I finally got more fertilizer for the fruit trees today, so I applied Gro Power to all the fruit trees. We also put worm castings from our very full bin on all of them last weekend. The citrus trees also received some Citrus Grower's blend. And the little, struggling mandarin got all of that watered in with a bit of kelp extract. I removed a couple fruit from that one, so it wouldn't put too much energy into production.
Speaking of production, this was a big year for peaches on our little tree, meaning it has 8 fruit! 3 of them have fallen off in the last couple days. They're about the size of an apricot and still look green. I'm hoping they'll ripen a bit on the counter, but I'm not confident these will be the peaches of my dreams. I remember a peach tree I planted in Maryland, gave about 2 fruit it's first year, but they were delicious. This isn't looking like that.
I've been having some fun this summer with the milkweed I planted last fall from seeds a friend gave me. Due to life chaos, those poor plants are still in the little 6-pack style pots (can I call them pots?) I planted them in. I hope to get them in the actual ground someday. This hasn't put off the monarch butterflies, who find them anyway, lay eggs and the caterpillars demolish the plants to a leafless state before we start the cycle over again. I haven't found a lot of chrysalises in the garden, as a friend of mine does. I'm not sure if they're walking away further than I'm looking, if I'm bad at finding them, or what, but this is a good start. I'm hoping it will be better once the plants are in the ground.
