Planting Dahlia Tubers; Pomegranates and Persimmons Picked and Ready

There was a threat of rain to happen on Monday.  It was Friday when I heard it, sitting in my chair knitting at night.  About 10 minutes later, I told Frank it was going to rain when suddenly it dawned on me.  It is going to rain on Monday!!!  The rain meant we needed to pick our pomegranates BEFORE the rain or they will split.  We learned that lesson the hard way, TWICE.  

There is a point when the weather is still hot, you look at the poms a few times, not quite ready, leave them on the trees as long as possible to get larger and sweeter. Then a week or so goes by when you think about them again.  Boom!!!  They grew too big and burst and you have a crop of split open pomegranates that are still good, but have to be sold or juiced quickly before the mildew sets in to the inside of them.

Saturday, I got up early and headed back to the trees and started picking, making piles of the poms for Frank to pick up with the Gator and tractor.  The crop was small this year because we had pruned them very severely last fall as the branches were falling with so much fruit and the trees were getting too tall to pick without using ladders.  We finished up picking them all by Sunday afternoon, all sorted, boxed and ready to sell.  Want any pomegranates to make jelly or to have the juice for smoothies, juice? They are terrific and such a cheap cheap price here at Windmill Farm.  Give us a call.

I have been obsessed with dahlias.  I am loving everything about them, where have they been my whole life?  I thought they were a problem to grow and thought people didn't really like them.  Well I have been wrong and I am on a mission to rectify my missing out all these years with having them in my gardens.

I went on-line to craigslist looking for dahlias because I had looked at several of the bulb catalogs and thought I would need a loan from the bank in order to purchase even a few dahlia bubs.!!!  

Boy are they expensive, PER TUBER.  Well I actually really lucked out because there on craigslist were these photos of dahlias growing and an adorable flower cart in front of a home selling the dahlia tubers AND flowers right near us, in Chico.  I sent her a reply and Joan was so nice, replied and I went to her house and purchased a box of dahlias which are now in the ground, just waiting to show their stuff next year in Windmill Farm flower gardens!  

I did plant some last spring from another wonderful lady who lives up in Oregon.  But I am afraid, my ignorance of growing them resulted in me loosing about 1/2 of them.  I planted them in a great spot, I thought, moist, heavy clay section.  Well, they don't like being wet all the time so I probably rotted about 1/2 of them.  Some did grow but not the big dinner plate ones I just love.

We also hustled around getting some of the Hachiya persimmons picked but not because of the rain, because of the birds.  Yes, birds just spy out that nice yellow/orange color and come knocking or should I say pecking at those sweet and beautiful fruit.  The Hachiya persimmons are great to use in cooking, cakes, cookies and they freeze very well either with the skins removed or not.

Our farm received more flower orders, so fun to put together each one, Nature always surprises me with the beautiful results of color and texture.