The Figs Have Arrived

There is usually much rejoicing from family and friends when the figs are ready. Gary puts in his order early. Kat and Eleanor are right behind him. Today, Phillip pronounced them ready to pick. His veggies are ramping up too. The cukes and maters are ready daily. He is thrilled. Let the harvesting begin!

Our Last Check-in

Checking in with our last fruit tree brings us to Gerson the Grapefruit tree. Gerson has not done much since my last photo. His fruit looks to be the same size. I am curious to see what size the fruit ultimately turns out to be. When I was out taking the picture, Phillip picked one to give it a taste. The review was that the fruit was not ready. Really?

Our Next Contestant

Our next featured fruit tree is Mr. Sam the Satsuma tree. We last saw Sam here. He has grown a little, but not a huge amount. I am fasinated by the growth of our fruit trees. Some grow qiuckly and others not. I wonder when it will start to turn orange. It's fun to watch though.

An Update on the Fruit Trees

It has been a while since I updated the progress on Phillip's orchard of fruit trees. When last we looked, our lemons looked like this . Now they gotten a lot bigger. Phillip says they are starting to turn yellow, but I don't see it. Maybe one of us is colorblind. Come on Leonard the Lemon tree. Get a move on!

Sam the Satsuma

Sam is our youngest tree son. He is planted in a huge pot on the patio. He has the least amount of fruit of all of the trees. He had a ton of blooms, so I don't know what is up there. Our other Satsuma, Steve, doesn't have any fruit maturing and he had lots of blooms as well. Something must be up in Satsuma town. Hopefully, the few still left will make it to the end.

Gerson the Grapefruit

Gerson the Grapefruit tree is next. I am not a fan of grapefruit, but Phillip is. Gerson's fruit seems to be coming right along. There were a couple of tiny fruits on the ground, but several still on the tree. I don't know if we will need to put some sort of bird protection on it, as this is the first year we are giving citrus fruit a try. Hopefully they will stay away and we will get to enjoy watching the grapefruit grow.

Leonard the Lemon

Next up is Leonard. Leonard is a lemon tree. He is planted in a bed with rampant mint plants, but he is holding his own. The small lemons look like limes. I wonder when they turn yellow? Leonard has the most fruit of all of the fruit trees. He is the over achiever of the bunch.

Newton the Fig

About a year after we moved here, Phillip decided he wanted a fig tree. Most fig trees I have seen are pretty big, but this one must be a dwarf or something. It is 12 years old and never grew over 5 feet. It does product its share of figs. Phillip and the birds fight over them as soon as they are edible.

Bobby the Blueberry Bush

A while back I posted about Farmer Phil and the Boys. I wanted to show an update of his "sons". Bobby is our oldest fruit bearing "son". He is not a tree like our other "sons". He likes that because it makes him special. Bobby and two other blueberry bushes (who were never named) were planted our first spring after moving into the house. One of the bushes has died, but Bobby and the other bush are still producing blueberries. The first couple of years, we had so many we were giving them away. Now so much now, but there are still lots to eat. I love being able to go out and pick them right off of the tree.

Farmer Phil and the Boys

Phillip has a very good friend who is his fishing bud. Bill lives "down the bayou" southwest of here. They have a great time getting up in the middle of the night to get out on the water at the crack of dawn. I have never understood why that would be fun, but that is not really relevant to this story. Bill lives on a ton of land and on part of it he grows several different types of citrus trees. As part of the fish stories we hear when he gets home, we also hear about Bill's orchard. He goes on and on about how Bill can just walk out the door and pick his fruit. You know where this is going...right? Well as you might have guessed, he has decided he will grow fruit trees. Hopefully, sometime this summer we will have lemons, satsumas, and grapefruit. And who are the boys mentioned in the title? The girls thought it would be great to name the trees with male names since Phillip lives in a house of females. Some evenings and on the weekends, he can be found outside doing his male bonding.