There was one of those in the yard when we bought the house, and I was so excited about the fruit, at first. Like your fruit, they had this very strong chemical orange smell, more like cleanser or CitraStrip than food. I sliced some for marmalade and juiced a couple, and that smell stuck to everything they touched – my hands, the cutting board, the plastic handle of the knife… and it was strangely sticky too. Nasty stuff.
I ended up digging the plant up and giving it to the daughter of the woman who had planted it, along with a bunch of stabby yuccas and prickly cholla cactus.
It is indeed a trifoliate orange, and yes, very latex-sticky. And fuzzy, like a peach almost. Haven’t worked up the nerve to taste one. Might try @anon67050589 suggestion, and candy them. We shall see…
Oh, you just reminded me of a holiday craft years ago in Brownies/Girl Scouts:
Buy a Costco-sized container of cloves. Push them into the flesh of the citrus fruit, all over. If you’ve got enough and you’re wearing a thimble so it doesn’t hurt too much to push, completely cover the outside in cloves. Attach some sort of pipe cleaner or ribbon as a means to hang in a closet. It will slowly desiccate, with the aroma of citrus + cloves lingering for months.
Mmmm - medlar jelly and medlar jam. A friend has a medlar tree and occasionally gives me some, but it’s been a couple of years since I made anything. I think there’s still a jar of medlar jelly lurking at the back of my larder somewhere… must winkle it out and use it.
Today I cleared up the bed that had 5 different courgette plants in it this summer, ready for autumn-sown broad beans. Most were dead but a couple still had a fair bit of green on them.
4th November, southern UK, and I picked the last courgette, some 9 inches long and more than enough to do the veg accompaniment to a meal in the next couple of days.
That may be the latest date I have ever picked a courgette.
I have two pallet compost bins at my plot (well, three, but one is for leaves only). Built them two years ago.
Last year I filled up one, and then at the end of the year I turned it out into the second, where I covered it in plastic and left it all this year. Yesterday I took off the plastic and started removing it to spread on my beds over winter. Lovely crumbly well-rotted compost. Yum!
Not only do I need to get this on the beds to keep them covered over winter, but I’lll soon need the space to turn out the one next door that has been filling up all this year.
No - not specifically. My green pile gets shredded cardboard/paper and some wood shavings thrown in as I go along during the year. By the time I turn it out, the bottom half is pretty well already rotted, anyway.
Brussels sprouts crop was pretty poor this year, with the stalks staying short and the sprouts being pretty small. We have been below freezing for four days now so these won’t keep in the fridge. They’ll have to be frozen or eaten quickly. At least I’ll have enough for thanksgiving but they aren’t big enough to roast.
Sorry to see you have a poor crop of these this year.
It looks to me like many of those sprouts have ‘blown’ - tried to flower.
For the future, one cause of this is not being staked well enough, and the stalks moving in the wind. I think it makes the plant think it’s not got long to go so it goes into ‘make seed’ mode - which means all these tiny little sproutlets try to bolt. (I note that the one on the right that seems to be leaning looks like the most ‘blown’ one.)
I have found it happening to my sprouts several times when they got too tall too quickly and I wasn’t paying attention and staking them before we had high winds. Planting them deeper and earthing them up can also help, but in the end firm staking is the best solution.
PS And the sprout tops are delicious, too - whatever the state of the sprouts, you always have these. Being the growing tip, they are sweeter and very tasty. Cut off the top, remove any ‘unpleasant’ leaves, remove remaining leaves from stalk and steam (whole or shredded) for 5 mins. Almost better than sprouts themselves. Yum!
My artichokes finally died back. I don’t think I’ve ever had them go this late. Will throw some leaves over them to tuck them in till next spring. And that’s a wrap for this year’s garden. Next year will be weird, as i am not doing any annuals while we get remodeling and moving accomplished, so i will be lavashing all my attention on my orchard and perennials. Every year is different!
I have what I believe to be a cardoon growing at my plot - a very close relative of the artichoke. It was just there when I took the plot over. Despite being hacked to the ground very year, and getting zero care, it just keeps coming back.
It has been so warm that having hacked this year’s stalks back to the ground, new leaves are growing at the base, already. Usually that happens in the spring.
It’s right by me shed door so gets in the way a bit when it has grown to 6-8ft tall but, basically, I let it grow for the bees - and then it becomes compost.
I’ve never tried that one, but the leaf stems are supposed to taste like artichokes, which I love. If you have one that big, there is lots of good eats there!
They had certainly bolted. In the picture they have already been cut and are laying on a table. They only got about 2.5 feet tall and weren’t swaying much at all although they weren’t staked.
I don’t think I’ll bother with them anymore. They take up too much room, poor return, and our growing season is just too short.
I’ve never tried eating it. I’m not that keen on artichokes, tbh, and I produce more than we can eat, with a lot of variety, as it is.
My partner likes artichoke, though that seems to be limited to jars of hearts in olive oil. Maybe I’ll try some next year.
@anon87143080 They only need to move once in a strong wind (like that leaning one looks like it might have) and they give up. Persistent swaying, per se, is not necessary to see them bolt. Maybe give a couple of plants a try with firm staking next year? Especially if you can get a tall variety. Last year I was picking from early Dec to March, from 20 plants that were all over 5ft tall. I lost the seed packet so can’t say what the variety was. But I always put a handful of mature chicken manure (or pelleted manure) under them when I plant the seedlings out from their modules. All the brassicas seem to like this treatment.
Where I am the ground is frozen from December thru mid-March. You can set the seedlings in late March, under cover, since there is still risk of snow thru mid-April. So the plants only get until late November to complete their growing cycle, which isnt ideal.
No - not ideal - but I’ve left sprouts to grow through winter quite happily (as I say, picking from Dec to Mar, last year - and we had some snow, which didn’t affect them), but we don’t get extended time below zero here, so I’m not sure how they’d do with those conditions. There probably are more rewarding brassicas for you.
I have given up on most brassicas here, other than kale. We have a 2-week Spring, a 6-month Summer and a 2-week Fall. Great for some things, Solanaceae, for instance, thrive. I am getting to the point of giving up on stone fruits, but pomes do exceedingly well. As I am a very lazy gardener, I tend to go with what grows easily with minimal care.
Yeah, kale is super-hardy - well, some varieties are.
Which makes me wonder how a perennial kale would do in your seasonal conditions. If it got through the winter it might start producing quite early in the next spring. I’ve grown it for the first time this year (two varieties) so I do need to look up whether I need to do anything to it before winter.
I’ve had so much other kale that believe it or not I have not picked any perennial. From two 6 inch cuttings in the spring, the bushes are now over a metre high and almost as wide - I’ll try and remember to take a pic next time I’m up there.
