Musings on a Perfect Citrus

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...

Darryl
Copyright 2014 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

The Grass is Not Greener...and That's a Good Thing

If you've been following the saga of our lawn, you know that last summer it was scorched earth. My neighbor has professional gardeners who care very well for her lawn and it is the envy of the neighborhood.

In the winter months, however, the St. Augustine goes a bit dormant. That's her lawn at the top of the post.

After all my work, my lawn has finally filled in and it actually greener that hers.  For once, the grass is not greener on the other side of the fence...that's the lawn before on the left and what it looks like now on the right. Keep in mind, these pictures were taken on New Year's Day in the middle of winter and, yes, our plants are affected by the cooler temperatures even here in California.

I'm very happy and satisfied with the seed I've sewn and how lush it has filled in (below is an Amazon link if you'd like to give it a try). It's supposed to be drought and heat tolerant so I'll be very interested in how it looks in 9 months after 3 months of extreme heat.

It's a mix of tall fescue, rye, and bluegrass that is supposed to be bred to send roots up to 4" deep. We'll see but, for now, it looks fantastic and I'm thinking of doing another overseeding once the cooler weather subsides.

Since I'm the Cheapskate, the price was right too. $20 for the grass seed and a lot of free sweat equity in aerating the lawn to prepare for it.

Darryl
Copyright 2014 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

A New Year...New Chores

Spending a little time on New Year's day doing a little gardening in the 70 degree, California sun.

The grapevine is starting to shed its leaves and has dropped enough to work on getting the critter net off of it.

First, some pruning shears to cut off the branches that have grown through the netting.

Next, some scissors to cut the net in half. Then, it's just some muscle power to pull the two halves off.

Outside of the laundry room, some of our hanging baskets are getting pretty long.  It's just a simple matter to park the green waste bin underneath it...

...and just slice it off at the right length. The cut part falls right into the bin and is ready to be hauled away.

Darryl
Copyright 2014 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

Winter's Sweet Harvest

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!

Darryl
Copyright 2013 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

Beefy Tomatoes

Nice, ripe tomato on the vine. What to do?

Put it on some great roast beef from our local Italian deli, that's what. Delicious!

Darryl

The New Kid Gets its First Haircut

Now that the new grass seed has had a good four weeks to get established, I think it's time to give it its first trim so the neighbors don't think I've let my yard completely go.

With a month untouched, it seems weeds...like this dandelion...have taken over about 10 percent of the area.

I'll give the lawn a couple of good feedings, starting today and another one in a couple of weeks, with some winterizer fertilizer and see if the grass can crowd out the weeds. If not, I'll hit it with some weed and feed.

After I'm done, it's time to put the clippings in the green waste can and call it a day.

Darryl
Copyright 2013 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved

A Lush Lawn?

Coming back from our little hiatus to update you on the big, fall lawn project.

After a couple of months of dethatching and aerating, I overseeded a couple of weeks ago, set the sprinkler timer to water three times a day at ten minutes each time, and left for Tennessee.

Gone for eleven days, I was anxious as to how the lawn would look when we returned.

As you can see from the picture above, the seeds have sprouted. They're not quite established to the point where I feel comfortable mowing them yet, so I will let them go another week or two before trimming.

It's looking promising. Here's the before picture...

...and here's the after picture.

Darryl
Copyright 2013 - Darryl Musick
All Rights Reserved