Gardening in Winter

susandonb · Gardening in Winter

Hello Everyone,

Thought we might get a conversation going about gardening , a bit early. Smile

Anyone growing this Winter? I have some stuff going in my greenhouse. Cabbage, broccoli, tomato and cuke seedlings. Geraniums, lantana and vinca left over from Summer but holding their own. I also have a coldframe with spinach and three types of lettuce coming up. I try to grow some salad greens for Winter picking in my coldframes. I have 9 amaryllis in the house 2 Christmas cactus that refuse to bloom and a pot of paperwhite.

This is a boring time of year for us gardeners but we always have our seed catalogs to keep us going with hope and promise.

Share what ya got going, houseplants, herbs, etc.
Looking forward to hearing from you all,
Susan

God's Warrior

A Great Big Welcome to TGP, Susan.

This cactus is the only thing I have had blooming recently. I have an episca that is overdue in blooming so maybe I will have it to show soon. I haven't raised amaryllis bulbs in years but you definitely have me wanting to buy some this year. We used to have a greenhouse, coldframes, etc. but have gotten lazy the last few years and haven't done that sort of gardening. You make me miss that when you tell us all the great things you are raising. I look forward to more posts from you concerning gardening.

susandonb

My Christmas cactus use to look like that? What am I doing wrong? It hasn't bloomed in a couple of years, could it be getting too old?

God's Warrior

That one was only about a year old when it bloomed. I started several cuttings from it right after I got it and they bloomed also. The delivery guy had broken some of the stems and I decided not to throw them away, so I put their ends in little glasses of water in a lighted window. All of them rooted but I changed to dirt for the cuttings and they stayed in the window all year. The big one went outside on a table in my mostly shaded courtyard. All bloomed at the same time even though they had totally different circumstances. I did use very good potting soli with slow fertilizer release grandules so having proper nourishment might be the key. Try fertilizing it next year and see if that makes a difference.

susandonb

Hey everyone, whats up with all the "views" but few replies?

Everyone shy?

CajuninKy

The only thing I have growing right now are some very stubborn green onions and one lone kolrabi. I am hoping to save it for seeds this Spring. It is the only one that came up last year. I think they are a cool season plant but I didn't know that and planted it late.

I am very busy planning my garden for the coming season. I have to plan carefully because I want to grow lots of different things but I don't have much room. I have ordered my seeds from Baker Creek Hierloom Seeds. They don't have any hybrids or GM seeds. Have you done any reading on Monsanto and the seed business? It is scary.

susandonb

I have ordered from Bakers before. I bought most of my seeds for this year from Henry Field's they offer $25 off your $50 order, I have gotten some great deals this way. I am ordering 200 sweet potato slips from them soon.

I read about Monsanto, not buying any of their stuff.

CajuninKy

I am not completely sure and I will try to find out, but I think Henry Field's may be under the same big umbrella as Burpee's is now. It's all one big company that bought up a lot of seed companies but kept the old names. All the seeds come from the same place but they sell them like they were different varieties. That way they get you to buy the same seeds with different names but you are ending up with the same seeds. It's unethical.

Have you read anything on the seed patents? It's outrageous.

God's Warrior

Could you/would you give us a brief synopsis of the situation? Smile

susandonb

I try not to get to concerned about stuff like this I just buy what grows well for me and stay with companies that I have had good experiences with. I dont buy from Burpee cause I think they are too expensive. I also dont do business with Parks anymore.

I bought asparagus crowns from Henry Fields and they were great.

I have had terrible results with heirloom seeds. Too many diseases.

CajuninKy

I didn't buy from Burpee's because when I compared them to Baker Creek they were more expensive and their shipping is outrageous. I didn't find out about the umbrella thing until yesterday. I will try to find the article I read on it and post it here.

CajuninKy

Here is the article in it's entirity. It is a bit lengthy but well worth the time to read it.

The gardening game
Do you know where your seeds come from?
You may be surprised...

