Recently we added quite a few new tropical trees to her backyard. We have a mango, an avocado, lime, lemon, and a new grapefruit tree. We've been in this house for 18 years, but due to hurricanes, we've lost quite a few trees. Let's scroll down an inventory:
-- 1992, Hurricane Andrew: the hurricane brought in with it a Cuban fly, which attacked our grapefruit tree. We babied it back to health, had some output over the years, then it petered out.
-- around 1994: Heavy rains and a low spot in the yard that frequently flooded finally made us rip out all the banana trees.
-- 2004, Hurricanes Frances and Jeanne: We lost a huge oak, coconut palm, and Queen palm. All were heart-breaking. Why didn't it take any of the trees we didn't like?
-- 2005, Hurricane Wilma: It did a number on our tangerine tree.
Maybe we're tempting fate, dooming ourselves to get a big storm this year, but we have been adding a lot of trees. The papayas are doing well.
We have four pineapples that will be ready to eat in a month or so.
Which brings me back to Halloween. A few months back my daughter was eating a grapefruit. She noticed one of the seeds was starting to sprout, and asked if we could plant it. Being the indulgent parents that we are, we said sure, we'll put it in a pot, not thinking for a moment that it would grow into anything. Fast-forward a few months, and we had a grapefruit tree big enough to transplant into the ground. We added a few shovels-full of compost we've been working on all year, and found a good spot for our new grapefruit tree. And now here's the weird part. Another plant is growing from the dirt around the grapefruit. And it looks distinctively like a pumpkin plant. I guess the pumpkin guts we threw in the compost pile last Halloween stewed and simmered, and grew. Here's hoping we have a nice pumpkin we can carve for Halloween.
4 comments:
That's so great that you can plant so many different things. Where I live in Canada- we have a growing season of only three months. I've never even seen a citrus tree! But you probably don't get to build snowmen dead of winter- so I guess we're even? LOL
Your garden is really nice! My papa's little garden have pineapple and papaya too! I really enjoy your garden story! Have a lovely merry happy weekend and love to yoU!
Thank you for stopping by my blog and for your beautiful words! Love you garden story. Our family has a piece of land where they grow tomatoes, papaya, lemons, plantains, oranges, bananas. In small quantities, but enough! Love to eat all those foods right from the tree. So sorry for the hurricanes. We've been lucky the past few years with no hurricanes. I love tostones,too. You can come to PR and visit. I am planning to share recipes from here in the upcoming blog posts!! So glad we've met and "Enjoy the Ride"
That is SO neat that you can grow all those various tropical trees! And how fun to have grown a grapefruit tree all from one that your daughter was eating. Looks like you will have a nice pumpkin to carve!!
Newest follower from you Flying post on FB. It might be a good idea to post the blogs as a 'discussion' to make it easier to find... what do you think?
~Jennifer
www.studiojru.com
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