17 January 2011

A Look Back at 2010: Autumn in the Garden-Pt 3

In arranging flowers
and
in planting flowers
there is a rule
and that is to use odd numbers of flowers only.
Now there is probably the same rule for posting photos on ones blog--
if so it is about to be broken:)

a less then clear photo of ripe (and unripe) evergreen huckleberries.
These are highly prized in the PNW;
if you ever eat some you will know why!
You can grow them in the garden
or pick them in certain mountainous areas.

One of our lingonberries.
I like the shadows on the rocks but not so happy with the lighting on the plant--hope you can see the berries.
This was not a good year for my huckleberries or lingonberries...
with the very strange weather our plants were totally confused as to when to bloom and when to ripen. These are Balsgaard (I think that's the spelling)--they produce twice in the PNW--once in summer, once later in the fall.
This photo was taken in early October.

Our fuzzy ones-
kiwi.
BIG crop this year.
Yes, you can grow kiwi in the PNW and you can also grow olives (at least certain types) but that will have to wait for another trip post:)

Our lovely evergreen huckleberries and a few lingonberries...
these were put in our freezer.
~
Other fruit we grow are: gold raspberries, strawberries, various fruit trees -- most are dwarf or semi dwarf
(plums, apples, pears, asian pear, 4 way cherry), grapes,
caneberries and blueberries.
I really love edible gardening and heartily recommend it to people who may not live in the country. Some fruit, like grapes, blueberries, strawberries and raspberries can be grown in a relatively small place--for example our raspberry is growing in a wine barrel half as are our strawberries.
Blueberries are now available in smaller sizes too and are pretty all year long. We grow ours with some of what would be considered ornamental plants and they do fine.
Lingonberries and evergreen huckleberries do not take up much space--both of these have evergreen leaves which are nice to see in the winter;
they both seem to do well in the PNW.
I have seen urban gardens with raspberries in raised beds (they don't like wet feet so I thought that was a good idea) and grapes growing on arbors (nice shady place to put a bench for those warm summer days) and they looked great!
~
Do you grow fruit where you live?
~
Blessings,
Aimee

3 comments:

Heather's Blog-o-rama said...

Here in Southern Oregon, esp ecially in my hometown, there's tons of wild blackberry/red raspberry bushes...and also what I thought were blueberry bushes. As it turns out, they were actually called "Oregon grape"...a native plant..like purpley blue grapes the size of blueberries. Oh, and pears of course :) :) :) Love and hugs from Oregon, Heather :)

aimee said...

We have lots of those wild blackberry plants too---the scourge of the NW garden sure makes good eating, huh?
We planted a Oregon grape--had to cut it down and it grew back so we have one again. They are really pretty and evergreen here. I've heard you can use its berries for making preserves/jelly but have not tried it yet! Have you?
I know not too far from you--in the mts you can find huckleberries. One of my family that travels in your region found some and a BEAR!
Blessings,
Aimee

aimee said...

Oh---your pears! Southern Oregon pears are legendary!
Aimee:)

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