Save the fruit (tree)!

Yesterday we went back to the kangaroo nursery, Wendy, to replace this tragic Pomello, a victim of high sea winds just 2 days after purchase.  I tied and taped it back into place, but once a trunk gets bent at a 90 degree angle, it appears to be all over.  We also needed to purchase a drip watering system (and I was secretly planning to buy flowers to supplement the herbs in the pots, but don’t tell Dan.)

In speaking with the German manager, I learned something new about fruit trees. I asked her whether it was ok to pick the fruit in the first season, as with my apple, plum, and apricot in Michigan, I was told not to do this in the first couple years in order to enhance fruit production in the future. So I asked her, “Should I do this with my new citrus, fig, guava and chesic?” The surprising answer, “Only if you are religious.” She was quite confident that this is a religious observance which has nothing to do with the nature of the plant. She said that with “forest fruit,” as they call apple, pear, plum, etc. here, you do need to delay picking, but not with tropical fruits. Yippie! More fruit for me!