Wednesday 13 October 2010

My little garden in Mexico II

Continuing with the tour around my little garden in Mexico. This time I want to talk about the plants we have in the back garden.

We don’t have as much plants there because there is not as much space, but that garden has always been very full of life. It used to have a lot of petunias growing along a little trail to from the house to the service room, but now my father has some more aloe and other desert plants growing there. We also have a little nursery for baby seedlings on top of a huge old dried tree trunk, another chili plant and some other wild but pretty herbs and shrubs.

My garden 0083 October 05, 2010

This beautiful desert plant changes from green to purple depending how much water it has


The back garden is mostly for the trees. There is an uvalama, this is a native Mexican bush/tree that gives out little blue berries. It looks like an overgrown blueberry but the flavor is different, although it is very sweet. In Mexico we use this plant as a natural medicine for upset stomach and many other things.

On the same patch of land there is a sour orange tree. It has been there growing since I was eight so it is one of the tallest trees of our house. We got it as a gift from my uncle, we thought it was a sweet orange, but turn out to be sour. Since it is very pretty and started to grow nicely my father leave it be. It gives tons of oranges every year. I used to try to harvest them all, but I gave up because they are too many of them. The last time I try to take the oranges down I took 50, but the tree still looked full. Now it continues growing, and giving fruit even though it still has a lot of oranges hanging from past seasons. My dad has plans to do some grafting on it to add a branch of sweet orange and one of a tangerine, but that probably won't happen soon. Oh, also, this is the tree that usually has the humming bird nesting every year.

My garden 0086 October 05, 2010

This tree has too many oranges we can't harvest them all


On other patch of land we have a very sweet orange. This one is also very old, but it did not grow well the first years, It is only half the height of the sour orange. With this tree we waited year after year but no fruit, we even try fertilizer but it didn’t work. Finally around five years ago it finally flowered and gave 13 oranges that year. From then it has continued to flower every year, giving more and more every time. This year's harvest I think will be around 45. This particular type of orange is called "Ombliguda", meaning big belly button, in Spanish, because it has a big lump coming from the bottom that resemble an "outie" bellybutton.

My garden 0085 October 05, 2010

This season's oranges seem to be growing well


Also on the back we have our own lemon tree. It is the son of the big lemon tree in the front. It is the most successful of all the trees in our garden. In a period of six years it has grown from seed to become one of the tallest trees in the house. It started blooming on its third year, and hasn't stopped since. From the start it bloom with hundreds of flowers, but only developed about 70 mature lemons for the first year. On later years however the harvest has reached the hundreds. I think that particular strand is a very hardy, easy to grow and sweet lemon, I wonder if I can get some seeds to japan.

My garden 0075 September 24, 2010

This lemon grew from seed


In the back garden there is also another bougainvillea of a different color, it is not as big as the one in the front but it is growing slowly. We also have a couple of papayas, we started having them since some years back when we threw away some left over seeds to the compost pile and they started growing. Now every year we have some growing, they usually last two or three seasons before they die, but we always get some nice papayas of each one.

My garden 0074 September 24, 2010

I counted four papayas growing on this one


That is one thing I love about my little garden in Mexico, we never really have put much attention on the hole sowing or preparing beds or any of the set up for the garden. Usually for plants to grow all that is needed is to throw away some seeds in an empty part of soil and then wait. After the seedlings are out then you can worry a little about giving it enough water to survive the intense heat, but that is not that hard. I guess that is the nice blessing of being on the fertile land of Mexico, plants just grow by themselves, there is nothing you can do to avoid it.

My garden 0080 October 05, 2010

Some papaya seedlings ready to get a permanent home


For example, the big lemon on the back, It grew from a seed that was in a used lemon somebody dropped in the garden at a party. Some days after the party I was cleaning the garden and saw the seedling already growing ready to be transplanted to a new home.
In this same way we have found many pleasant surprises close to the compost pile, usually after the rainy season. One time I found a watermelon ready to be eaten, and other time an avocado tree already 50 cm tall, and also the same for a mango tree.

My garden 0081 October 05, 2010

This rainy season surprise a melon



I really love my little garden in Mexico. I hope the next time I go there I have some time to tidy up and get some flowers. I am sure that my dad will continue to take care of it, and it will keep on being as lively and happy as always

7 comments:

  1. That seedling lemon really is a stroke of luck - From what I have heard seedlings usually take many years until they start flowering and then the quality of the fruits is sometimes not up to par...Though I guess they are faster in the Hermosillo heat!

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  2. Super blog, impressive Lemon grove too! :D

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  3. Many fruit trees....
    I wish I had all of them in my garden!!

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  4. Oh how I would love to be able to grow oranges, lemons and papaya - sadly, no one has managed it yet in London!

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  5. What fantastic plants to be able to grow. It sounds like you have very fertile soil in Mexico.

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  6. What a fun tour, thanks for a great start to the day.

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  7. Thank you guys!
    I think the heat helps citric trees grow easily. The region has a lot of orange farms, and many houses have lemon trees on the back yard.

    Also one of the city's landmarks are the sour orange trees growing on most traffic islands downtown, they smell wonderful on blooming season. Is like the hole city gets the sweet fragant citrusy scent.

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