Cherries and Springtime in the garden

We are well into Spring and our garden is growing almost as fast as the weeds. The time we’ve put into some of the plants over the past seven years is paying off as they start to mature a bit more. For example, the cherry tree, now in its fifth year, produced a lone cherry two years ago (eaten by a bird), three cherries last year (eaten by us in a slightly unripe state for fear of the birds) and this year is up to about sixty or so. Next year we should get our first real crop. Here’s a quick picture to give you an idea….

If you want to see the rest of the bounty (artichokes, peaches, apricots, lemons, strawberries, roses – not to mention grapes, herbs, blackberries, persimmons) then read on…

The cherries were one of the earliest of our efforts, but not the first. The first was a multi-fruit tree – all grafted onto a single trunk. The nectarines and plums didn’t make it but the white peaches and apricots did.

The lemons aren’t technically ours since they spill over from next door. We have our own Meyer Lemon tree coming along but it is too small to produce much as yet.

The strawberries are spreading all over thanks to the girls who efficiently pop the slightly slug-eaten ones back into the ground for the future.

The artichokes took some work – this is probably their best year yet, but we do usually get two crops. Note that these are spikier and smaller than commercial ones, but my are they tasty!

And finally, I threw the rose in (one of about fifteen – all different – just because they can represent the wide variety of gorgeous flowers that Jan has planted.