The garden, mid-October

The sun is shining, jobs are done for the day so before we put the kettle on for a well earned cup of tea we thought it would be useful to get some photos of the fruit trees in the garden and surroundings. The fruit is ripening day by day so it’s a good time to capture where each of the trees is in their cycle.

The small citrus tree is absolutely laden with fruit … they are tiny, but there are plenty of them.

Mandarins ... tangerines ... satsumas ... clementines?

So far we aren’t entirely sure what they are … mandarins, clementines, satsumas, tangerines?  Mad Alex allowed someone to strip all the fruit from the tree before we took possession last year.  For some time this wasn’t clear, leaving us thinking the tree produced no fruit at all, until we spotted two stray fruit lurking right in the very centre.  Clearly too hard to harvest for whoever took the rest of the fruit!  We picked the remaining two and they were lovely … not too sweet or too tart and not oversupplied with pips either.

So far it looks like we’ll get a good crop but at the moment over 95% of the fruit are still a dark green.  The occasional one or two are starting to turn to a pale green, then yellow before becoming bright orange in late November.

Just starting to ripen

The two lemon trees are also doing well.  The tree near the gate has larger, still solid green, lemons; the garage tree  has smaller but more advanced lemons which are just starting to turn yellow.

Green lemons on the gate-end tree

Ripening lemon on the garage-end tree

The pomegranate tree is presenting some problems with regard to its attractiveness to local wildlife, but that’s an issue for another day.  In the meantime the fruit that have escaped such attention are ripening fantastically well.  One of our neighbours has three trees in her courtyard.  Last year she estimated that they produced over 100 kg of fruit between them.  Far, far more that she could use or give away to friends, so she ended up bagging up the fruit and leaving them outside her house with a note offering them for free to tourists.

Near-ripe pomegranates

Just around the corner, down the donkey track, there is a derelict plot containing the remains of a partially renovated two storey house.  If anyone is looking for an adventurous renovation project then look no further!  In the absence of any care and maintenance pomegranate and particularly fig trees have been growing unchecked.  The figs are coming on well, with a mix of under-ripe and hard green fruit and delicious looking ripe purple figs.

Ripening figs

Yet more figs

Those with a keen eye may notice an interloper in the second of the fig photos.

The photographer gets no points for observation today having missed the tiny praying mantis posing on a branch just off to the left of the figs.

All being well, updates to come in due course!

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