So I decided that since today was so lovely (70 and breezy here in lovely Southern California), I would go take a look at what’s ready for harvest in our yard.
I started with the little lemon bush we have. It’s a sad little thing in the front yard. It would probably be much bigger and healthier if it had more space (it’s growing in the small dirt patch between the walkway and the driveway. Only a few of the lemons were ripe, but that’s ok. I couldn’t eat a whole ton all at once anyway.
Next I went out back and checked on the avocado tree. Nothing ready, but they’re starting to grow bigger and plump up (can’t wait til they’re ready!!).
Then I went over to our monster cherry tomato bush. Sean’s step-dad used to plant cherry tomatoes between all the rose bushes when he lived here. He would have to tear them out and replant every year, because they never made it longer than a season. He hasn’t lived here in a year and a half, and I haven’t replanted anything. There are only two cherry tomato bushes left, and one of them is kind of sad-looking (probably needs a trellis to climb up). The other one, however, decided to take over on of the rose bushes it was planted next to. Now this plant is a monster rose/tomato hybrid, and a monster to try to harvest. You have to wear thick gloves because the rose bush is all tangled with the tomatoes, and it’s just not nice. However, the tomatoes go CRAZY. They love it! I got a huge bunch of them – awesome considering most people aren’t even planting their tomatoes yet!
Also, a random orange that fell over the wall from the neighbor’s yard. Score!
A while back, we noticed this weird “weed” growing in the middle of the yard. He was cleaning up, and decided to pull it. “WAIT!” I said, “It looks like it’s going to bloom or something! Let’s just give it a week or two and see what it does. There aren’t any other plants nearby, so it isn’t hurting anything to leave it.” So we waited. Sure enough a week or so later, it turned into a sunflower! We have no idea where it came from, or how the seed came to be planted in our backyard. We don’t really water any of the plants (they all seem to be doing just fine without our help!), so it’s just one big mystery how it got there and survived.
Today I decided to harvest it. I looked up online how long to wait and when to harvest and what not (the flower has long-since died, and all the petals fell off – I was afraid I had waited too long, and would lose all the seeds). Turns out, I waited just the right amount of time! Awesome!!
I’m amazed at just how many seeds came out of this one sunflower! I’m not quite sure what to do with them all.
Also, I was looking at our rose bushes. Most of them aren’t blooming right now – it hasn’t been warm enough. But one of them has these big giant rose hips. Does anyone know how/when to harvest those? I tried looking it up, but I don’t know which type of roses they are (all of them are different, and they aren’t labelled or anything). Here’s a picture of some of the rose hips now.
