Citrus
Rob and I are up to our ears these days in homegrown citrus. We’ve got 19 trees, and just about every one is covered in glowing, golden, sunny fruit. We’ve got a Cara Cara orange, a Roble orange, a Hamlin orange, two Ambersweet oranges, two …
Homegrown Fruit and Veggies
Precious Rain
The yard is emerald green and wonderfully jungly this summer because it’s actually been raining. For the first time in years, it seems, we’ve been getting daily afternoon thundershowers in the proper summer pattern. Rob and I spent Saturday taming our backyard jungle (just a …
A Summery Day
Though it’s still technically spring, Saturday felt like high summer. The air was sultry, the cicadas were roaring, and the yard was jungle-y green. Rob and I spent the day weeding and mowing and planting, but it was so hot we had to keep taking …
Pumpkin Carving and Other Stuff
This weekend Rob and I spent all day Saturday cleaning up our vegetable garden. The outer beds, where our pomegranates and clown peppers grow, had become jam-packed with wild petunias (Ruellia caroliniensis), so we dug those out. I felt bad removing them because wild petunia …
September Stuff
I’ve been especially pressed for time this month because my cat Josie has started a special kidney care diet and she’s decided she won’t eat her special food unless she’s sitting on my lap. Josie eats so slowly. She takes a few licks, then stops …
Eggplant Effusions
This has been a great summer for eggplant. Rob and I have globe-shaped eggplant and cucumber-shaped eggplant in three colors: solid purple, solid white, and purple-and-white striped. The fruits are so bright and cheerful they look like balloons festooning the plants, and every day it …
Copious Carrots
Our spring carrot crop has been stupendous to say the least. We’ve got carrots coming out of our ears. Rob feels a real obligation to our carrots and is always scheming about how we can put them to good use. Yesterday he said, “So what …
Growing Satsumas
If you live in North Florida and you’d like to grow citrus, your best bet is to plant a satsuma. A satsuma is a type of mandarin orange that’s extremely cold tolerant and just plain tough. It’s also very productive, offering copious amounts of luscious, …
Lots of Peppers
On Sunday Rob and I picked a whole bunch of peppers to cook up for lunch–Yellow Bells, Holy Moles, Long Slim cayennes, and Clowns. We were so excited by the bounty. We were weighing them and polishing them and taking pictures of them and generally …
