Welcome to another update from the Victory Garden!
Just LOOK at these DREAMY limes!!
{I totally did NOT grow these, but a victory gardener can dream, right?!}
These slipped through my New Orleans posts somehow so I had to share them with my garden update. All through the Bywater (and also at the Whitney Plantation) there were lime trees EVERYWHERE! The limbs were aching with the weight of these small, dark green limes. There were plenty of these trees on the sidewalk, so it seemed like fair game for me to pick some. A bunch. I would have picked a five gallon bucket full if my mom hadn’t been so mortified. Y’all, one of my life goals is to have citrus trees. Maybe this will go on the 2018 To-Do List.
The limes are actually Tahitian limes, so far as I can tell. This variety is described as having thin, dark colored skin with orange inside instead of green. Also, this next bit may have more to do with freshness than anything else but these are SO JUICY!!! Like, they have at least as much juice in ONE lime as two store bought one. No exaggeration. Too bad I’m down to my last 2 😦 Seltzer, beer, and tomato salads will be much more boring once they’re gone.
To tell the truth, things haven’t been so great in the victory garden. The tomatoes in buckets experiment has proved to pretty much be a bust. While I am pretty bummed, learning is learning so I’m taking it as it is. Even after moving the pots the plants didn’t really spring back. I guess I let them go too long to recover. Next year I will plant in the ground.
Fortunately, I DO have two very happy brandywine plants that have a fair amount of fruit on them! As you can see from the pic below, I am trying to protect these precious plant from the dreaded jerk birds with netting. Of course the netting is something I had on hand in the Doom Shack, so it’s yellow and green. You can’t really see this from the picture, but after whining about the net blowing off my mom suggested clothes pins strategically placed. Which I did because my mom is a genius.
I am probably going to pull up the plants from the right side of the bed so I can get garlic in the ground in the next little bit. The buckets down that way are pretty much done and just taking up space. I’m planning to work the dirt and add some compost and left over potting soil.
To the left you can see the chocolate cherry tomatoes are about over.
That’s a brandywine in my hand–now if only the birds leave them alone!!!
I’ve also given up on my mustard that was planted well over a month ago. The only thing it will be good for is TINY TUESDAY (how sad!) I have one bit of lettuce left that I’m going to harvest and serve with the potatoes I pulled 2 days ago. YES! More potatoes! That has been a success. The good thing about all those tomato buckets is that I can use them to grow potatoes next year! Stay tuned for a YOUTUBE video of the potato harvest!
LAST LITTLE LETTUCES 😦
{and a few random weeds}
Pretty much everything is done on the deck, too. I’ve still got one pepper plant plugging along with two yellow bells just waiting to mature. I’ve also still got some very happy purple basil and a pitiful scraggley mint. The green buckets on the left (where the potatoes grew) are turning into a little compost area. Instead of throwing my vegetable scraps in the ditch I’m going to layer them in the bins with green and brown material to try to work some more soil.
NOT MY GARDEN!
(This is at Mr. Smith’s mom’s house)
photo credit, C.L.Smith
Just look at how GIANT these plants are! That’s two rows of okra on the left and several tomato plants on the right. At least this is some proof that I have a talent in starting seeds! My mom’s plants look beautiful, too! I should have just put the poor things in the ground.
One thing I HAVE been doing which isn’t exactly a garden thing, but has been a huge success is HUMMINGBIRD FOOD!!! Mr. Smith bought a little feeder for us to try out and we have been going through a feeder-full a week! I’m not sure how many birds we actually have, but there are at least 2. They raise cane, flying and playing (maybe mating, lol), zipping around our porch and front yard. It has been a delight.
How has your garden been doing?
What are you harvesting this week?
What do you have planned for winter?
Do you have hummingbirds?
Holler and let me know!
The Particular Overall Collection 