Tomato season has arrived, finally. It seems like overnight the tomatoes went from one to two foot tall to reaching over the tops of their cages and onward for the sky. It’s been a dry spring compared to last year, though we’re getting about one good day of rain a week. Well, at least we were until the last two weeks. We seemed to have missed the storms that were supposed to come to frution with the last front that blew through. I have in my gut that we’re headed for drought again—don’t know why I feel like that, just do. I am enjoying the non-swamp aspect to our yard…

We’ve been gorging outselves on strawberries the last two months. The season is slowing, coming to an end and it will be back to cartons of grocery store strawberries soon. I had hoped to make some jam with our strawberries but they haven’t lasted long enough to get that far—someone eats them before they can make it to jam! I will likely end up making some jam from store bought berries eventually. It just sounds good! The addition of the arches at the back of the garden has really helped the garden structurally—it looks a little more formal and enticing to enter. The arches were necessary for beans and other…

The last time we noticed, or at least I noticed, giant swallowtail caterpillars on the citrus trees was back in October 2014 not long after Forest was born. I’m sure there have been more caterpillars in the years since; however, we recently found ourselves hosting some very fat and hungry caterpillars. In the first instar they looked so tiny and like they wouldn’t terrorize the citrus too much but as they’ve grown into other instars they’ve shown themselves to be the ravenous babies that they are, munching away on our poor citrus. The citrus that was badly set back from the freeze in January. Our lemon tree took the worst…

Today is a rainy, dreary day and we’re going to get a slight dip in temperatures to the 50s and 60s for a few days before we return to life in the 70s and probably 80s once again. I was hoping to get a few things done in the garden this weekend, pull some weeds, plant some seeds, and transplant some stuff, but that might be held off until later in the week. The garden is awakening well now, with a few plants taking a little longer than others. A couple of plants I am actually wondering if they are dead but we will give them another month before we…

And like that, the strawberries have begun ripening and now we’re harvesting the fruits! Last Friday we picked the first few strawberries; I had found a couple at lunch that day but knew Forest would get a kick out of picking them so we waited until after dinner that evening to go out and pluck them from the beds. Forest has decided he likes strawberries lately, the ones I’ve bought from the store, and thus he is very interested in eating the ones grown at home. As a strawberry enthusiast, I like this new development! He’s also, finally, starting to request to try other things we are eating at meals…

My brother has his own posted, too, so check it out!

The fig tree is putting on new leaves! One of the pipevines has returned! As have some of the ground orchids! Still waiting on the Nun’s orchid to see if it will be revived. We will be flush with strawberries soon! The flame acanthus are greening up. Tropical milkweed sprouts! The monarchs will have food! The deer really enjoy gladiolus shoots! They chomp, it regrows, they chomp again. I think it’s safe to say that spring is here. A string of 80-almost-90 degree days gave us a taste for what a few months down the line is going to be like. Having the weather that warm already was pleasant in…

It didn’t take long for the pink bananas to resprout! They were starting to come back up early last week, a little over a week after the freeze. I have two Mexican orchid tree seedlings (Bauhinia mexicana) that I grew from seeds I nabbed at the zoo awhile back. I recently moved them up a pot size so they could put on some better roots. I’m hoping in a year or two they will be big enough to plant along our fence. In the yard the oxalis is trying to paint the yard pink, which I love! There were more blooms a few weeks ago but Chris mowed the yard…