Harvested our first homegrown Valencia orange this year. So very sweet. Even the pith isn’t bitter. We may want to harvest the rest early if there’s a freeze later this week. Fortunately there’s only a dozen-ish. ~243 mandarins harvested so far — makes great juice 🌱🌳
First bloom for our Valencia orange tree. About three weeks early compared to 2020 & 2021. 🌱🌳
Honey bee approaching a nectarine flower. 🌳🌱
Our New Century Asian Pear tree, seeing as it’s already showy as heck, will be glorious in a few years. 🌱🌳
…. and here is our new (this year) New Century Asian Pear about ready to burst. 🌱🌳
Our Nectarine is very close to blooming. This is its second year in the ground here. 🌱🌳
Did a bit of pruning of the apricot today. Doesn’t look like much but I removed lots of suckers and interior branches. I’ve quit trying to top it. Dang tree barely produces so it is not worth the extra effort. 🌱
Today I had to remove a trespassing & bird harassing “Happy Birthday To You” balloon from our mandarin tree and then dispose of it. A birthday card can say as much. 🙄
Today we moved our lemon grass over a few feet to give our new Asian pear tree some room. Then we finally mulched the area. Looking good! BTW, our electric tiller is amazing. Way better than hacking away at compacted soil with pick & shovel.
Has anyone figured out the rhyme or reason behind Fujifilm cameras expiring smart phone-provided location information via bluetooth? Location information expires in a few hours (I think) and the Fuji Cam Remote app + Camera do not reliably connect without user intervention.
Saturday, November 6, 2021
I’ve got a slate of six Film Simulations from Fuji X Weekly loaded on my X100V. Fuji X Weekly’s Film Recipes app is nice for a quick reference. Here’s what I’ll be working with for a while in hopes of greatly limiting RAW reprocessing with Straight-Out-Of-Camera (SOOC) JPEGs: General Purpose: Kodachrome 64 Fujicolor Reala 100 Landscape: The Rockwell Afga Vista 100 Fujicolor Superia 800 (if overcast) Street: Kodachrome II I figured out how to use Fujifilm X Raw Studio to save user settings to the camera.Closer look at a senescing apricot leaf compared to a still green leaf.
Our apricot is almost ready to overwinter. The nectarine at the bottom left is being a bit stubborn. California wild rose at the bottom right is in full growth mode.
My current drip system is an aging hodgepodge with uneven tree watering. I just got a bunch of new drip stuff from dripdepot.com (20% sale). Will be converting compression fittings to perma-loc. That’s more flexible and fittings are, importantly, easily reusable.
Perma-loc splice is an okay fix for drip tape punctured by fighting cats. Please keep your cats indoors. Cats are destructive of not only wildlife but also your neighbor’s stuff.
So many ripe Serranos & other varieties. This is hands down our best year for peppers. It has taken many years of trial and error to get here. Hot sauce here we come! (Yes, we are eating some fresh). Oh and it’s fig season!🌱
Edible garden update: we continue to harvest lots of red & ripe peppers for hot sauce. The tomatoes are basically done for the season at 195 tomatoes weighing in at 34 pounds. We froze most. And finally, our figs are starting to ripen and we’re on nectarine watch 2021🌱
Covered up the avocados again in advance of today’s 110°F weather. Every time we do this it gets simpler and better. Wrapping the sheet around a ladder is genius.
The lapins cherry we planted last November is dead. It only grew a few leaves. Super bummed. Stark Bro’s is great & gave me a 125% store credit, no hassle (with proof of dead tree via scratch test), so we will try again this winter. I have no idea what went wrong.🌳🌱
That time of the year where we temporarily shade the avocado trees as they have a hard time taking up water fast enough during 105°F+ temperatures… yeah they don’t belong here. At all. 🌱
I just changed my Apple ID email address. That was scary. I think everything is fine? Took a bit of device coercing. Some needed complete log-offs, other devices figured it out on their own. Really inconsistent and that made it more scary. Hope I never have to do that again.
I think we are having a bumper crop of figs this year. Oh and we did find some tomatoes with end rot but seems localized for now. We likely added calcium to the tomatoes later than we should have. 🌱
Pineapple Guavas (Feijoa sellowiana) are flowering. Perhaps this year they’ll fruit.
Our cultivated native California Grapes are coming along very nicely. Same can’t be said for our new cherry tree (more on that later perhaps) 🌱
I’ve thinned at least a dozen nectarines off this young tree. This “Fantasia” Nectarine is incredibly fruitful. 🌳🌱
Our mandarin tree is in full bloom. 🌱🌳
The “Fantasia” nectarines are coming along. First ever crop. We’ve had to thin a dozen or so because its branches are too young. We’ll thin more soon. 🌱🌳
Our “Bacon” Avocado tree is blooming basically right on time as compared to last year on April 11th. It has yet to produce any fruit and it is supposed to be self-pollinating. 🌱🌳
I just hooked up one more drip line to the little Antelco eZyvalve valve box. I think I’m done for the season reconfiguring our drip system. Time to see how reliable this thing is. I’m not sure what I’ll do with the last two valves. Spares for now. 🌱
I just installed this Antelco eZyvalve 4 Zone Valve Box. I’m very pleased so far. We’ll see how durable and long lasting it is. I’ll be connecting drip to it. It’s wired to my Rachio Gen 2 irrigation controller.
