What's happening today - 2018 edition

This works for me every time (probably because I’m the wife) husbands are less likely to notice new trees in the yard than wives.

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I’ve a birthday coming up in time for bare root season here, so I should be able to swing it. I’ve planted and hope they do not notice, but that usually only works when I’m putting something in a container. Our San Diego yard is small enough that she can look out the kitchen window and see me digging. “Helping the dog find the bone she buried” only works once!

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I had a good laugh about this.

I’m telling ya it’s not easy to fool wives…:grinning:

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Deer here seem to love chewing on those write on tags with the cardboard inserts. Many of mine used to look just like that one in your pic. I’ve had to go to aluminum flashing material and a cheap engraver. I use electric fence wire to attach the tags to the cages. Zero problems since going that route

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I’ve planted successfully in all 12 months of the year. October, November, March and April may be top choices, but I usually have around 2% loss no matter what month I plant in. You can’t plant with the ground frozen like it is today though! b

The spouse does the mowing and goes around the trees - he’d notice

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@ltilton Grafting to a tree might help :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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Just say it’s been there forever :blush:

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So I walked through the Walter Anderson nursery down at Point Loma. They have some beautiful bare-root fruit trees, grape and berry vines, for sale. This weekend I’ll have to go pick up a nectarine tree!

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That is why I learned to graft, it is hard to know if a branch is new or old. I swear my husband gets the shivers in the spring when he sees me stalking the yard knife in hand, he wonders what tree will be my next victim.:smirk:

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I had a few NW Greening apples left so this past weekend I thought I would try and turn them into apple turnovers. I was “inspired” when recently watching a Martha Stewart cooking show on PBS about making them from home made puff pastry.

Still inspired I got out my old ‘Joy of Cooking’ cookbook we received for a wedding gift many years ago and made the puff pastry. WOW! I should have taken some photos to post here. Those turnovers did not last long. Mighty proud of the pastry and the apple filling since I grafted my NW Greening tree myself.

I see I still have 2 greenings left and about 4 Northern Spy (starting to shrivel) so perhaps a pie or cobbler will be in order this weekend.

The only decent apples I have left in storage for fresh use are some Red Delicious.

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We had a rush trip to Mexico yesterday and just want to share some highlights. We crossed the border just south of Weslaco, Tx and was driving past acres and acres of grapefruit on the Texas side. Sadly I did not get a picture. (Did I say it was a rushed trip?) But these orchards were very large trees, loaded with fruit, most were turning but obviously not quite ripe. There didn’t seem to be any walkway through these trees…I’m assuming the “row” ran alongside the highway and the space between the rows ran parallel to the highway. It was like a 12-15 foot hedge of grapefruit. The citrus seemed to be doing well there.

Here is a couple of photos taken about the only time we were still during the entire trip.

Sunrise over Dallas

Chased by our shadow

Sunset over Harlingen, Texas

Katy

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I hate when you can only get small pomegranates in thew winter.

863 grams

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Costco?

We have an Italian chain that has about 5 stores. It is a fruit market and deli called Randazzo’s. We have a large ethnic community here, so they carry mostly Italian but also Polish, Lebanese, Greek, and Asian foods. I don’t know how they do it? They always seem to have the freshest fruits. So I buy almost all my fruit there unless I’m at a farmer’s market.

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Tasted a Cocktail grapefruit that I have growing in my basement ( in winter) and outside ( in summer ).
The yellow one at the back was well overripe so I picked the next one green and it was pretty good. Fairly sweet,not tart, slighly weak in intensity but definitely ripe. I thought the yellow would be an indicator of ripeness, I guess not.

These were not as good as a pink one, but I couldn’t find a pink grapefruit plant.

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Great treat just the same and you grew it as a semi outdoor tree. Very fab! I am thrilled when my Meyer Lemons come in as well as my Key Limes. They should all be blooming very soon. Just gave them food, and sprayed for ants, spider mites and scale.

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Citrus in the store here is WAY high-priced

I used to keep them in my greenhouse in the summer. I stopped that last spring as I found the pests like it in there, and the greenhouse actually gets way to hot. We gets lots of sun in the summer and the long days allow the citrus to do just fine outside. They sat on my open deck and seemed to love the rain and increased air circulation. I tend to baby things like citrus too much, and hover when I should just let them be.

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I cut scions today. We are finally out of the freezer. Weather is balmy. Felt great to be at the land today!

I found four-inch frost heaves on the mountain!

White Lady after pruning. My biggest peach tree.

This cleft graft of Ashmead on Gravenstein looks great.

I also watered my dormant pots in the basement tonight back home.

Scions might go into the mail tomorrow if I can muster…

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