From dedicated gardener & commentor Scout211:
Late November is a time here in rural NorCal when it seems like things start come alive again after the long, dry, hot summer. The dry, brown grasses start to grow again and turn green, some showy plants come alive and the fall citrus trees start to produce. And my vegetable garden can finally tolerate cooler weather veggies.
Summers are too hot for growing salad greens so I get excited for fall when I can grow them again. Last fall I planted one raised bed with greens and it never seemed to be enough for us. This year I planted two raised beds of various greens. So of course this year we have bags of greens filling up our refrigerator. I am not complaining, though. Here are my beds full of ready-to-pick greens. In late November!
The next pic is a close-up of our strawberry tree. I actually thought we had a strawberry bush but after I looked it up, it looks like it’s a strawberry tree. Arbutus unedo (I think). They are colorful and kind of fun looking. The fully ripe ones are actually edible but we leave them for the birds.
It’s citrus time!
We have 3 orange trees, three mandarin orange trees and a lemon tree. Two of our orange trees are navel oranges (of some kind). Both are still small, but producing well. Our oldest and largest orange tree is a blood orange and produces the sweetest tasting oranges. Our neighbors love it when we have a surplus because it is a neighborhood favorite. We usually pick the blood oranges in January and February.
We have a very young Meyer lemon tree that produces quite a few lemons for such a little guy. Meyer lemons are a cross between a lemon and a mandarin orange and they are both sweet and tart and make wonderful baked goods.
This is a close-up of one of our three young mandarin orange trees. They are all producing but usually only about 6 per tree so far.
Our showstopper, in terms of bright color in the fall and winter, is our bush daisy [top photo]. I am not sure which variety we have but I think it is one of the Euryops, maybe the Green-Leaved Euryops. It has green leaves and stalks (instead of the more common silver-green). The entire bush appears to die in the spring, leaving behind what looks like dead sticks. I cut the whole thing way back when it all turns brown and then by late fall, the leaves turn green again and the bright yellow-orange daisies appear and continue to bloom for several months. The bush is quite large and usually spills out into our driveway so you can easily see the bright orange-yellow flowers from the road.
***********
What’s going on in your garden(s) / garden planning, this week?
mrmoshpotato
Lemon tree! – The Simpsons
JeanneT
How sunny and bright everything looks! I am in envy of the citrus and the lettuce.
Meanwhile in west Michigan, 2 inches of snow fell yesterday (on top of the leaves I have not yet raked). Temps hovering at 32-35 degrees so it will slowly melt off. The only formal garden work I need to do ASAP is to fill in and reinforce the spot under the fence line where the beagle has dug a new escape route.
Betty
Beautiful salad greens. And you learn something new here every day – strawberry trees and bush daisies!
satby
@JeanneT: ?, well, in our favor we normally don’t have droughts, so let that comfort is through the long cold months.
Scout211, the citrus trees make me jealous though! Your gardens are very nice. I have one lonely tiny potted citrus dwarf tree that has struggled for at least three years. Don’t even know any more what kind, the tag was long lost in a past repotting; could be a Meyer Lemon or a dwarf Mandarin because I had both at one time. It has bloomed at least, but no fruit resulted. I bought them the same year I bought the dwarf banana tree that grew to be 7 feet high.
JPL
What a beautiful bounty. The pictures give new meaning to it’s a wonderful time of the year. Enjoy.
debbie
Love the thought of a strawberry tree. No bending!
Ken
I see that it’s not actually related to the strawberry in any way, so this isn’t another poinsettia case. You know, “in most areas they treat these as annuals, but the climate here lets them become a 20-foot tree”.
CCL
Beautiful, Scout211. I have a Meyer lemon that I bought to remind me of home. I get one or two lemons from it a year – and make a buttermilk lemon cake with it/them. The tree summers outside and I bring it in for the winter…though that’s not ideal. I try to keep the air around it slightly moist.
Satby, thank you for your advice last week. I did get the peonies planted outside…the ground was still diggable. Mulched with chopped up maple leaves. Potted up one and am leaving it in a glass windowed cellarway – in hopes that it will be like an unheated green house. (I use it like a cold frame for hardening off plants.)
Not much else, harvested collards before the snow, took down the pea fence, watered the pergola and coleus cuttings that I started for next year’s garden. Been watching the BBC’s Gardeners’ World…which is not good for plant addiction.
stinger
Clever title!
I’m envious of your citrus trees, Scout211– though you may in turn be envious of my apple trees.
I too plant large beds of mixed shape and color lettuces; mine do best in May-June. Maybe some year I’ll remember to plant a fall bed. But it’s so odd that your seasons are almost the opposite of mine in the Midwest — as if you were in the Southern Hemisphere! (I lived in California for almost a year, a temporary perch for military training, so I did no gardening.)
OzarkHillbilly
I got to watch the leaves fall. Does that count as gardening? I will be so happy when I finally lose the sling. 3 (?) more weeks to go.
I am seriously jealous of your citrus Scout 211.
