Uh Oh... The Downside of Gardening

Peach leaf curl! Aaaauuuggghhhh!!!

ChickenKnittle told us that's what the problem is with our peach tree, so today I dutifully removed all of the affected leaves and put them in zip-locks, then threw them in the garbage can, far away from where the trees are.

Unfortunately, our neighbor, the one behind us, the one with nectarines, the one with nectarines that we deliberately planted our peach tree next to... her tree is full of this stuff. I didn't see one leaf that wasn't affected, and it looked to be pretty far along in its progress - all the leaves were curled in on themselves, and they were all pale. It looked pretty gruesome.

Don't know if our tree can be saved if it's in such close proximity to such a diseased one. We may need to do a mid-spring transplant to another location farther away from the nectarine.

Bummer.

The Greening of the Back 40

Yes, I know it's been a while, so here are pictures of the Back 40, taken today. Lots of things are bursting out, and DH finished putting up the supports for 2 of the 3 rows of grapes.

Looking down one row of grapes

The view of the Back 40 from the back of the Back 40

The view of the Back 40 from the lemon tree corner

The blood orange bush has a ton of blossoms this year

Three of the 7 grape vines have baby grapes!

The apples are still going strong

Unfortunately, some of the leaves on the peach tree are doing this weird bubbling thing, so I'll have to take a sample to Johnson Garden Center to see if they can diagnose it (or see if ChickenKnittle knows what's wrong - if anything).

We also bought one more grape vine today. We currently have two rows of three vines each, plus one guy off to the side near the cherries, all by himself. We used to have one more row with three more, but two of the three went kaput in the first year or two, so now the one that survived is all by himself. We found another vine today, though, so we'll plant him in one of the previous holes and then put up supports for both of them. I think it looks really neat now, almost like we're serious about growing grapes!

Oh, and the trees!

Cherry tree bursting from the top!


Apple tree, bursting from the side!

While we were gone, everything exploded!

And the travels begin...

...although hopefully not quite like last year. First real trip this year? To Scottsdale, Arizona, to watch the 2010 World Series Champions San Francisco Giants at their spring training camp.


Took a morning flight on Friday to Phoenix along with a planeful of other spring training fans (the Phoenix area is home to, oh, I don't know, something like six or seven baseball teams' spring training camps). Got to the car rental building (along with multiple planes-ful of spring training fans) and waited about 45 minutes to get our car. Because they were so busy and, apparently, over-rented, we got an upgrade from an economy car to a compact car, so we drove to the hotel in our Ford Focus. (Let me be nice and just say it's no BMW.)


Checked in, threw the bags in the room, then walked the 2 blocks to Scottsdale Stadium, arriving in the middle of the 4th inning, where the Giants were losing to the Los Angeles Dodgers (who suck, by the way) 2-0. The stadium has really been upgraded since we were there last in 2007. New seats, new paint, new training facilities, new Dugout store - the whole place has been refurbished and looks great. First stop before we even made it to our seats - the kettle-corn man. Best kettle-corn in all the places I've had it. He has the perfect blend of sweet and salty.





Because we booked our trip through the SFGiants Vacations, our seats were fabulous, almost directly behind home plate and - almost better - in the shade for all three games. Lovely. They even installed misters, so when it gets too hot (like it did Friday afternoon), they cool you down.




Best find of the trip? Le Cordon Bleu's student-run Technique restaurant. Normally, they are booked 2 or 3 weeks in advance, but we stumbled in around 8:00 on a Friday evening, and the manager (who's one of the school's teachers) said they could accommodate us at the bar. So we had fabulous food and a floor show - watching the students cook the food while being coached by the chef-teacher. And the food was fabulous. I had a saffron seafood soup with crab, lobster, and mussels, followed by a duck confit with crab, then a spinach salad (with a perfectly poached egg), and for the main course, a lovely salmon that was cooked to medium-rare perfection. Dessert was a poached pear with dollop of caramel ice cream.




