Gratuitous Garden Update: Fig Trees in Pots.

 

 

Well, if all this heat and sun isn't good for my pregnant derriere, it's sure as hell good for the figs getting bigger in The Duggan Terrace Orchard!

 

 

Of our 10 fig trees in big pots, 6 of them are getting figs, with one tree getting it's second season of figs. I don't know what most of the varieties of the figs are as the cuttings that I propagate with are often souvenirs of the places we've visited, but I can say definitely that two of the six varieties are French Brown Turkey and Dalmatie.  

 

 

The next three pictures are for two particular fellow fig tree lovers on pinterest, as I had promised updates on two tree situations. So if you're into fig tree progress photos, read on. This above tree is from a local French cutting, and was propagated on the 1st of July, 2012...

 

 

...and this cutting is from a fig tree in Toulon, France, and propagated on the 11th of June, 2013. As you can see in the below picture the leaves are just starting to sprout, which is typically when I put the tree outside to get a little sun, wind and rain. (When it's warm out of course.) Up until that point I keep the cuttings in our garage, where they are safe from being dislodged by the wind and rain until they show signs of life. So in this little guy's case, since I put him outside last Thursday, he spent a little over 3 weeks in the protection of the garage before being thrown into the big bad world of the terrace orchard.  

 

 {It's ALIVVVE!!!}

 

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



4 months.

When I was home for my birthday back in April, I convinced my parents to let me plant two of our potted fig trees in the yard. As you all know I'm a little obsessed with fig tree propagation, but I had never planted a fig tree in the ground before.

 

The fig trees were bought the spring before from The Fair Foodstand at Reading Terminal Market in Philly. They were propagated by a guy in Germantown (a neighborhood in Philly), so they are locally grown. They were also a decent price at $15 a pop, which is a nice alternative if you're not interested in propagating your own. I believe they are available at the Fair Food Stand every May, and if you get there early you can buy different varieties. I bought a brown turkey and a Negronne variety.

 

{Negronne Figuier}

 

{Brown Turkey Figuier}

 

I planted these two guys on May 2nd, and now on September 2nd look how big they have gotten!

 

{Negronne Figuier}

 

{Brown Turkey Figuier}

 



No figs this year, but they've got little fig embryos alluding to a fig crop for next year. Just hoping they're strong enough to handle the upcoming hurricane season...

A la prochaine friends...

Honey

Can't keep a Philly girl quiet for long...

{Mirabelle and Reine Claude pruned cuttings with blossoms in vase}



Sorry for the silence over here at I'm an Outlaw, Not a Hero, but I am straight up exhausted. (True story.) After a solid month of entertaining and traveling Doc and I needed a little time to hibernate after what was by far one of the most fun/hilarious/tiring/cheese-filled/adventure-filled months of our just over two years in SwitzerFrance. In that month I went to Berlin to see a concert (which I believe is where I left off here on the blog), we went back up to the Jungfrau/Wengen region (no, we didn't make Doc run up the mountain this time), spent 27 hours in Madrid where we overcame fears of the Disco Llama (more to come on that later), ate raclette three times (THREE!!!) in 2.5 weeks, and tried to show off to our friends just how cool SwitzerFrance really is (after that much cheese no one can resist the SwitzerFrance charms)...I'll have plenty to post as I get back on the blogging horse, so stay tuned.

{Mirabelle Sprouts}



{Duggan Terrace Orchard, ready for Spring 2012...}



What else has been hapepening here at House of Hadron? Lots of Bikram yoga, lots of bike riding, lots of running, lots of hiking (!!!), and lots of prepping for spring in the Duggan Terrace Orchard as we've been having redonkulous fantastic weather here. I just can't argue with tank tops.

{Propagated fig tree, about 2 months old}

So, in the meantime, before I jump back into the month that was, here is a gratuitous garden post to get you in the spring mood. Poppies and mirabelle blossoms go!  

A la prochaine friends...

 

Honey

Gratuitous garden post

Tis the season, am I right? This morning I woke up to find 4 framboise ripe for the picking, with a few more getting close to it. We were lucky in that Pee-wee (that's his name...obviously) produced fruit in his first year last year, and this year it looks like he's doubled his production. Good work Pee-Wee.


It's important to note that Pee-Wee's arch-nemesis, Clarence (our blueberry bush), did not produce any myrtilles last year, so I'm hoping he gets his act together for 2011. [Cue brandishing of fist towards Clarence.]


The orchard is doing well too. I'll give an update on my figue trees soon, but for now here's proof that we will have apples this year (barring any lapses in human judgement or PMS-ing by maman-nature).


Our menthe is growing like crazy (chocolate-menthe shown)...


Our strawberry patch is doing well (strawberries not shown because we ate them)...



And we've got rosiers...

All in all, things are coming together up in the Duggan Orchard and Terrace Garden. This weather is definitely throwing me for a loop though - is it really June 7th? I wore a hoodie on my morning bike ride. If last year was any indication though the mosquitos are looming just around the corner...duh duh DUHHH!!!

A la prochain friends...