Tangy weather

One of the good things about gardening in backyards is that the rest of the street can't witness the strange things you sometimes get up to: like gardening in the rain.

Now, all my Sydney gardening friends don't need a weather report – we all know it has been raining for the last few days, and that it's likely to keep on raining for a while longer yet. So most sensible folk might think "oh well, it's raining, might as well read a book/watch a video/bake a cake/clean the house, etc etc".

But no, not this little gardener. "It's raining, yippee, time to feed some plants!" And so that's what I did today: I fed my three citrus trees. As a matter of fact, rainy days are the ideal times to pile on the fertiliser. That's because the theory is that you should water the ground well before applying plant foods. Rainy days take care of that little job for me. And then you should water the ground well after applying plant foods, to get the nutrients down into the soil. Thank you once more, rainy day!

Here in our temperate climate at least, it's best
to feed citrus grown in-ground twice a year,
at the end of summer (late Feb) and early spring
(late August). This is my Eureka lemon tree,
healthy and happy, always willing to scoff a bit
more food and produce some more juicy fruit.

It's not the prettiest lemon tree, having had a
rough childhood, bullied by the roots of a nearby
 climber which is no longer there. But it has bounced
back since the bully left, although it does lean to the
left slightly, like that famous tower in Italy.

Also getting a feed today was this person, the Tahiti lime, which
is grown espalier-style on a frame of solid wires suspended
between two swimming pool fence posts. This loyal trooper is about
10 years old now and is soldiering on nicely. It needs regular
clipping back (about two or three times a year) to maintain
its thinnish, wideish shape, but it's too lush with foliage to ever
take on the classic leafy 'arms' look of the fancy pear and apple
espaliers that you see in the designer gardening books.

There's only one problem with Tahiti limes and
that is they bear their fruit in a big bunch in
late summer and early autumn, then for the
rest of the year there's very few to enjoy.

Even though I religiously thin out fruits where
I can to cut down the gluts, I always miss a few
clusters and I end up with these bunches. 

The exception to the 'late summer/early spring'
feeding regime is potted citrus, such as this
potted Thai makrut lime. It gets fed lightly
but more often, around once a month is ideal.

As for what to feed citrus and how much, there's a stack of different options, each with its own instructions on the pack that are well worth following to the letter. 

For the potted makrut lime I prefer to use a slow-release product such as Osmocote for Citrus, but every now and then I give the pot a small half-handful of chicken poo, sometimes a bit of cow poo, if I am fertilising other plants nearby in the warmer growing season, when I am watering the pot a lot and it's probably growing faster than ever and can cope with a bit of a treat. The main thing is not to apply too much food to potted citrus trees at any one time, but to keep on giving it little feeds throughout the year.

As for the in-ground plants, I prefer an organic-based product such as Dynamic Lifter for Fruit and Citrus (for no special reason other than habit and good results). Notice I say it's "organic based" and not "organic". That's because so many good, useful modern plant foods now fall into this "organic based' category. They don't qualify as a purist organic product but that doesn't bother me greatly. The Dynamic Lifter, for example, is basically chicken poo, but these days the manufacturer (Yates) has added in trace elements to boost its effectiveness. 

My commitment to organic gardening is more to do with avoiding sprays which kill beneficial insects; to use methods which slowly but surely 'feed' the soil over the years with compost, manures and mulch; and to encourage a little backyard eco-system where birds, beetles, lizards, spiders, worms and all sorts of creatures find a home to share with us, and each other.

A little deficiency of mine

One of my favourite blog titles (and blogs), is 'Patient Gardener', the ongoing story of how Helen is going in her garden in Malvern Wells, in England. I've been tempted occasionally, and not very seriously, to rebadge my blog 'The Impatient Gardener' because I am afraid that is what I am. Here's a small example of the impatient gardener at work, courtesy of a small citrus problem I discovered recently.

All is well in this close up of my 'Eureka' lemon tree.
Flowers galore, bees buzzing and, if we had a 'scratch
and sniff' blog tool you'd be expecting sweet lemon
blossoms, only to run screaming in the other direction
as the chicken poo smells waft out from your screen. 

Ditto the 'Tahiti' lime tree: healthy new
leaves, chicken poo smells, too many
flowers and happiness all-round.

Even the hospital patient potted Thai
lime tree has staged a recovery, new
leaves galore thanks to the change
of pot and potting mix, plus lots of TLC.

The Thai lime is also covered in teeny
little flower buds, the signs of many
uniquely ugly fruit to come. Ugly?

