I just want to soak up the sun

It has been nice enough for the citrus trees to hang out outside. They are much happier this way.

Soaking up sun

Let us hope this a sign of spring really coming.

Moving Cave

Since we fertilized our little trees, Cave the lemon tree has been doing a bit better but I may have over fertilized him. I also realized that he may of just been outgrowing his pot. On Sunday we took a few minutes to try moving him to a larger pot.

Before the move

We found this pot at one of the local home improvement stores. It was rather hard to find a place that had pots inside at this time of year, but we were hoping it was bigger than his current pot. It is definitely deeper and just slightly wider.

Awaiting Cave

There are no during pictures of the move since I was basically holding him still. He was not as root bound as I was afraid of, but I am sure potting him up after almost 2 years in the same pot was not a bad idea. During the move I notice he had some new flowers as well.  I also learned that I really should wait till I can do these things outside since it did make a bit of a mess.

flowers

 Here is Cave in his new home. He seems to look like he fits better. However, I will admit we used ice to water him slowly over the period of  12 hours. This allowed it all to "sink in" without drowning him. I am only hoping he didn't get too cold in those 12 hours. Now to just get him to hold on until the spring when he can start getting some real sunlight daily. I know that is most of what he needs.

all settled in

New Growth

Some days, you have to look for the little signs of spring. Especially on a very cold night in the middle of winter. And sometimes, it just jumps at you.

Caroline and Cave

 On that cold night, I saw a little sign of spring. Caroline the lime tree had some new growth on a branch.

That looks like new leaves

 Further inspection showed some flower buds and more new growth to go with it.

That is new leaves and a flower

In another section of the tree, you could see the flower buds and new growth right next to the ripening limes. Caroline might as well been jumping up and down saying "Spring, spring, I want spring."

We have flowers, fruit and new growth

Pooka took this as proof that Caroline liked being on Brother's desk, even if Brother wasn't too fond of the idea. I wish our lemon tree, Cave, would show some spring like moments, but I think he is just not as happy with the lack of sun. Then again, we did get some fruit tree fertilizer (organic of course) to put on both of them, so hopefully that will help as well.

Spring is coming, according to Caroline.

All in all, I think this shows that spring is coming. I am with Caroline, I want spring too. 

Lemon, lemon, lime

We got a lemon off our lemon tree. It only took 6 months to ripen, but I guess good things are worth the wait. We ended up using the lemon in a homemade apple pie that we took to a pot luck. Pooka loved telling people she grew the lemon in the pie.

Homegrown lemon

Our lemon tree, Cave, has a couple more lemons that are almost ready to harvest, as well as flowers and some smaller lemons that might be ready by christmas. 

Lots of lemons

Caroline even has a few limes on her that may get to a real size. I would love to be able to say "the lime in dinner came off our tree." We still have not gotten a lime off it in the first year we have had it, but I wonder if that had anything to do with the pot being too small. Now that Caroline has been transplanted into something larger, she is covered in limes. This is even after I pulled a few off in hopes they would get larger. 

Limes

I do wonder if Caroline and Cave may need larger pots next year. I think it may depend on how the look after the winter.  That is a decision that needs made another day. For now, Pooka is just enjoying her citrus trees.

Caroline in her pot

Begining of September pictures

 I will fully admit we have been a bit busy. In fact, we have been swamped with real life. I completely forgot the first of the month pictures for August. This just means that there will be more of a noticeable difference in the garden. That's it, I wanted to show more of a difference.

Pooka's pollinator garden

Pooka's polinator garden is filling out. The plant I left there not knowing if it was a weed or a plant was actully milkweed, so its a good thing I left it. I will admit I need to weed it bit, but its filled out on one side. A few of the last plants we put in didn't seem to do well, so we will wait till next spring and if they do not come back (Since everything in there is a perennial) then we will replace them. Pooka and her friend K go play in her little flower bed daily and pick flowers for butterflies or the birds. Even if it adds more work, its been worth it to see the girls have so much fun.

Garlic bed

The garlic was pulled in July and we replaced it with annual herbs and veggies again this year. We have dill (that is going to seed) celery, parsley and Pooka's black eyed susan sitting in the corner. The living chair has done much better in this spot, however, I think I will need to get another pot of mint to really fill it out for next year. However, in a few weeks we will rip out all of these plants and plant next years garlic. Keeping other plants in this bed after the garlic has been pulled also keeps the weeds down.

