As farms go, .016528 acres is not very big, but it works for my purposes. My main
crops every year are hops and cantelopes. I also grow whatever strikes me at
planting time. The last couple years, I have had success with lemon cucumbers.
Elsewhere in the back yard, I
also have a peach tree, a fig
tree, and a Bonsai Pecan. The
peach is a variety that I bought
locally called “Dwarf Peach”. I
think it gets that name by virtue
of the main trunk being cut at
four feet, but I really don’t know.
The tag on the tree blew off on
the way home before I had a
chance to read it. The fig tree is
of a sort that is relatively
common in this area. As far as I
know, the Bonsai Pecan is the
only one of it’s kind locally. It’s
the only one I’ve ever grown. It
started as a runner from one of
my neighbor’s trees,
and I applied some
very basic techniques I
picked up from a web
site about Bonsai to
strategically prune the
branches into a small,
dense mass. I’ve been
pruning it this way for
several years; the
effect is already quite
dramatic.
Much of my garden was overrun by vines
from my neighbor’s yard this year. No
complaint with her; she planted some really
pretty vines to hide the fence and allow us
both privacy. I thought they were beautiful
until the runners started popping up all over
my garden. I’m going to move the hops vines
to the other side of the plot next spring. That
will allow me to take measures to contain the
spread of this Supervine without heroic
measures.
Click on the photo below for a time lapse
video I made of my garden over the summer
of ‘04. It’s in QuickTime format.