Immanentize
Thanks, Scout211. I did not know that a Meyer’s lemon was a cross breed. I just knew they cost more! Now I must make lemon poppyseed pound cake today.
La Nonna
Nice pic of the strawberry tree, here it’s known as corbezzolo. Ours produces so much fruit, we crush them, ligbtly sweetened, great on plain cake or ice cream,does well in the freezer. A mediterranean native plant, beautiful round bole, nice shade tree,do not plant over a tiled or cement patio, the fruit stains.
O. Felix Culpa
@Ken:
Ha! That’s poinsettias in Uganda.
O. Felix Culpa
@Immanentize: Mmm, I’m on my way over.
opiejeanne
@CCL: Gardener’s World was our late afternoon go-to in the summer of 2020, after puttering in our own garden for most of the day. Mr opiejeanne knew he was in trouble when I started taking notes on plants I liked
@Scout211: Glad to see you still gardening. Didn’t you use to live in the Willamette Valley? I was envious of your garden and climate.
MelissaM
I envy the citrus trees, but am too committed to the midwestern seasons to move.
Nothing going on in my garden. Nothing. I haven’t raked a thing and this week am heading up to move my 90yo mother into assisted living, so I’ll have to gas up the mower in December to do some clearing of leaves. Here’s hoping the weather will cooperate.
frosty
@MelissaM: Same here, no gardening ATM, not even planning, We’ve got a couple of 50+ degree days coming later this week so that’s when I’ll bring the mower out with the grass catcher, chop up and bag the leaves, and throw the result into the compost bin. I haven’t raked a leaf since I discovered this One Weird Trick.
Kay
Love California gardening photos. We vacation in California, both northern and southern, and I drive my family crazy with running commentary on the exotic (to me) flowers and shrubs and trees.
Today I’m planning on turning and spreading my compost- it’s decomposed enough to basically start over next year and I’ve been raising these “compost worms” that my husband bought mail order and then got bored with so I’ll start the new batch with them- so that’s the thrilling November garden action in the midwest.
Scout211
@stinger:
Yes, I would indeed be envious of your apple trees. We have planted apple trees on our property but not successfully. It’s just too hot and dry out here. Our fruit trees are only on a drip system so they don’t seem to get enough water to produce quality fruit. And the birds and deer seemed to devour even the not-great fruit before they are ripe.
@La Nonna:
Thank you for the strawberry tree fruit suggestions. I will see if I can harvest enough of them this year for a strawberry sauce. That sounds yummy. We are definitely in a mediterranean climate zone here.
@opiejeanne:
I think you have me mixed up with Marvel? I moved to California in 1976. We moved out here on our 5-acre property in 2008 as our retirement home and for the first time we have plenty of space to garden.
oldgold
In the southern annex to West of Eden, I have a lemon tree and a lime tree. Unlike my ignored northern produce, I zealously harvest this crop.
About 5:00 PM each day, exhausted from sober sunning in the sand along the Gulf, I saunter out to the citrus trees and pick a juicy lemon and/or lime. Then, I make quick beeline back into the shack and solemnly announce it would be a crime against nature not to make quick use of these beauties. The Better Half, “I don’t have time to make pies tonight.” Me, “Damn, that’s a shame, where’s the tonic? And, so it goes.
opiejeanne
@Scout211: Oh! You’re right.
Where are you in Northern CA, roughly. Asking for climate info, because you might be able to have Granny Smith apples.
CCL
@opiejeanne: The notetaking is done by the Other Half. We are halfway through the 2021 series. Several bulbs (Camassia for one) that were previously unknown to us snuck into our bulb orders this year. Excited to see how they work out.
debbie
@CCL:
Uh oh. I see the website has a section on houseplants.
Scout211
@opiejeanne:
We are between the Central Valley and the Foothills, on the western side of Calaveras County. We actually have tried growing granny smith apples and they start out just fine but never seem to grow or produce healthy fruit. The soil here is mostly clay and rocks and is alkaline. There are apple orchards all over the Sierra Foothills to our east and the Central Valley (with it’s rich soil) to our west but I think we are in an area that isn’t very friendly to apple trees. We can successfully grow apricots, peaches and plums but not apples.
Gvg
Florida is getting cold, down in the 50’s at night. I wait till it warms up before going out to garden about 10 or so. I planted a bunch of the seedlings I started last month. Fall is better for planting than spring for many things but I will have to water some to get them established. Winter is our dry season. Fall plants mostly don’t seem to do much until spring, but apparently they grow roots and do better than spring plants. I put out stocks, pansies, coreopsis, New England asters, snapdragons, scabious and queen Ann’s lace. I have a bunch more to put out, then I will start some more for next month. Last week I put out several kinds of broccoli and cauliflower, my favorite winter vegetables. I can’t grow lettuce. It’s supposed to be a winter crop here and it does grow well but it’s always turned out bitter no matter how quick I pick it and I am tired of disappointment.
it is time to order more seeds for next year but I need to order Christmas gifts before I allow myself to indulge.