Late fall...winter starts next week...and in the middle of a big drought, not a lot to do in the garden but we can find something.
December in Southern California is citrus season and our three trees are producing!
The cara cara navel orange tree (at the top of this post) has put out the most fruit it's ever given us.
Our Meyer lemon is not far behind.
We harvest just enough to last us for a week or so and let the rest of the fruit stay on the tree til we're ready for more.
Along with the oranges and lemons, I also find a few rogue Anaheim chiles that will go into tomorrow's eggs.
These tart but sweet cara caras are just the ticket for a nice, healthy shot of vitamin C on the side of this sandwich.
DarrylCopyright 2015 - Darryl MusickAll Rights Reserved
Ah, the sweetest smell of spring. I'm talking about citrus flowers, or orange blossoms if you will. Nothing smells like it and it's heavenly.
Our little citrus grove is in full bloom. Well, the orange and lemon, anyway. The tangelo is still just in bud.
The Cara Cara orange has these gorgeous white flowers.
While the Meyer lemon isn't to be outdone with its pink-tinged flowers.
Last week, I planted some lavender nearby to attract bees.
It may be working. Let's hope these busy pollinators give us a lot of fruit this year.
Darryl Copyright 2015 - Darryl MusickAll Rights Reserved
Storm clouds are on the horizon for this Oscar's Sunday here in Southern California. While the rich and beautiful crowd undoubtedly have some poor production assistant to hold an umbrella over their freshly coiffed head, I have no such assistance so I'd better get what little gardening I have to do done.
I should also turn off the sprinkler timers until drier weather arrives to save on our precious water in this dry region.
I'm trying to fix my poor citrus production dilemma. My three-tree citrus grove just doesn't produce the way I want it to. I get hundreds, may thousands, of very fragrant blossoms each year but just a few fruit from each tree.
When I say few, I mean hardly any...two from the cara cara orange; three tangelos; and about ten Meyer lemons.
During the blooming period, I rarely see bees on the plants. You'd think such fragrant flowers would really attract the little honeymakers.
One place I do see them...tons of them, actually...is on the lavender plants. Last summer, our backyard lavender plant died so this year, I need to replace it.
I bought two small plants like this a Lowe's.
I dig an appropriately sized hole, knock the plastic pot off, and just stick it in the ground. I planted a lavender between each citrus tree to attract the bees and, hopefully, they will notice the nice looking plants next door and go looking to do a little pollinating, if you know what I mean and I think you do.
Dirt tamped down and plants watered in, we'll keep our fingers crossed for a better citrus crop this year.
DarrylCopyright 2015 - Darryl MusickAll Rights Reserved
Well, maybe not killer. I'm not even 100% sure it's mockingbirds but something's been eating my tomatoes and I've heard their calls mocking me in the morning (mockingbirds are an ongoing pestilence in our garden).
Before I get to that, however, we've got to take a look at the status of the backyard.
Our last in-ground tomato plant has just been played out. I was going to harvest it this weekend before pulling it out but, as you can see from the top, something beat me to it.
No use delaying the inevitable, out it goes.
Now, it rests on the top of the weekend's clippings in our green waste barrel.
Next, I'll need to prepare the two blank spots in our side garden, above. Zucchini on the right; onions, tomatoes, bell peppers, and something else to be determined on the left. I think I'll skip the corn this year, maybe some nice, big pasilla chiles instead. Those are delicious!
It's citrus bloom time again. Here's the Meyer lemon buds...
...and here's the Cara Cara orange blossoms.
Finally, I'm able to scrounge this little last harvest. The last Meyer lemon, some tomatoes from our Cherry Falls hanging basket that'll go on some burgers I'm grilling tomorrow, and a tiny little zucchini I'll chop up into tomorrow's eggs.
Darryl Copyright 2014 - Darryl MusickAll Rights Reserved
I love citrus, especially those of the orange variety. There's almost no dessert that can compare with a perfectly ripe orange, picked from the tree, and eaten on the spot. No soda can compare with the lemonade you make with the fruit you just harvested from the tree. A cocktail just isn't a cocktail to me without a squeeze of fresh lime in it.
Our house resides in a former lemon grove. All traces of that farm are long gone, although some of our neighbors still harvest and sell their oranges.
While I don't get the quantity of fruit I'd like, the quality is sure there.
We have three trees...a navel orange, a tangelo that I rescued from a trash pile, and a Meyer lemon. All three are dwarf trees.
I definitely have my idea of what a perfect fruit from each tree will be...
On the orange, it has to be round. Like a globe, not oblong like an egg. The navel has to be small...almost non-existent (this gives you a bonus of a large, interior navel made exclusively of tasty, juicy pulp). The skin should be rather thick to make peeling easy, I like to peel and eat the sections more than I like to cut it up into pieces with a knife. The color should be a dark orange, signifying that it has absorbed all the UV the sun could pour on in and converted that into life-giving ascorbic acid.
The orange at the top of this post looks like it meets most of these qualifications, I think I'll pick it today.
A tangelo should also be dark orange for the same reasons. They're easy to peel naturally, so the skin doesn't have to be as thick but it helps to have a large head of rind on the top. Now, you pop that off like the pin of a hand grenade and strip of from top to bottom.
This last fruit from this year's crop meets that criteria. It's coming off today too.
The Meyer lemon needs only to be a deep yellow. It's naturally sweeter than most lemons. I don't have a use for it this week, so I'll leave them on the tree a couple of more days before we take them off and make lemonade or maybe lemon cake.
Mmmm....cake...
DarrylCopyright 2014 - Darryl MusickAll Rights Reserved
It's Christmas time and that means another harvest should be ready. Let me check, yep, we've got produce.
