We started off in the greenhouse Saturday, and I'm happy to report that 'Kari' continues to show signs of recovery. Every year is different and interesting. This year, the second, younger jaboticaba bloomed dramatically, and I think we'll have more fruit from this tree, this year, than we have had from the older tree in its lifetime. Jaboticaba has become one of my favorite trees. If I freeze every fruit for 8-10 years I might be able to make a gallon of wine.
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| First jaboticaba of the year |
I was forced due to time constraints to try a new lychee pollination program. I had little to lose, because the paintbrush method used for the last several years produced nothing. This year, no paintbrushes. I just took blooms loaded with males and beat them over and onto blooms loaded with females. What do you know? I have about 20 lychees right now. Some will inevitably drop, but many are already dime-sized. I do believe we are back in the lychee business.
We have blooms on dragonfruit, citrus, plumeria, sugar apple, and many others. Dwarf Namwah bananas have started to ripen.
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| Dwarf Namwah bananas, less the two ripe ones we ate Saturday |
We started moving plants out this weekend. No blooms on the passion fruit yet, but growth is emerging. My daughter would be tickled to see our solution to the ugly, fragile trellis we had last year. We found tomato cages at the store for $7. Add a can of purple spray paint (so that the color matches the blooms) and we have a new and improved passion fruit stand.
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| Winston can't believe the color |
The yard is approaching its spring bloom peak.
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| Viburnum, katsura tree, and fragrant abelia |
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| Amsonia is filling in the greenhouse bed |
The mint is up and that means it is mojito time. Dinner was mint/red pepper lamb chops, bacon-wrapped home grown asparagus (can you find the stray in the pictures above?) and fruit salad. With dinner we cautiously opened a bottle of white catawba. I failed to adequately adjust the acidity preferment on this wine and so the main task became taming the sharpness. Maybe it was the mojitos clouding our judgment, but this bottle was better than drinkable.