Saturday we had the worst breakfast in a long time. Now, I know Denny's isn't gourmet food, but they usually don't screw up breakfast too bad. This one did. Ugh. Just ugh. We left there after only eating half our food and walked again to the stadium, where we watched the Giants beat the Kansas City Royals. We got to see Buster Posey, Cody Ross, and um... someone else hit a home run, and got to see the hotshot Brandon Belt play at first and give the bat a couple of good swings.


After the game, those of us traveling on the Giants Vacation package were treated to a buffet dinner, and were allowed to walk on the field and through the batting cages to one of the practice fields, where we ate at big tables. The cool thing about being on one of these packages, though, is that they get players to come and talk to the crowd. Last time we were on a package, we got to see Bruce Bochy, Dave Roberts, and Brian Wilson. This time, we were right up front to see and hear Cody Ross, Pat Burrell, Pablo Sandoval (Panda!), and Andres Torres. What a trip. They're all gorgeous, and oh boy are they built! Afterwards, they signed autographs; Kelly's cap is full of signatures now! We walked to Trader Vic's where we had some nice Mai Tais, then walked all around downtown Scottsdale (which is a great little town for art and walking).



Cody Ross and Pat Burrell, looking mighty fine.



Pablo Sandoval at the autograph table, blushing because since he's lost almost 40 pounds, everyone keeps calling him "hottie."


(And I did take a picture of Andres Torres, but it didn't come out good at all. It had to be operator error because he's really good looking.)


Sunday we opted for U.S.Egg, a local chain right across the street. Much better choice than Denny's; they had a really good protein waffle, very tasty. We walked to the stadium again, this time to watch the Giants play the Oakland A's. We knew we'd be leaving early because we wanted to take a drive around the area; it was just as well because the Giants were getting a heavy beating (although we learned they had a little come-back towards the end of the game).

We drove to Taliesin West, Frank Lloyd Wright's architectural school/enclave/gorgeous location overlooking the Arizona desert. His structures (I've heard) can be hard to live in (poor choice of materials, leaks, drafts) and yet beautiful (using the land to its best advantage, lots of windows, lots of fireplaces). It's a lovely setting, but an odd thing... it's not really a 'house' as we mostly know it, it's more like a compound. Some bedrooms over here, the living room over there, the kitchen and dining area back there.



After the Taliesin tour, we took the loooooooong way around the city just to use up some of the pre-paid gasoline we purchased, and ended up at one of the casinos that ring the 101Loop. I forgot how bad the odds are at these casinos and quickly donated my $40 gambling money to the local economy. We ended the night with dinner at Don and Charlie's, a Scottsdale sports-legend landmark. Incredible collection of sports memorabilia all over the place. A sight to behold.

Monday morning we did the protein waffle again then headed to the airport for a leisurely trip home via San Diego.



I really like going to spring training. :-)

Yarn Fumes

Had to leave the apple buds to do their thing while I was at Stitches West in the Santa Clara Convention Center. Oh dear. I did more damage to my budget this year than I did last year and the year before - combined. Two-and-a-half of the purchases were intended (I'll explain the 'half' later), the rest just jumped into my arms.

Off the top of my head, here's what followed me home:
- 3 skeins Blue Moon Fiber Arts Woobu, in "In the Navy." (Intended.)
- 6 skeins madelinetosh DK, in "Tart." (Intended.)
- 2 skeins Brooks Farm Riata, in a red. (Oops.) (But this one is almost excusable, since I've been coveting this yarn since my first Stitches in 2005.)
- 10 skeins Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool, in a copper/beige color. (Oops.)
- 10 skeins Elsebeth Lavold Silk Flamme, in a deep chocolate color. (Oops.)
- 1 skein Dream in Color Experimental Stardust, in "Western Sunset." (Oops.)
- 2 square needle circulars from Kollage. (Intended.)
- 2 glass needles from Michael and Sheila Ernst. (Oops - sort of.)

