Tag: fruit
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April in the Mediterranean Garden: Managing Abundance
Spring is probably easy in just about any garden anywhere. It is definitely easy in our Mediterranean garden. The spring rains were plentiful again this year and so for once there are no water restrictions in force. The sun is getting stronger by the day and everything grows by leaps and bounds. Sometimes I just…
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Rheum – Rhubarb
Planting Rhubarb in this Mediterranean garden turned out to be a successful experiment. In August 2022 I planted a “Frambozen Rood” in half-shade. Despite regular watering it did suffer a lot from the heat. During the garden re-ordering in December 2023 I moved it next to the wall of the garden shed where the soil…
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The Orchard 2024
It’s been a year since the last orchard “status report” in February of 2024. Time for an update: The pear tree bore a bumper crop of wonderfully juicy and aromatic pears – yellow with reddish cheeks, probably “Clapp’s Favorite”. What I had thought to be a “cherry tree” turned out to be a reineclaude tree…
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Goji – the Berry from Hell
It’s very difficult to cultivate small soft berry fruit here – too hot, too dry. Goji berries however aren’t scared of anything. Heat? Drought? No problem. Along with their dainty little flowers and pretty berries, they have the personality of a Mongolian conqueror and start spreading everywhere underground. I found that I didn’t really like…
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Ficus Carica – Fig Trees
Figs are the quintessential Mediterranean fruit tree and when we moved in I was so happy about the miniature grove of fig trees at the very back of the garden! But in that summer and fall we didn’t see a single fig. Having no experience at all with fig trees and lots of other things…
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Pears “Clapp’s Favorite”
The rather small old pear tree (half trunk), which had not been pruned for ages, produced only two pears after my first heavy pruning in early 2023. In the spring of 2024 it had developed masses of steeply vertical water shoots, of which I removed about half (the narrowest, most incorrectly and most vertically growing).…