This year was great for pears. We picked a little over 300 lbs in 2 evenings. They have been in the house now for a little over 2 weeks, and have ripened up just perfectly. This year we've decided to dehydrate many of them, as time has been strapped due to some house remodeling, woodcutting, fruit collecting… you can make yourself as busy as you want! Anyhow… Out of the many fruit trees around this old place we bought, there are about 10 pear trees. They are all Bartlet as far as we can tell, however, one tree had possibly a different type of pear that was really small. We did pick around 25 or so pears off of it. Here's a picture: 

Drying the pears is the easiest process for sure. It is actually my favorite because when I get home from work, the entire house smells just wonderful. Dried Pears and Pear butter make excellent gifts too. A good friend of mine sent me some bananas he dried from his farm in Kauai. They were the best dried bananas I have ever had, and I like dried bananas.

Now someone might ask; "what are the essential tools of the pear drying and canning trade?" While some might not ask, I will share with you what is used anyways. (Skip this section if you already know.) You for sure need a dehydrator, we like the Excalibur dehydrator. An apple/pear corer, a couple large pots, big knife, spatula or slickapot, food mill, and loads time. It's worth it though. A lot of the time you can find trees in town that are just dropping fruit everywhere, ask the owners if you can have it, and enjoy some free dried, buttered, sauced, fruit.

Tags: butter, dried, fruit, pear, processing

Haven't said much in the past few weeks, so I thought I would share one of my favorite home and garden items. The No Spill Gas Can. This is the best gas can anyone can own. You will never spill gas again. My mom got it for me as a Christmas gift a couple years ago, I love it.

1450 5G NO SPILL GAS CAN

Tags: can, gas, no, spill

Everything in the garden is beginning to really grow. It seemed like a slow start this year. We still feel the squash and cukes are a bit behind, but we’re working with it. We tried a few new items this year. Cabbage seems to grow extremely well here, as does the staple broccoli. Cauliflower this year was fun to try, it’s doing great. Corn is anywhere from shin to knee high, about where it was last year at this time.

The flowers are really doing well, being now established for a season. Some rogue or volunteer sunflowers have shown up here and there adding to the asthetics of the wonderful garden environment. Pears are really growing well. We have 6 trees with pears this year, verses the 2 last year. The 2 from last year have double the crop this year. Plums are also doing well. We got 3 last year, there are 3000 this year. We have an early summer blueberry plant that is now beginning to really give some tasty blueberries. We have a net over it to keep the birds off, it’s worked so far. The rasberries are tasty, but few and far between. I think the birds are getting them. I planted about 100sqft of Asparagas for next year. It’s nice to see it begin to show it’s fern like growth. We have had a strange lettus garden. I planted a good amount of it early, we got a warm spell, like 90 degrees in May and the majority of it has already gone to seed. It’s about time to plant the other half of the row I think. July 15th and we have Kale, Lettus, Broccoli, Cauliflower, Carrots, Beets, Onions and Radishes that have been edible for the past month. The herbs have been good for the past two months. Here are some pictures of the garden. Enjoy!

Tags: 4500, california, eastern, feet, Garden, July, northern, organic

If you are looking for a beautiful, early summer, late spring, fragrant flowering shrub, the Mock Orange is hard to beat. It is one of my favorite flowering shrubs. The fragrance is fairly strong, similar to the strength of lilacs. The smell is pungent and sort of sweet. We have the mock orange planted in a partial shade area. After trimming it up this past winter, it really showed it’s flowers this summer. The mock orange is about 25 feet from our bedroom window. Some evenings when the sun shines on it for a while and the wind is just right, we’ll get a nice filling aroma bringing a wonderful relaxing sensation into our small home.

