This was a nice and productive summer and I was really excited after the first Ridge Gourd grew. Still now I have a lot of ridge gourds growing though the night temperature is going down to below 40 deg F. Also we had Okras and Bitter gourds this year. Will try to save some of the seeds from the fruits this year so that I can have good Ridge Gourd, Okras , Red Amaranthus and Bitter Gourds next year.

Fall has started to come in so thinking of putting in some onions and greens in the garden - apart from the regular clean ups.

Enjoy the pics.

More than a month has passed and some of the vegetables are growing like crazy.
We have harvested a lot of tomatoes ( we had only cherry tomatoes this year). But we are
tired of plucking tomatoes from the garden everyday.
The okra plants have started to set fruit and at last the bitter gourd plants have sprouted - i wonder whether this is too late ?
Lot of flowers have come on the Ridged gourds , lets see how they do.
A lot of marigolds bloomed - so did the zinnias and the snapdragons. Now the hollyhocks have started blooming - though they are hardly visible as the ridged gourds have covered them and the tendrils are attached to them helping them grow.
Harvesting the eggplants was fun, waiting for the ridged gourd and the balsam apple to grow. Here are some pics.

Today it is a little cold after a spell of hot summer weather for almost a couple of weeks , it rained last night and is cloudy today. Good for everybody except the gardeners who are worried about the crops that like heat. Anyway, the chinese okras, okra, water melons have germinated. They were all growing like crazy in the hot period.

The Balsam apple (bitter gourd) has not yet germinated though. Don't know whether it will germinate or if it is looking for a higher temperature to germinate. One thing that I learnt is okras and chinese okras are difficult to grow from seed indoors as they are very sensitive and they don't respond well if you try to transplant them.

All the Okras that I tried to transplant died - so I had to plant the seed outside and they germinated when the soil tempertaure reached above 75 deg F. The same with chinese Okras (Ridgegourds) except for the fact that they didn't even germinate indoor.

We were thrilled a few days back when we saw that the Cauliflower has started flowering.

Anyway here a few pictures of my plants and how they are doing.

Also a picture of my vegetable garden.

Summer .. summer

As the days are getting longer (and warmer) the veggies in the garden are enjoying it more and more.

It is a great pleasure to see the growth of the plants and almost everyday you can see them and understand that they have grown ... the walla walla onions really like it and they are growing bigger every day . Here is a picture of them and then there is another close up.

Apart from the veggies the flowers are also doing good ... the back of the garden is full with poppies and I sprinkled some wild flower seeds which are now in full bloom also ..
Here is a pic of the poppies at the back of the garden .. in between the big shrub is a honeysuckle .

Below is a pic of one of the rose plants besides the veggie enclosure ..

Roses and Iris

Now it is quite warm outside during daytime and weather is very nice here in Grants Pass - the daytime temperature reaches about 80/ 85 deg F during the daytime and the night time temperature still drops down to around 50.

My roses have started to bloom and so have the iris.

The vegetable plants are also growing - the chillies and the eggplants are out in the sun.

The lemon cucumbe ris also doing pretty well.

It had an initial shock when it went out in the scorching sun but now again the faded and burnt leaves have fallen and new leaves have grown.

The only plant not getting a shock was mu Zuchinni plant - it is also doing pretty well and growing vigorously - hope will get enough Zuchinnis this summer from one plant :)

The vegetable garden is now covered with wire mesh for protection against the deer - at last I feel safe - hope they won't be able to jump above 6 ft.

Clematis

My clematis is in full bloom in my backyard - this one is placed just beside the door and the garage and just gets the morning sun and perhaps a few hours of direct sunlight - it is covered from the afternoon sun.

Doesn't it look gorgeous ?

My Veggie garden

I have made 6 raised beds this year in place of my deck (which used to occupy that space earlier) for the veggie garden. I reused the wood from the deck itself to make the beds.

I made a plan also - what I should plant where .. don't know how much I will be able to follow the same. Pretty much the first two beds would be the small veggies (which won't grow tall) like spinach, cauliflowers, potatoes, corianders, onions etc. Then tomatoes, eggplants , okra and peppers. The last row should be chinese okras, cucumbers and bitter gourds. Lets see how much I can follow the plans.

I made an arrangement of drip irrigation also so that watering can be done efficiently to strengthen the root system of the plants. Lets see.

The potato plants are so far the ones that have grown most - though just this week the tempertaure is a over 45 / 50 at night - so lets see how the tomatoes do .. I have started to take out the plastic cover and keep them exposed to the cold at night .. hope they survive ...

The grape is also doing good .. leaves have just started coming out of the plant .. this is a variety called the 'Suffolk Red' - waiting for the red juicy grapes .. yum !!!

Pear tree

How I can I forget my pear tree ? Last year there were almost 1000 pears in it. Though the Aphids gave a hard time but still we were able to harvest almost 60 / 70 pears everyday during the peak season. I trimmed the pear tree a little bit this year with help from my neighbour.

Come spring and the pear tree is also in bloom.

Here is a close up of the flowers - they have a bad smell of rotten eggs / fish. But they look beautiful. Though we had less rains this year but perhaps the cold spell would be good for getting rid of the bugs and hope there would be nice fruit this year as well ( A don't mond a little bit less - last year even after distributing to our neighbourse / friends a lot pears were wasted).

My tulips in full bloom

The tulips are in full bloom now - they really look beautiful in the afternoon sun.

Spring and tulips are here

Well - we can tell that Spring is here for sure , the tulips have started to bloom. This is the part of the year I like most. The daffodils are still there and the tulips have started blooming. All the plants are again becoming green.

We didn't have much rainfall this year (at least as compared to the previous year). Looks like we will have a very dry spring and summer. It is still cold at night (goes down to 34/ 35 ) - so the tomatoe plants still cannot go out.

Will try around mid April if the night temperature reaches 50 deg F.

However in the greenhouse they are getting bigger nad bigger, had to move them from the seed pot to a bigger pot. This year I have around 15 tomato plants growing from seeds (all indeterminates).

The peppers and eggplants are also growing well - they are around 6 inches each, they will go out perhaps in May.

Here are a few blooms in our garden this Spring ...

Spring is coming ...

Well, it was a dull winter with lots of snow in Grants pass - much more than the previous years.

The plants are recovering a little bit.

The sad part was I lost the upper half of my Southern Magnolia due to snow. I planted this 6 months back - hope the plant will recover.

My daffodils are flowering and so are the hyacinths. The tulips have grown and seems like they are going to be pretty good.

The pieris on my front bed is in bloom and so is the Camelia. Will post a few pictures of them.

History ....

When I first came to this place, the garden was a mess as the previous owner was not perhaps very much interested in the Yard.
So, we had a lot of work to do.
Started with watering the existing Lawns and plants around and fertilizing them.
They all seemed pretty weak and i could almost hear them screaming that they needed a little bit of care.
To add to the woes there was a Deck at the center with Ivy around and a fruitless mulberry tree at one corner almost taking out the patio. The mulberry tree had become huge and shaded the whole garden.

Above is a picture how the mulbery was tree just infront of my bedroom. It provided nice shade but was taking the patio up gradually with its shallow roots. So we had to cut that down and had to pull the deck ip so that I can utilize the space as a veggie garden.

I also had to move the hot tub / spa from the middle of the deck to the front of the bedroom.

Now after taking care of the basic things I can start planning to make this into a place of my liking. Planting shrubs and flowers and most important do some veggies.

Here is a more close up view of the Deck and the spa.