Valerean

Our Meyer lemon tree, loaded with fruit. You might remember how sad I was last Christmas when I mentioned we'd lost our lemon, grapefruit and orange trees to citrus greening disease. My guy stopped watering and fertilizing them, and we faced the unhappy job of digging them up and burning them. Only we got busy and my guy kept putting it off, as he was hoping a treatment would be developed that we could use to try to save them. Our white grapefruit tree, also loaded with fruit. While we were busy, all the signs of citrus greening gradually disappeared. The trees thrived. The orange tree put out dozens of flowers for the first time in years. By the middle of summer all three trees had lots of fruit on them. Our Valencia orange tree, likewise loaded with tons of fruit (the most out of all three trees.) My guy did more research, and it's possible that what we thought was citrus greening was a reaction to him over-fertilizing and over-watering. It could also be an...

All of our fruit trees have begun showing off for spring. Mom's grapefruit is flowering and putting on all kinds of new growth. Dad's orange tree, which did not flower last year due to damage from the previous winter, surprised us by budding, so we might have oranges too this winter. The really success story is our new lemon tree. The first generation of fruit is ripening fast. It's also budding and flowering like crazy again. We now have like five generations of fruit on this one little lemon. I wish I could grow a whole orchard of them.

Hurricane Ian hit us with winds of 60-75 mph according to the estimates I've seen, and we did have some damage to our old oak tree. Our new trees, however, did surprisingly well. Here's our orange tree, which we almost lost to frost last winter. It didn't produce any fruit this year, but it didn't lose any branches during the storm, and it's starting to show new growth. Our lemon tree also survived the hurricane intact, if a bit wind-blown. We removed nearly all the blooms when it flowered, but left a couple intact to see what would happen, and now we have a few baby lemons growing. One thing I felt bad about with Hurricane Ian was our grapefruit tree, which was loaded up with fruit that won't be ripe for a few more months. I even predicted to my guy that we would lose them all to the storm. Very startled and super happy that I was wrong -- we didn't lose a single grapefruit.

Our old oak tree has been through many hurricanes, but during Ian the 75 mph winds gave it a good shredding. While picking up the debris I notice two limbs had torn off but got snagged on some other branches, which is pretty dangerous. Eventually they would rot and tumble down, but these limbs can weigh more than 100 lbs., and you don't want that dropping on your head without warning. My guy couldn't nudge them down with his extension pole, so I suggested he get some rope and the truck. This was a delicate operation, as he had to go slow with using the truck to pull the broken limbs down so he wouldn't tear off the limbs they has snagged on. Fortunately all went well. The bigger limb probably weighs about 150 lbs., so it would be like having a person fall on your head. :)

The long, hot, wet summer has resulted in a lot of lichen and moss growing on our trees. This is why I really have to watch the puppies and what they pick up in the yard. The deadfall with these growths is oddly gorgeous, even though they look like they come from another planet. I don't know why I'm so fascinated, but I keep taking pictures of the most interesting pieces I find. Weird, but beautiful. I need to embroider that somewhere. :)

Our new fruit trees flowered, and now have little fruits on them. Mom's tree has probably a couple dozen. I hope they survive. Having fresh grapefruit I can go out and pick whenever I want this winter would be wonderful. Seeing these tiny fruits makes me remember my grandmother, too. She would pick grapefruit from the tree in our backyard and make English marmalade from them. Dad's orange tree had a couple baby fruits on them, but sadly one just fell off. The rest may do the same. The single orange that survived the transplanting is still okay, so maybe we'll have that one this winter.