Bye, Bye, Birdies

 

You can look.

But you can't touch.

 The netting went up on the boysenberries this morning.  The berries are ahead of schedule ripening and need to be covered with protection from the birds. 

This post is a note for my reference to remember how to put the netting up fairly quickly.

Tools needed:

• Netting.  Use the fabric cut this season for as long as possible.  One roll of 1/4" netting (7' X 100') will cover 3 berry structures.
• Scissors.  If fresh netting is required.
• Staples.  These are used to secure the netting to the ground.
• Hammer.  The ground can be a bit tough and a hammer helps push the staples completely into the ground securing the netting.

Here's how to do it:

• Take one section of netting that drapes from the ground on the north side of the structure over to the south side of the structure.
• Make sure enough fabric drapes over the one of the main posts to cover completely.
• Drape second section of netting the same way.
• Make sure enough fabric drapes over the remaining main post to cover completely.
• Overlap the two sections at the center of the structure.
• Use staples to secure the fabric to the ground around the structure.

Thornless Boysenberries

Don't tent the netting tightly against the berries.  Those pesky birds will use that netting to peck through to the produce.  Loose is fine.  Make sure to secure to the ground around each structure.  This will combat those pests from hopping up from the ground to steal the berries.

Leave My Berries Alone!

Thornless Boysenberry

The boysenberries are quickly ripening and need to be covered with bird netting to keep my feathered friends out.  Since there is no garden kitty, the netting is essential.  The bird habitat in the garden has gone berserk since Pumpkin passed.  The boysenberries are in their 2nd year and promise to bear loads and loads of berries for jam, pies, and the freezer if there are enough after fresh eating.  Let the birds eat the bugs and leave my berries alone.

Tomorrow morning, before the heat turns up, the netting will be going up with Farmer MacGregor doing the lion's share of the work.  The netting is draped over the trellis supports and anchored into the ground with large staples.  There are structures to cover.  I hope there is enough material.  We may need to make a store run.

I hope to remember to chronicle this process here for future reference.

Iceberg Roses ('Rosa KORbin')

Iceberg Rose - boysenberry end

The garden has eight Iceberg bush roses. Six to form hedges on either side of the pergola and two to bookend the boysenberries.  Most all are from Coiner Nursery.  Coiner grows out in Wasco - Farmer MacGregor's stomping grounds.  Each and every one is poppin' with blossoms.  So far, these are hardy, har, har roses.  They take the heat and don't need pampering.  That's my kind of plant.  They get irrigated and fed.  Occasionally, I deadhead the old blooms but that's about all.

 

So far, so good.  Knock rosewood.

 

Iceberg Roses - pergola hedge



Augusta West - Not

It's time for the Masters' Tournament in Augusta, Georgia.  That golf course is famous for its azaleas.  My garden is not.  In 2009, we planted a bunch of camellias and azaleas in the garden.  Wrong.  They did bloom, but then they went kaput!  Only one azalea survives today.  Thriving in their place are thornless boysenberries

 George L. Taber Azalea

Garden Update:

Tomatoes (Better Boy):  Farmer MacGregor could not imagine a summer without homegrown tomatoes.  So rather than solarize the raised beds to eradicate the nematodes, he opted to plant a variety resistant to nematodes.  This is what we grew last summer in another bed. Planted last week.

Bell Peppers (Golden Bell):  Three plants should be enough to take us through the summer. Planted today.

Hot Peppers (Serrano):  Pepper poppers are a favorite around here.  MacGregor also prefers home grown salsa. So...Serranos were planted today.

Note:  I still cannot bend so Farmer MacGregor has taken on the task of planting.

Nectarine (Fantasia):  What's nibbling on the nectarines?  Ants?  Grasshoppers?

Fantasia Nectarines

Espalier:  All the espalier fruit trees (except for the Granny Smith apple) had a spring pruning.  Nothing too heavy.  The leaves are necessary to prevent scald.  The most vigorous growth was on the apricot and plum trees.

Ebb Tide is Here!

Ebb Tide Rose in Maybelline's Garden

Bare root roses were planted around the pergola on January 19, 2013.  Ebb Tide tree roses and Iceberg bushes.  Today, the flowers on the Ebb Tides have opened up. I thought they would have been darker and more purple in color. Compare the two images and see for yourself.  Of course, I have trouble photographing flowers with blue hues.

See how the flowers purple up as they aged?  The image below is of an Ebb Tide flower right before the petals drop.  It's much closer to the color of that from Weeks Roses.

Aged Ebb Tide Rose in Maybelline's Garden

I can't get down and take a whiff of them yet so I'll have to believe the description given by Weeks Roses:

Ebb Tide Rose photo courtesy Weeks Roses

Ebb Tide™

2006 Intro

(cv.WEKsmopur) Pat.#10,478

Floribunda - Smoky deep plum purple

Soooo mysterious in its color…and soooo powerfully perfumed…it's certain to attract attention. Dusky deep purple buds swirl open to very double old-fashioned flowers of velvet plum washed with a haze of sultry smoke. The intense clove fragrance can nearly bowl you over. But keep your balance or you'll find yourself face down amongst the deep green leaves.

• Height / Habit: Medium / upright, bushy
• Bloom / Size: Medium, very double, old-fashioned
• Petal count: Over 35
• Parentage: [(Sweet Chariot x Blue Nile) x Stephen's Big Purple] x [(International Herald Tribune x R. soulieanna derivative) x (Sweet Chariot x Blue Nile)]
• Fragrance: Strong spicy clove
• Hybridizer: Carruth - 2006
• Comments: Gets all the better with establishment in the garden.