There are a variety of Mock Orange that will grow in our area, so I am not sure of this exact type. It is either a:

• Philadelphus Coronarius (Sweet Mock Orange)
• Philadelphus Glacier
• Philadelphus Lewisii (Wild Mock Orange)
• Philadelphus Minnesota Snowflake
• Philadelphus Natchez
• Philadelphus Virginal

…so that really doesn’t narrow it down. According to the Sunset Western Gardener’s descriptions, I would say it’s a Philadelphus Coronarius, or the Sweet Mock Orange, due to it’s “cluster’s of flowers” and height of about 10 feet max. We have a couple others around the yard that are very small right now, but as we continue to build soil, water, and fertilize with organic options, they will begin to really grow.

Tags: coronarius, fragrant, mock, orange, Philadelphus

First we get the Lilacs in white and purple. The fragrance is amazing! You get nice wiffs of it through the house on the warmer days. After the Lilac flowers are beginning to die back the Plum Tree’s white blossoms show. They don’t last too long. After the Plum blossoms, this yellow rose booms out of the yard and down the rock wall. The flowers don’t have a real fragrance to them, but they are just beautiful in the early morning and especially in the evening. The kind of glow out of the green back drop. About 2 months after these roses pass, we’ll be sharing our plums with everyone. What a great cycle!

P.S. This yellow climbing rose is either a Garden Sun, Golden Showers, or a Royal Gold according to Sunset’s Western Gardener.

Tags: buds, climbing, rose, yellow

Click on image for a very large image.

Tags: blue, columbine, flower, pastel

We have a lot of Iris’ around our place. This past fall we disturbed the majority of them in order to get some flowers to show. The majority of Iris’ we have are the perennial Bearded Iris (Iris Germanica). Iris are a rhizome, so cutting the roots is OK, and actually enchorage to a certain extent. The best time to divide them is in August or so around Northern California. Iris’ prefer a slightly acidic soil with a pH around 7. If you have heavy rainfall in your area, make sure your bed drains well, as Iris do prefer a more well draining soil. If you don’t have very good soil, get some good organic potting soil or amendment, double dig an area and lay the rhizome on top. They don’t need to be covered much, if at all. Actually, they won’t grow any flowers, only green leaves, if they are too deep in the ground.

In an old house we lived in a few years back, there were some old Iris’ that never bloomed while we were there, the year before we left I took a shovel and dug all around them, then gave them some BioSol. Bam! We had flowers in June. Below are a couple pictures from our Iris’ that are blooming now.

Tags: acidic, bearded, germanica, iris, well drained

We Weed the Other Half. We did this little experiment to see if the chickens take care of weeds better than we can. All last winter we left the chickens in half the garden. We did this for two reasons, one to keep them fenced in a safe spot when we left for a couple days, and two in order to see if they would fertilize and weed the garden well. From what my wife has said, the weeds on the chickens half of the garden are harder to pull out. I’d have to agree. The root is just really set on the grass and other unwanted greens.

As for the fertilizer, I think spreading the chicken manure out as we clean the coop is just as effective. On a positive note, I haven’t seen many bugs at all in the garden. No cutworms or the like. They do the work in that aspect. Next fall we’ll let them fatten back up in the annual section again as everything begins to die back and go farrow.

Tags: Chickens, Garden, weed

With the past few days in the mid to upper 80’s, everything around the yard that gets a good watering is boosting. Our first lilac flowers are beginning to show. They smell so wonderful! We have a lot of large lilac bushes around our place that are probably over 40 years old. It’s nice to walk around the yard in the early morning when the sun really begins to warm the flowers up. The fragrance is amazing. Too bad our house doesn’t always smell that nice.

Tags: fragrant, lilacs, purple

Our courtyard apple tree has treated us with a plethora of blossoms this year. It is amazing. We have fancied the idea that there are probably more than 100,000 blossoms on it. I’d say that number is maybe half of what there really is. Did you know that October is National Apple Month? When October comes I’ll have to write a tribute post to the apples. Enjoy the photos.

Tags: apple, blossom, california, norther, Spring, tree