today's harvest

Today's harvest is fresh endive, a Meyer lemon, and a couple eggs.

valentine eggs

I put together 4 blue eggs and a Meyer lemon as a gift for a friend on Valentines Day.

mini pies and Meyer Derby

My favorite dough recipe is this one: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/bobby-flay/apple-pie-recipe.html

I like it for apple pie as in the recipe. Today we made a double batch and used half for mini pies with canned fruit and froze the other half. My favorite fillings for mini pies are canned cherry or blueberry. To make mini pies, I roll the dough in a square, slice it in three or four sections, dollop on the fruit, fold over the dough, crimp and bake. I'm looking forward to canning my own fruit soon for these little pies.

For the perfect beverage with these little pies, I like a Meyer Derby. Mix 2 oz Bermuda dark rum, add maple syrup and squeeze fresh Meyers lemons to taste. Shake with ice and then strain into a chilled martini glass. Yum!

pea harvest

 

Today's harvest was a pile of peas and a few Meyer lemons. The lemons will ripen up with a few days inside on the window sill. The peas will not last that long. They will disappear at dinner time. I'm  still deciding how to cook them, but likely straight up with a little salt and butter.

I have forgotten, again, what variety of pea I planted where. I planted 3 types of peas this year in my parents garden and 2 types in my garden. My parents have been picking theirs for a week or so now. This is my first pea harvest. These peas were planted on St Patrick's Day. Though I gave them a nice 5 foot trellis thinking they were tall vines, they ended up only about 1 foot tall, at most.



The pods are pretty, but small. A few pods are plump with 5 big peas inside, most have 4, and some have only 1, 2, 3 peas. I was wondering why so few pods are full. After reading a bit, it seems that its a pollination issue. Peas self pollinate, but rainy weather can interfere. My guess is that the each pea in the pod needs to be pollinated with its own pollen grain to mature and that this did not go so well for this crop. We have had some serious rain this spring. I remember going out and photographing the flowers in the rain. I will see if I can find a wet-pea-flower-photo.

My other pea variety, also of unknown name, is growing taller, maybe about three feet tall now. The pods are almost ripe - I think they need another week. They look like they will be fatter and fuller than this batch.

meyer lemon tree

This year my Meyer lemon tree has lots of lemons on it. I think because I did better at watering it indoors this winter. Its in a big pot and comes in to our front porch during the winter. It can stand a mild frost and is inside from Nov to April usually. Its about 6-10 years old, I'm guessing and very pot bound as I don't have room for a bigger tree. This summer, it could use to have its roots and branches trimmed.

Sometimes I get a few fully ripened yellow lemons, but usually they stay greenish. I am assuming we don't have enough sun at this latitude to fully ripen all of the fruit it produces. It seems to bloom and set fruit all year round. I learned last year (from a a kind commentor on my blog) that it needs a lot of nitrogen, and I have been regularly fertilizing, which is making it look great.

The lemons are delicious, even when they are a bit greenish, and are wonderful in a martini!

I was on line last night (ordering a few more asparagus crowns) and came across a sale at Territorial Seed Co on fig trees and ordered one. I have to look into figs now. I imagine these have similar culture requirements to citrus. Hope I can squeeze two trees on the porch in the winter.

(If you click on the label below, you can see previous posts on my lemon tree.)

a baby meyer's lemon

My Meyers lemon tree has been dropping unripe lemons now and then since I brought it inside. It drops the smallest ones and the big ones keep growing. About 10 big lemons are still on the tree, all green still. The baby lemon that fell yesterday was big enough to slice. It looks like a lime, but a Meyer's lemon smell. Not much juice, but excellent in a martini!

Here is a beautiful Meyers lemon tree at A Growing Tradition. Covered with big lemons!

Skippy posed in front of my tree and looked very handsome for Christmas! Cheers!

baby lemons

I took a bunch of photos of the lemons on my Meyer lemon tree just now. Its still blooming and setting fruit. But today's lemon count was a little lower than my last one - 26 instead of 33. Maybe a few have dropped off, but its hard to count them, so the difference may be just my counting.

new grape arbor - and my lemon tree

I forgot to post this photo last weekend after my husband made this new arbor for my grapes. The vines were all over the place. I pulled them together and put them on their new arbor. Much more orderly looking.

Add my little Meyer's lemon tree is also in this photo. I will have to get a close up picture of the lemons growing on it. Earlier this year, someone told me that lemons need a lot of nitrogen. So I fertilized it well and added fresh soil. I've never had so many fruits before. I counted 33 last week. And it is still blooming its wonderful smelling blossoms and setting more fruit.

meyer lemon flowers

Its mid winter and citrus are ripe in the south. But this is the season my potted tree blooms. I suppose its something about the light or temperature change when I bring it indoors in October that triggers blooming. Looks like it may be a good year, as more buds keep forming. Five so far. The most its had before is three lemons.

little lemon tree

Since I just posted photos of my parents great grapefruit tree, I thought I'd photograph my own little lemon tree. Its a Myers lemon. It is about 8 years old now. Here in Massachusetts, I have it in a pot and bring it inside every winter and outside every spring. Two years ago it produced 3 beautiful lemons, but none last year. This year I am being very nice to it. I re-potted it this summer, and am trying hard to remember to water it now. I have one blossom now that seems to be setting fruit. Meyers lemons are awesome in martinis!

Here's a link to a photo of my tree and a lemon from it two years ago.

The Meyer lemon (Citrus × meyeri) is a citrus fruit, native to China, thought to be a cross between a true lemon and a mandarin orange or sweet orange. The Meyer lemon was introduced to the United States in 1908 as S.P.I. #23028, by the agricultural explorer Frank Meyer, an employee of the United States Department of Agriculture who collected a sample of the plant on a trip to China. It is commonly grown in China potted as an ornamental plant. It became popular as a food item in the United States after being rediscovered by chefs. They’re sometimes smaller than a regular lemon, rounder in shape, with a thin, soft, and smooth rind which ranges from greenish when slightly immature to a rich yellow-orange when fully ripe. The rind lacks the typical lemon peel oil aroma and the pulp is darker yellow and less acidic than a regular lemon. The complex flavor and aroma hints of sweet lime, lemon and mandarin.(from Wikipedia and SplendidTable)

Topic: martini!