Garden – Page 17 – This is Another Story

A Wet 2016 Spring

Published on May 9, 2016May 8, 2016 by Yinglan9 Comments

This has been one wet spring. It’s been raining almost every single day and if the sky’s not raining, it’s gray and the grayness often drives me insane. The last time I experienced such a wet spring was 2007, when I was still in Texas but that’s different. Texas is plains, Utah is desert. Deserts aren’t supposed to rain, deserts are supposed to be sunny and hot and dry. Maybe the world is changing.

Anyway, this horrible weather had given me barely enough time to adore the beautiful flowers that have blossomed in my neighborhood. I haven’t even had the chance to visit the park before another wind storm hit and destroyed all the flowers.

This picture above is from one of the rare sunny days in April. These are Asian pears blossoms from the backyard. I don’t know how my mom prune trees each year. When spring comes, flowers sprouts along the trunk of the tree instead of in specific places like a normal tree.

The plum tree in the front yard was the first to blossom and the flowers were gone two weeks later when a wind storm hit the area. After the plums came the Asian pears in the backyard (pictured above). These stayed for about a week or so before another wind storm hit followed by hail and rain. Here is one more picture of the blossoms.

As the ephemeral Asian pear blossoms came and went, the apple began to blossom and boy, did they come.

It was like every flower on the apple tree was waiting for the right time to bloom. It was like it was counting down by the second. It was like a head flower was calling the shot. “All right everybody, we bloom in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1!”

We were very surprised when we came home one sunny day and found the apple tree full of flowers. Immediately, my mom determined, “We’re going to have a lot of apples this year.” If all of the blossoms successfully turn to a fruit, I thought, rolling my eyes.

Less than a week later, we were hit by another wind storm and once again followed by hail and rain. Well, there went the apples. When the rain finally stopped and the sky is blue again, we stepped out into the backyard. All the flowers had gone from the trees, its petals blew away by the wind, replacing it with these little apple buds.

And here are the Asian pears:

Mother Nature,

Please give me some sunny days? I’ve had enough with the gray depressing skies and the roller coaster temperatures. Hot and cold, hot and cold, you’re going to get me sick. I don’t mind the rain but at least stop with the gray skies.

Daily Post Photo Challenge – Earth

Spherical Foods

Published on January 2, 2016January 2, 2016 by Yinglan6 Comments

Okay, I’ll admit, when I first saw this week’s photo challenge, I didn’t really think I would have any pictures of circles but once I began searching, it turned out I have lots and most of them were of food. So may I present my gallery of spherical foods. Continue reading “Spherical Foods” →

Fruits

Published on July 25, 2015November 24, 2015 by Yinglan13 Comments

This is a close up on the Asian Pears so far. Hopefully, it will survive until harvest because we had quite a few broken branches lately due to high wind. I watched the weather report a few days and the weatherman said it’s supposed to rain in the upcoming week. Hopefully, that’s true. The weatherman hasn’t been very accurate lately.

It’s not even harvest yet and we’ve already had a loss of apples, branches snapping off due to wind and the weight. These are fairly recent but they grow fast, don’t they. I realize I’ve mostly just showing pictures of the berry bushes and not much of the apples or Asian Pear trees, so here it is.

Finally, here is a plate of blackberries from a few days ago. There have been two other batches since then. If the berry harvest continues, I think I will be super tired of berries by the end of the summer.

Daily Post Weekly Photo Challenge – Close Up

Summer Harvest

Published on July 15, 2015November 24, 2015 by Yinglan12 Comments

So here are some pictures from the recent harvest of blackberries. I have a suspicion there is a lot to come.

My mom picked these. I told her to only pick the ones that are black as coal but she didn’t believe me. After all, what do I know? I’ve only been the sole harvester of blackberries for last three years or so.

“Whatever,” she said and popped a red one into her mouth.

“I told you,” I sighed as I watched her squeeze her eyes shut like she had just drunk a spoonful of apple cider vinegar. “The red ones are extremely sour.” I told her afterwards.

That’s why it’s called blackberries and not red berries because they are only sweet when it’s black. I think she had learned her lesson though, just like I learned mine back in 2012. I guess there’s always a first time for everything.

Here is a close-up on the blackberries bushes. It’s just a matter of time before these ripen and are ready to be picked.

There is! One ripened blackberry. They are sweet as sugar.

Just to give you a perspective of the amount of berries in the backyard. This is just a fraction. I thought after my aunt botched the pruning last fall, we would have less berries or none at all this year but instead, we have more. It is incredible.

Here are the watermelons my mom planted about two weeks back. Look at how much they’ve grown. Apparently, watermelons like heat and water. That’s probably why people love it so much in the summer. I am so looking forward to this harvest.

Finally, while the roses are taking a break, the dahlias are blooming in the front yard. Not a lot though, after all, we have just planted them last Summer. It’ll take a little time to grow. This flower has been around for about a week or two and that is already longer than the roses.

480 Gallons of Weeds Enveloping the Yard

Published on May 15, 2015February 25, 2023 by Yinglan20 Comments

I should be studying at the moment but I can’t concentrate, not with mom babbling on the phone downstairs. Even if my door’s closed, I can still hear her.

The other thing is, my legs are itching like crazy and no matter what I put on it, it wouldn’t help. Last night, I put some Tiger Balm on it and this morning, it looked slightly better. I sat up in bed and brushed my finger against it and uh oh, I reactivated the itchiness.

