Monday, May 5, 2014

Hello. Good Bye.

Some onions are about ready to burst attracting more pollinators to the garden.  Not many butterflies yet; but there are honey bees, bumble bees, and hummingbirds visiting.  More visitors to the garden are expected soon.


This weekend I searched for a grape tomato plant to help fill my mother's need for daily munchable tomatoes.  She can be found cruising the grocery store aisles popping tiny tomatoes before finally checking out and paying for her treat.  We went for a ride to a nursery on the other side of town and found an overpriced, gangly plant that should work.


Johnny's Select Seeds describes this variety:  Bite-size, firm, oval-shaped grape tomatoes. Fruits avg. 10 gm. Plants have medium-short internodes and are manageable without pruning, but staking is recommended. Determinate.  For the metric challenged, 1gm = 0.035274 oz.  I'm still looking for a couple of other varieties of small tomatoes to try.  Determinate would be great; but it's not a requirement.  The search continues.

Sweet Olive Tomato Planted 05/04/14
The lame plant is very spindly and was growing horizontally.  I removed it's lower sets of leaves and planted it deep in nicely amended soil with organic fertilizer.  A bamboo stake and green garden tape helped to convince Sweet Olive that she needs to stand up straight.  Sweet Kern River water was then applied to welcome Sweet Olive into the garden. 

Rio Red Grapefruit
Sadly, this is the last harvest from the grapefruit tree for 2014.  Supplies have lasted from the first of the year until now.  And I usually eat one grapefruit each morning.  Good bye, Rio Red.  See you again in a few months.  

That's pretty good - and delicious.  My daily fruit will now switch to berries - boysenberries, blueberries, and strawberries.

3 comments:

Sue said...

Sorry you're out of the much loved grapefruit, but wow-you've had a good run on them. Lucky you to be able to grow citrus!

dorothy said...

The berries are something to look forward to! I have a few ripe blueberries. Amazingly the birds and squirrels haven't discovered them. We are enjoying some nice weather here in this part of the valley. 77º today. Very welcome after those 90º temps a few days ago!

David said...

Maybelline, citrus would be awesome to pick and eat fresh but it's just not in the weather patterns here in Nebraska. Berries on the other hand can be grown and harvested for our culinary delight. Sadly, I don't have berries planted just yet but maybe I'll be munching on some in a couple years. There's still allot of garden bones (fences and pathways) in Terra Nova Gardens before dedicated growing just yet. Berries there would practically have to be totally screened in to protect them from the wildlife. I suppose I could get them established and let the wild life have a couple years to gorge themselves until time presented itself to build the protection. Problem is that I'm not sure that the deer and rabbits wouldn't just eat the plants as well. They're kind of pesky that way.

Have a great berry eating day.