down 40% of the sunlight, and to help keep most of the insects out and the soil from drying out fast.

So far, we are happy with the results as shown by the pictures below.

Notice there are some holes on pechay’s leaves. Despite of the shade cloth that we put over the plants, some unknown insects still manage to get through. But, it is okay because those holes don’t alter the taste of the vegetables.

My husband has been telling me to thin off the beets as they are getting crowded. I thought I would just leave them the way they are right now until I have the courage to pull off the unfortunate plants.

Our first harvest which includes pechay, chard, and beet’ tops. And guaranteed pesticide free.

And I transformed them into this delicious veggie dish. Oh, so good!

Fresh fruits and veggies from the garden.

In our neck of the woods, persimmon trees are unknown, as well as figs. But, that doesn’t stop my husband from planting them despite the warnings of the experts that they wouldn’t grow here. He is stubborn, you know, but in a good way. He likes planting fruits trees. Every place we moved in, the first thing he did was surround our yard with fruit trees. I asked him why, he doesn’t have an answer. He simply likes to do it. If he likes a certain variety of tree and our nursery doesn’tcarry it, he doesn’t mind traveling 90 miles just to get that tree. No one could stop him. On our trip to Seattle last year, he was so adamant on visiting a nursery out in the woods that he thought carry the best variety of fig tree. The kids and I had to go along with him because his mind was already made up and there was nothing we could do to stop him. It took us forever to get there. I had been hinting him to turn around as we had traveled quite a ways already and had been driving in circles, still there was no nursery in sight. But, he wouldn’t give up until he found the place, and he did.

Three years ago, my husband stopped at our local nursery to get a fig tree but they were all out. He happened to notice persimmon trees. Since we enjoy persimmon fruits immensely, he bought two trees. He planted them both – one survived and the other died. He went back to the nursery one day for something else, and also inquired about the persimmon tree. The guy said that the trees that my husband bought were sent to his yard by mistake because they don’t thrive in our area as it freezes here during winter.

So, the next spring, a bunch of shoots came up from the roots of presumably dead tree. He it let grow as a bush instead of a tree. He watered it regularly. Last year, it had few fruits on it but nothing to be thrilled about. But this year, it was loaded and so was the other one that remained as a tree. Recently, we noticed that the other persimmon tree looks like it is going die although there are some shoots coming out from below – exactly what happened with the tree below. Probably, next year it will grow up as a bush when the main tree dies. From this experience, we learned that trees which prefer the mild Mediterranean climate like figs and persimmons survive as bushes in our type of climate while apple, pear, and peach trees do fine in the form of a tree.

My husband – an avid orchardist

While weeding, I had a cup of tea and a persimmon for snack. I picked the ripest one off the tree and it tasted good already. It reminded me of manibalang mangga only without the acid. Though it needs several more weeks to ripen completely. The warm days and chilly nights will change the acid in the fruits into sugar. Nothing is better than tree-ripened fruits. Don’t you all agree?

Look at the transformation 2 hours later. Looking good, huh?

I had this plant sitting on my kitchen counter for quite a while now. When I bought it, it had plenty of red little flowers and thick silky leaves. It was so beautiful that I just had to take it home. I thought it would die right away after several months like any other house plants that I have had but lo and behold, this particular one is still alive and looking good. I hope to see flowers by next spring.

Last week, I went out in the garden and took pictures of the butterflies but only this kind came out half decent.

Bartlett Pear- the best eating pear.

Our fruit trees (left to right) persimmon tree, apricot tree, and apple tree.

Persimmons- my favorite autumn fruits

Persimmons-up close

Apples

Since I will be pressed for time this week, I might as well take advantage of my Sunday to post as many posts as I could. We will be short-handed at work this week so no day off for me for sure. But then again, I might actually have a day off. Let’ see.

The moment I got up this morning, I noticed how pleasant the morning was. I looked through window, and the scenes outside looked so inviting. So, still in my pajama, I came out with my camera. Ohhh, the weather was nice and comfortable. I was hoping I would be able to capture some hummingbirds hovering the feeder in our front porch but no luck. Summer time though, they come in droves and in different species. Fun to watch and they are so cute and just beautiful!

Our trees are doing well although some of them have no trace of fruits at all this year. The frost might have gotten the buds earlier. Fortunately, they bloomed at a different time so some of them, like the bartlett pear and few apple trees, were spared. But the asian pear, my favorite tree, was one of the unlucky ones. Oh well…

My husband has been trying to start a garden this year but some creatures have been nipping the seedlings and it can be frustrating. I told him to cover it with cheesecloth until they are big enough. Let’s see if this will do the trick.