#tiny fruit trees

It's been a few years since I posted gardening pictures, hasn't it? This year I am growing one pepper, one heirloom tomato, one cauliflower (long story, don't ask), as well as some parsley, rosemary, and basil.

(I don't actually cook with herbs much, but I should probably make some kind of fancy pasta-and-basil thing before autumn fully sets in. And if nothing else, I should dry some of the rosemary.)

Anyway, today I harvested my first pepper. The weird gash is where I sliced away a black patch. I tasted a small bite and while it's not totally mild, it also isn't really what I'd call spicy, which generally means I coddled the plant too much. Ah well. I'm sure it will work just fine in some kind of taco-based stir fry.

Things I have done so far today:

1. Answered some comments I'd been avoiding for a while. Continued avoiding others.

2. Bought a tiny fruit tree. I have mostly conquered my tendency to hoard scented candles and pretty wrapping paper, but my plant hoarding is... uh... let's just say I have a lot of plants, okay?

3. Got through ~90 percent of my Not the IRS job application for the 2021 tax season, but was unable to complete and submit it because their document uploader is ancient and glitchy as fuck so I couldn't attach my cover letter or my current resume. *headdesk*

...

Gardening update, part 3: clementine

And then my clementine, which is a little droopy from a full day of sun, but I am doing my best to ease it gently into outdoor life. The weather is not being especially cooperative, alas.

Gardening update, part 3: clementine

Oh, and the clementine is also doing fine! I had a minor scare late last week when it wilted a little, but it turned out that I was just misjudging how dry the soil should get between watering intervals, and it perked right back up once I gave it enough to drink.

Gardening update, part 2: tiny fruit trees!

As you can see, both my clementine and Cat's lemon are doing fine. Cat's lemon has even ventured to produce a bud. :)

So I may have broken my own "don't buy tiny fruit trees!" rule and... bought two tiny fruit trees. *headdesk* The one on the left is a Meyer lemon. The one on the right is a clementine.

In my defense, the lemon is not for me! It's for my friend Cat, because a couple years back Susan and I jointly bought her a Meyer lemon tree. It flourished for a year until it tragically died because Cat forgot to tell her catsitter to also water her lemon tree while she was away on vacation. :( So I figured, being a good friend, I would buy a replacement to give her a second chance. (This is her combined 2019 winter solstice gift and 2020 birthday present. I don't care that it's eight and nine months early, respectively. The growing season waits for no woman.)

And then of course, if I bought myself a clementine at the same time, I could get a free shipping discount and some other perks, so... you see where this is going.

The trees arrived today. I put them in pots as soon as I got home from work this evening. These are obviously not ideal long-term pots (they're cheap plastic junk I got from Target about five years ago), but in the lemon's case, the pot only needs to last until I get the tree into Cat's hands, and in the clementine's case I am going to find it a nice permanent pot by this autumn. I made sure to put in some rocks for drainage and I bought root-growth supplement and stuff, so hopefully things will work out fine.

...

I'm still pondering how to get the lemon tree to Cat. At the moment my thought is to have Susan transport it back to NJ when she visits me in early May, hand it over to Mrs. M, and have Cat pick it up the next time she visits her mom. I think that's the least logistically complicated. Otherwise I may be babysitting it until some unspecified point in the summer.