This week, as I complained enough, I spent the afternoons on Monday and Tuesday at the rental property cleaning the backyard. Our tenant didn’t care that the grass in the backyard was a foot high or the fact that weeds had taken over the vegetable patch.

It took me two days just to clean up the vegetable patch. We accumulated sixteen 30-gallon bags of garbage. I got the pictures as well as the marks on my arms and legs to prove it.

These are the before and after pictures of the vegetable patch. I should’ve taken pictures on the first day but I forgot the camera. You can see three of the sixteen bag of weeds in the after-photo. It was madness. Vines, weeds, and dandelions enveloped the area.

My mom’s kicking the tenant out next month. Why? He’s unappreciative, that’s why.

She complained that after all the hard work we did, not only did the tenant not say thank you but he wants to modify his lease from one-year to month-to-month. All because of what? All because he’s still pissed because mom didn’t notify him first before helping him to mow the lawn that’s why. He said we invaded his privacy and threatened to sue.

Have you seen a more ungrateful person in your life?

The least you can do is say thank you but instead, you used the law against us. Mom said, “At least I’m a tolerable woman, otherwise, I would kicked kicked him out this second.”

Uh, I don’t think constantly complaining to me is consider really tolerable. Anyway, I just want to show you the before and after pictures. You can click on each one to enlarge. This is before.

After…

So much better, right? And here’s the garbage.

Now if you’ll excuse me, have to go study. 🙂

#AtoZChallenge – Y For Yellow

Published on April 30, 2015November 23, 2015 by Yinglan2 Comments

An obvious choice, isn’t it?

I went out into the garden yesterday. The storm from two weeks ago and last week had managed to kill all the blossoms. Though the trees grew tremendously, there was nothing but leaves. I doubt there’ll be fruit this year. Continue reading “#AtoZChallenge – Y For Yellow” →

Before Photoshop

After Photoshop

Asian Pear Blossoms

Published on March 29, 2015November 24, 2015 by Yinglan8 Comments

As promised, I am presenting the shots for the pear blossoms which I seized the opportunity to capture it yesterday morning. I think they might only be around for another week or so. Continue reading “Asian Pear Blossoms” →

Backyard Apple Blossoms

Published on March 28, 2015November 24, 2015 by Yinglan8 Comments

Remember last week, I posted shots of blossoming plum flowers in my front yard? Well, this morning, while I was letting the turtles roam free for a few minutes, I walked over and check, the flowers were like little wrinkly balls. I guess the blossom season for plums is over. Continue reading “Backyard Apple Blossoms” →

The Great Loosening

Published on January 26, 2015April 22, 2015 by Yinglan7 Comments

Home…Soil…Rain…

It reminds me of Fall 2009, just about two months after we moved into our current home. To be honest, I still can’t see why my mom had purchased this house. Of all the houses we looked at, she just had to pick this one.

We spent almost two weeks after moving in painting and cleaning the walls. It was so full of fingerprints and grease that it’s disgusting just to talk about it. We also cleaned every nooks and corners of this house except underneath the range; we didn’t clean that until we replaced the range in 2011. You have no idea what sort of weird objects we found. Currently, the only place remained uncleaned is the deck outside and I don’t ever want to touch that.

There are a lot of garbage underneath that deck. It used to be the previous family’s go to trash can when they did take-out every single night.

Anyway, back to Fall 2009. In our backyard, we have this huge plot of soil.

This wasn’t always like this. Back we moved in, this lied an above ground swimming pool. After the previous owner removed the pool, we were left with this awkward polygon shape plot of soil. My mom thought we’d turn it into a garden except the surface at the time resembled this:

The summer was dry that year, I remember. We didn’t get a lot of rain and every commercial on TV was screaming at us, conserve, don’t water your lawn.

In September or October, we finally got a decent storm and when the storm finally ended, I decided to take a shovel, go out into the backyard and start loosening up the soil. The day was wet and damp but the air felt fresh and breathable for the first time in a while. I set my shovel on the soil and effortlessly lifted it. The top layer resembled mud but the soil was drying up quickly, I had to work fast.

Finally, I managed to get the top soil loosened and then I began digging into the next layer and the next and the next. Of course, my mom came out and helped but after a short time, she gave up and went back into the house, leaving me out there to continue digging.

By the time I completed and went back into the house, it was about 4 or 5 hours later. My whole body ached but when I looked out at the plot of land, I couldn’t help to admire the result of my hard work. It no longer looked like a desert, it looked like a garden.

That year, we planted three plum trees (two on this plot of land and one in the front yard) and two blueberry bushes. The tree in the front yard survived but the two in the back along with the blueberry bushes died. We didn’t know why at first but we found out later that too much Chlorine had seeped from the pool water. The soil was toxic to plants.

We had spent the past five years or so neutralizing the soil with topsoil and cow manure. It’s worked so far but the trees and plants are still struggling, I can tell. You can tell too. The apple tree has been there for five years, yet it’s hardly grown. Not enough nutrients in the soil.

We planted cherry trees for the third time two years ago but it died after a few months. So last year, we decided on Asian Pear Trees and it barely survived the year.

The entire yard was covered in frost. I had to be very careful this morning when I stepped out to marvel at the beautiful blue sky. Not for long though, spring is coming real soon and we’ll have to start planting again.

I wonder what my mom has in mind this year. I know snow peas are a definite yes. I know she’s already given up on corn. We probably won’t have blackberries this year, well maybe. As you can see in the above picture, my aunt’s went overboard with the trimming. I still can’t believe she did that. Hopefully this garden will flourish this year.

Have to get back to my assignment, so ciao for now. 🙂