Rather than make tiny labels for each cell, I just drew a map to help me keep track of what is what. As long as I don’t lose that sheet of paper, I’ll be able to keep things straight. As you can see from the map, I’ve planted a large variety of jalapeños, habaneros, and cayennes, along with something called Bhutan Bubblegum 7 Pot Chocolate (came free with my order). Once the seedlings come up, I’ll transplant them into plastic solo cups, and try to get them as big as I can before March/April. I’ve finished running water lines to the pepper patch and laying cardboard to smother the grass, so I’ll be ready when spring comes. I can’t wait to see that first green shoot poking through the soil!
Pepper planting time! Much to Dr. Wife’s “amusement” I have taken over the garden tub in our bathroom, and turned it into my seed-starting station. It’s warm, by a sunny window, and easy to keep an eye on. I received my order from Pepper Joe’s, and immediately got to work planting the seeds in the cheapo plastic seed tray I picked up from Ace Hardware. I ordered a seedling heat mat from Amazon, and as soon as it gets here I’ll slide it under the tray. Rather than make tiny labels for each cell, I just drew a map to help me keep track of what is what. As long as I don’t lose that sheet of paper, I’ll be able to keep things straight. As you can see from the map, I’ve planted a large variety of jalapeños, habaneros, and cayennes, along with something called Bhutan Bubblegum 7 Pot Chocolate (came free with my order). Once the seedlings come up, I’ll transplant them into plastic solo cups, and try to get them as big as I can before March/April. I’ve finished running water lines to the pepper patch and laying cardboard to smother the grass, so I’ll be ready when spring comes. I can’t wait to see that first green shoot poking through the soil!
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After many years of waiting, I finally harvested some Bloomsweet grapefruits from our tree. I planted the tree when we moved in around 6 years ago, and despite hard freezes, drought, and neglect it has continued to grow. It’s one tough tree. Also known as a Kinkoji, the Bloomsweet grapefruit isn’t really a grapefruit at all as we think of them, but it is a cross between a pummelo and a mandarin. The peel is very thick and pithy like a pummelo, and membranes surrounding the segments are very tough, and the flesh is firm. It isn’t juicy like an orange or a tangerine, you can eat this without getting sticky fingers. It isn’t particularly easy to peel, and most segments contain at least one seed (some as many as four). The flavor is, well....it doesn’t really have much flavor. It’s sweet, but not overly sweet, with a faint hint of lemon. It definitely has a pummelo-like flavor quality, but is pretty underwhelming. The taste isn’t bad, there’s just much better tasing fruit available. My Dancy tangerines blow it away, and I’d definitely prefer any grapefruit. I’m pretty disappointed after waiting so long to try it, but that being said, all the other trees I planted with this one are now dead. It may not be the best tasting fruit, but at least it survives and produces with almost no care. I don’t know if I’ll just let it keep growing, or if I’ll top-work it to something else. Who knows? Maybe the fruit quality will improve with time. As tough as the tree has been, I’m definitely tempted to graft on some pummelos or Ujukitsus. ***UPDATE 2/10/2020*** - I was wrong! I take it all back! This past weekend I tasted some fruit from Dr. Randall’s tree, and it was amazing, like a lemon-flavored pummelo. So the issue is not with the variety, the problem is with my tree. Most likely the tree is just too immature to make truly phenomenal fruit yet. That’s Ok, I’m glad I decided not to graft it to something else. After 3 years, I’ve decided I’m just done with pomegranates. They grow, they look nice in the spring, they have pretty red flowers..... but the fruit rots out in the Houston humidity before they’re even close to edible! To be fair, I’m speaking about the Russian pomegranate varieties sold by Ison’s nursery in Georgia. If I could ever find another Sharp Velvet I’d just at the chance to grow it again, but I think these Russian types are duds here. While they may do great in Georgia, I finally had enough and pulled them up. I couldn’t let the prime real estate they occupied just go to lawn, so I drove down to RCW Nursery to see what they had in stock.
I was really surprised at the very nice selection of citrus trees they had this early in the season! Usually the area nurseries don’t really bump up their fruit tree inventory until at least early January, and here before me was almost everything I could want! I immediately grabbed the last three Changshou kumquats, and then perused the rest of the varieties on offer. I didn’t write down a detailed list, but if you’re looking for something in particular, they might have it. They even had a few pummelos I hadn’t seen before, so I need to do a little research on those. They also had several very nice looking avocado varieties, but I’m not interested in killing any more of those. After caving in and also buying an Italian Honey fig and a Cara Cara navel, I headed home and got to work running new irrigation lines and planting. Later this week I plan to head up to Arbor Gate to check out their selection too (and hunt for more figs). I’ll post about it if I find anything interesting. Merry Citrus and Happy Holidays! ***UPDATE*** Arbor Gate had a huge selection of Brazos Citrus trees also, but: 1.) They didn’t have any pummelos or grapefruits in stock at the moment (I was told they’re coming); and 2.) They’re prices were $10 more per tree than RCW When you consider that RCW is/was also offering a 25% discount on fruit trees, you should definitely try them first. Arbor Gate did have a slightly better selection of figs to choose from though. I brought home a ‘Little Ruby’, an LSU Purple, and an O’Rourke (Improved Celeste). I’ll be planting those along the driveway before the holiday break is over. Many years ago I grew a ton of habaneros, jalapeños, and cayennes, and made the best hot sauce I’ve ever had with them. It was really hot though, so hot that a friend of ours called it “Satan’s Mustard”. I loved that name, and really enjoyed eating and sharing the sauce with friends and family. As I was eating dinner the other night, I found myself wishing I still had some of that amazingly-flavored fire power to punch up recipes, so I decided to make some more.
First step - prepare the pepper patch. Since I’m on vacation this week, I plan on investing the time to really set things up right - running dedicated water lines, laying down several layers of cardboard to smother the grass, and bringing in my one surviving habanero plant to overwinter. Once set up, my plan is to start a bunch of hot pepper seedlings indoors in January, grow the best crop of peppers I can, and recreate the amazing tongue-sizzling hell of Satan’s Mustard! It’s hard to describe how much more delicious a glass of orange juice is when you’ve grown the fruit yourself! This was the first crop from our Louisiana Sweet orange tree, and they’ve been absoluetly wonderful. The tree itself is a gorgeous, well behaved tree with lush dark-green foliage. I don’t know how big it will ultmately get, but I’m sure it would grow faster if I would thin the fruit. One sip of juice in the morning makes me glad I didn’t though, fresh squeezed juice really is amazing stuff. We got approximately 100 fruit, which means about 30-40 glasses of juice this year. Since I’m the main consumer, that translates into a full month of delicious juice from one little tree.
Kids - don’t know what’s good. My oldest son still wants the store-bought juice! *A note on juicing : I’ve got a Black & Decker juicer and a few other types, but the best one really is the old-fashioned hand-operated kind. Easy to use, easy to clean. Unless you’re making juice for several people, the simple juicer in the photo above is the way to go. |
Clayton Bell
I'm a geologist in Houston, Texas who loves growing fruit trees.
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