By Jerri Cook
Wisconsin

Somehow I always thought the seeds, bulbs, and roots I purchased from mail order companies came from a quaint American farm, somewhere in the heartland, with burgeoning rows of high quality vegetables and flowers. I was as wrong as a two-headed frog.

It all started last August when I used a coupon from Gurney's to order asparagus roots. By the third week of September my order hadn't arrived. I decided something was amiss and called the company.

The customer service representative I spoke with assured me my order would arrive at the proper planting time for my zone, sometime near the beginning of December.

I was confused, how was I supposed to plant anything in zone 3b in December?

The cheery voice told me to put the crowns straight in the ground and mulch over them. They would be fine.

I expressed my doubts. I already checked with my local extension agent, the president of the local Master Gardener association, and a knowledgeable neighbor before calling. No one thought planting asparagus after October in our area was a good idea. I would just take a refund.

The less-than-knowledgeable representative asked me to hold while she checked with someone. Silence. A few minutes later a chipper voice came on the line and said, "Spring Hill Nurseries."

Huh? I explained that I was holding for someone at Gurney's. "No problem," the jaunty voice assured me, "I'll transfer you."

More silence and another voice came on the line, "Henry Fields."

What?

"I'm holding for Gurney's. What's going on?"

Not to worry, she could transfer me. I hoped so, this wasn't a toll free number and I was racking up the minutes running around in this long distance circle.

More silence and then-click. They hung up on me.

But who had hung up, Gurney's, Spring Hill Nurseries, or Henry Fields? And why was I transferred from one to the other?

The name game
I decided to take a closer look at Gurney's. I remembered hearing something about them going out of business a few years ago. The large mail order company Foster and Gallagher, who owned Gurney's and many other seed companies, filed for bankruptcy in Indiana, putting hundreds of people out of work.

Like most gardeners, the logistics of the seed industry were of little interest to me. I simply shrugged the whole thing off and went on my merry way.

Now I found myself staring at the FAQs page on Gurney's website, where it says the company was bought at a bankruptcy hearing a couple of years ago by a group of "lifelong mail order gardeners."

After scrolling to the bottom of the page I noticed the copyright for the website is held by Scarlet Tanager, LLC doing business as Gurney's. This must be the group of lifelong mail order gardeners that bought the company.

Anyone can find information on a company (or corporation) by contacting the Secretary of State in the state where the company is located. Since Gurney's is located in Indiana, I decided to pop over to the Indiana Secretary of State's website to see if Scarlet Tanager, LLC is listed in their corporate database.

Sure enough there it was. It is an umbrella corporation for The Garden Store, The Michigan Bulb Company, Gurney's, and Henry Field's. For a mere $1 fee to the fine state of Indiana I was able to find the owner of Scarlet Tanager, LLC, Niles Kinerk. A couple of peripheral searches turned up more information on Mr. Kinerk. He also owns Spring Hill Nurseries, Breck's Bulbs, Audubon Workshop, Flower of the Month Club, and Gardens Alive. Wow, Niles has a lot of companies under his umbrella.

It turns out he's not alone. Totally Tomatoes, R.H. Shumway, The Vermont Bean Seed Company, Seeds for the World, Seymour's Selected Seeds, HPS, Roots and Rhizomes, and McClure and Zimmerman Quality Bulb Brokers are all standing shoulder to shoulder under the J.W. Jung Seed Company's umbrella.

Under Park Seed Company's canopy you'll find Wayside Gardens, Park Bulbs, and Park's Countryside Garden.

The list goes on.
No matter which catalog you order from, the chances are pretty good you are getting the exact same seed as everyone else. Virtually every large mail-order garden company in the United States uses a seed broker to supply them with stock. The broker's job is to find tons of seed at a low price. They contract with competing umbrella corporations, selling the same seed to everyone.