The big stars of the wintertime here are citrus, like that tangelo at the top of the post. Juicy, sweet, yet tart, it provides a tasty dose of Vitamin C to help us with those wintertime bugs.
The Cara Cara navel orange is even tastier, not quite so tart.
While my summer harvest of tomatoes was a dud, winter is providing a nice batch. I made fried green tomato omelets with this one.
It looks like an apple but these are actually guavas. We've got hundreds of them.
And here's this weeks harvest...oranges, tangelos, Myer lemons, tomatoes, guavas, and a small bell pepper in with our hot chile plant.
Have a great Christmas and New Year!
DarrylCopyright 2013 - Darryl MusickAll Rights Reserved
Another day, another batch of guavas. I shouldn't sound so blase...we've waited three years for this bumper-crop harvest.
My wife made some jam out of the weekend's harvest and we've been snacking on the ripe fruit too. If you've never had it, it's kind of like a real sweet apple, mixed with a real sweet pear, with a dash of ripe banana thrown in. You just bite in, like you would for an apple.
One thing I'd forgotten in the last three years...the very pungent aroma of ripening guavas. Not to be too blunt, but think of a sweet smelling version of cat pee. It's close to overwhelming at times so we let them ripen in the garage.
Hope I don't have to fight off the tomcats to get in...
In other fall food news, our citrus is starting to show it's color. This is our Cara Cara navel orange.
The chiles are non-stop on the production this year. I've even used some as mulch on other plants because we just cannot eat or process enough to keep up.
What should be the last dragon fruit is on it's way to ripeness.
We've go a few tomatoes on the way...
...and lastly, it looks like we'll have a crop of Thanksgiving zucchini.
DarrylCopyright 2013 - Darryl MusickAll Rights Reserved
Not a lot to do on the gardening front this weekend as clouds moved in for a spring shower. Deadheading a few roses, mowing the lawn...not the most visual or interesting chore to talk about (although it is good exercize), sweeping, and fertilizing.Still, this gives me more time to just enjoy the garden, look around, and take stock of where we're at.There are a lot of things about to happen, as evidenced by the little flower buds popping up here and there. The corn stalks are shooting up flowers, it won't be long till we see some ears developing along the sides.The grape vine is in full bloom. Not spectacular flowers, hard to even see, but it'll be much nicer when these polinated blooms mature into delicious fruit. It's looking good right now but there'll be a battle coming up on to fronts...the animals that like to eat the grapes and the fungus that'll destroy them if I don't treat at just the right time.Chiles getting ready to bloom. No problems here, just waiting for all that flavor to be ready to pick.Squash blossom...zucchini and summer squash will be very dandy when they come up.A little beyond the flowering stage, our citrus is now showing tiny, little fruits.The guava tree is showing a ton of blooms. This has been a rehabilitation project for us. We used to have it in a container and winds kept blowing it over. We moved it into the ground but haven't had any fruit for three seasons. We're crossing our fingers because we haven't seen this many buds on it for a long time either.Lastly, on the beauty front, these little buds will open up to the very fragrant and pretty plumeria flowers soon.DarrylCopyright 2013 - Darryl MusickAll Rights Reserved
Our little citrus grove...three whole trees, dwarfs at that...is starting to bloom. Above, you can peer into the first little Cara Cara navel orange flower to open.
The fragrances we're about to experience truly need to be experienced to be believed. Nothing smells so sweet as a citrus tree in bloom.
We'll also be inundated with honey bees but that's OK, I don't bother them and they don't bother me.
Our Cara Cara can be a diva. Last year we got sixteen fruit. I really want to get much more, so I've been following some of my fellow garden bloggers, especially those that grow citrus, and hope to do much better.
The tangelo is a rescue that someone was ripping out of the ground and I've been performing gardening CPR on it for the last two seasons. It's gradually coming back and giving us some fruit again.
Our Meyer lemon is also giving us more and more fruit each year, even though it's a misshapen mess. Once it's well established, I'd like to prune it into a better shape.
I'm going to try to fertilize each two weeks and not get too lazy about that, keep the water flowing, and try not to shock the trees too much which ends up splitting the fruit.
One other thing you need to look out for is chlorosis...a lack of chlorophyll caused by an iron deficiency. You can tell when your trees have it because your leaves turn yellow and have a spider vein effect, like you see above.
Easy cure...get some soluble iron, like Ironite. Fill a small container (like the fabric softener lid above) with the iron pellets.
Sprinkle a little around the bottom of each plant.
Once on the ground, the water will leach the iron slowly into the soil to be absorbed by the plant, giving it the iron it is short of. I'll treat my trees on average twice a year.
It'll be a fragrant few weeks and then, some months from now, we're looking forward to some really sweet fruit.
DarrylCopyright 2013 - Darryl MusickAll Rights Reserved.
It was the Cheapskate's wedding anniversary this weekend so we went away for an overnighter up north in Solvang, California. No gardening for me this weekend.
Instead, here are some pictures of Classic Organic Farms, an organic farm just off the 101 Freeway just outside of Solvang.
Organic? Check. Peace sign? Check. So, I guess this is the local hippie farm. I've got to stop in.
Goats frolic on the green hills. Fat cats look for rodents out in the fields.
In the barn, a good looking array of fresh Fuji apples, citrus, carrots, and other vegetables await.
Paying is on the honor system. Put your money in the slot, make your own change from the loose change sitting on top, or write a check and slip it in.
Don't try to cheat, or the guard will get you.
Before we leave, I need to stop and make a new friend.
DarrylCopyright 2013 - Darryl MusickAll Rights Reserved.
