Mandarins & Odd Fruit

Recent rains have got everything sprouting again. The lawn we don't water -- especially in the dehydrated and heavily trafficked front parking strip -- has started to sprout, like so much green hair on a shaved head.

The weed-lawn will start to grow to, so it will be time to whip out the ol' solar-powered, electric lawnmower and chop 'em down.

The forecast of 75F days 58F at night has been pretty off base. It has been overcast much of each day, with a little drizzle or fog. I used to love rain and fog and cloudy days in fall and winter, now I just see it as wasted electricity because the solar cells don't put out much juice on a cloudy day. (We do get from 1/4 to 1/3 or so of normal, even in the rain, but I really want to see a surplus so we can have a ZERO electric bill come April 7. )

Meanwhile, the Mandarin Orange set its winter crop a couple of months ago, and the first hint of orange is showing through the green fruit. By Christmas these will be bright orange, and may even be ripe enough to enough to eat. Certainly by January or February. Always love grabbing one of these intensely sweet oranges -- or two -- off the tree for breakfast on the way to work.

The loquat is also flowering. It will take a long winter's effort to produce fruit in spring, around March or April. Very sweet, large pit. Interesting but not compelling fruit. Makes a fair ice cream sauce, but that's about it. The tree was here when we moved in, and we hate to cut down a fruit tree, but the tree is in conflict with another, and the fruit, while prodigious, doesn't do much but feed the yard squirrels.

All the sprouting and budding and ripening put me in the mind to go check on the salad garden. Nothing is up yet. Nor would I expect it in three or four days. But all the little buds made me so hopeful, especially in light of the complete death of all the seedlings planted in the horse trough for the summer.

Speaking of the horse trough, I found a drain plug and removed it, so over winter the water can get out instead of filing up and creating a bog like happened just before I replanted it. Hope that does the trick.