Fruits in early spring

Flordaprince peach tree, leafing out. I pruned this tree back heavily in December.

A breba fig from what I'm pretty sure is an 'Alma' fig. There are about a dozen ripening fruit on the tree. It's my only fig in the ground (the rest are in pots). Last season, it's first in the garden, it produced a couple of handfuls of fruit. I prunded it back very hard, to about thirty-two inches, which I'm sure cost me a bunch of early figs, but was necessary because the fig was growing out of bounds. On the fig forum, I've read how many growers cut their figs down to as little as eighteen inches every year -- sacrificing the brebi crop, but keeping the trees very productive in the fall. (This would obviously only work in hot climates like here.)

'Dorsett' apple, breaking dormancy. Anna is still sleeping...

Sambokan lemon blooms. I have five citrus in my yard, and they're blooming in a series, perfuming the whole courtyard.

Blooms on my new 'Sri Kambangum' carambola (from ECHO's fruit nursery). It's in a three-gallon pot; I might move it to a seven-gallon, or put it in the ground. I haven't decided... It's grafted, so it might even produce some fruit this season. It's technically out of its zone here, but I have a Brazilian friend up the street growing several largish ones with only minor frost damage this year. She harvested hundreds of fruits.

Garden happenings...

A warm day today, though that's predicted to change early this week, with temperatures dipping back into the upper thirties. I spent a couple of hours cleaning up the garden, trying to get things back into shape after the path and patio work. I noticed that my carambola and limão 'Cravo' had finally sprouted, and brought them outside to soak up the rays.

My friend Bill picked up me up an 'Owari' satsuma grafted onto Flying Dragon rootstock. I have a couple of other trees on Dragon: A 'Hamlin' orange (our 'native' DeLand orange) and a 'Honeybell' tangerine. The Dragon rootstock is dwarfing, keeping trees to below ten feet -- though from what I've read, the final verdict isn't in on their ultimate size. Bill has a grapefruit that's already at least nine feet in three years. In any case, the rootstock inarguable brings the trees into production earlier -- Bill's trees produced abundantly this year. My two trees went in the ground only last year, so I haven't had any fruits.

At Lowes, I picked up a Sanbokan Lemon (Citrus sulcata) in a gallon pot for ten bucks... I think I'll grow it in a container, at least for this season. I swear, that's the last citrus I buy.

Let's see... In the veg beds: I'm really frustrated with my collards this season. I bought some plants at Lowes and I guess they must have been bum: Planted right next to Rappini, and while the Rappini has grown well, the collards are still tiny. The first salad greens of the season (planted the third week of September, so four months ago) are about to go to seed (which I'll collect). I have a bunch of 'Red Sails' just now coming into harvest size. To ensure salad until mid-May, I planted more 'Summer Glory' lettuce mix (Parks) last week, so when the Sails come down, there will be more rabbit food to replace it. Strawberries have finally started to produce well -- both patches yield a big handful a day. 'Purple Cherokee' tomatoes are just about ripe. 'Little Fingers' eggplant is recovering well from the freeze. Carrots need to be pulled, and 'Sea Foam' chard is ready to pick again.

Finally, I got in the mail earlier this week two figs that were recommended to me on the Fig Forum at GardenWeb: 'LSU Purple' and 'Celeste.' I got them at Johnson Nursery. They were smallish, maybe thirty inches (pruned) and the trunks were chopstick thick. No complaints, since they were only ten bucks each. Right now, they're sharing a large (thirty-gallon) pot. That brings to five my fig varieties: 'Alma,' 'Brown Turkey' and 'Kadota.' Because of their susceptibility to nematodes, the only fig in the ground is 'Alma.' If it grows without much problem, I'll transfer the others into the ground, too.

Figs' secret sexual lives... REVEALED (by Alan)

Alan, my fellow blogger, answers my question about figgie sex...

I wrote....

Figs. I didn't see the flowers, but it must have flowers, right? Figs rule.

Alan answered...

It did, but you wouldn't have been able to see them. Figs are a bit odd in their reproductive behavior in that their flowers are inside of the fruit. Fortunately the types of figs that we grow here in the Southeast do not need to have their flowers fertilized to set fruit.

There is a class of figs called "caprifigs" that do need to be fertilized for which there is a very special type of wasp that performs the pollen carrying function. Unfortunately the wasps don't survive here so caprifigs are largely confined to the Mediterranean-like climate areas of the world.

.....Alan.