Front bed

 The explosion that is the herb bed is out of hand. I dry and I dry herbs, and I cannot keep up. The tarrogon will be divided next spring and sent to new homes, and I will probably get rid of all but one thyme plant. With all the wet weather this year we didn't water as much, and I noticed the top tier was dying from lack of water. This means next year it either needs to be hardier OR I need to remember to water it even when its been raining. One or the other.

Peppers and basil

All of the basil plants are quite happy having flowered completely. Its gotten to the point you can't pull the flowers off. Pooka and I did not put as much energy into that this year and you can tell. The plants still did well, but they are a bit spindly and starting to die back a bit. At least we got our basil jelly this year. More on that another day. The chinese 5 color peppers AKA Death peppers are very happy in their spot. We had to stake them up so they didn't fall over with all their bounty. Daddy is a very happy man as we are drying our own hot pepper flakes and hes begun his talk of siracha-cha again.

Sunflowers

The sunflowers are doing very well. We did have a couple that fell over due to being too big, but for the most part, they do not seem to mind having been started straight into the ground. However, not all of the seeds seemed to start, and the plants themselves do seem to be much further behind in producing seeds. This was our last year of using store bought seeds so I am hoping they will produce enough seeds to continue for next year. I do still have some seeds from last year, but I know Pooka loves being able to save her seeds and have Pooka sunflowers. The leaves on the first sunflower are bigger than not only mine or Pooka's hands, but Daddy's as well. Hopefully we can continue saving at least a few seeds.

Corner of nothing

 This is a very sad picture. It had been raining so I pulled everything off the corner stand and put them on the table to get watered. As you can see, the musculin lettuce bolted horrible and our squash in this pot is still fairly small. It doesn't seem to be doing well. The rainbow char just needed a good water. As pretty as char is, we don't seem to eat it, so it will probably be pulled from the garden never to be seen again. We don't plant for pretty around here. Pooka's humming bird hanger is doing well. The flowers just keep getting bigger, however, the cold weather is causing it some issues since it does not have any ground to keep it warm. The lemon tree has a few more lemons about to finish riping and some new ones starting. Although it may need a bigger pot next year.

Long view of the messy deck

Oh the mess that is my back deck. We have lettuce and spinach that has bolted, the tomatoes on the end of the deck by the table have decided to eat the chairs. No one can say I only show the pretty shots. The blueberry bushes and lilac are doing well in their little pots, Although Audrey the morning glory never did do well this year. We got a couple of flowers, but for the most part it has just been a few leaves. I will admit this area looks better today then when I took these pictures at the begining of the month because I started to clear out most of the dead/dying plants for fall. You can't really see from this view, but the lime tree actually has limes that are getting bigger on it, so now I wait and see if we have fresh limes at Christmas.

Onion bed

 As you can tell, 99% of our onions have been harvested. I should of planted something here, but there are a few bulbs we missed. I just recently heard of a variety of onion I can plant in the fall. Our onion crop is generally fairly small onions and we need to expand this crop. I am hoping the fall variety (once I order them) will help with that. These guys will be put in the same bed for 2 years just so I can see if it works and how well. This is where Pooka yells "FOR SCIENCE" . We admit we are learning new things and experimenting on what works.

Brandywine, Rainbow cherry and fireball tomatoes

Tomatoes and more tomatoes. These are the brandywine, fireball and rainbow cherry tomatoes. I swear you should start calling Pooka Dr. Mendel. Somehow in this section grows what we are calling the Pooka tomato which is a purple/black roma. I didn't plant anything like that in the entire yard, so I have no idea where it is coming from. Also, we have fallen in love with the Brandywine tomato. Its a nice meaty tomato but we have pulled some off the plant that are a lb a piece. While it is more a paste tomato, we have used it as slicer, and are considering getting rid of all the Beefsteaks once we run out of seeds.

