Pen Pals

I've been anxiously checking our mailbox the last few days, in wait of a very important package...from my pen pal. 

My mom.

Every month, for the second gardening season in a row, my mom takes pictures of what was once considered just the yard where I learned how to pitch a softball, but is now, without a doubt, a garden. Some would be more inclined to call it an orchard. I prefer to call it "The Beach Orchard."

In May of 2012, I convinced my parents to let me plant two fig trees in their yard: a Negronne fig, and a Brown Turkey fig. Aside from a few seemingly dead tulips bulbs that I sneakily planted, that was all I was allowed to play in the dirt for the 2012 gardening season. 

In 2013, after an unplanned six week stay at my parent's, the garden variety of what was now half-jokingly being called the garden had grown to include three more fig trees (two of which I had propagated, and one purchased, a Peter's Honey Fig), about 75 gladiolus bulbs, Dahlias, an Improved Meyer Lemon Tree (potted), a Mandarin tree (potted), an Elberta Peach Tree, A Bing Cherry tree, a few hydrangea bushes, some mint, and a slew of geraniums. In my time there I also sprouted two apricot saplings from seed, an avocado pip, and about 7 grapefruit saplings from seed. 

So yeah, my pregnant little self got to dig in the dirt a lot...with gloves on of course. 

It was so much fun having all that time to garden with my mom, especially since I was still at the "if I walk a block by myself I might faint or vomit or both" stage of my pregnancy. With gardening I could sit down in a chair, have a nice cup of coffee or tea, take a break inside and come back out later...it was fantastic.

The thing that sucked though? Having to leave all that hard work behind and not being to care for it...or see it blossom...literally. I would Skype with my parents once we returned to SwitzerFrance, and they would "take me out into the garden" to visit with all my plant babies, but it wasn't enough. So my mom decided that she would be my gardening pen pal.

Every month, she goes out with her trusty disposable camera (yeah, they still make those), and takes pictures of my plant babies and sends them to me. I anxiously await that envelope every month, as I love to see how tall and lush everything is growing in the sandy South Jersey Beach soil.

And I think I've created a gardening monster, as each time it seems there are a just a few more fig trees than there were the last time. It's a beautiful thing.

And even though it makes me more than a bit homesick every time I peruse and obsess over the current month's pictures, I love seeing how our garden is growing. It always gets me really excited for our next trip back, whenever that will be, and the at least 5 trips that will take place to the garden center. I'm so proud of my mom for doing such an amazing job of taking care of all of the trees and flowers that have turned their yard into a garden, and I can't wait until the next time that I can go play in the dirt back at the beach. 

But I think the bigger question is, how long will it be before she'll let me start The Beach Orchard Vineyard?

 A la prochaine friends...

Honey 

First gratuitous garden post of 2013.

 

{Mexican Lime blossom}

 

Before getting into our weekend trip to Toulon, I'd like to take this opportunity for a long awaited gratuitous garden post.

 

{Newly propagated fig tree}

 

And this time we're making it a jet-setting multi-national one.

 

{Little Mandarin oranges}

 

Due to a death in the family we spent five weeks in the US in April/May, and while Doc helped his side of the family through the rough time in Nebraska, I in my sick and nauseated state bummed around my parent's house near Atlantic City, NJ.

 

{Negronne fig tree}

 

So what do you do when you're 4+ months pregnant and too sick and light-headed to trust yourself to go for a walk?

 

{Elberta peach leaves}

 

You garden. You garden like you've never gardened before because otherwise you would go out of your mind thanks to Homekid stealing all of your potential life force. You plot and you scheme and you convince your mother to let you plant a ridiculous amount of bulb flowers. You make up charts like when you were a kid and convince your dad to let you plant an Elberta peach tree. And then a Bing Cherry Tree. And then there was that Peter's Honey fig...the list goes on and on. In the end I planted 70 gladiolus bulbs, 3 dahlia bulbs, 24 pink tulips, made 5 flower beds to house those bulbs, planted 2 hydrangea bushes, and the aforementioned 3 fruit trees (you know, to keep the other 4 fig trees company, obviously). And those were just the in-ground plantings. We can't forget about the newly potted and purchased Mexican Lime tree (dwarf), Improved Meyer Lemon tree (dwarf), Mandarin orange tree (dwarf), 4 tomato plants, 2 newly sprouted grapefruit saplings, and newly propagated fig branches.

 

 {Mandarin orange flower blossoms}

 

I was pretty proud of myself by the end.

 

 

And I think my parents were both pretty happy with the results as well.

 

 

And as it turns out, despite Hurricane Sandy's efforts last fall, I can officially now say that all 4 of the fig trees that were planted between last May and September survived...though they took their sweet 'ole time showing it.

 

{Elberta peach tree}

 

As much fun as I had playing in the dirt in The Beach Orchard back in New Jersey (with gloves on of course), I worried the entire time for my Duggan Terrace Orchard plants and tree back in good 'ole SwitzerFrance. My fears were assuaged when upon arriving home I found that mother nature took care of them very well, and the plants were more lush and green than I had ever seen them before. Maybe I should go away more often!

 

 {Some of our Fig trees in the Duggan Terrace Orchard in SwitzerFrance}

 

{One of five Apricot Trees grown from seed in the Duggan Terrace Orchard in SwitzerFrance}

 

With that being said, I don't believe we'll get a late June crop on any trees (like we did last year) because from what I've read the sun didn't make an appearance much over that 5 week period. I'm ok with that. But now that the sun has been out in full force as of late I'm really hoping to get a fall crop on a few of the trees since many of them are over 2 years old. Fingers crossed.  

 

A la prochaine friends...

 

Honey