Sunday, November 28, 2010

Blog almost as neglected as the garden

Well, I guess I need to finally harvest the basil since it's the end of November. It got a little frosted Friday night. It got a late start, and we had 80 degree weather as recently as Thursday, so I was trying to nurse it along.

The kumquats are making the trees bend over. They look like lots of orange Christmas ornaments. They are a blessing and a curse - what can you do with all those kumquats? They turn brown when made into marmalade, which tastes good if you are brave enough to eat it. All our cabinets are full of kumquats floating in various kinds of alcohol; rum, tequila, brandy, etc.

I'm going to get the electric dehydrator out, see if I can dry the sliced kumquats, then candy them. Seeding and running them through a food processor makes a nice slurry to put in the freezer; mixes well with condensed milk for a decadent orange-flavored frosting, or mixed with whipped cream, or a cheesecake recipe.

Our Louisiana Sweets orange has a nice load of fruit to match the kumquat trees. We have a few satsumas, but no Meyer lemons at all. I hope to get a few lemons from my neighbor across the street.

My roses, as well as those all over town, love the hot/cool weather. The cooler weather makes everything bloom. And my dwarf blueberry plant thinks it's spring - it just put out lots of pink blooms. If we have some more warm weather, maybe I'll have a dozen blueberries for Christmas.

Still have some green tomatoes on the vine, but doubt if it will be warm enough for them to ripen. We planted tomatoes in March this year, but it was too late. It got too hot for them to set fruit. We'll put them in earlier next year.

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Arctic Blast

They're saying it hasn't been this cold since 1996. We were in Missouri at the time, missed it.

We harvested all the oranges, Meyer lemons, and calamondins last night. The oranges fill up a pretty big Igloo cooler. The kumquat tree is close to the house, so we left those till Wednesday. The really big freeze will be Thursday night through Sunday.

The pets have been staying indoors at night - Jasper the cat wakes up promptly at 5:15 to be let out. Tippy the dog must be forced out for a potty break.

The Meyer lemon tree already looks like it has some cold damage to the top - guess we will have to prune it back pretty hard when this cold is over.

The scheffleras that are between the patio and the house are OK so far; we'll see how they do later. Gotta find all my plant blankets and sheets out in the shed.