PrettyCurious's Blog at GardenTenders.com

New Orange Tree #1: Ok, It's a stick

PrettyCurious — Wed, 27 May 2009 18:37:05 GMT

05-26-09
Yep, just like the “Improved Meyer Lemon” stick, this “Washington Navel Orange” stick was waitin on my doorstep Tuesday. It claims to be “The Best of all Navels” and is seedless, and harvests in the wiinter. and [oooh, ahh] has 2 branches!!!
I put it in the pot it will probably stay in, since it’s so big. Thank goodness, I found the giant [16”W x 13”T] fiberglass pot for $1 at a garage sale. Takes the sting outa the “Orange experiance” expense.

New Lemon Tree #1: Or should I say Lemon Stick?

PrettyCurious — Sun, 24 May 2009 03:02:57 GMT

Sat 05-23-09
Get out your glasses, we’re going to make Lemonade!
- in about 18 months.
I decided I must have an Orange tree cuz I saw it on TV back in Feb [that’s how they getcha], but that won’t come till next week. Meanwhile the Dwarf Lemon Tree that I saw under the heading “Customers that bought this item [orange tree] also bought these items” and ordered, came on Fri. [Please don’t ask me what I paid for it.] Fortunately, I was out garage saling Fri, and found some large decent looking pots to put them in.
So here is my Lemon “Stick” in the smaller of the two pots.
According to the brouchure that came with this stick, I shall have lemons in about 18 months. Course they’re only warranted for one year [that’s 12 months if you’re keeping track], and I secretly think they’re hoping the thing dies between 12 and 18 months.
I placed it in full fun with some Hostas and Hardy Mums for company.
The scary part is that they call it “Improved Meyer Lemon” – which makes me wonder what happened previously to make them have to improve it?

Mystery Seeds #1: Addams Family Plant?

PrettyCurious — Tue, 19 May 2009 23:05:49 GMT

This story begins 2 years ago.
I used to deliver periodicals every other week in one area, and the other weeks in another, so every Thursday, I got a nice little tour of the cityscapes, before thankfully return to my home on the outskirts of a town that is on the ouskirts of a much bigger city. During these paid excersions, I do my shopping, GarageSaling, and generally pick up anything we need that isn’t readily available to us. Or maybe I just hate paying full price for new stuff, when I can get good used, for pennies on the dollar.
There’s a location that had a lovely horseshoe shaped garden, probably made so that they wouldn’t have to mow the inside part of the driveway. In that garden there’s a tall plant that looks like the one that lady would spoon feed on the Addams Family TV series. Late summer before last, I asked if I may have a few seeds from it, and the person at the desk said “Sure”. Well, I had to wait till they looked mature enough, so I figured I’d get some in 2 weeks. 2 weeks later, I discovered some selfish person had lopped off the entire top of the plant, leaving nothing for anyone.
Last year, the industry I was serving tanked [making my job once a month instead of 2] and this little office closed up about a month before I decided I better quit, too. So on my last trip out there, ready or not, I had to get a seed pod. I got out my handy Stanley knife that has a 3” folding blade at the other end of the standard utility knife, and cut one off and plunked it into a baggy.
I use little Fire-King custard cups to let seed pods dry in, and later open them into it, in my spare moments. One can usually see more than one FK custard cup with seeds in it at any given time, and I usually know what’s in them, because I leave one sample seed head in there.
I’m on a few Pottery & Glass Boards, and one has a quarterly gift exchange, for each season. This spring my Giftee is in London, so I tried to send lightweight stuff. She likes vintage jools, and Boy Howdy do I have some, so I picked out a bunch I thought she’d like, and while packing it, I saw my FK cups of seeds, that by now, I wasn’t entirely sure if these were those Cleopatra seeds or Jacobs latter. While my seemingly efficient mannor of storing seeds works for the most part, I am lacking in the labeling department, and there was no seed heads in there. [Turns out my DD’s Back-Talkin cat likes to scoop out my seeds/seedheads] So I sent the girl a book, some Jewels, and these seeds, along with a note saying, they’er either going to be very tall, and you may get a plant you’d like to feed with a spoon, or they’ll be Jacobs Ladder.
Now not wanting to leave this lady alone in her adventure with Jack and the beanstalk, and having toyed with the idea I may have to rescue her, I planted some, too.
I put the seeds in a very shallow pot, because I sometimes over/under water seeds, and this seems to work for me, because I can see the water. I then put them on the sunny-side windowsill behind my computer. Yesterday, I thinned them out a bit, and moved some into a taller pot.
So far, they are not looking like Jacobs ladder . . .