Where does the time go? 2019 was busy. Insanely so. Meaning 2020 has to be different. More than anything I want more time to enjoy my garden, time to leisurely complete garden chores rather than racing through them. And time to think about what I can do better. I need to find space to grow more potatoes, I also want to protect my larger tomatoes from the mice-netting doesn’t do it. I have to decide whether or not to cut down the four cedar hedging trees-which I think are sending their roots into my garden beds-and then decide if I should replace them with a few columnar fruit trees. I want to convert the covered potted lavender stand to a place for more veggie beds. Raised beds, on the stand, with bottoms because I’m tired of fighting with tree roots. Many things to think about-and start working on-during these dark winter days.
On mild winter days I try to get out for a bit and if I don’t feel like dealing with the big garden decisions, I clean up. There is always something that didn’t get done before the winter rains and wind arrived. I generally leave my citrus shrubs outside as long as possible but move them into the greenhouse once freezing temperatures hit. Recently I did this and also relieved the plants of a good number of ripe lemons.
A young lemon shrub but lots of fruit.
I was going to grate the lemons and squeeze the juice and then freeze both the zest and the juice for future use as I didn’t want the lemons to go to waste. Then I remembered the jar of marmalade a neighbour had given us and thought maybe I can use these lemons for marmalade. And, maybe not surprisingly, there were many recipes online for meyer-lemon marmalade. I have always been intimidated by the thought of making marmalade. Cutting all of those thin slices seemed like an incredibly tedious task but I found a good dog agility podcast to listen to, picked one of the recipes and got absorbed in my task. Really, it wasn’t that bad to do and the podcast was excellent. The yield is not too impressive to look at, but I was quite pleased to have finally done something I have thought of doing for years.
A first effort at marmalade.
And further, some photos from the summer garden:
My favorite veggie (fruit) to grow.
The tomato bed at my common’s garden in late summer. Next year I must control those self seeding nasturtiums more but they are so beautiful it is painful to pull them.
Nasturtiuma would take over the tomato beds given half a chance.
Leave a Reply