As if the waters weren't muddy enough, each mail-order seed company can resell the same seed using different names for it. For example, you see a wonderful red lettuce named Sheep's Tongue in catalog A and place your order. A couple of days later you see another red lettuce named Camel's Tongue in catalog B. You really like red lettuce so you order some from the other catalog too. A few weeks after planting you notice they look and taste exactly alike. What's going on?

Well, the patent on the lettuce known as Sheep's Tongue has expired, or it is an heirloom and never had a patent. If there is no patent anyone can grow and sell it. However, if the company that owns catalog A has a trademark on the name Sheep's Tongue, other re-sellers will have to call it something else. This is true for plants, roots, bulbs, and trees.

At first glance this just seems like good old American business forging ahead. But there is something unsettling about this whole arrangement. How are we supposed to know who we are dealing with when we buy seed? And where does all this seed come from?

Trying to find out is like playing pin the tail on the donkey, the only way to know for sure is to take off the blindfold.

King of the hill
The American nursery trade is a 39.6 billion dollar a year industry. With the purchase of Seminis in January of 2005, Monsanto is now estimated to control between 85 and 90 percent of the U.S. nursery market. This includes the pesticide, herbicide and fertilizer markets. By merging with or buying up the competition, dominating genetic technology, and lobbying the government to make saving seeds illegal, this monolith has positioned itself as the largest player in the gardening game.

Monsanto holds over eleven thousand U.S. seed patents. When Americans buy garden seed and supplies, most of the time they are buying from Monsanto regardless of who the retailer is.

Most home gardeners started noticing the initials PVP appearing next to selections in the mail order garden catalogs a few years ago. This stands for Plant Variety Protection. It means the seed or plant carries a U.S. patent. It is illegal to save seed from or otherwise propagate PVP varieties. Consumers will have to buy more each year if they wish to grow a PVP variety.

Greenpeace chides, "Monsanto-no food shall be grown that we don't own."

They could be right.
Terminator Technology promises to be a big money maker for Monsanto and its subsidiaries. Plants are genetically modified so they won't produce seed, or if seed is produced, it is sterile. With this maneuver they are guaranteed a continuing market for vegetable, fruit, and flower seed.

Consider the newest Frankenstein called Traitor technology. This charming little piece of genetic engineering will help Monsanto's chemical division rake in billions of dollars a year from across the globe. It allows growers to control the genetic traits of plants by applying an array of chemicals, all owned by Monsanto. Do your genetically modified watermelons have blight? No problem, for a price you can buy the chemical that will turn on the plant's blight fighting gene. No kidding. It is estimated Traitor technology could dominate world seed supply with an astonishing 80 percent of the market by 2010.

Six companies Du Pont, Mitsui, Monsanto, Syngent, Aventis and Dow control 98 percent of the world's seeds. These companies are opening research facilities and acquiring local seed companies and farmland on every continent, and they can't do it fast enough.

Imports of seed and stock from Pakistan, India, Mexico,Thailand and of course China, are on the rise. Countries like Thailand boast of seed exports rising at 12 percent per year from 1998-2001. American seed exports fell at twice that rate for the same time period.

As biotechnology forges on, something is lost. At first it is barely noticeable, just a sense that something is different.

Ashes, ashes, all fall down
Before it was acquired by Monsanto, Seminis eliminated 2,000 varieties of seed from its inventory. The first things to go were the older open-pollinated varieties; vining petunias, butterfly weed, butter beans, German green tomatoes, and other heirlooms grown by gardeners for generations, replaced by genetically engineered varieties.

High-tech patented hybrid varieties are far more profitable for transnational seed companies to produce and sell. These new frankenseeds are bred to perform adequately over a wide geographical area, giving the patent holder a much larger market.

As consumers are losing the freedom to choose what they will buy and grow, thousands of varieties of garden seed are walking the plank, straight into the abyss of extinction. Consider this, in 1981 there were approximately 5,000 vegetable seed varieties available in U.S. catalogs. Today there are less than 500, a 90 percent reduction.

