While I was in the province vacationing two months ago, there was a time that I couldn’t figure out what to cook for lunch. There was no fish available because it was the day after typhoon Frank. I looked around in the property and in no time, I knew exactly what to fix for lunch – “Kamote top salad.” That was really good and refreshing dish! And it is such a good feeling to be able to turn to the yard and make a meal from it without spending a dime. Plus, knowing that it is organic makes one feel good.

Before our Philippine trip, when everything was at an all time high, I suggested to my husband that we start a garden again. I don’t know if you remember in one of my old entries, we had gopher invasion in our garden last year and turned our yard into a complete disaster. They attacked from below the ground and cut off the roots of the plants and pulled the dead plants inside a hole and nibble on them. They did it methodically until all plants were gone. Seems like a battle hard to win, huh?

But not for long…

My husband outsmarted the pocket gopher by putting a hardware cloth, which is a wire mesh fabric, and spread it out at the very bottom of the raised bed. He used blocks to make the garden bed. It took him 3 weeks to finish the whole job. That whole process deserves another post and will be posted shortly.

Two weeks later when all the seeds had a chance to sprout up, here’s a sneak peek of my husband’s hard work.

Pechay

Beets

Tomatoes that we planted in the pots before the Philippine trip so gopher will not get them.

Herbs are being eaten off by some insects.

Figs up close

Prolific fig tree

Delicious Johnny Gold apples

Persimmons

And my lovely visitor that frequents my yard.

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