We haven’t done many DIY projects lately since we are busy finishing up end of the year school stuff and activities. Despite the lack of making, I have been enjoying exercising creative muscles in mini photography projects that I’ve been sharing on my Instagram. I really love capturing all the different things growing in our garden with bold and bright backgrounds, and the girls and I have been working on something called #ourgardenstories. I love photography and I do think it’s fun to think (and share) inside a little Instagram box! Would love to have you follow along @cakiesblog!

In previous years, we’ve planted a lot of tomato varieties. Our second year, we went bonkers with 29 different varieties! Over the last 8 years, we have learned a lot about what planting and tending approaches work best for us; every summer we learn a little bit more and feel better equipped going into the next year. Believe it or not, last year was one of the least fruitful crops for us, so we’re still very much on the learning curve.

We’ve experimented with a lot of different planting and maintenance methods. This year we opted to go as simple as possible; only 6 plants! We skipped the fish heads, and just planted them as Laurel recommends. This is the first time we’ve purchased her mail-order tomatoes and 2 months into the process, we’ve been extremely pleased.

What was our selection process? In the past, it’s always been about how unique the tomato is. This year, it feels as though the decision-making was a bit more practical. Smaller tomatoes have done historically well for us, so those had to be included. Laurel had some varieties that are labeled as heat-tolerant that I haven’t been able to find at local nurseries (Super Sioux, Dagma’s Perfection, and Fireworks), so we’re experimenting with these. They don’t look as interesting as the blue tomatoes that were released last year, or perhaps some exotic heirloom, but hopefully they’ll fare better in the heat we experience. The 3 other tomato plants have 2 varieties grafted onto one plant; kind of like having a “two-headed” tomato plant. So technically, we have 9 tomato varieties that take up the footprint of only 6!

One of our favorite places to go find rare fruit trees is Exotica Nursery in Vista, California. This place is a little gem filled with many varieties of exotic fruits. It is even featured in the documentary The Fruit Hunters. We had already been to this nursery prior to watching the film, so when we saw it pop up on screen, we were all, “Hey! Exotica! We’ve been there!” Ben’s really been getting into growing rare fruits (you probably know that already), and even though our backyard already holds about 60 fruit trees, I don’t think he’s slowing down just yet. This particular visit we came home with 2 guava trees, one was a Allahabadi variety, and the other was a diamond guava. The prices there are fairly good, but of course, depending the type of exotic fruit tree you are looking for, it can get more costly.

One of the things we look forward to when visiting Exotica is the tasting table they have ready for visitors to try. This visit we were all able to try mulberry for the first time, and we loved it so much that Ben is now planning to get a mulberry tree at some point. It’s a drought tolerant tree, so we definitely want to get that one in our garden.

This weekend we planted our avocado trees in our corten steel beds; one of the reasons we like this substrate is because it doesn’t need sealing and will last a long time. Most avocados aren’t self-pollinating so you need an “A” type and a “B” type. Jan Boyce (A type) and Kona Sharwil (B type) were the two varieties we went with. While we’ve never tasted them, they’re two of the best tasting out there supposedly. Avocados are known as the “SUVs” of the garden: they need space because most get really big, and they need a lot of water. Adding to this list of seemingly high maintenance characteristics, these two varieties are not as cold tolerant as others (one of the compromises for flavor), so we’ll see how this goes! Until then, we will keep dreaming of making fresh guacamole with all the ingredients from our garden.

So the saga continues, and we have another batch of corten steel beds added to our yard. In the curved bed, which follows the concrete, we will be creating a privacy screen by growing citrus along a trellis. This will help block the view of one of our neighbors. Then, the other big steel beds will be for avocado trees.

We love the look of these beds so much, and while they are a bit costly, we feel it is worth the investment. Ben still does build some wooden garden beds here and there, but our steel beds are our favorite. We love the way they weather and they just have such a nice presence. Our garden has changed so much these past couple months, and I keep meaning to film a short tour of it. I think it would be fun to see how it progresses each month because Ben is always adding and changing things. One day, when everything is lush and green (and full-grown), it will be special to look back at how our backyard has transformed.

See when we first put our corten steel beds here, this is our steel vegetable beds, and the beginnings of one of our citrus trellises.

I’ll never forget the first time we went blueberry picking (see post here). On the drive down to Temecula, Ben talked about his dreams of retiring and having a blueberry farm. While that most likely won’t happen, he is on his way to creating his own kind of suburban orchard in our backyard. Everything is still in the very beginning stages, but there’s a lot going on (the project list is long). The list of trees just keep growing and growing, especially after watching The Fruit Hunters documentary on Netflix.

Here we are about 7 years later from that first blueberry picking trip, and we no longer have to take a drive to pick blueberries. The girls just go outside and pick a bowl full of berries for breakfast! Ben wrapped chicken wire to go around the blueberry plants to keep the birds from eating them. Last year we did a rectangular PVC pipe cage wrapped with netting, but with the strong winds we get in our area, it would just come apart. The chicken wire stays in place much better, but some berries still get stolen away by the birds. Argh!

In December, while we were in Texas, things got unusually cold in SoCal and some of our blueberry bushes froze. Thankfully, they didn’t die, but they didn’t grow back a lot of leaves. We have gathered a good amount of blueberries, but with all the girls loving them so much, they don’t really last too long around here (see some of our harvest here and here). Ben and I barely get a handful because they devour it so quickly!