The Orchard Garden

I took a stroll through the orchard garden this morning.  In magenta striped pajamas; cup of coffee in one hand, camera in the other, followed by three joyful dogs and led by Zelda the cat.  I love life in the country.

Actually, my initial reason for visiting the garden so early was to check the two gopher traps that Bruce had set the night before. 

With one chomp of its teeth, a gopher can turn a  morning glory plant that looked like this:

...into this.  And the little monster will continue tunneling through the garden, taking down one plant a night (if I'm lucky), until finally there's nothing green left at all (except the weeds, of course).  So gentle, animal-loving, tree-hugging me is seriously out for gopher blood...

 ...and Bruce is just the henchman man to do the evil deed.

But, alas, not today.  The traps remain unsprung and Bruce must accept the fact that  he's been outwitted by a rodent -- at least for the time being. Bruce, however, is persistent, and I'm confident that sooner or later (hopefully sooner) he'll sent our little varmint packing to that great gopher hole in the sky.

I resumed my stroll and here are pictures of the rest of the orchard garden.  Two years ago we had it fenced to keep out the deer (who are slightly larger than gophers, so it works great for keeping them out), but only this year am I finally getting the planting beds and paths laid out.  It's still very much a work in progress, but it's starting to actually look like a real garden. 

The upper garden

Front corner, with my new stick palisade for afternoon shade

 

The center garden with canopies for shade

Quince

Zelda in the flower bed

Old plum tree

Under the canopy

Grapes

Our first olives

The birdbath at the bottom of the garden

David Austen rose

Rose arch to lower garden





More morning glories

Cherry tomatoes in old trough (ugly, but it works)

Side path



Apples