Lou Murray's Green World

A view of my backyard vegetable garden in raised beds (behind the herb garden and bird bath)

My Super Sugarpod peas (snow peas) are chin height already and just now starting to bloom. I probably have too much chicken manure in my homemade compost, i.e., too much nitrogen. Oh well, it makes for lush growth. The nasturtiums outside the beds get runoff from the drip irrigation and are at crotch height, but with very few flowers.

Don’t you just love pea flowers? I can hardly wait for our first snow peas. The birds ate my entire first planting, gobbled up the little seedlings as soon as they sprouted. The peas never had a chance. The birds are now attacking the tips of these huge pea plants. Naughty birds. I may need a net cover,

Salad making from my garden with the first harvest of radishes for the spring. There is also baby kale, Freckles lettuce, cilantro, and arugula.

The chard is also growing like gangbusters.

The lettuce etc went into a salad with pine nuts.

I sautéed the chard with garlic in olive oil, added a splash of basalmic vinegar and some Parmesan cheese, and topped each serving with a sliced boiled egg. Garlic toast and lasagna completed the lunch for company.

Now for actual flowers! Pink jasmine is perfuming the air with honeyed sweetness.

Pink cymbidium orchids bloom on the back deck. They have been blooming for weeks. The white ones aren’t open yet, so I get about 3-4 months of orchid bloom each spring.

This is another type of orchid. These little beauties bloom year round.

Tis the season for succulent blooms. These are Mother of Thousands, which have spread everywhere.

Freesias are in full bloom, front and back, adding their own delightful aroma to the spring garden.

Most of my fressias are yellow.

The flowers are fading on our apricot tree, but little tiny green fruits are forming below the dying petals.

I moved my ultra dwarf Garden Gold peach tree into a sunnier location. This tiny tree grows in a pot. I am hoping to get actual peaches from it this year.

These are flowers on the August Pride peach tree in front. The Florida Prince has already finished blooming and is covered in little peaches. The Babcock Improved peach hasn’t bloomed yet, nor has the plum tree nor the Panamint or Snow Queen nectarines.

The single paperwhite narcissus have finished blooming already, and these double paperwhites are almost done.

I am trying out this new succulent, Kangaroo paws, in my flower garden. At least I think it is a succulent. It is drought tolerant at least.

I grow green onions in pots. They are about to bloom. I save the seeds to grow more next year. I haven’t had to buy green onions at the store or farmer’s market in about five years now, as I grow them year round.

The background is white lantana, part of my butterfly garden. This succulent is blooming. No idea what it is.

Another blooming succulent. The flowers are similar to Mother of Thousands, but that isn’t what this is.

It looks like a Kalanchoe (sp?) is blooming in this pot of succulents.

These flower buds are the ones that I am the most excited about. They are on my new grafted Asian Pear that has four different varieties on it. This is a newly planted tree, so I’m happy to see it leaf out and bloom. This winter was most likely too warm and mild for my older Asian pears to set fruit as they need a certain number of hours of chilling. This new tree spent most of the winter in a nursery somewhere colder than our yard.

This little Valencia orange is doing fine in a pot in front. It looks like we will get some fruit from it this year. The navel orange, lime, Meyer lemon and Eureka lemon trees are doing fine with fruit ready to harvest.

It is also avocado harvest season.

These are the flower bud clusters for next year’s avocado crop. Let’s hope I get some fertilization. Come on, bees!

We just had the olive tree pruned to give my garden more sunlight. Check out that nice row of blooming yellow freesias in front.

This little bed in front has green onions, some garlic, a volunteer sunflower, a chard, and some Freckles lettuce that has been decimated by birds.

I made a cage of hardware cloth to fit over this bed of mesclun, lettuce and Napa cabbage, but I built it too late to save the lettuce.

Dwarf blue-curled kale

Lacinato kale, aka Tuscany kale, aka dinosaur kale, aka black kale.

This Komatsuna (Japanese mustard greens) looks ready to go into a stir fry. I harvest only the outer leaves to extend the harvest in my tiny garden.

I have three camellia plants. One is still in bloom, but the others are finished already.

Rosebuds have appeared, but they are a long way from opening. Look at that, no aphids in February.

The row of jade plants has nearly finished blooming.

The Pink Lady bushes have just begun to bloom.

Snowdrops in bloom are a sure sign of spring in our front yard.

I just love this row of red and white cyclamen. But I still haven’t planted them. They are still in pots. So many plants, so little time.

Nemesia (sun drops) bloom all year long in our yard, as does Allysum.

I didn’t post-process this photo of Allysum and it is a bit dark. Sorry.

Lavender is another year round bloomer.

These Fortnight Lillies bloom every two weeks. Wonderful plants, and quite drought tolerant.