I Really Love Your Peaches

After hearing C. Darren Butler speak at the Huntington last year we were eager to plant fruit trees. While at Home Depot we saw cans of peach trees for $5.99 so bought one. I felt guilty thinking it probably came from China, or was GMO or grown with hormones or something, but we just couldn't wait.

This spring our little peach, which started out as a 12" stick in the ground, gave us a half dozen mini peaches of superb flavor. Really, who can't admire the effort of this tree, regardless of its origins?

This weekend we bought a David Wilson peach tree and will plant it at the top of the yard. It's larger and more developed. That gives us 2 apple trees, 2 figs (mission and kadota), 2 pomegranates, a persimmon, a lemon, an avocado and a kumquat. Next year we want to plant 2 cherries, 2 sea buckthorns, a pineapple guava and an almond tree.

I'm really loving the whole food forest idea.

Bee hives in place

Our new bee hives are in place - waiting for bees. Yesterday, while it was still cool, we hiked to the top of our hill and placed 4 redwood 4x4s. The purpose is to hide the hives from the neighbors on the opposite hill, and to encourage the bees to fly up, rather than out. We'll train grapes and other vines over the structure - to keep the hives cooler in the baking summer.

I'm planting buckwheat, sunflowers, and comfrey all around the beehive - a sort of 7/11 for bees too tired or lazy to forage far from home.

Unlikely Sisters

 

Permaculture introduces the idea of guilds, or plant groupings. The standard example is corn, beans and squash. The beans grow up the corn stalks, the squash covers the ground around the beans and corn crowding out the weeds. The corn and beans shade the squash.

As I was walking through our yard today I took a closer look at a palm in the middle of our yard. I don't know if you can tell, but it's tipped. We have Spanish moss growing from the underside of the tree, in its shade. Above the Spanish moss on the topside I found a patch of chickweed growing - an edible weed perfect for a salad.

 

Walking around the palm I found a young fig tree growing. I've seen this before. If you look up into the canopy of skyduster or canary palms growing in Los Angeles, you'll often see figs, flowers and other opportunistic plants cultivated by birds and furry denizens of the night.

 

I doubt this fig will prosper, but I'll let it stay and observe what happens.