Yep, ugly. I love just being around this Thai lime tree,
as every molecule of it is fragrant. The leaves are a
joy to harvest and chop, and these wrinkled, not-very-juicy
little fruits are equally well-scented. It's the rind which
is the harvest here, Thai zing personified.

OK, if everything is so hunky dory in the citrus department, where's the impatient gardener tale? See below... 

While photographing my somewhat healthy and happy
Eureka lemon tree I noticed that quite a few of the baby
leaves looked like this, very pale green with darker
green veins. Sure signs of some sort of deficiency, but
which one? (And how dare it be deficient in anything with
all the chicken poo, compost and mulch I've been
giving it... wretched ungrateful prima donna plant!)

So, get out my copy of Judy McMaugh's great book,
'What Garden Pest or Disease is That?' and in no
time it seems that we're talking iron deficiency, folks.

Iron deficiency is more common in alkaline soils,

and the basic treatment for iron deficiency is a dose

of chelated iron. And so Mr Impatient mixed up a 

batch (one teaspoon to a 9-litre watering can),

applied it to the root zone around the lemon tree,

watered it in well. Take that, iron deficiency!

Then, only afterwards, it occurred to me that maybe I should check with an expert that what I did actually was the right thing. So I did, and it turns out that yes, that does look like a case of iron deficiency, but not super-serious. It's in its early stages and probably will right itself. Just keep on watering well and let the chicken poo break down and slowly work its magic. Should come right, I was told.

Oh oh... well at least I followed the packet directions for the iron chelates and didn't overdo it, but – and it's a big but – if I was a truly patient gardener I would have noticed the problem, checked with the experts first, waited a while and probably it would all have come good all by itself.

Patience is not merely a virtue, it also has its virtues. It's a shame that I seem to regularly remind myself of that just after I've been impatient yet again.

Yes, spring definitely has sprung

Wow, Huey's laying on a pearler of a first week of spring. Sunshine plus warmth in the 20s every day, and for the next few days it seems. Love your work this week at least, Huey! While all the garden renovations chugg along nicely, the established plants in other parts of the garden where mattocks aren't being swung have all jumped out and, if they could speak, would be cheering loudly. The whole show here is starring, of course, the dazzling scadoxus family, but they're not the only spring bloomers around here.

The Scadoxus are at their peak right now, after taking
more than a week to fully open.

This year there are four of them, last year three.
They're at their best in the late afternoon, when the
low sun catches the tops of the flower tips.

Talk about photogenic! These scadoxus
are superb in the early morning light,
gleaming like neon adverts while all
the greens around are slowly waking up.
In the afternoons they catch fire. They're
the first thing you see when looking out
from the house, and you'd think I'd be over
the sense of 'wow' after a week of this,
but no, every 'first glimpse' gets me.

The largest of them seems to be making babies while
still blooming. Ever the optimist, I am hoping this is
a good thing, the beginning of a scadoxus empire,
achieved without much help from me, I might add.

If there is such a thing as a ridiculous amount of
flowers on the one plant, then my lime tree has a
ridiculous number of flowers on every twig, branch,
stem: you name it, it doesn't just have a flower on it,
there's a cluster jostling for a bit of bee action.

The hum of bees is the soundtrack to being out here
right now, and it looks like these baby lime-ettes
indicate that a bee has paid a welcome visit here.

When limes flower profusely, lemons flower too, but
not quite in such abundance, and in a different colour
scheme, too. Both have a lovely fragrance to be near.

Reliable as ever, the pinky-white cymbidium orchids
make their September appearance with aplomb.

And the most popular flower with visiting native birds
is working its way up to an October peak, but it is
already filled with blooms. This is Grevillea 'Peaches
and Cream' a modern hybrid that, like the Robyn
Gordon and Ned Kelly grevilleas to which it is
related, blooms most of the year anyway. The native
birds actually squabble over visiting rights, sometimes
quite noisily, but they all get a good feed every day.

As the garden is being renovated now it isn't quite as filled with flowers as it usually is at this time of year, but the old regulars are still a delightful bunch to have around. This really is the nicest start to spring that we've had for several years – may it continue this way for as long as possible, I say.

Tangy flowers

Here in Sydney spring begins in late winter, if you know what I mean. Now that it's September the season is well and truly underway, and the generous feeding that I gave my citrus trees in August is bearing both flowers and the beginnings of another crop of fruit.

This little guy and his pals were everywhere this morning. I wonder if lime pollen has a citrus tang? Probably.

Standing back for a moment, here's the espaliered Tahitian lime tree which I have managed to keep alive for several years now. When I say 'espaliered' I mean that the branches are trained to grow sideways on some wires strung between two posts. I did a posting back in 2008 on how I set up the espalier, and if you're interested you can read it here.

