Porkbrick
TreeHouser
It’s 2025 and here in coastal California there is lots going on in the garden. If you’re not buried in snow, let’s see what you’re up to!
We bought this house 7 years ago now and we got super lucky. South facing, well draining loam soil, decent fertility and good water. I’ve slowly been working my way outward from the house planting fruit trees, veggies and any random plant I can that’s either edible or otherwise useful. Lots of plants and trees in my garden came from jobsites. Quite a few trees that were removals and I dug them out instead of cutting and chipping. Some that were damaged by our crew in some way and replaced, the damage is almost never unrecoverable. Sometimes I sneak a cutting 😉, take it home and graft it. I like collecting wild plants that are edible as well, so many varieties around here are actually pretty good.
My style of gardening is pretty random but loosely organized. I try to keep the trees grouped by type somewhat. Citrus concentrated in one area, apples in another. There are no dedicated vegetable beds, everything is interspersed with the trees. I concentrate mostly on vegetables that are either perennial, or that propagate themselves, I’m lazy after all and I suck at planting seeds on time 😁.
Two of the fruits that are ripe this time of year, besides the citrus. The red one is tamarillo, or tree tomato. Or grows like a tree up to 15’ if you give it support. The fruit looks like a Roma tomato and tastes like a mix of heirloom tomato and passion fruit. One of my favorites. If you pick them from the tree they tend more towards the tomato flavor but if you let them fall on their own the are much more sweet and tropical tasting.
The other one is pepino dulce. It’s from South America and it’s in the solanum family with potatoes and eggplants. It grows like a sprawling vine a will either grow along the ground or climb whatever you give it. They come on a few colors and sizes, but my favorite is yellow orange when it gets ripe and anywhere from chicken egg to big goose egg in size. They look like eggplants but they tase like honeydew or cantaloupe melons! Really good!
We bought this house 7 years ago now and we got super lucky. South facing, well draining loam soil, decent fertility and good water. I’ve slowly been working my way outward from the house planting fruit trees, veggies and any random plant I can that’s either edible or otherwise useful. Lots of plants and trees in my garden came from jobsites. Quite a few trees that were removals and I dug them out instead of cutting and chipping. Some that were damaged by our crew in some way and replaced, the damage is almost never unrecoverable. Sometimes I sneak a cutting 😉, take it home and graft it. I like collecting wild plants that are edible as well, so many varieties around here are actually pretty good.
My style of gardening is pretty random but loosely organized. I try to keep the trees grouped by type somewhat. Citrus concentrated in one area, apples in another. There are no dedicated vegetable beds, everything is interspersed with the trees. I concentrate mostly on vegetables that are either perennial, or that propagate themselves, I’m lazy after all and I suck at planting seeds on time 😁.
Two of the fruits that are ripe this time of year, besides the citrus. The red one is tamarillo, or tree tomato. Or grows like a tree up to 15’ if you give it support. The fruit looks like a Roma tomato and tastes like a mix of heirloom tomato and passion fruit. One of my favorites. If you pick them from the tree they tend more towards the tomato flavor but if you let them fall on their own the are much more sweet and tropical tasting.
The other one is pepino dulce. It’s from South America and it’s in the solanum family with potatoes and eggplants. It grows like a sprawling vine a will either grow along the ground or climb whatever you give it. They come on a few colors and sizes, but my favorite is yellow orange when it gets ripe and anywhere from chicken egg to big goose egg in size. They look like eggplants but they tase like honeydew or cantaloupe melons! Really good!
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