– Twelve valencia orange trees. Most of them weren’t very fruitful last season (they ripen around January), I hope to improve that this year.
– A 1000 sq. ft. or so pomegranate grove. Ripening in October. Basically neglected last year, they managed to yield around 120 to 150 fruit. This winter I came around to routing some irrigation to the grove, there are lots and lots of flowers.
– Grapes. Two big vines inherited from former owners, around twenty were planted earlier this year, so they are just starting to grow.
– An avocado tree and an apple tree, also planted this year, about 4 feet tall. The apple tree looks like it might have four or five fruit this year, the avocado tree might have one.
Now, on to vegetables. From the first batch that I planted directly into the ground in April, only the pumpkins survived. They have four foot long vines with fruit the size of my fist. Since then, I came to two realizations: one, that my soil is very poor and its organic content is nearly zero; two, that my location has too much sun and not enough humidity for most veggies. Even pumpkins, though well established, tend to wilt to some degree around midday.
So, my new approach is to use a lot of compost, start everything indoors, in commercial potting mix in plastic cups, transplant into the ground after the second or third pair of leaves, and use cardboard planting sleeves to protect the most sensitive plants from the sun.
In this manner, I managed to start three different kinds of peppers, eggplants, squashes (a dozen of each), and four watermelons. Still awaiting transplantation: a row of tomatoes and a row of armenian cucumbers. Out of curiosity, I also got a package of “big max” pumpkin seeds. Those are supposed to be inedible (or at least not particularly tasty), but able to grow to 100 lbs.
June is not a very good time of year to plant things here, but at least there’s no danger of frost. Plants that don’t die young should be able to grow till November.
