A Brief Update

I've been off working on my thesis for the last month, as noted, so very little has gotten done around the house. This weekend I showed up full of spit and vinegar and ready to do a little cleaning. For one thing, the tomatoes are on their way out.

Here's the Brandywine and Costoluto Genovese all tangled together:

Brandywine really probably needed to be staked better because it was weighted down by incredibly heavy fruit that would slump it to the ground and then be eaten by the dogs. At any rate it had pretty much stopped producing decent fruit and was ready to be composted. So I chopped it up and dumped the lot in the bin, then removed the wall-o-water and the tomato ladder. Very tidy now, although when Costoluto comes out it will be really pretty.

Discovered in removing the tomato was that the strawberries, wily little bastards, had been sending runners under and through the plant and had nicely colonized a new patch of land. I gather this is not a problem most people have with strawberries, but apparently being planted in pure compost and watered regularly goes to their heads. Or, um, roots. Anyway.

Also of note in the garden was the appearance of saffron crocus under the quince tree. Noel gave the saffron a taste and said it was somewhat flavourless, but hey, our own home-grown saffron!

And finally, after a year of root growth and branch development, I'm letting the citrus set fruit, which the variegated lemon is doing with great excitement. Some people have asked why we didn't plant a Meyer lemon, so I will note that there are three Meyer lemons in adjacent properties, so we have access to all the Meyer lemons we can possibly consume. We planted a different lemon.

Other than running around photographing my plants (and believe me, I have spared you about a million other photos), I did a lot of weeding, pruned a bunch of perennials back for the winter growth spurt, baited for snails, and spent a lot of time picking rocks out of the garden. Last week I ordered our second round of apple trees (to be discussed later when I have more time to go into it). I decided not to order any other trees this winter because I don't have the time to make good decisions.

And now, back to the thesis.

Technorati Tags: autumn, gardening, plants, strawberries, tomatoes, urban farming

posted by ayse on 10/21/07