Our sweet cherries are looking tastier everyday.
Photos
Pineapple guava (Feijoa sellowiana) flowers.
Cherries on the bark beetle-caused malnourished, unshaded branches (to right) are blushing fast (May not be very good cherries). The resident blue jays should stick to those branches.... they ignore the metallic tape with malice in their dinosaur eyes...
Pineapple Guava (Feijoa sellowiana) flower bud. These flowers are going to be huge.
Turns out native California grape flowers ate definitely not showy but are well loved by small pollinators.
I think these are as showy as native California grape flowers get. Will report back.
Backyard elderberry in full bloom. Fence behind it is six feet tall.
Fruit Tree Irrigation: an Experiment
Sunday, April 26, 2020
For several years I’ve watered my fruit trees using a Generation 2 Rachio controller and their irrigation method called “Flex Daily”. This method relies on many variables, a few of which I can only make good guesses at. For example, my soil’s Available Water Capacity from the U.S. Soil Survey. Flex Daily on Rachio is really designed for watering lawns, and I don’t care about lawns. I water fruit trees with unevenly spaced emitters.Wild California Grapes are coming along — these are the flowers buds.
Front yard Clarkia update: nearly full bloom. Hoping the white lined sphinx moth caterpillars show up soon. Though, this year there is far less forage than the last. Not enough rain.
For Earth Day, bees on the elderberry and the avocado.
This HUGE bumble bee really wants the Toyon flowers to open up! Been buzzing around for several minutes.
Today’s Clarkias and Poppies.
Homemade Naan atop a piping hot Baking Steel.
First bloom of our backyard California wild roses (Rosa Californica)!
Today, first time in weeks flour and sugar could be bought 🥳 go King Arthur flour!
Snakefly hunting insects on a bed of elderberry flowers.
Warmer than usual weather means Peppers are rapidly sprouting. We direct seeded this year as an experiment.
Yarrow is now in bloom and the carpet beetles are gorging themselves on pollen.
Seen at lunch: iNaturalist guesses this is a Leafhopper Assassin bug on our California grape. Assassins in our back yard! A good bug!
The swarm in our little blue oak is getting a new home.
With [Watchsmith](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/watchsmith/id1483088503), I get a hamburger when my move/exercise/stand goals are met.
When your yards are a pollen and nectar paradise, this can happen. Time to get in touch with a local apiary!
Bee butt on a front yard Gilia 🐝
This western toad is why I carefully cut back the parsley. I knew it was in there somewhere. I stopped at the toad and gently covered with trimmings to maintain shade and moisture.
Got to pay attention to notice avocado flowers. Our “Bacon” Avocado tree is flowering. Our “Mexicola” variety is not— too bad because they’re type A and B so would have pollinated each other.
Falafel soft tacos tonight since we had dry chickpeas, the herb garden was begging for it, and we always have corn tortillas. Topped with red onion quick pickle and herbed buttermilk 🧆
Think we might get cherries in mid to late May! A few tree branches have extremely undersized leaves because of bark beetle damage starving the branches of resources. Mainly from metallic bark beetles. Two branches completely died last year so they got lopped.
Got a few Apricot fruits to set... in a few weeks they may drop as the tree balances its energy.
First elderberry flowers in the backyard.