Every year I feed my two in-ground citrus trees generously at the end of winter (August) and towards the end of summer (February). With the assistance of some steady watering, both citrus trees respond with delight, flowering their heads off and sending out new growth. I mostly use the well-known Australian product, pelletised chicken poo sold here as the beautifully named product, Dynamic Lifter. As it pongs to high heaven I am sure my neighbours probably don't love Dynamic Lifter as much as I do!

Lime flowers are white, and they mostly appear in clusters like this.

A bit of a rarity, here's a single lime flower with the beginnings of a fruit already there.

A much more common sight is a cluster of flowers and baby fruits, clinging to their mother branch.

On the other side of the garden path, it's the same story with my 'Eureka' lemon, except that the flowers are pinky coloured.

The lemon is also sending new growth in all directions.

If I was hanging around in Sydney all I'd need to do for the next couple of months is make sure of a steady water supply, either courtesy of Huey's heavenly garden shower service, or my trusty garden hose.

Fortunately my next door neighbour Katarina loves watering gardens and every time we come back from any holiday I could swear our garden always looks better thanks to Katarina's skills. And so, when Pammy and I get back from our travels in America I am sure the lime and lemon trees will be lush with green foliage and their branches drooping gently under the weight of growing crops, all thanks to Katarina's neighbourly skills.

Thinning citrus

I always thought there were two good reasons for thinning out your crop of baby citrus fruits, but reading up on the topic I've discovered a third excellent reason to do it.

1. The first reason for removing some of the baby fruits from your tree is to increase the size and quality of each of the remaining fruit that forms on the tree. Knew that.

2. The second is that thinning fruit prevents the tree totally jettisoning all fruits during a heatwave. A few years ago I didn't know that, and I didn't thin the fruit much, and a heatwave struck early in the season, and then I discovered that in order to survive the tree will willingly abandon a whole season's crop of thirsty little baby fruits (especially if it has also been dry and the plant is thirsty, anyway). Young trees are more likely to do this than older, established trees, but it's always a bit of a risk when fruits are just forming.

3. Here's the thing I discovered only recently. Citrus trees can tend to have a pattern of bearing a huge, bumper crop one year, then virtually no crop at all the next year. If you thin out your crop each year, it will tend to keep on producing crops to a nice, steady beat, year after year. Cool discovery!

Anyway, that's what I've been doing lately, and I thought one or two photos might be helpful.

This is a baby Eureka lemon this morning, covered in the latest shower of rain. Originally part of a cluster of three, he's the only one left, and he has doubled in size in a week of rain.

And here's the two-year-old Eureka lemon tree itself. In its first year I removed every last fruit from the tree, so it could put all its energy into growing. Last year I let just a couple of fruit mature, and they were lovely, squeezed over oysters I think it was. This year I have removed four out of every five baby fruit, as my main priority is for the tree to keep growing, but that should still give me about 15-20 nice lemons a few months from now, if all goes well.

Over the other side of the pathway, this is my espaliered 'Tahiti' lime, which is now about eight or nine years old and, given the small space it is allowed to occupy, fully grown. It actually needs a trim back, especially the top bit, which is hard to reach now, but I'm leaving it alone while the baby fruits are forming and the rest of the plant is looking so green and well. I've never done an espalier before, but it has worked out fairly well. I blogged all about it last year, here, if you're interested in the idea. Anyway, these last few days I have been thinning back what was looking like a bumper crop of limes.

Typically, I start off with about four, five, six or seven baby lime fruits in a cluster. As every last branch and stem of the tree is covered with these crowds of lime-green babies, my aim is to leave just one fruit to develop in each spot, after thinning.

The easy way to remove the fruit is to pinch one in your fingertips and give it a gentle twist. They usually come away very easily when they're young, like this.

As mentioned earlier, with this cluster I've just left one, the largest and healthiest baby.

I find the best way to thin the fruits is to have a couple of goes at doing it. Yes, it is a bit boring and arm-achey too, so I do it bit by bit, not all in one go. Besides, I always seem to just miss heaps of clusters the first time round, so I come back a couple of days later do a bit more. The nice part about doing the job is the lovely fragrance of the leaves, by the way. So it's not all bad and boring.

This approach works just fine if you have only one or two trees, as I do. I'm not sure what they do in orchards! Maybe they hand out fruit-thinning duties as punishment to bad orchardists – maybe they don't bother at all?

While at best it's fragrant drudgery, it is worthwhile doing, and here in Sydney it's the perfect time of year to do it.