As farms go, .016528 acres is not very big, but it works for my purposes. My main
crops every year are hops and cantelopes. I also grow whatever strikes me at
planting time. The last couple years, I have had success with lemon cucumbers.
Elsewhere in the back yard, I
also have a peach tree, a fig
tree, and a Bonsai Pecan. The
peach is a variety that I bought
locally called “Dwarf Peach”. I
think it gets that name by
virtue of the main trunk being
cut at four feet, but I really
don’t know. The fig tree is of a
sort that is relatively common
in this area. As far as I know,
the Bonsai Pecan is the only
one of it’s kind locally. It’s the
only one I’ve ever grown. It
started as a runner from one of my neighbor’s trees, and I
applied some very basic techniques I picked up from a
web site about Bonsai to strategically prune the branches
into a small, dense mass. I’ve been pruning it this way for
two years; the effect is already quite dramatic.
The local outdoor growing season is about
over for this year, so I’m getting set up for
indoor farming on a very small scale. I
planted cantelope seeds I saved from melons
earlier this year. I’m going to try pinching the
vines in an attempt to get them to bear in a
smaller area than they would outdoors. Not
unlike my Bonsai Pecan. I have no idea if this
will work, but I have plenty of seeds, and all
winter to experiment. I’m going to put netting
around the pots to contain the vines , and
even if pinching them doesn’t work, any
surviving plants can go outside in the spring. I
have a second pot to start another crop. I’m
not yet sure what that will be.
Click on the photo below for a time lapse video I made of my garden over the
summer of ‘04. It’s in QuickTime format.
