Tag: fruit
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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).…
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Melons: Cucumis melo and Citrullus lanata
Mediterranean climate should be good for melons one should think. Alas it is for some but not for others. I had ordered several types of “Dry Farming” melon seeds at Seedshunters.com and tried to grow them in 2023 and 2024. Most did not work out, neither in the old vegetable garden, where they shriveled up…
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The Orchard
This garden had been an orchard once upon a time. There was a cherry plum (prunus cerasiferus) that had created its own little forest, damaging the garden wall in the process. A big old fruit tree of unknown kind that was more or less dead on its legs. Two stunted old apple and pear trees,…
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The edible garden in September
Our housesitter had planted some melons, tomatoes, peppers, and pumpkins for us in the spring and when we arrived end of June they were coming along nicely. Religious watering by hand saved them over the summer and in September the pumpkins and melons were ripening. The old appletree as well was surprisingly full with apples…