Pruning

The fruit trees are all beset with water sprouts and branches reaching where they shouldn't. My lack of fall spraying means that they have come through (or into, in the case of the apples) a fruiting season with more burdens on them than they really need. Aphids and whiteflies have left sooty residue, cutting down on light transmission. I'm sure they haven't gotten the water they need, and yet they have been generous. Their shapes aren't quite right.

Time to get out the clippers and hack off some growth! Maybe the end of summer is why the whole family has had some version of this urge.

Although I'm not really expert at it, I find pruning enjoyable. The plants respond with renewed vigor, even if they wait for a distant season to show it. Should they bear again, I will also be able to reach the fruit! Short trees for real people, that should be my rallying cry.

One of the reasons I haven't done the garden work I need to is that my energy has been focused on a couple of other things. The old posts from my other blog are now live on this one. They can be accessed through the calendar list on the sidebar. Seeing the kids go from little larvae to big people was kind of shocking as I moved them.

The big mental energy expense has been the upcoming trip to the Youth Conference Championship for USAUltimate.

Sarafina was on the winning team last year, and this year both she and Ellie will be on the U19 team. They aren't as competitive, they think, but it should be a fantastic experience.

We'll see how the cross-country drive goes.

I used to worry when I crossed the San Mateo Bridge with the kids because it's a long bridge, right on the water of the Bay, and it was so easy, really so so easy, to imagine one second that would change everything.

Just one car braking the wrong way, or a tire popping, and I felt, almost, the van bouncing off a car on our left and scraping along the K-rail until the forward motion is translated into flight and we roll, gracefully, over the barrier and down into the water so close below.

When I would have these worries, I would imagine me shouting (I shout so much, really) at the older ones to unbuckle as I frantically made my way to the backwards-facing car seat and the forward-facing toddler seat to grab my babies who couldn't swim yet. I imagined us all in the bubble of air as the van tipped, and trying to get them out and realizing even as I did it, that there was no way, no way at all, that I could do it.

I wouldn't be able to save them all. There were too many, and they were too young, and even the older ones wouldn't be able to make it long in that cold water even if they could kick their way up to the air. I wouldn't be able to hold a baby and a big toddler or young child. I would, really, lose some, if not all of them. Worse, I might have to choose which ones to try to save. Imagining that was enough to send me the long way 'round the Peninsula.

As they got older and out of the carseats, the fear faded some. They are older, and more competent, and repetition helps. I still drive as far away from the water's edge as I can, though.

Why, now, why am I revisiting this old fear, this scenario that still speeds my heart rate up as I write it?

Well, I'm not the only one driving all the way to Minnesota.

Harvest Monday

First time I remembered to do this. The slow harvests are probably helping my memory! At any rate, while I think that year-round gardening is great, sometimes it's difficult for me to remember that some things have to be done at the "right" time for optimization. For instance, late December is pruning time. Instead of writing it down on my calendar, I determined to remember it. Usually that doesn't work well, but this time it did!

In the interstitial time between Christmas and New Year, I've gotten a lot of nest-neatening stuff done, and that included a big prune yesterday. All of the fruit trees, and some of the herbs, got their yearly haircut. The little trees that were put in last year seemed too little to cut, but I remembered the instructions -- cut all summer growth back by 50%. So I gritted my teeth and did it! I hope I get a nice harvest this year, with new watering plans and a fertilization schedule.

But first, a few ounces of spinach and some baby beet greens for salad. This was easily the worst tasting spinach I've ever tasted. It was awful. I would have enjoyed grazing as much as I did this. Ugh. It's "Wolter," and I don't know if it's the lots of rain or what. In past seasons, it's tasted better. The chickens are going to love it if it keeps tasting like this. Pretty, though.



All that pruning led to lots of citrus harvest, even without the Meyer lemons I'd made into sorbet for Christmas. This is the first year the lime has been in full production, and I'm delighted. I haven't weighed it yet, but the basket is heavy. I'm putting off juicing and freezing the fruit because my wrists will ache afterwards. Candying the lemon peel is a pretty good idea, too, and I'm thinking I might do that tomorrow. Some I'll probably grate and save, though, too.


So that's it, pretty much. The carrots are swelling slowly in the ground and the peas are starting to think about bearing. It's a nice time in the garden here. If you want to join in the fun, Daphne is the ringleader of Monday harvests at Daphne's Dandelions. You can head over there to see other folks and what they've grown.