Fruits of Neglects

October 2014

I woke up happy that I was relatively unaffected by jet lag, thanks to sleeping just 3 hours on the last leg back from Asia and a dose of melatonin to grant me a full night of blissful sleep. This morning, I headed excitedly out to my garden/orchard. Weeds abound as expected after three weeks absence....plus even more weeks of neglect prior. I was anxious to check on the bunches of banana that started forming as I was leaving for my trip. Three bunches of bananas!! So glad that this year the banana plants flowered early enough in summer for the fruits to form and ripen before fall/winter. 

The Manila Mango had grown taller; beautiful bronze new leaves top the tree. I smile as I spy a mango the size of my palm still on the tree. Looking around for more fruits, I note an equally large mango lay rotten at the base of the mango tree. It must have ripen while I was away. I continue to search for more fruits and found one more almost ripe mango. I debated plucking the fruit but decided to let it ripen further on the tree.

I turn around from the mango tree to check out the Sapote Ciku tree. As usual it was full of flowers on the tree and loads of tiny fallen unsuccessful fruits. I almost walk away when I spotted the first ciku fruit ever from the tree!! I could not believe it!! Recently, I was told by the growers at a tropical tree farm, that it takes like 7 years for the ciku to fruit in our San Diego climate. I excitedly looked around the tree and found 4 more ciku fruits. Boy, will my husband be excited when he comes home from work. I planted the tree for him- ciku is not my fruit of choice.

The autumn princess of my garden, the Persimmon tree was laden with delicious orange color fruits. Many fruits were eaten by the birds as I had not wrapped them up in paper bags like I did in previous years. Still I think, there would be enough for us to enjoy!! Hopefully, I will find the time soon to wrap up the fruits.

I really believe once the bones of the orchard is set up, it will be productive despite some neglect. Of course, the more care you give it, the better your harvest. Everyone should plant an orchard of their own as there is nothing quite like freshly plucked, tree ripen fruits.