Seeds removed from commercial production are left in private corporate seed banks. Open pollinated seed will not store indefinitely, it must be propagated to ensure its survival. This is an expensive proposal, one not likely to happen in the world of capital consolidation and wide profit margins.

The more likely scenario is the "unprofitable" heirloom seeds will be allowed to expire and patented hybrids will take their place. Seed biodiversity will be compromised globally, while the corporate stranglehold tightens around the throat of the consumer.

Kent Whealey, co-founder of Seed Savers Exchange, says "Few gardeners comprehend the true scope of their garden heritage or how much is in immediate danger of being lost forever."

Taking the ball and going home
Like the glaciers that rolled across North America, heaving and prying the earth into new forms, giant transnational seed companies are changing the face of gardening as it once was. What's left behind is the product of a destructive force to be sure, but something beautiful and promising also remains.

Across the globe people are growing and saving heirloom seeds, ensuring the promise of diversity and heritage for future generations. Groups like Seed Savers Exchange are blooming in the remains of corporate devastation. Some of these organizations are large, offering seeds from across the globe. Others are neighborhood and regional groups saving and trading local favorites. Whatever their size, they are dedicated to preserving the earth's biodiversity.

All it takes to form a seed saving club is for one neighbor to pick up the phone and say to another, "Do you want to trade some seeds this year?" There you have it, a seed saving club.

Imagine if one neighbor called another neighbor and that neighbor called yet another, and so on. The next thing you know black gardeners and white gardeners, southern growers and northern growers, farmers and city folk, church goers and non-church goers, would be united in an effort to prevent the extermination of thousands of varieties of seed. What a beautiful thing it would be.

Before you could shake a dollar at it, the landscape of the nursery trade would change. It's the age old law of supply and demand, if no one wants patented hybrids, then they become unprofitable in short order. The reigning corporate kings of the gardening game would be forced to take their ball and go home, leaving consumers free to choose a more sustainable pastime.

It could happen.

Ollie ollie oxen free
My asparagus roots showed up two days before Thanksgiving. Several inches of snow blanketed the ground and the temperature hadn't risen above the single digits for days. I decided against planting them directly in the ground and mulching over the top as instructed by the Gurney's representative. I didn't feel like shoveling all that snow. Instead I tossed them in the back of the refrigerator to wait for spring.

While winter wore on I visited the Seed Savers Exchange website (www.seedsavers.org), several times. I filled out the catalog request and spent time checking out the site. It is chock full of information and inspiration. There's an online catalog bursting with heirlooms I've never heard of. I'm not sure what lazy housewife beans are, but you can be sure I'm going to get some.

I asked my neighbors to save seeds this year. We'll get together in the fall for a harvest celebration and share our gardening glories and stories. You can bet there'll be a tale behind every seed saved. I hope I hear them all.

Transnational corporations can't build communities, they can't celebrate identity. Only we can do that, and we can do it with every seed we plant.

God's Warrior

Love that daisy!
That is excellent information. Many thanks for posting the complete article.

CajuninKy

That is a daisy from last Spring.

I had heard bits and pieces of the Monsanto thing but didn't really understand it well. That article lays it out clearly. It certainly gives them a monopoly on the food crops in this country if we lose our heirloom seeds.

Aloe

I think that a lot of the views come from "bots". (I think that's what they're called. They're what generate the ads on the pages. If you look at the front page and its says that x members and y guests are online - I think the "guests" are bots.

Anyway, what's growing? I've got some radishes, onions, and garlic going. I planted lettuce but it hasn't come up. It has been very dry. I've got some aloes and narcissus blooming.

CajuninKy

I only have some stubborn green onions and one lone kolrabi. I planted garlic but the ground has frozen a couple of inches deep since then so I don't hold out much hope for it.

God's Warrior

I have to look up

God's Warrior

Here I am back with the results of my search. I have posted the resulting information in the Recipe Forum along with a lot of other information about this little known vegetable.

