Fruits in an neglected orchard

I cannot believe it is already August 2012. My real life outside Blog world has been beyond busy leaving me with very little time to blog. We have been travelling since the end of June through the end of July attending Lacrosse College Recruiting Showcases with my son. We crisscrossed the east and west coasts of the US, returning home to San Diego for a couple of days in between with barely enough time to wash dirty laundry and repack for the next trip. Having two gardens and hour apart, I resigned myself to the fact that there would be many casualties of neglect.


Finally, yesterday evening I ventured into my Chula Vista garden. It was overgrown with weeds as it had received multiple watering a day due to some glitch in the irrigation controller. We came home from the airport at midnight to find the irrigation on, then running again at 3 am when we went to bed  and at 8 am in morning!! What will my water bill be this month?? Irrigation is now turned off for the rest of the week to allow the ground to dry off.


The good new is the fruit trees are doing fine. I will let the pictures speak for themselves while I dine on some delicious Mission Figs :)

Black Mission Figs

Lamb Tagine with Potatoes and Chickpeas

One of my purchases from William Sonoma (my Christmas present to myself or it can be Christmas present my husband bought for me ) this past holiday season is this beautiful handpainted Tagine. I used it to make William Sonoma's  Lamb Tagine with Potatoes and Chickpeas. I have included the link above and the recipe below incase the link disappears in future!

Homemade Fresh Pasta

Looking for the perfect accompaniment to the Lamb Tagine with Potatoes and chickpeas , I excitedly pull out the pasta attachment of the KitchenAid. Today, we are making Fresh Fettucini. Finally, my "new" pasta attachment with came with my KitchenAid mixer will be used.


Ingredients
4 Tbsp. olive oil
4 Tbsp. water
4 eggs
1 tsp. kosher or sea salt
2 cup semolina flour


Method:
Combine salt and semolina flour in mixing bowl. Attach bowl to mixer. Attach Flat beat to mixer. Pulse to mix.

Add eggs, water and oil. 

Mix with flat beater until combined.

Fuyu Persimmon Flower

Until Autumn Belle asked me last year, I never thought to photograph the blossoms of the Japanese Fuyu Persimmon( Ebenaceae, Diospyros kaki ) tree. The flowers are inconspicuous. The time between bloom and fruit setting seem to happen in a blink of the eye. Normally, I would see the green flower buds and before I know it, watch the fruit fill out. The open bloom of the flower itself does not make an impression on me. In fact, truthfully in the early years, I believe that the persimmon blossoms were green!

Persimmon green blossom buds

The buds of the Persimmon tree are green in color. They look like a green buttercream icing formed by  a star shape icing tip. The 'swirly icing' are actually the sepal. At this stage, the buds reminds of those little biscuit we buy in bulk as little kids. A little round, flat top biscuit, top with a colorful swirly hard sugar icing. These days, I seen the biscuits being sold at pasar malam ( night markets) in Malaysia.

Living mulch and self seeding

Finally, I found some time to do a bit of spring cleaning of my upper garden. I was happy to note underneath all the debris, my deliberate action to let to let some herb go to seed and self seed has played off. A blanket of seedlings covered the planting beds. 

Blog Namesake - Kumquat

I thought I would share some pictures of my fruit laden Kumquat plant ( Fortunella Japonica). The two kumquat plants are in two planter boxes next to the path that leads to my upper garden. I bought the two Fukushu Kumquat plants about 4 years ago and it has really taken off. Each year it has tons and tons of large delicious kumquat. But even before, those delightful fruits appear, the garden is filled with the most amazing fragrance of the kumquat flowers!! Heavenly.

12/1/2011

The tree is laden with green kumquats that are just starting to turn a bit yellow

Mother of Millions

This time of year the cactus and succulent plants are flowering. Particularly beautiful are the flowers of Bryophyllum delagoense or commonly called Mother of Millions. Sometimes, it is also called the alligator plant. Its purplish pink leaves are speckled. Plantlets form at the end of the tubular leaves. This plant is deemed highly invasive as each of these plantlets drops and form a new plant.

I recently found out that in addition to being highly invasive ( which it has not been so far in my garden) it is also highly toxic. The whole plant especially beautiful flowers are extremely toxic. It is a problem in Australia where grazing cattle die from eating the the plants. I have not found any articles to suggest that it is toxic to other animal but it worries me. My dog Frasier has been known to `taste' plants especially after a rain, licking raindrops off plants. I will have to consider removing this plant from my garden. So, this might be the last year you see these beautiful flowers. Frasier triumphs over flowers!!

Notice the plantlets at the end of the tubular leaves. Each one falls and becomes a new plant. One mother plant will make hundreds of new plants. ( the Jade Plant in the background is full of white flowers).