The glass needles were the 'half.' I had wanted to try the newest Signature Needle Arts circulars and get a pair of those, but SNA wasn't at Stitches this year. So I happened upon Sheila's booth and promptly started to drool over a set of U.S. #7 designer needles. Well, I don't do 7s very often, so I asked about some U.S. #8s with a 16" cord. It turns out, they don't bring very many needles with 16" cords to shows, and she didn't think she had any. Lo and behold, when she looked through her stock, she found a pair, so I got them. It must have been fate.

Later, as I was remembering the yarns I had purchased, I realized that I sure as hell DID knit with size 7 needles, and went back on Sunday to get those. They have a gold-tone spiral down the center of the needle; incredibly beautiful. Yes, I'll post pictures, but it may take a while, and I'm not sure how well that spiral will come out.

There were a few odds and ends - some mini-Stitch Dots, a shawl pin, other small things - but I think that's it for the big yarn purchases. I'll take and post pictures through the week.

The classes were great, too. If my classwork photograph well, I'll post those, too.

Proof!

Here's a teeny bit of documentation to prove that we haven't killed the apple tree (yet).

It's a bit fuzzy, but this is a picture of - gasp! - a bud on one of the branches!

I'm Supposed to be Working...

...but I'm obviously not.


This year's trees have been planted, and the vineyard has been caned. After digging 6 new holes, DH's poor back can rest a bit.




KW digging the last of the 6 holes (the deepest and widest of the 6, too).

While we don't have acres and acres, we do have a bit more space than a lot of our neighbors do. At first, we thought that was a good thing, and had all sorts of plans for hot tubs and lush landscaping and patios and lounge chairs...


And then we lived here for a year. Fuggedaboutit...


If the blistering summers don't get you, the afternoon sirocco will. 'way too windy to do any relaxing outside. Forget about reading or knitting. In order to truly wind-proof the backyard enough to make it even vaguely comfortable, we'd probably have to sink $10,000 to $15,000 into it. Wind-breaks, arbors, sturdy-enough trellises, mostly-grown trees... you name it.

So, we did what we tend to do - we ignored it for the first 3 or 4 years.


Then last year, we got a wild hare up our butts (and a few extra dollars in our bank account) and decided to put some landscaping in along the right-hand side of our fence. That looks really nice, and so far, we haven't killed any of the plants or trees. We were going to have the same lady do some other landscaping, but DH and I couldn't quite decide on what we wanted, and the next thing you knew, we were into all the busy travel of late last year, and landscaping ideas were (mostly) forgotten.


But now, a new year came (along with some trees that I totally forgot I had ordered back in May or June of last year), and the growing thing started up again. DM was able to get us some heirloom variety trees (2 Coral Champagne cherries, 1 Black Tartarian cherry, 1 Baby Crawford peach), so when we were plotting out those, we thought "Hm... maybe an orange tree, too?" Suddenly, we found ourselves at Westside Nursery in Gilroy with a Valencia orange tree in our cart! As we were heading to check out, we passed a bunch of apple trees that had been espaliered. When I looked closer, I saw that each limb was a different apple - I had to have that! Then we started talking about getting some wisteria or bougainvillea to bring in the bees for pollination.

At the end of today, DH dug 6 holes (3 cherries, 1 orange, 1 peach, 1 apple), and got all of the trees planted, the grapes have been caned (hopefully we didn't kill them), and his wheelbarrow tire has been replaced. (We opted to wait on the bee-bringing bushes.) It all looks pretty scrawny right now (I mean, come on, the 'cherry trees' are just sticks!), but I'm going to try to remember to take progress photos as the weather starts to warm up. Hopefully it will be documentation of trees taking root, not of the slow destruction of some lovely heirloom trees.


Looking over the orange grove towards the vineyard and the cherry orchard. (The grapes are Cabernet, Merlot, zinfandel, and 2 seedless table grapes.)





The peach sticks.






The cherry sticks (2 Coral, 1 Black Tartarian).




The espaliered semi-dwarf apple (Braeburn, Gravenstein, Fuji, Red and Yellow Delicious, and Gala).


The mobile Christmas tree farm (we don't know where they'll go yet).