My husband reworked the valves and commandeered one exclusively for the fruit trees, which has been great for the citrus. Now we can water them more deeply and less frequently. Since I started hand watering and then we transitioned to the new valve, the mandarin that had been struggling with brown spots on the leaves has not produced new leaves with that. In fact, it had a little new healthy growth. But then the new leaves are now curling on themselves, which I believe is from an insect. I've seen some white fly, but not necessarily on the curling leaves. The citrus saga continues.
Speaking of citrus, this time of year we're still eating our Valencia oranges which we enjoy plain or in smoothies. I love that tree, especially when peach season ends and there's not a lot of fruit in the stores that excite me. Although, props to some of the grocery store pears recently. There's been some good ones.
This weekend I fertilized all of the fruit trees with an organic fruit tree fertilizer. The citrus trees also got a small dose of Citrus Grower's Blend.We've had a lot of small pumpkins and squash from the community garden. For 5 years, we've planted and replanted the descendants of some mini pumpkins my daughter got in school. Over the years, they've changed in appearance and had varying harvest sizes. Last year for the first time, we got a few white ones. This year's crop had one white one, and they all lost their mini pumpkin shape! I suspect the shape issue may be cross pollinating with the seeds I'd saved and planted from a kabocha squash, which we're now into the second generation of. The first generation of those looked like kabocha and overgrown zucchini. This year's didn't look or taste at all like kabocha and mostly reverted to plump overgrown zucchini-ish squash. I know, of course, that I could have squash and pumpkins that bred true if I used seed packets, but I do enjoy seeing what shows up.
Here are some of this year's pumpkins
We've had lots of squash like this, most of which tastes zucchini-ish
There's the age-old dilemma of what do do with a bunch of summer squash. I made an eggless frittata-type thing that was pretty good. My husband's favorite (other than zucchini bread) is when I roast it with garlic.
A friend of mine is really into monarch butterflies and, thus, milkweed. She gave me some seeds she'd saved, which I planted. I was surprised that most of them germinated.
I've just transplanted them to give each sprout a bit more room. I'm hoping the critters don't eat them now that they've graduated from my window to the great outdoors.
If it survives the critters, someday it might look like this, complete with caterpillar. See the caterpillar?
Here's a yellow garden spider that set up shop in my community garden box. It's big! I'm glad to have it though, to eat the bugs.