All the roses are growing vigorously now.  I do hope they will be able to withstand the summer.  I'm a beginner at growing roses. I can understand a bit of the description above. I'm excited if we selected some good varieties for our area.  If they bloom all summer it shouldn't be so bad to sit out under the pergola trying to cool down my swamp pants.

PS - the plant that Ajax used as a chew toy has rebounded and has a generous amount of buds ready to burst.

PPS -  did you know the meaning of Ebb Tide?  I didn't.  It's the tide between high tide and low tide when the sea is moving away from the shore.

PPPS - who do you think of when you think of the song Ebb Tide?  Farmer MacGregor thinks of the Righteous Brothers.

Happy Easter

Sweet Pea Mix

 Right on cue, the sweet peas are in bloom for Easter.  The seeds can be planted between October and December here in zone 8-9 in the south central San Joaquin Valley of California. Yesterday, reminded us all that summer is on the way with temperatures knocking on the 90s.  Today's cooler breezes are welcomed before we enter into the dreaded swam pants season.

 

Ladybud on the Warren Pear

Ladybugs are showing up in bigger numbers now.  They didn't really seem to hibernate this winter.  Unusual.  Glad they are showing up because the aphids are showing up as well.  Nature is kinda balanced in the garden for now.

 

If I only had a predator for all the mourning doves.

Berry Update

Everbearing Strawberries

The strawberries are the 1st to have bird netting draped over them.  I don't know the variety of these everbearing berries.  I didn't pick up bear root and the 6-pack didn't have a detailed label.  Nonetheless, berries in hanging baskets enable me to get my hands in the dirt until I'm able to bend down.

Pink Lemonade Sunshine Blue Blueberries

I've never grown blueberries before. These are in a pot so they can be moved about the garden if we need to find a perfect location.  So far, so good.  The pink blossoms fade to white then the bulging berries shed the petals as they change from grey-green to blue.

Thornless Boysenberries

The six thornless boysenberry plants are bursting with blossoms that began to break on March 26.  I'm hopeful that I will run out of freezer space and will need to jar up some berry perserves soon.

And Now There Are None

Maybelline's Garden doesn't have a garden kitty.  Pumpkin passed from this garden to the next on Sunday, March 10, 2013. She was estimated to be 20 years old.  She was found yowling one afternoon up in a neighbor's cypress tree by my oldest garden gnome. She was a tiny handful of orange fluff that rode with me in a work truck until she was big enough and strong enough to live in the garden with Licorice.

Pumpkin was a huntress.  Gophers, rats, hummingbirds, and most especially mourning doves were her speciality. Like most cats, she would leave what remained of her kill at the patio door - narrowly missed early in the morning as I stepped out to fill the breakfast bowls.  As she aged and suburbanization encroached on our garden, hunting was only a sport.  A form of entertainment.

I'll miss Pumpkin.  She liked me and every dog that she trained.  As a kitten she would nap on the woolly back of one of our Great Pyrenees.  Another Pyrenees was her best butt sniffer.  She even charmed a couple of English Mastiffs.  She would prefer to avoid a fight; but when backed into a corner by a stray she could hold her own.

The garden gnomes referred to Pumpkin as "the Devil Cat"; but I called her "Doo Doos".  She was sweet and as soft as dandelion down.  She was a good cat.  I will miss her.  I already do.

Orchard Update



 The garden orchard isn't big at all.  All the deciduous trees are espalier pruned to shadow the garden fence line.  (The citrus grow on the opposite side of that fence line with the raised beds on the same side as the espalier trees.  All these trees were planted in January 2009 as bare root babies.

Warren Pear

The Warren pear has refused to bloom. This is the 4th year in the garden without so much of a hint of a bud.  The leaves are beautiful, glossy, and green.  In fact, the pear tree is known as the diva of the garden.  It really is a great tree to form an espalier.

Granny Smith Apple

Old Granny Smith was thought to be a gonner due to sun scald.  Using tree wrap saved it and now the tree is producing nice fruit.  This spring, there is an abundance of blossoms - the most in it's short life.  This is the last tree to bloom in spring and the last fruit to ripen at the end of summer.

O'Henry Peach
 

O'Henry had a bad case of sun scald like the apple tree.  The tree wrap did a great job.  Last summer I concentrated on developing a nice canopy to naturally shade the limbs.  This year, wrap will be applied to any tree that needs it.  And, this peach tree is blooming like made so there is hope for a good crop of fruit.

Fantasia Nectarine

Last year, the nectarine had to be replaced.  Same variety - better production.  The previous tree had rare blooms and when it was removed there were no roots.  None.  This fantasia has about 15 blooms this spring; but something is nibbling on them.  Ants?

Santa Rosa Plum

Fruit is already forming on the plum tree.  There are an estimated 5 billion blossoms on the tree this spring.  That's a very rough estimate.  I'm hopeful to be able to make plum jelly this summer.  Santa Rosa was the 1st to bloom; but it's not the mightiest producer.  No sir.

Blenheim Apricot

Even though the apricot had to undergo some major surgery recently, that did not stop the fruit production.  This tree is the 2nd to bloom but is surging ahead as far as production is concerned. Dried apricots are my favorites.  I'm hopeful.

Big Dummy

Ever have a "brilliant" idea only to show just how human (read: dumb) you really are? It's humbling. I post this not to further degrade myself but to warn myself next time I get a brilliant idea to think it through rather than act during mid-thought.

This morning I thought I would take several packets of Sweet Alyssum seeds and make my own mix. Brilliant. I dumped the contents of the Royal Carpet packet into a Ziplock bag only to be reintroduced to static. EVERY seed was clinging to the side of a bag like a room full of kids with balloons practicing the fascinating wonders of static. What a mess.

Note: in the future, simply mix seeds in a seed packet.