Time to Garden

Spring has sprung at my home in the Mojave Desert. We got one raised bed planted last week, so now the onions are coming up. The tiny tomato plants are growing so fast they've caught up with the one bigger one I planted.  So either they are growing really fast or it is growing really slow.

The thyme I thought I'd fried is coming back now that I'm watering daily.

I was going to plant the last rosebush, which looked great. The very next day I got up to plant it and all the leaves were gone. I'm not sure if it was the chickens or the rabbits! Darn it all. But I got it  planted today. The last one is called Paradise. I used to have one before I had a yard that had to live at my Mother-in-law's house. So now I have my very own.

My boyfriend got another raised box built and now we are taking shifts hauling in sand from the berm to fill up half of it and mix it with potting soil.  I keep saying it is 'sand' and he insists it is 'dirt' so maybe I'll just call  it soil from now on.

We dug 4 big rocks out of the place where the box goes. Ugh, that was tough.

The rock he is sitting on came out of that section as well as the 3 in front of him.

A pinwheel to scare the birds away.

I got six new chicks this week. When we cleaned out the chicken coop we put all that manure and straw in the garden bed. I think I was suppose to let it decompose more but oh well. Still haven't gotten the compost pile to work yet.

Americauna chick.

Barred rock chick.

Sunset, Moon Rise and Daffodils

Sunset in Lucerne Valley, CA

My Internet connection isn't that great out here in the desert so I don't get to blog as much as I used to.  But it works well at 4 A.M. so here I am blogging for you. I want to share the beauty of the desert with my winter weary friends. The Joshua tree photos are taken from my front yard in Lucerne Valley, CA.

I named this Joshua tree outside my front window Zerlina after the villain in Men In Black

I never get tired of taking sunset photos.

I live on a hill. This is the view from my yarn of Lucerne Dry Lake.

Daffodils at sunset.

 I managed to grow daffodils from bulbs I got at Winco. When they first sprouted the chickens kept trying to eat them. That is why they are up on a fence rail.

I hope to do a painting based on this photo when I have time.

 I have another pot of flowers waiting to bloom as well. I just don't remember what they are. Freesias maybe?

Last night's moon rising.

Daffodils make me happy.

Spring is Here (I Think)

Spring blooms

White blossoms

Blooming in my neighbor's yard.

A riot of flowers

Spring has arrived here in the Mojave Desert. The mulberries and cottonwoods are leafing out. I'm seeing more rabbits; both cottontails and jackrabbits. No baby quail yet though. Saw a roadrunner running across the road yesterday. Hence the name I suppose.

We got more pallets so we can make a chicken coop and raised beds. The chickens are already growing at a friend's house. So we need to get the hen house built. So much to do all of a sudden!

Our neighbor's cherry and plum trees are full of blossoms. Hope springs eternal for me every spring. Last year's gardening failures are forgotten but lessons learned. Time to plant.

We spent a lot of time pruning my neighbor's fruit trees. Now they are blooming like crazy. I just wish I could remember which ones are plums and which ones are cherries. Or maybe there is an apple tree in there.

The garlic I planted last October

Me in the eucalyptus grove

Mulberry tree leafing out

Prunus species

Got Rocks?

Today I kept putting birdseed out on the porch table, and every time I looked a chubby cheeked chipmunk was hoarding the seeds. I even saw one climb vertically up a wooden post to get to the seeds on the railing. Enough! I went and found the old gourd bird feeder that had blown down in a storm last spring and ended up under a creosote bush and fixed it up and hung it from a branch. Yes, the chipmunks can still get to it, but they'll have to work a lot harder to get up there. No more of this 'hop on the chair, then hop on the table'.

 The garlic we planted has sprouted. I'm relieved because nothing has grown well in that tub.

 I decided to dig a hole by the fence and plant the other mulberry tree our neighbor gave us. I was about done, when I hit a rock. Now the two of us have been trying to dig that rock out for three days. Only it's not just one rock...it's two big ones and a myriad of small ones. If we can't get it out soon, it's going to end up being a hole for a rosebush. And speaking of roses, I saw two cool ones at Home Depot. One is called "Cocoa' and one was striped. I thought it was called 'Henry Miller' but I'm not sure now. The plants weren't blooming though, so all I had to go by was the photo on the label. I'll save the names and when I can afford to put in a rose garden, I'll buy them somewhere.

The light area on the left is also a rock.

Rock Garden?

Snake Gourds in the Garden

Cleaned gourds look like this but cost more, so why not clean your own?

This morning I fought the urge to go on Facebook and went straight out to the yard instead, so  I could do things before the sun got brutal. I cleaned all my jewelry gourds and some of my mini gourds that I got from the Welburn Gourd Farm. I just soak them in a bucket of water for a few minutes, then scrub the dirt, mold and skin off with a pot scrubber. I have more to do but my hands needed a rest.

Then I went to water my snake gourds, which are spectacular this year. Only the aphids are suddenly a huge threat. I cut off a dozen leaves that were beyond repair. Then I sprayed the rest with a mixture of peppermint oil and water to make the leaves less appealing. I'm not entirely sure that will work but I know ants hate it, and ants farm aphids. So yeah. Aphids. Sad face.

I'd about given up on the peppers, but I guess the fertilizer kicked in because they are covered in flowers again. I may get some more before frost. And I have a few tomatoes coming on as well, in spite of tomato worms that went crazy on them. My boyfriend was removing gypsum weed from my neighbor's yard and found those were covered in tomato worms as well, so if you have some of that in your yard, you might want to get rid of it.

Someone gave us more pallets so my dream of raised beds should come true for next spring's garden.

Jewelry Gourds look like this before cleaning.

Welburn Gourd Farm 2013

Big kettle gourd waiting for a new home.

I'll have a bumper crop of snake gourds this year. You can see where the rabbits nibbled on the leaves.

Snake gourds will turn brown in the fall.

This could be a quiver.

My only surviving Mammoth Sunflower.

This sunflower grew 3 feet while was on vacation!

A covey of quail just arrived to eat up the seed I put out when I watered this morning. There must be 20 of them. No rabbits lately though. I wonder where they all went?

You Are My Sunshine

I love the little sunflowers that volunteered to grow by my porch. As my mother used to says,"You have the same clothes to get glad in."

Fertilizing Day

The garden was looking a little sad, so I fertilized everything this morning. I've never fertilized before, preferring to see what this new and different soil would do on its own. The gourds look great but everything else was showing yellowing leaves. The tomato worms did a lot of damage too. And the little yellow pear shaped tomatoes were getting smaller and smaller. So I hope the fertilizer helps.

Curved Snake Gourd

I held up my hand so you could see how big this gourd is.

I'm hoping to use the straight snake gourds for quivers.

Oh dear, our water storage tank overflowed. We found out the float was stuck.



Mammoth Sunflower

My most successful sunflower.