Tomatoes, Basil, Carnival, long sweets and cubanelle peppers

The tomatoes are rather imposing and eating my deck. The pea plants were eaten by the tomatoes and pulled fairly early. The basil has held its own, but is still fairly small. We still cannot grow a bell pepper to save our lives. I don't know what it is, but they never seem to produce. The long sweets are loving this spot, as are the cubanelle peppers. But the bell peppers we may just give up on for our friendly peppers. The purple peas are very dead in this picture, and should of been ripped out by now. They did not restart when I reseeded them.

Beefsteak, Roma and Blueberry tomatoes with pots

The rest of the tomato jungle. I have had a couple of tomato leaves get singed by the grill, but all in all the tomatoes like this spot. I don't think this is the tomatoes favorite spot, but it works. The beefsteak and romas are doing well but the blueberry tomatoes are exploding, and Pooka loves all the colors they come in. I guess its another time to call her Dr. Mendel since they have grown to multiple colors. We have 2 little watermelons growing in the pots and the raspberries are doing well.

Failure

Another year, another failure with corn. It seemed to be doing well in the pot and then a windstorm came through and it was done. I think next year we will try this in a small section of the yard. But unless something changes, I will not be buying more seeds of it. So we have until this packet of seeds dies to figure out what we are doing wrong. Where we live, you go a couple miles in almost any direction and all you see is corn. Really makes you wonder what we are doing wrong we can't grow it around here.

Tomatoillos

 The tomatillos are doing wonderfully. We are getting a ton to cook with. However, the purple ones only turn purple when they are left on the plant after they split their lantern. They don't seem to last on the plant long enough to do so. This is another plant that will be sticking around, and we may increase what we are planting of it. We will have to see how much room is in the garden next year.

Hot Peppers and Eggplant

The hot peppers and eggplants are doing well. After they got big enough to hold off mr. Bunny. Daddy loves this variety of jalapeno since it grows a large amount very quickly. However, they have been very mild this year (As well as the poblanos). Hot peppers do require hot dry weather to get hotter peppers that we just haven't had. The poblanos make a good substitute for green peppers in most of our dishes, so they will be sticking around for a long time.

Broccoli and Cucumbers

The broccolli has done well. The geometric broccoli is still not producing (So much for that one) but the standard broccoli has done well, even if every single broccoli plant has decided to fall over. I should stake them up, but for now they are okay where they are at. The cucumbers had done okay. They did loads better than last year but not as well as the first year. This location they get some sort of pest that ate just the skin off the cucumbers, but if you peeled them they were fine and maybe some squash beetles because the plant is suddenly dying back. But in the end, we got our cucumbers for lunches and salads and some pickles so we are happy.

Like every year, we have some successes and some failures. But that is what happens in science. Not everything works the way you think, so you keep trying until you figure out what does work.

Cave has a surprise

The other day I was looking at the lemon tree and I thought I saw a weed. Until I got closer...

Turns out our lemon tree had a seedling. I guess we will be getting another lemon tree. It won't hurt anything to let it grow for awhile and see if it even lives.


Pooka is already naming this one Wheatley. You better be a tree and better live Wheatley, I don't want to tell a Pooka anything else.

Lemons and more lemons

On quick glance at the lemon tree shows some signs of life. Enough signs in fact that I am hoping soon I can take the lemon tree outside during the day. I do worry the tree itself is not doing its best in here, but if it can hold on a few more weeks, we may just get it to perk back up outside.

Cave the Lemon tree looking a bit beat up after winter

The other day I noticed some small lemons on the lemon tree, well those lemons have gotten bigger and bigger. They have grown quickly and seem to be doing quite well. Even if I feel as if I am deflowering that tree almost daily.

I see lemons

I am hoping with a bit of luck, these lemons will grow larger and turn yellow before it takes 6 months. If not, well, I will be happy with whatever we get and maybe I will finally get around to re potting the lime tree. Maybe. 

Pooka's lemon tree sits on her desk next to her art supplies.

Lemon oh lemon....

Cave Johnson finally produced a lemon, it just took 6 months. This is the same lemon that our lemon tree started in the early part of the summer.

Lemon oh lemon, how we have awaited thee.

It turned out to be decent sized, big enough to make our small tree start to lean to one side. It was very nice to see the warm yellow of the lemon against the snow of the polar vortex.

Leaning tree. 

