The New Year 2009

In early January, Tom opened his Christmas present and put together our new gas generator. He mounted it on the wheel base and checked out all the parts, then took it out of the garage to prep it with the oil and gas. It worked!!! See the light in the photo.














My Christmas present was assembled in December, then we left it sitting on the patio until last week when we gave it a home along the back wall behind the grape arbor. This way it will get some shade from the hot summer sun when the grape vines are in full bloom.




Forgot to rotate the picture before I uploaded to the blog. Anyway I am doing my usual January chore of cutting the grape vines and the roses back. Did this last week on beautiful winter day with a little cloud cover so I didn't get sunburned.

Tom is great about gathering up all the mess I make with the trimming. He doesn't just stuff it in the barrel, but cuts the branches into little pieces. Amazing what he can get in. The next photo shows the trimming all done.

This is some ofthe end product of last year's labors. Picked all of the Arizona sweet oranges and lots of lettuce. The tomatoes are from the vines I pulled after the frost last year and have been ripening them in a box in the kitchen. Not a tasty as vine ripened but still good. We've enjoyed lots of salads and some stir fried vegetables for the past two months. The beets still haven't matured enough to pick and the carrots are very small.

Went out yesterday and did some clean up and then decided to plant some more carrots, radishes and bok choy just to see how they would do before it gets too hot. Found some really good looking citrus trees at Costco last week, will probably wait until after the last frost to plant them. Also bought some hearty tomato plants when we went to the Home and Garden show a week ago, but have them in an area that is protected from the cold nights.

Went to an Urban Farms tree cutting demo last Saturday and learned a lot about keeping trees in reasonable size for a small yard. We even did some of the pruning. This Saturday, Tom and I are going to tour Greg Peterson's (of Urban Farms) home garden to learn more about compact planting and also solar water heating.

Let's finally hear it for the broccoli plants!!! They have about taken over the square they were planted in because the plants got so big. Picked several heads last Saturday and enjoyed them for Sunday dinner. The last two photos show another small head and several more small buds growing after I cut the main head. These won't get as large. Lots to do to get ready for spring planting.