JPEG's (or it didn't happen)....

[osodecanela]

I live in a Redwood forest.

It's lush, and it's shady. It can be cold, but it's cold by coastal California standards. When I left the house this morning it was 38° in my driveway. By the time I got to Santa Rosa it was 20° warmer. I walked over to the hospital today midday in my shirtsleeves. This on a day when 30 states in this country are experiencing what has been termed in the media as "Snowmagedden".

A few folks asked for photos of the plants I'm putting in. These were taken yesterday morning with my iPhone while the house was blanketed in fog, something that happens most mornings this time of year. It generally doesn't burn off until about 10 AM.



This is a dwarf Meyer lemon tree, which has been in this half barrel for 3 or 4 years. It bears fruit several times a year. There's one ripe lemon hanging on the tree at the moment, plus the tree is covered in flower buds. I have a basket filled with Meyer lemons sitting on my kitchen counter, courtesy of a good friend who lives just on the opposite side of the river. On a clear day I can actually see his lemon tree from my deck. No such luck when I was taking these photos.

Since the lemon tree has done relatively well on the deck (and when it's threatening to freeze, I can easily drape the tree to protect it), I figured the dwarf Satsuma Mandarin should also do well. For the time being, it's still sitting on the table outside our bedroom, but hopefully this weekend it will wind up in one of the mega pots that have previously housed tomato vines.



As you see, on the table are also the blueberries, which haven't yet made it into pots either, but as I said the other day, blueberries are supposed to do well in our environment, so I'm looking forward to having some sprouting on the deck alongside the strawberries.



These are two of the planters that I've used to grow cherry tomatoes. As you see, I haven't gotten around to pulling out the tomato cages yet, but then I was harvesting tomatoes until just after Thanksgiving. This pot in fact, was filled with volunteer tomatoes. Normally I don't grow from seed, but instead pick up starter seedling plants. Light in this Redwood forest is at such a premium that if I try and grow tomatoes from seed, I don't get anything to harvest until well after Labor Day. This particular pot put out Sungold tomatoes, from a tomato that had dropped off the vine the year before. As you see some strawberries have decided to make this a new home. These will likely be moved over to another strawberry planter (next to the lemon tree) and I'll amend the soil with some peat moss, bring the soil level up another half foot, and plant one of the two blueberries here.

So, for those of you who wanted to see, this is my 'pot farm'.

Comments

[putzmeisterbear.livejournal.com]

I remember wild blueberries growing in Ukiah, but that's a bit drier than the river.

[elric-dewisant.livejournal.com]

Whelp. Now I'm completely jealous. :)

[osodecanela.livejournal.com]

Jealous? Why?

[elric-dewisant.livejournal.com]

You live in a beautiful forest. I live in a tiny box in the middle of a building in the middle of a city. You look out over trees and wildlife and fog and rain. I look out onto a brick wall and windows to other small boxes filled with people, of whom the best that can be said is, "I really don't ever want to see what they get up to behind closed doors."

I miss the middle of nowhere.

[osodecanela.livejournal.com]

Got it.

I grew up in a major city; a tree may have grown in Brooklyn, but it wasn't in my neighborhood. Now I have a hard time thinking of living in an urban environment, but Portland from what I've seen would be in the running to be considered. My husband however doesn't handle endless rain well, at all.

[elric-dewisant.livejournal.com]

Rain? What rain? It rains here, but NYC actually gets more rain, on average, per year than Portland does. The rain here is mainly on the coast and almost purely undeserved reputation here, inland.

You know what it does do here, that drives me buggy (and I get no opportunities for breaks from it). It greys. It greys a lot. It greys so much, I think I understand why we have more serial killers, and guys that pop and kill their families every winter, than anywhere else in the world. Grey, grey, grey, grey, grey, grey, grey. It is really, interminably, fucking grey. Grey without end.

Mind you, I don't have to worry to much about it. I get dark-ish to dark with a lot of brick red....which might be worse.

This thread makes me want to take a vacation.....I wonder if I can take a year off, dead, for tax purposes. Bluh.

[osodecanela.livejournal.com]

Indeed! No desert here.

Downside? In the winter months if I don't have dehumidifiers running in the kitchen and closets, mold and mildew run rampant. The kitchen is all wood and I have had mold growing on the walls and cabinetry in the past.

[broduke2000.livejournal.com]

I love your "Snowmagedden" reference.

However, your English teacher feels compelled to correct you. Your word emanates from the word armageddon, therefore, your word should be spelled "Snowmageddon" with an "O" not an "E"



Therefore, your teacher awards you with the grade of:

C-

[osodecanela.livejournal.com]

:(

[madknits.livejournal.com]

Very lovely. Thank you.

When I was young and living in Florence, the school I attended had lime and lemmon trees, which they put out in HUGE terracota pots along a low wall where we could sit, behind which was a panoramic view of the city. In the colder months the trees were kept in the limonaria.

[osodecanela.livejournal.com]

Limonaria? A Green house, I assume?

[madknits.livejournal.com]

Yes, a greenhouse specifically for lemon and lime trees.

[philbutrin.livejournal.com]

when i lived in san jose with brian, we had a big lemon tree growing outside the bedroom window. when the tree was blooming and the bedroom window was open, we had the smell of lemon blossoms wafting over us. it was wonderful :-)

[osodecanela.livejournal.com]

Oh I would love that! Even in full flower, the lemon isn't large enough to produce that amount of scent.

[philbutrin.livejournal.com]

orange blossoms are actually my favorite, but i do love lemon as well. the tree was weird... parts of the tree produced meyer lemons, and parts of it produced standard lemons, and parts of it produced lemons that were shaped more like oranges. some sort of weird grafted hybrid, perhaps :-)

but we had SO many lemons...

[osodecanela.livejournal.com]

I'm not an expert in horticulture, but it sounds to me like this was probably more than one type of tree grafted onto some sort of native root stock.

[tilia-tomentosa.livejournal.com]

Thank you! :)

I hadn't even heard of Satsuma Mandarins before.

We can't grow any citruses outside in my climate. :( Some people manage to grow a potted lemon tree and keep it inside in winter, but it takes up a lot of space.

[osodecanela.livejournal.com]

This is the time of year for mandarins. Satsumas are smaller, ranging from as small as a ping pong ball, to as large as a tennis ball. The skin is more loosely attached to the fruit and they also tend to be seedless. A veritable burst of sweetness and vitamin C. I look forward to them every year, when you can get a 5 pound bag for $4USD.

Mandarins are a family of citrus which include Clementines and I believe tangerines and tangelos. (not that I'm any expert.)

[elric-dewisant.livejournal.com]

Tangelos are a cross between a tangerine and a pomelo.

I spent half my day, yesterday, reading Wikipediea's article on citurs, as well as several related articles. I really have no idea why.

[elric-dewisant.livejournal.com]

Citrus, even.

[barbarian-rat.livejournal.com]

Mark Twain's comment about the coldest winter being a summer in SF comes to mind.

[furrbear.livejournal.com]

I'm jealous because I miss growing citrus. The climate here isn't moderate enough.