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I forgot to put a post up on this page when I moved sites. My blog can now be found here:

www.thebellhouse.weebly.com

I like the Weebly features better, and it lets me easily see how many people visit my site everyday.

Strawberries, Blueberries, and Blackberries

It is berry time at the Bell House, and Little Joe has been enjoying a big handful of strawberries everyday. When I get home, he runs to the edge of the deck, points at the garden, and starts grunting with excitement. I go pick whatever strawberries the mockingbirds haven't already eaten, and he gobbles up them as fast as I can pick them. It feels pretty good to be able to give him home-grown organic fruit everyday, which is my ultimate goal with our edible backyard landscape. If my strawberry plants live their full 3 years, that means I'll be able to give Joe approximately 10-15 quarts of fresh-picked organic strawberries for a total cost of ~$15. Not bad.

Joe with his mouth full of strawberries

The blueberries have also begun to ripen. So far we've only picked around 10 or so, but they're very good. Joe is slowly discovering that they are edible. At first he just treated them like pebbles (he plays with the pebbles in the bottom of the planters), but now I think he knows. He still seems to prefer the strawberries though. I've been very pleasantly surprised not to have seen any bird damage to the berries yet. I hung an inflatable bird-scare from a sturdy-stake near the berry bushes, and it seems to be doing the trick. I move it every few days to keep the birds wary of it. I haven't yet decided if I'm going to just eat the berries with Joe, or if I want to freeze the berries as they ripen and make a blueberry pie. If I can keep the birds away, I should have a few quarts of berries by the end of the season. Not bad for year #2.

First Fruits

The blackberries are finally ripening as well. The kind we grow are called 'Kiowa', and I think they're delicious. Dr. B thinks they're a little too tart, but I like them that way. I imagine I'll be picking a half-pint or so from the two large brambles every day for the next week or so. I just need to decide what to do with them: eat them, cobbler, or jam?

Blackberry Bramble

Once I've picked all the berries, I'll cut down the old fruiting canes, and tie up the new ones. The two mature brambles already have canes 5' tall that are falling over under their own weight. I'll get them tied up and trimmed, and with any luck we'll have many more berries next year. They really seem to like it on the east side of the house. They only get half a day of sun, but they get plenty of moisture there, and I've got them under 8" of composted leaves. Volunteers keep popping up all over the place, so if anyone wants a transplant, let me know.

Bowl of Blackberries

Inventory

I've noticed on the fruit/garden forums that fruit growing enthusiasts like to make and share lists of their collections. Here's my list of fruit trees and bushes:

In the ground:
6 Kiowa Blackberries
Orlando Tangelo
Bloomsweet Grapefruit
Wekiwa Tangelo
Hirado Buntan Pummelo
Tropic Snow Peach
Tropic Sweet Peach
Red Barron Peach
Anna Apple
Dorsett Apple
Cara Cara Pink Navel Orange
Pong Koa Mandarin
Sarawak Pummelo
2 Meyer Lemons
"Genoa" Loquat
Mexicola Grande Avocado
Lula Avocado
Okitsu Wase Satsuma
LSU Gold Fig
4 Texas Loquats
Methley Plum
Santa Rosa Plum
Sharp Velvet Pomegranate
Red Silk Pomegranate
Garnet Sash Pomegranate

In Containers:
8 Blueberries: Tiftblue, Brightwell, Woodard, & Climax
Everhard Navel Orange
Moro Blood Orange
Mexican Lime
2 Calamondins
Variegated Calamondin
Meiwa Kumquat
Changshou Kumquat
Miho Satsuma
Ujukitsu Sweet Lemon
Ruby Grapefruit

Grand Total: 53 trees and plants, representing 35 cultivars, and all in a suburban in northwest Houston.

Building the Vegetable Garden

I built my vegetable garden in March 2009. It was a lot of work, and as gardens go, I would call this one "bomb proof". I used cinder blocks because I wanted something that wouldn't rot, and my previous wood-frame veggie patch was constantly being invaded by grass. One advantage of the cinder blocks has been their resistance to rot and weeds, they don't leach wood preservative into the soil, and you can plant stuff in the holes. As mentioned in a previous post, we planted strawberries in the cinder block holes all the way around the garden.

The whole bed is 5.5' x 20' (110 sqft), which is probably just a bit too wide as I can just barely reach the center. I divide this big bed into 4 'plots' for different crops. For example, right now:

Plot 1: Green Beans
Plot 2: Tomatoes
Plot 3: Cucumbers
Plot 4: Peppers

If Dr. B would let me, I'd pull out all the grass in the backyard and put in 4 or 5 more beds just like this one. If I could expand to 400 sqft, I think I could grow enough produce for 2-3 meals every week, and be able to grow enough peppers and tomatoes to make salsa, hot sauce, and spaghetti sauce. Plus, that would be that much less lawn I'd have to mow. Stupid grass.

Laid out first level of cinder blocks.

Leveld out first level of cinder blocks.

Added 2nd level of blocks and filled it with soil.

Ran underground water line to soaker hose.

Planted!

May Garden Tour

Here are just a few pictures to show you what's going on in our back yard. Everything is growing well, and we're looking forward to the first fruits of the year very soon. I don't have time to post pictures of everything, but I'll get around to it.

New Herb Garden

Jalepenos

Tiftblue Blueberries

Derby Bush Beans

Lula Avocado

Sweet Charlie Strawberries

In addition to these, we have several green tomatoes, a new mint bed around one of our potted citrus trees, and several new butterfly/hummingbird habitat plants. We planted mexican bush sage, pineapple sage, white butterfly bush, and blue plumbago in containers on the deck. We also planted a turk's cap by the rain tank, and some coral honeysuckle on a trellis near the kitchen window. I hope to add some mexican fire bush (hamelia patens) by the kitchen window later this year or next year.

I was planning on installing an asparagus bed, but now I think it's too much time and expense. I'd have to wait 3 years before harvesting any stalks, so I think I'll build a vermiculture worm bed instead. I can put this together for $15 (worms included) with scrap lumber, and I need help composting my kitchen scraps anyway. My dual bin system just can't break down our kitchen waste fast enough, but I bet the worms can.

First Strawberries of 2010

Our strawberries made it through the freezes without any difficulty. The variety is called 'Sweet Charlie', and so far I really like them (from Ison's). We planted 80 plants, and probably 75 survived the winter. The berries are small but very sweet, and the plants seem to be good producers, considering that we have them confined to holes in the cinderblocks of our garden. I've been picking 2-3 every day for almost a week now, which makes me think that I'll have a bumper crop next year if I can keep them alive through the summer.

The Suburban Energy and Food Chain

The Average American Family:


The average American family buys tons of cheap processed and subsidized food, uses electricity from the burning of fossil fuels, is overweight due to poor diet and lack of exercise, and sends copious quantities of garbage to landfills.

The Green Family:


The green family grows some of their own food in a family garden, and purchases some from local sources. Thus, the green family eats fresher, higher quality food while depending less on the grocery store. The green family makes the conscious choice to conserve power, and to purchase electricity from renewable sources like wind. The green family recycles and composts kitchen scraps and yard wastes, which in turn help grow fruits and vegetables in the garden. Thus the green family sends much less material to landfills.

Be above average. Be Green.