Accessible Gardening: ...so what are you up to?, 2 by seacanepain

seacanepain wrote:
Hey Gang! I fell off the wagon for a while with my one remaining addiction. Computer games. Sad thing is I wasn't playing. I've been spending all my computer time trying to figure out why Skyrim will not load properly. I think it might be Windows 10, but I've stopped worrying at it. There are other games.
Lovely photos, Carrie! It's easy to see why autumn in New England draws leaf peepers from around the world. I especially like the one across the water with the weeping trees. I got a laugh from the FB photo showing the street performer's one-man-band set-up. Did you get to hear him/her play that thing? ROFL. .
Still dry as a bone here. The summer was unusually wet so it isn't noticeable yet. Looks like we will be roasting any Halloween marshmallows in the fireplace though. Hope we get rain before November. That's Native American Heritage Month. I can't imagine how a stomp dance would be conducted without the fire. That's a big part of the ritual.
Do you have to deal with trick-o-treaters in the apartment complex, Bets? We haven't even put up any Halloween decorations. Sent the GC's Halloween packages, but that's it. The four boys like to run around in the woods so I sent them hand-crafted survival bracelets. You know, those wrist bands with a compass, flint and small blade for cutting. The band unravels for a nice length of thin rope. I wasn't impressed with the emergency whistles on the band and I thought the youngest might not be ready for fire making and even a small blade. I threw in some coach whistles. The kids received the packages a few days ago. My DIL probably wants to throttle me about now! I guess I've done my trick or treating.
I'll pray for your success quitting smoking, TTC. I do know how tough it is. I don't think I would have made it without Commit lozenge's and Kay's nagging, but I went cold turkey. Reduce smoking and lose weight simultaneously? Lady, you do believe in challenging yourself, don't you. I still haven't lost the weight I gained when I quit. Working on it though.
I did get the last of the camellias Kay grew from seed transferred from pots to the ground. They are all Camellia sinensis, the source of black, green and white tea. I'm not much into ornamental camellias, but tea camellias are a different matter. Sweet tea is my caffeinated beverage of choice. (I don't know how anything that smells as good as coffee can taste so bad. A latte is the only coffee I can stomach.
Kay is thrilled with her seed growing success. She tried growing tea camellias from seed once before. It was a total failure. The seeds were evidently too old or they had been allowed to dry out. She had an 80% germination rate this time with fresh seeds from some tea company in the Carolinas. We should never have to buy tea from the grocery store once they are well established. The trees will reach about 20' tall at maturity, but I found space for all but one and it went to a good home. All the camellias will add to the looks of the place too. We needed more evergreens for winter interest. The list of conifers that will grow this far south is short, but there are quite a few broadleaf evergreens that can handle our version of winter.
We also got an olive tree planted in ground that was getting too big for its pot. I expected it to be more root bound than it was considering it was over 12' tall and had produced a few olives. It was only beginning to outgrow its 5 gal. container. I just hope we didn't wait too late into fall to transplant. It would probably have been okay in its container until spring. There should be a real harvest next year if it has time to adapt to being in ground before cold weather comes. Winter doesn't seem to be in any hurry to get here and it is a very healthy tree. I'm not too concerned. Arbequina olives are mainly used for oil production, but Nadi says it makes a tasty table olive. They are just not as large as the usual California table olive. The trees are short enough to be planted under power lines, but they get wide enough to have that cool sculptural look that larger olive trees have. Olive oil producers pack the trees close for maximum harvest. The trees are rarely given the chance to stretch out and grow naturally. I like the idea of an evergreen I can plant under. The shade is too dense with broadleaf evergreens like magnolias and the camellias.
I transplanted plugs of Zoysia grass under the canopy. It's an easy to maintain grass in this area. Fingers crossed it will grow there since the tree is on the sandy eastern slope and we have to think about erosion control. The nicest thing about Zoysia is it will choke out the bahaia and orchard grasses and it doesn't have to be mown anywhere near as often.
The wild cucumbers (a.k.a.: olive cucumbers/ Cyclanthera pedata) began producing fruit when the nights were cool, about the time real cukes, meaning members of the cucurits family, stopped producing fruit. The taste is definitely like a real cucumber, but they don't have as crisp a texture. The shape is more like tiny, green, crooked neck squash to my eye, but I guess they could have come by their Dutch name because they are about the size of olives. The smaller the fruit when it is picked, the crisper and more cucumber-like. The taste of the larger fruit is a little like squash to my taste buds. Others must share that opinion. I notice recipes for older fruit resemble recipes for squash.
I'm trying to convince Kay not to plant as many of the showy, sweet-smelling datura next year. They have a downside other than being poisonous. Common names like Devil's Apple and Thorn apple should have warned me what to expect. My SIL, who gave Amargia the seeds, informs me I need to get every "apple" or I will have the plants everywhere come next summer. The big, white, night-blooming flowers were a great addition to the Moon Garden, but I want to make sure they are limited to the Moon Garden next year.
Pix: Datura blooms and "apples". Wild cucumber (Cyclanthera pedata) fruit.


This message was edited Oct 23, 2016 8:05 PM