During the "I left the camera somewhere" stint, we did cut into the lemon and ate it with dinner. It had a wonderful lemon flavor without being as acidic tasting as most lemons. Pooka is already dreaming of multiple lemons to make fresh lemonade with. I will be happy if we get a lemon every so often. Now to see how hard it is to keep the lemon and lime trees alive through a winter. 

Lime tree is flowering?

It is official, the citrus trees are as confused about this weather as I am. Caroline the lime tree has started flowering. Since we bought her on clearance, I have never seen her flower. Maybe I will help her along a bit and maybe even hand pollinate her flowers and hope for a few limes out of the deal.

Flowers on Caroline

Meanwhile, Cave Johnson is full of baby lemons again. That thing will flower and set fruit all day. The trick is getting the fruit to a size the rest of us can use would be nice. However, if this proves he will be very productive as he gets bigger, I am not completely against it. Pooka has dreams of making fresh lemonade with the lemons. 

Baby Fruit on Cave

 Granted, if the big lemon that has been on Cave all summer would ever ripen, that would be nice. I am tried of looking at it and guessing what it is doing. I don't think there is much I can do at this point. The white on cave's leaves are a bit of frost burn. It got a bit colder then we were ready for outside one night. Now Cave and Caroline get brought inside on cold nights and soon they will be moved inside for good. Maybe the lemon will ripen before then, or maybe we will get a lemon for christmas.

RIPEN ALREADY

Confused

I think Cave Johnson the Lemon tree is confused by this weather. Not that I can blame him, but he has yet to finish ripening the big lemon that he has been working on all summer. Then the other day he broke out in these pretty blooms. I swear the tree thinks it is spring. Granted from the way the weather has been behaving, I can't blame him too much.

A blooming Lemon tree, in August

On the other hand, Pooka is loving seeing all the blooms on the lemon tree. She is waiting rather patiently for the one giant lemon, but now she is getting it in her head that she will have enough lemons to make strawberry lemonade. I will probably end up buying a few more lemons and a few more strawberries to make it happen.

A friend for Cave

If you will remember, for our anniversary, Daddy gave me a lemon tree. That Pooka and I quickly named Cave Johnson. We have one very good sized lemon growing on it, and it is a great giggle to say I own a lemon tree in the middle of the Midwest.

Hello, I'm Cave Johnson

Saturday, the whole family was at Lowes for their build and grow clincs. The kids love it and its free (what can be better). Well, I had to check the clearance areas. The garden center had a huge clearance area, and one of the things on clearance - the lime tree.

"Say Hello Caroline." "Hello Caroline"

We had seen this tree on clearance before, but it was only marked down $5. I wasn't really going to pay that so I decided to wait and check again. It seems to have been a smart move since on Saturday we found the same lime tree for only $10. What a deal. Needless to say we decided to bring home a friend for Cave Johnson. This one has been named Caroline, after the secretary to Cave Johnson in the game. At least Cave won't be lonely during the winter.

A surprise for me

Today was a good day. Something that has been rather rare around here. Today is Daddy and my anniversary. We didn't plan on doing much for each other because well, things have been busy. However, I did mention to Daddy that the home improvement store had little dwarf lemon trees when I was there on Friday looking for a tomato cage for my grandmother. Well, that got us a trip to the home improvement store.

When life gives you lemons... Say thank you.

The story behind the lemon tree is that we live in a fairly chilly climate. I never would of thought to get a lemon tree this far north, thinking they were something reserved for those lucky people down south. Then one day I found out a teacher in Kiddo's school had a lemon tree in his classroom. It was a dwarf tree that he would keep in the school all winter and then bring home over the summer and put it on his patio. Well that got the wheels turning and Daddy and I had both thought it would fun to say we owned a lemon tree but we had no idea where to even start looking.

A lemon tree

Fast forward back to today. Daddy said "let's go get you a lemon tree for our anniversary." Well, we did. It even came with almost a dozen little green lemons on it. They are so cute.

Pooka and I came home and immediately got it planted into a pot. The plan is for the lemon tree to come in and live in the computer room when it gets cooler. Pooka said that this one is my lemon tree and she said I should name it. So I decided on Cave Johnson. If you don't know who that is, go here to see the rant on lemons. Now that I have lemons, I will have to get the smart little Pooka to work to make them combustible lemons.

I'm Cave Johnson