Monday, August 8, 2011

Sunday August 7, 2011

A Giant Orange Weed

Up early, so after a cup of coffee and ‘puter time, I went back to work in the garden.

Now the allamanda, jasmine and grape vines are all planted on the back fence. I planted them about 10 feet apart. I am hoping that is enough for them to cover the fence and not compete with each other too much.

Then it was on to the orange tree. Sadly, it had to come down. My husband’s Granny gave us a Valencia orange tree shortly after we bought our home. That winter we had a nasty freeze and the tree didn’t make it. In the spring, an orange tree sprouted right where the other had died. We were so excited and made all sorts of jokes about how the tree was as tough as dear Granny. But soon we realized that it was not the lovely Valencia we had planted.

It grew tall and weedy and had thorns that were two inches long. If it ever did bear fruit, we weren’t sure how we would pick it. Several years later it seemed to have some sort of disease. The leaves curled and twisted and little wasps and grass hoppers moved in. I now know that trees are sometimes grafted onto “root stock”, also an orange tree, but grown for its strong roots. Not to bear fruit.

So, now it is down and pulled from the ground. We cut what we could then wrapped a chain around the trunk. We attached it to the back of our SUV and pulled as much of the roots out as we could. Now I can prep the ground for my first Papaya seeds. Hopefully, my watermelon vines didn’t get too trampled in the process of pulling out the tree. It seemed like we kept bumping into them.

So, I finished the morning off by dragging some oak logs around for raised beds. The first bed I made is pretty big, about 6x7 feet. But, it has watermelon and a few struggling cantaloupe in it, so they need the room. I’ve turned some of the composted cow manure into the place where the tree was. Prayerfully, whatever was bugging the orange tree weed will not hurt papaya trees!

“Early in the morning, as Jesus was on his way back to the city, he was hungry.  Seeing a fig tree by the road, he went up to it but found nothing on it except leaves. Then he said to it, “May you never bear fruit again!” Immediately the tree withered.”

Matthew 21:18-19

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