And then I walked out the back door

The first rays of the sun, moving across the garden, pick out shapes, forms, colours; cast long shadows and highlight mutable patches of luminosity.

A great budding and swelling and preparing for flowering and fruiting is going on.

Fruit trees promise way more than the meager handful of 7 apricots and 3 figs which was last season’s harvest.

Grapevines are displaying serious bunches of flowers.

Both vines were given quite hard pruning in February. Perhaps it is paying off. Birds, or someone unauthorized by me to do so, ate the single bunch of tiny grapes off the western bench arbor vine last year.

Garlic and shallots are maybe in their home stretch month. I’m not too sure of this, as I’m new to growing shallots and don’t even know if I planted correctly. I’m thinking early June for harvest.

A bay laurel (Laurus Noblis) was welcomed to the gathering this week.

The plant nursery in the big smoke 75 miles south finally came through (and for a pretty price too) but what is a kitchen without the earthy scent of a pot of beans simmering with bay leaves.

Yes, I have been watering to provoke this abundance of roots, shoots and fruits.

No, the level of water needs for this style of gardening is not sustainable.

So yes, my assessment, after visiting Boyce Thompson arboretum last week, is still valid: I’ve been gardening wrong for the Chihuahuan desert.