Kohlrabi Strives for a Comeback

Includes Serving Ideas, Plant History, Purchasing Tips, etc. below recipe.

http://thegatheringplacehome.myfastforum.org/ftopic669-0-asc-10.php

Aloe

tangerines

Click to see full size image

CajuninKy

Beautiful fruit. My Mom has citrus trees in La. She has some of the sweetest satsumas I have ever tasted.

Aloe

I think these are "Honey". They are very good.

susandonb

WOW I wish we could grow citrus here.

God's Warrior

They look wonderfully delicious. Are those from your trees?

Mary

Wow, I blink and miss a whole lotta garden talk.

Susan, your amaryllis looks like Red Lion. Beautiful. I won't have any blooms this year, unless they recover from my frozen greenhouse. Some of mine are showing signs of life but they sure suffered a setback. The tops were toast. I also lost all but one of my Christmas and Thanksgiving cactus which were real show stoppers every year. When spring comes I might be begging starts.

God's Warrior

Mary, I started 3 small cuttings this last week in water and 2 already have roots. I will save one for you and send it when I send your seeds and any plants you might decide you want. Of course I will wait till you don't have freezing weather.

susandonb

Hello Mary,

Nice to meet you. Where do you live? I have 3 more amaryllis that look like they are going to bloom. This was my first year buying amaryllis and having them in the house. Last year I got 2 bulbs in a swap I did and I planted them outside. I have gorgeous flowers I think in June or July in my perrenial bed. I plan on putting all my bulbs I got on clearance this year in the garden and see if they will bloom this Summer.

Mary

Thanks Elena, plant trading is a real down to earth version of having a friend visiting. I should name plants after the people I get them from, so your CC would be known as Elena!

Susan, I live in eastern Oregon, fairly close to the Idaho border. If I crane my neck a little, from my kitchen window I can see some mountains that are in Idaho. Your amaryllis should be quite happy planted outside for the summer, many people do that, but just remember where they are and get them inside before winter.

I have a plant on my kitchen windowsill that I started from a leaf that was on the floor in the plant section of a store. It grows like a Christmas or Thanksgiving cactus, but the buds (yes, it is going to bloom!) are on the sides of the leaves. I have another one that grows the same way and it has been identified as a rhypsalis. (not sure of the spelling but that is close).

CajuninKy

Mary
Did you lose heat in your greenhouse?

Aloe

Susan, if it's any comfort, you can grow cherries in your climate and I can't. (I love cherries.)

Elena, yes, those are from my tree. They're pretty effortless to grow here, just give them iron and plant food. Out here you can get special citrus tree food. I can't say that everyone around here has a citrus tree, since I can't see in everyone's back yard, but I'll bet that at least half of the houses have one.

This is chasmanthe. They came with the house. I don't see them sold in the stores so they must have been something that was popular 40 years ago but is not now. I've seen them at other houses. I've even seen them in the wild where there used to be a house but it is gone now. (What happened to the houses? Probably they burned down. That seems to be the ultimate fate of things out here. I can really relate to the passage in the Bible about the world being destroyed by great heat and made anew.)

Click to see full size image

CajuninKy

We can't grow citrus here and I really miss it. lots of citrus in La. But we do have lots of apples here. Can't grow them in La. Everything is a trade off. Do you have other citrus trees?

Here is a pic of my Mom with her satsuma tree at TG.

Aloe

Wow!

I have a tangerine, a grapefruit, a navel orange, a blood orange, a lime, and two lemons. We have two lemons because one came with the house and we didn't know it until we had planted another. It's not like the yard is big, it just was so sickly that we didn't recognize what it was.

These are grapefruits. They aren't ripe yet.

Click to see full size image

There are a few varieties of apples that will produce in this climate. There is a house a couple streets away that has an apple tree. I don't know what kind it is. They also have a persimmon tree.

CajuninKy

My Mom had a gorgeous grapefruit tree but it never made a single fruit so she finally cut it down. She also has some lemon trees and several kinds of oranges. I gave her a limequat tree that is always loaded and sour as all get out. I bet it would make a good pie.

