A Brief Interlude (Planting Trees)

While I spend a day or so digging an enormous hole in the back yard (as you do), allow me to share the winter tree order with you.

I ordered some replacement and new citrus trees, because I killed our Cara Cara navel orange and the Mexican lime was suffering mightily (indeed, when I went out to dig it up, it had pretty much given up the ghost). I also was under the impression that the blood orange had died, but in fact it is doing quite well, so now we have two, so tragic.

This time round, I got two one-year mandarin oranges, to be planted in containers. The varieties are Pixie and Satsuma, which are not coincidentally the two I see most often around here. I don't know how others would do, but these two do quite nicely. I'm considering these a replacement of the navel orange on the sweet citrus front.

New to the citrus lineup is a pummelo, which I got because we devour the ones we get in our CSA box every year. They are a thick-skinned, sweet and tart fruit much like a grapefruit but sweeter and more primitive.

Not so new to the lineup is a lime (Thai lime this time because Noel wants the leaves for cooking) and the Moro blood orange. I now have two blood oranges planted in a row, so maybe at some point I will chop one down. Not for ages, though, because even with one blood orange tree we have gotten a total of two blood oranges.

And not part of this order but a hand-me-down from a friend who moved out of state, we now have this container-grown dwarf Whitney crab apple. I like crab apples for making pectin (they make a nice tart base for mint jelly if you swing that way).

Still to come (when I get my butt in gear and put in the order) are replacement blueberries for the ones I neglected to death over the summer (this summer I will run the irrigation lines to those back containers) and maybe a stop at the scion exchange to get some fig cuttings.

Also, check out this triumph of common sense over optimism:

That's the beginnings of a hummingbird nest -- on a blueberry bush not eight inches from the ground. Looks abandoned, which is just fine by me. As interesting as a nest this observable is, it would not last long with all the cats around here.

posted by ayse on 01/05/11