Garden Update

Our lemon "tree"

 Time for our regularly scheduled garden update!  Because it has been a proper spring (warm but not hot, rainy but not soaking wet), the garden looks great.  Plants have had a chance to really develop and grow, not just get burnt to a crisp as per usual in the DC swamp.  It has been perfect weather for our lemon tree-- which had so many flowers on its small body that Will had to pick a few off for fear of developing too many lemons and the branches not being able to support them all.  At the moment, we have 7 growing, with one enormous one that tempts me to pick it every time I walk by. 

baby lemons!

We still have pears on the pear tree, though not the millions we initially dreamed about-- they haven't all fallen off or been an early dinner for the birds or squirrels.  I keep looking up recipes on how to cook my Bosc pears-- roasting them in the oven? eaten raw? a cobbler?-- and hoping that they will continue to grow big while we are away on vacation.

Bosc pear perfection

The fig tree is once again in full production.  We have smaller jam jars at the ready for all the fruit weighing down its branches.  I am tempted to net the tree as the catbirds and starlings seem to be particularly interested in eating the figs and I am not particularly interested in sharing with them. 

one of the many clusters of figs

Not to ignore our vegetable side of the our garden, we have a purple pepper ready to pick, lots of stalks of rhubarb waiting to be harvested, and several tomato flowers turning into green tomatoes.  None of them have started to turn red, but we check every day.

Peter picked a peck of purple peppers...

RHUBARB!!

tomato blooms

lower garden

In the lower garden, the three types of lettuce has been used in salads and on sandwiches already.  The blueberries are just coming ripe (while the golden raspberries are finished).  The peppers, carrots, beets, brussel sprouts, and eggplant (not for me, but for Kelly) are all starting to take hold and grow. 

Blueberries

Waiting to turn red