God's Warrior

That is one tree and fruit I have never heard of. Looks like I have some more research to do. What beautiful fruit! Are they in the orange family? Your mom is a cutie pie. She has such a pleasant look about her. I think her daughter must be a lot like her. Smile

Kelli, It sounds like a person could just make the rounds in your neighborhood and come up with a great fruit plate or fruit salad. Amazing! I have never lived anywhere with fruit like that so readily available. It makes my mouth water just looking at the pictures.

Mary

Yes, Cajun, my greenhouse furnace pilot light must have blown out in a big windstorm we had, and when we got a couple of below 0 nights there was no heat. I didn't think to check it, and the next thing I knew my nice tender plants were looking very sad. I have waited, watered sparingly, and not started throwing anything out yet, some are showing signs of life. The worst loss was my 25 year old jade. If I can figure out posting a picture from the picasa program (lost my old program when I upgraded the computer) I will show you a picture of it when it was in bloom.

God's Warrior

Here I go again showing my ignorance. I had no idea that Jade plants bloom.

Mary

It's my understanding that they have to be about 20 years old before they do, and most people don't keep them that long. Light is probably a factor too. They grow outside in southern California. Aloe might have one in her yard.

CajuninKy

Don't feel alone in your ignorance, Elena. I did not know that either. It's a shame you lost it. After having it that long it must have felt like a member of the family.

A limequat is a cross between a lime and a kumquat. It's about the size of a key lime.

God's Warrior

I do have a gardenia that I have carried in and out for over 50 years but I will admit that my jade plants don't ever make it 20 years. I think I overwater them.

I have never eaten a qumquat in my life either. Where have these fruits been all my life? Smile

Mary

The big Jade plant that froze. It now has one teeny live shoot down between the trunks, so something might still grow from the roots. I'm glad I rooted some starts off it a couple of years ago that are growing on my kitchen windowsill. The moral of the story here might be not to put all my eggs in one basket.

Aloe

Re: Jade Plant - Yep, I've got several of them, some are variegated and some are normal. I'm guessing it took about 8 years for the normal to bloom and about 12 years for the variegated.

This is the variegated.

Click to see full size image

We used to have a kumquat tree but DH moved it and it died. It produced more fruit than we could use anyways. You eat the whole thing, peel and all. The peel is sweet and the fruit is sour.

Cajun, do you have any idea why your mom's grapefruit tree didn't produce any fruit? That is my most productive tree. The oranges are a bit on the stingy side and they may not be getting enough sun.

Mary

Closeup of the flowers.

God's Warrior

What tiny fragile blooms for such a sturdy type plant. Really pretty!

Do they have an aroma? I know that a lot of those kinds of plants will have a very sweet odored bloom, probably to attract insects.

Mary

One of the Christmas or Thanksgiving cactus, also frozen. It was in full bloom and I was going to bring it back into the house to enjoy on the day that I put the insulation on the greenhouse vents, but decided it was too cold outside to safely carry it to the house. Sad

Mary

My favorite amaryllis, picotee, which came in a box from a discount store, and was not what I thought I was buying, but praise God, it was much better! I have hope for the amaryllis, the tops froze but the bulbs appear to be firm and some are sprouting new leaves. Hopefully, this one will too.

Mary

This ripsallis came as a start I bummed from a friend, who didn't know what it was and said it had never bloomed. It got too much sun last summer and looked horrible, so I took some leaves from a protected spot to root in water on my kitchen windowsill. Now, having been subjected to temps in the 20's overnight, it really looks bad, but something might still be alive, so I'm not tossing it out yet.

God's Warrior

That cactus was absolutely awesome. What a shame that is is history now. That amaryllis is beautiful. Hopefully the bulb didn't freeze completely. I am like you in the fact that I don't toss anything as long as there appears to be any life of any sort surviving.

Mary

Elena, I never noticed any good smells when the jade bloomed, and I am sure I must have given it the sniff test.

