A Handful of Harvest

These Persian limes fruited even after our transplanting the trees in the most disadvantageous time of year. Their roots really needed to spread out, and we were afraid of losing them entirely if they had to endure the summer in pots. We lost our Meyer lemon trees from last year that way, and didn't want a repeat.

These beautiful little guys are about as big as a VERY small chicken egg.

So many of our harvests at this point are handfuls (or handsful, for the English teachers out here)...3 limes, 6 figs, a handful of raspberries. But we'll eat them! Here's a somewhat blurred closeup of the figs we enjoyed tasting out-of-hand last night...





The exceptions to the handful harvest so far this year have been the tropical pumpkins and the purple hull cowpeas, and now okra. Even though our patches of those are small, they yielded well, and I can see how some judicious planning as far as times of year and how many plants could bring us in a modest bounty with some left over to preserve.

We have all the makings for a forest garden but the forest, but do have enough tree starts to group together to realize some fruit before too many years. We are already harvesting moringa leaves as we're able from the saplings Jack grew from seed. They're fast growers, so there is enough to harvest to enable us to collect a small branch once or twice a week for use as tea or to add to foods. It's got an incredible nutritional value, and we're leaning towards trying to incorporate as many of the preventive medicinals and nutritives as possible straight from the garden, since we use no chemicals.

That's also the fun of the handfuls, too...whether a little or a lot, we're not worried about any ill effects. The limes are very small, and we'll only get a few, but I can utilize the whole fruit without any worries about sprays or poisons. That's what's stopped me from using the beautiful citrus we get in the stores here...I have no idea what pesticides are in those lovely skins and just don't want to make marmalade or use the zests or preserve them in any way if they've been sprayed.

Ah well, enough of that ramble for now. I worked last night but there's okra to pick...and no complaints here! :)

I hope you have a great weekend!

Shabbat shalom to you from us...Jack, me, the songbirds, fireants, squirrels, herons, egrets, buzzards, hawks, bobwhites, woodpeckers, blacksnakes, deer, possums, raccoons, bobcats, weasels, denizens of insects, tree frogs, lizards, and rampant Bermuda grass... to you and yours!

Okra Loves...Bermuda?

I cut our first okra pods today, many of which were too large and should have been cut days earlier. I'll be checking the plants daily or every other day now so I'll get them at the tender stage.

The reason I'm impressed with the okra is that they've survived a lot of extremes and still flourished. More of our attention went to other areas of the garden and lot. Early on, we had spread 8 inches (yep, 8 inches deep) of manure and woodshavings from a nearby horse barn over that area. At the time, there was little grass, and very very hard sand underneath. There was also drought for months...all spring.

I was really trying to see a green bean patch get a good start, and our limited time focused more on those than on the okra. The okra was planted in rows alternately beside rows of lima beans. The limas succumbed to our neglect not because we didn't water them when small, but because the Bermuda grass was so invasive and our budget didn't stretch to laying down landscaping fabric or rolls of plastic. We had some boxes, but that bermuda grew overnight. It swallowed the limas alive, and covered the okra entirely. Still, we left the okra sections unmowed...in hopes of what, I don't know, but I guess we wanted to see what would happen.

I'm glad we did! What happened was not in the category of Garden Beautiful, but those okra plants, which we had bungled by planting too closely together and in the middle of a drought, and then neglected to thin or weed, and later discontinued watering...kept on holding their own. Pretty soon their tops surpassed the top of the Bermuda. We were curious to see which would ultimately triumph.

Interestingly, some of them survived, and started maturing. I don't advise anyone to duplicate our way of growing it...we'd have a much better return if we'd planned better, tended them better. But one thing we learned was that okra can hold its own even in the midst of thick Bermuda. It LOVES punishing heat. The deer seem to leave it alone. It also survives days of rain. And neglect. The pods were disease-free, and insects of all sorts were among its leaves, but with no damage noted. These two small patches yielded 4 lbs of pods at first picking.

If I were to speculate, a better-tended patch or set of rows would be one of the easiest veggies to grow here.

It's a keeper! Now the question is...does it NEED Bermuda to grow so well?? haha :)

First, We Picked You...

Then we hulled you...

Then we snapped the little tender ones and mixed them in...

Then, I cooked you.

And then we "et" you.

We stood right over the pan and ate you with a spoon till there was NO MORE.

Time to go pick some more!!

Anyone want to come over for some hot cornbread and purple hulls? Bring homegrown tomatoes and little green onions. The iced tea awaits!

(hooray for our first harvest food to eat this year....wooooo!!!)