When I was doing the posts windows around the world, Ali from Essex England sent this photo and some outdoor photos. Her kitchen window is charming.
I look out her window and wonder what her climate is like. I know my Australia blog visitors are going into spring when we are going into fall. They are wondering if it is ever going to get warm and I am wondering if it will ever cool down.
Ali's frog seems to be happy what ever the weather is this day.
I do like yard art and this is a vintage art with a sign that was very familiar during ww2 on the home front. People were encouraged to grow all the food they could no matter how little space they had and victory gardens started popping up around the world.
This is Ali's Polytunnel and she has me thinking about doing more fall and winter gardening because our summer garden did not do well this year. We simply have too many trees sucking out all the nutrition and it was so hot we could barely keep up with watering no matter what we did and even with the irrigation which by the way turned out it did use a lot of water too. It was mostly our fault because we needed to monitor it better. Everything we do is trial and error.
Thank you Ali for the photos.
Back to Grandma Donna's house....
It is nearing fall but at still 93 degrees if feels nothing like nearing fall, The Meyer Lemons are still green but it will not be long before they will turn.
We planted our Meyer lemons in pots at first then in the ground and it took them a couple of years to take root and start producing. This year the small trees are full of lemons.
These are Satsuma's. They are between a Orange and a Tangerine. This is the first year they have produced many Satsuma's. This was also the first winter that I left them uncovered during freezing spells.
This is a pot of ginger that I planted from grocery store ginger. Each year I think it is dead and then each summer it sprouts and we have ginger again.
I decided to brave the mosquito's and dig a spot to see if I could find sweet potatoes. This spring I rooted sweet potato's from organic store bought sweet potatoes and put them in water and they sprouted and then I took the sprouts and rooted them and planted them. Now we have sweet potatoes. I only wanted a few for tonight's meal so I went on a dig.
I got a few from the ground and a few from a container.
It was nice to go out and dig around and find food in our backyard.
The fairy tale eggplants are just about finished.
And so are the peppers. This is a purple bell pepper we planted this year.
The weather is just different. We cannot seem to grow vegetables as well as we once did. I feel a permaculture garden is something that we need to consider since we are getting older and the heat is so bad in the summer. Permaculture is more permanent food crops, trees, plants and bushes that will take root and live all year. It is more organic and food crops such as asparagus which comes back each year. It is not only food but other crops such as a friend grows bamboo and he invited us to come out to harvest and we chopped bamboo and made many things for the garden from supports to tops for our arbors.
We harvested blueberries this year and each year as the bushes grow we get more blueberries.
Permaculture is more natural as the plants and trees will live with the seasons, go dormant and come back or some will remain green all year such as the herb rosemary.
We have planted fruit trees and fruit bushes. In our yard we have fruit and nut, blueberries bushes, pecan trees, plum, peach, pear, lemon, satsuma and fig trees planted. Some are old such as the pecan trees and some are only a few years old but they have potential.
Herbs seem to do well in our yard, rosemary, sage, basil, cilantro, parsley and a few others. We have a few raspberry plants that finally rooted and made berries this year. We have wild dewberries too.
Even if we live in an apartment a pot of herbs can be nice to use in cooking. Growing food is important and a few plants can be a healthy addition to our home.
Topping off a homemade pizza with something grown from home feels right.
No matter what season it is, there is something special about going out and harvesting food from the yard and including it in a meal.
Grandma Donna