God's Warrior

The particular fragrance I am refering to can't go unnoticed. It is very strong and can best be described like a perfume that someone has spilled in a room. The first time I had a plant that smelled like that was years ago when i had a mother-in laws-tongue to bloom. It was hidden by a window curtain and I sniffed my way all over that room looking for the perfume I was sure my girls had spilled,

CajuninKy

She never knew why it didn't bloom. It was there plenty long enough and all the trees around it were doing fine. She just figured it was a dud.

I didn't know Mother in law tongues bloomed.

I know the kind of smell you are talking about. The Sweet Olive Tree has that kind of smell.

Why do you take the gardenia in and out? In my experience you can't kill one of those things.

God's Warrior

The gardenia is my favorite plant. I have babied that shrub for all these years because of that fact. They can't survive the cold winters. The furtherest north I have known of one living is Memphis and that is where this one came from as a bloom that my sister's landlady cut for me. I rooted it and have loved it ever since. A really harsh winter killed the parent plant not long after that.

CajuninKy

In La they grow into a tree. They get about 10 feet tall.

God's Warrior

I lived in W. Monroe, Louisiana for several years when I was young and we had two gardenias there. That is what got me so sold on them being so wonderful.
This picture of me was taken in W.M. in one of those silly little booths that everyone used back then. If you will notice, I had a gardenia in my hair even way back then.

That is my kid sister with me. That picture is one I found in my grandmother's things. Her nickname for me was Ed.

Aloe

What a nice picture!

I don't think I've ever seen a gardenia plant around here. The humidity is probably too low, or the soil is too alkaline, or the water is too hard.

God's Warrior

You need to get one of the florist's variety and raise it in a pot with commercial potting soil. Mist it often and water it with distilled water. It would be worth a try.

CajuninKy

I don't like them. They remind me of funerals. Iguess it is because all the cemetaries have them back home. My Dad hated them. There was one at the foot of his grave and we dug it up.

God's Warrior

It is amazing what memories will make us like or dislike. I am sort of that way about carnations because the lingering odor makes me think of death and funeral parlors.

Mary

My stepfather hated lilacs because they reminded him of the ones that surrounded the outhouse where he was raised in Minnesota.

God's Warrior

I can understad that. Lots of people hate hollyhocks for the same reason. They were called out house flowers by many people. Smile

CajuninKy

Is that because they are tall and were used to hide the outhouse?

God's Warrior

I would think so and also probably because they are tough as nails once established. They don't need much attention and can make it without water indefinitely. They were also plentiful and seeds were easy to get from friends or neighbors.

I guess they were just tall and good to hide that ugly old outhouse!!!!!

Aloe

Ellen, here is a picture for you. This is a limequat. The fruits are smaller than a golfball but bigger than an olive.

Click to see full size image

This is a Buddha's hand citron. There is no juicy fruit inside. It's like it's all peel. They smell good and are usually grown for the fragrance, but they can be candied. The fragrance is like a cross between lemon, orange, and something floral.

Click to see full size image

God's Warrior

My goodness! That thing does look like it has fingers. I thhin I must be living in a totally different world from where these plants are being grown. Wink

I have never heard of either one of the latest two. It is fascinating to me to get to see fruits, etc. that I have never even heard of.

Aloe

I thought you'd like those. Here is another weird thing. It's called a flying dragon. It is a citrus relative and is used for rootstock when grafting.

Click to see full size image

God's Warrior

Good Golly Miss Molly! What a freaky looking plant. It is kinda cute though, isn't it?

Mary

Have you grown a citrus from a seed? Some of the grocery store fruits have a lot of seeds. I also see ads for citrus trees or bushes (always pictured with fruit on them) in the Sunday paper suplement and have wondered if they are anything near what the ads say. They look too good to be true.

CajuninKy

Those things grow back home in south east La but we always called them a Mock Orange. Thorns that would puncture you like a bullet. And fruit as hard as a rock. I never tried to eat any but we did break them open from time to time just out of curiosity.