THE ARRIVAL OF THE GOJI PLANTS!

I've been pondering the idea of growing goji berries (also known as Wolfberries/Lycium barbarum)  for a while now. And although my compact apartment garden is pretty much filled to capacity with tropical plants and exotic fruit trees, I had a moment of weakness last weekend and made an impulse purchase on eBay: 8 goji plants! Each plant reaches a height of over 6 feet so this was not a very wise choice, given the minimal space I have available. But I was able to negotiate with the very courteous seller, botanyshop.com, who offered to instead send me 3 larger plants, plus a free pollinator plant (if I understand correctly, goji plants have the best chance of producing fruit if accompanied by a goji bush of a slightly different breed).

An unsuspecting package arrives! I, of course, have no idea what it can be.

Here are the 3 goji berry bushes that were in the package plus the pollinator plant, an inconspicuous but apparently very necessary component for having a successful crop. All plants look dry and barren but I'm quite confident that after a few weeks of regular watering in their transplanted pots, they will be just fine.

Here are all 4 plants transplanted into larger pots (Gardening tip: Shop for pots at 99 cent store!).  You'll notice that the photo is shot against a dark garden. I do most of my gardening under a moonlit sky, out of necessity. By the way, let me apologize in advance if my blog looks rather messy. It's in the middle of a complete makeover. Please bear with me. I promise bigger and better things!

JUNGLE GARDEN BEFORE/AFTER VIDEOS - MAY 2009/AUGUST 2011

Check out my apartment tropical garden transformation in these videos taken two years apart. I always forget the full impact until I view these side-by-side and then it reminds me that all my hard work (sweating in 100+ heat and laboring under a midnight moon) has paid off. The garden has officially gone 'native'.

FIRST SUMMER FRUIT & VEGGIE HARVEST

I'm finally getting around to posting some new photos of our garden! The tropical plants are getting bigger and bigger and starting to take over. The cherry tomato plants keep growing - around 7 feet tall. I'll post some photos of the tropicals and tomatoes soon. For now, here are photos of the first crop of edamame beans (AKA: soybeans) and a very tiny melon. I bought these two plants at Huntington Garden spring plant sale and they are both quite nice. I haven't cooked the edamame beans yet but they look yummy. I was told that the melon plant produces personal sized fruit. I assumed this meant they would be maybe the size of a softball but the fruit is actually more like the size of a golfball. But it smells and tastes exactly like cantaloupe.

 

NEW PLANTS FOR 2011

Well, it seems that our Southern California "winter" is mostly behind us now and I'm starting to work on the garden again. I brought a bunch of baby plants indoors and placed them on the warmest/sunniest spot in our house, our large kitchen windowsill, to get them a headstart on growth. Already they have grown quite a bit. I also bought some new plants: A couple of nice, large alocasia plants that I bought at Lowes hardware store and two papaya trees, two banana plants and a night blooming jasmine (all still baby plants) from my favorite online tropical plant seller, Wellspring Gardens in Florida. You can click on the photos to see larger, more detailed images of each plant.

 These two alocasia plants (there are two in the pot), also known as elephant ears, are around four feet tall but they could be well over twice that high by midsummer, possibly even taller!

 

These papaya trees are tiny right now but are expected to be over eight feet tall and producing fruit in less than a year!

 

More banana plants! As if I don't have enough already (last count was around nine). These new ones are basjoo, which is commonly seen in tropical landscaping and bears no fruit. The other one is called ice cream banana, and like it's namesake, it is supposed to taste like vanilla ice cream and is considered one of the tastiest bananas. I can't wait to find out!

Here is my Monstera Deliciosa plants and my blog is named after it. It's also known as split leaf philodendron, but it's a a more exotic variety than the more commonly seen houseplant of the same name. This one eventually gets huge leaves (see the photo of me next to one at the top of my blog) and also produces an edible fruit. My plant is a year old and and already pretty good sized.

 

Here are some 2nd generation baby colocasia/alocasia (elephant ear) plants from the parent plants I bought last year. The one on the left, I believe, is a green ruffle colocasia and on the right is alocasia portei.

 

Here's an avocado tree I grew from a pit and is a descendent of Candee's avocado tree (thanks, Candee!). It's growing with two stalks and looks more like a short bush than a tree. Normally, it would make more sense to cut off the 2nd stalk so the tree can put all it's energy into one taller stalk but I love the way this looks so I'm letting it do it's thing!

The two pots in the back are black magic colocasia, which will grow huge leaves that start out green and eventually turn purplish black. I've been taking some gorgeous photos of the larger leaves and will post them soon. The plant in the front is a Chinese orchid. I bought two bulbs at Huntington Library. The other one is still dormant but hopefully will sprout soon.

 

Here's another black magic colocasia. The leaves are growing from the original parent plant. I cut the plant back to the dirt level when it died back in the winter and now the plant is growing back with a vengence.

 

Here is yet another, larger black magic colocasia. This is one of the parent plants that I was able to keep from going into dormancy during the winter. This should be huge by mid-summer, maybe six feet tall with massive leaves.

Here are two strawberry guava trees that I bought last year. They are doing quite nicely. Not sure when they'll start producing fruit but I'm guessing maybe in a year or so.