Thread: How does your garden grow ?

Here in Andalucia we have a fairly decent sized plot, mostly grass with a few established fruit trees 3 orange trees (not Seville oranges) 1 is fairly young but has had a few fruit on it. The mature ones are looking quite good with plenty fruit which should be ready soon. In time for my sister and husband who love fresh squeezed juice for breakfast. We do make marmalade with them adding a bit of ginger sometimes.

Our lemon is also an established tree but this year has struggled, it was trimmed quite severely. There are a mixture of ripe/ripening fruit and some blossom I spotted today. Great for the G&T's and cooking, must make more lemon curd soon.

The nispero is again an established one, fruit last year was okay the year before lots and lushious. We made puree of a lot of them and used it for drinks and deserts.

The plum will need attention this spring, growing too tall, it has been pretty consistant with plentiful juicy fruit. We tend to pick a lot of it not ripe with a few that are and store in the drawer in the fridge. That way they ripen slowly and we have for breakfast, fruit salads and again puree and use it for drinks and deserts.

At the beginning of the year we planted against our new wall a fig which is doing well and has some fruits appearing. Also a peach, we had about 8 from it, quite tasty they were too.

In the past we had a herb pot garden but sadly through lack of attention we lost it all bar the chives and a bay. Must start another in the new year.

Try Californian Blush Grapefruit, ours is full of fruit. Peaches and Mangos also do well. Try planting some Avacado, they do well here as do Pomegranite.
In my orchars I have all the above as well as oranges, manderins, tangerines, wallnuts, and olives. We should have a Gardening Section on this forum????

Ohh I forgot about the avocado grown from a seed, it is about 3ft high now, doubt we will ever get fruit though, and the pomegranite had loads of flower then fruits, we took them all off bar about half a dozen, none have been edible. It is covered in flowers again, it was moved at beginning of this year and is a bush rather than a tree. Maybe it is ornamental not edible ? feel the need to google coming on

Does anyone know if you get ornamental pomegranites or is it just not settled or needs something ?

I love mangoes might ask our local vivero if he ever stocks them and if so when ?

keddyboy, is it possible to graft either of the manderin/tangerines to our orange and lime if we can get to our lemon ?

Ahhh do we have some spanish gardening experts.
I have a question about my bouganvillea.
I bought it at the beginning of the summer and it is in a large pot and was covered with flowers and looked quite spectacular. Then it developed a covering of little white cottony maggot type things. After sprayng it weekly they always came back.
Eventually everything fell off to leave a €38 twig.
In the last few weels I have budding new leaf growth any ideas to prevent the return of these annoying fluffy white things?

Have a look at the link below, we have never had any problems with ours except it grows like a weed ! and is very thorny.

bgi-usa.com/bougainvillea-resource/pests-diseases.php

thanks val
I read it and looked at all the possible infections they mentioned and none of the pics matched . Do you feed yours, sounds like you dont if it grows wild .

We get that cotton-bud type infestation from time to time. Never on a Bouganvilla tho'. If you squish a 'bud' between your fingers you will observe a critter inside. We therefor spray liberally with insecticide when they first appear, sometimes as often as three times in a season. That gets rid of it for a while but they are sticky so a blast with a strong hose jet works to clear them up.We get them on different shrubs and fruit trees every year.
Regarding the way your Bouganvilla looks, don't worry, they do "I'm Dead" at the slightest excuse but they soon get over it. I feed ours with with 15.15.15 slow release granular fertilizer twice a year, some have been in the same pot for five years now and they are ok, but I do take cuttings and bring on some replacements each season. They strike quite easily. I feed the younger ones on liquid fertilizer once a fortnight when they are flowering.

Thanks cb . How do you take cuttings from a bourgainvillea?

Our bougie forms two arches on the front patio, been there since before we came here so at least 10/11 years. I have never seen it without leaves it is green all the time. The more I trim it the more it likes it. It only gets fed once in a while although next year I mean to pay more attention giving feeding regularly. We never spray with any kind of insecticide on any plants. The roses that were here were all old and not so healthy I pulled out the worst ones trimmed back the others and they are looking better but not great yet.

When I said it grew like a weed I meant it just keeps growing, it would take over the patio and up on roof if I was not almost continually pruning it.