Poor Neglected Hoes

I've been such a bad gardening pimp, six months without an update on what's going on in the yard.

Here's a quick review since last October. It was colder than normal throughout the Winter here, with a hard freeze in late November, late December, and another one in February. The yard took a beating, and leafed back out pretty late this Spring. We've been blessed until this week with an abnormaly mild Summer, eclipsing 110 degrees maybe three times with the monsoon right around the corner. The bad news is that we've barely managed two inches of rain since the turn of the year, which is piss poor even for us desert dwellers.

Here's a really quick tour around the yard, hitting a few things I took pictures of earlier in June.

The jujubees have done well this year, again thanks to a late Summer. Pictured here is the Lang variety, which grows elongated fruits which honestly taste like ass. The primary reason for planting this guy was to increase the productivity of my Li jujubee. Just today I picked about a dozen good sized fruits off of it. They're under ripe, and will probably taste more woody than like apples, but I expect that both trees will be ready to bloom again with the coming monsoon, in preparation of the fall harvest, and I don't see the fruit developing any further in this heat.





Here's one of the roses in my planter box that's located near the jujubees. This is an apricot nectar floribunda, very nice scent. The roses are all struggling through this heat, but with the increase in humidity that's around the corner, they'll be perking up soon (I hope).



For the first time since they were planted, the bugs have left the pomegranates alone (no bored holes). I have maybe ten fruit on my two bushes, and hopefully come September they'll still be intact and ready for eating!




My exercise in futility, gourds, are surviving the heat as well, hidding behind a screen, and sheltered from the afternoon sun by a concrete wall. These, too, will hopefully do very well with the coming monsoon. Growing in the foreground is some lettuce that's bolted.

I've planted numerous pepper plants around the yard, below is a bell that we ate some weeks ago. Despite the heat, these plants produce very well.

I took a stab at planting quinoa, but it got hot before the buds could flower and produce the edible seeds. I'll give these guys another go at it this fall, for a spring harvest.

The grapes got off to a good start this spring, but we had a brief hot spell in May that I think did them in. Production was pretty weak compared to last year. My Thompson's (green) vine has still not produced anything. Pictured below is either the Flame or Fantasy (one is round and purple, and the other is long purple).

My basil survived the winter, and is blooming again this summer, despite the heat.

That's it for now, stay tuned, hopefully we can tend to the Hoes again before another six months are up.