Saturday Gardening and Puttering Thread, December 18

Merry Christmas to The Horde! Getting a little time for puttering, gardening or nature?

Photography

The Alpine Garden Society is doing an Advent Calendar to remind members that Christmas Eve is the last day to submit entries in the 9 categories of its Photographic Competition for this year.

Above is one of their winners from years past. Below is another one.

So blue!

Memories

We discussed the history of poinsettias last week. Interesting stuff. They are spurges, related to some common weeds.

From RTW, an old photo of a 10 foot tall poinsettia:

The photo is from Falfurrias,Texas, taken some time in the late 1950s or early 1960s. The poinsettias were on the south side of the church where they got lots of sunlight. At the time, I thought that all poinsettias grew that big.

I used to have a poinsettia almost that tall in my rented duplex yard in Southern California.

From the archives, 2019:

Larro's Christmas Cactus has bloomed.

This plant is 2 years old, and always indoors back by breakfast nook on north side windows.

Christmas cacti can live for a long time and are sometimes handed down in families for 100 years. My cousin (the one with the geraniums in her basement) has one that has been handed down in her family, and she has given starts to other family members.

Edible Gardening

You may recall that on November 6, we saw photos of spectacular blossoms and green fruit of backyard cactus from jim in Kalifornia.

Well, today we get to see the ripe fruit.

Sorry for the delay in updates on the fruit. Busy, then my Dad passed away (lived to be 95), traveled for his funeral, got back a couple of days ago. Updated pics:

So sorry to hear about the loss of your Dad. Thanks for thinking of us when you got back from the funeral.

Fruit you previously saw on cactus. 5" long, weighed in at 3/4 lb. I took it off too early, still a bit red, should be more Magenta in color.

I waited too long to open the fruit, inside started turning dark. Still tasted good, but not as sweet as I plucked it too early. Note the white flesh and little black seeds; the seeds easily crunch, unlike the prickly pear fruit seeds which are hard as rocks.

Pulled three more fruit this morning that were ready. Because of being gone for a week for my Dad's funeral, picked two after they split open (naturally want to spread their seed). You can see the white flesh and tiny black seeds. Largest came in at about 5" long and 3/4 lb. The top one came in at 1/2lb, the tiny one at 1/4 lb.

They can still have thorns where they were attached to the cactus if those come off with the fruit when removed. The fruit on top still has them, but it was relatively easy for me to cut the fruit around the thorns to removed them.

So fun!

From By-Tor:

Some whole dills and spears and spicy corn relish. The whole dills are Persian cucumbers which I haven't used before but were small enough to fit in the jars. I'm trying to perfect my recipes before the LA County fair next year.

Looks like a good start on fair fare!

Weather

The tornadoes and such in the East are so horrifying. Is everybody Okay?

We have had rain this week. Yay! Some wind, too.

In Utah, they recently had more snow on the fruit trees and barbecue set-ups than they expected.

Provided an opportunity to feed the birds

And when the snow melted, to feed some leftover Thanksgiving pumpkins to hogs out in the country.

Moar Puttering: Is your yard ready for Christmas?

Which song do you think goes best with these decorations?

Might as well jump

or

Stayin' alive?

Or some other song?

If you would like to send information and/or photos for the Saturday Gardening Thread, the address is:

ktinthegarden
at that g mail dot com place

Include the nic by which you wish to be known when you comment at AoSHQ,
unless you want to remain a lurker.

posted by K.T. at 01:23 PM

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