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Here’s this morning’s yield of Grape tomatoes:

Pretty paltry!  But it’s okay because there are more to come.  The other bite-sized varieties we’ve grown have all started annoyingly slow - a tomato here, two tomatoes there - and then they all come in at once.

These were once the tiny tomato seedlings I bought at the Phillippi Farmhouse Market - three for a dollar.  I expect to get my money’s worth!  Two plants ended up in the ground, and one ended up in a pot.  I planned on putting the potted plant into the ground but never got around to it.  I assumed those tomatoes would be smaller, just not teeny.  They’re closer in size to raisins over grapes!

I love sweet and sour sauce, sour cream and Sour Patch Kids, but Surinam cherries are too sour for me.  So each year, they inevidably drop to the ground, smush all over the brick pavers and leave a huge mess.  Still, I love them. 

The fruit is festive as it ripens; tiny Chinese lanterns drip from the branches in clusters of red, yellow, orange, and green.  Then, when the fruit is at its ripest, the Mockingbirds descend. 

At this point, the brick pavers are thick with cherry goo and the bushes are nearly picked clean.  The birds must sense the end of the buffet line because every time I saw one today, it had a dark red cherry stuffed in its beak and didn’t fly away.  I felt a little like Snow White being in the proximity of those cherries.  I’ve never felt so accepted by a bunch of birds in my life.  There was a Mockingbird perched on the handle of the pitchfork, one on the compost bin and one on the fence. 

 ♫ With a smile and a song, life is just a bright sunny day ♫  -Snow White

Lukey will be playing the part of Sleepy from under the covers.

I made a yummy yogurt-granola parfait this morning with bananas and blueberries.  On my way to toss the banana peel into the compost bin, I stopped short in the rose garden.  One, because the roses are blooming and budding like crazy:

And two, because the roses could use that banana peel more than the compost.  Bananas are good for roses for the same reason they’re good for people - their high potassium content.  Potassium is a common ingredient in fertilizers because it encourages hefty bloom and fruit production.  There are several ways to feed your roses bananas, but you know me, I always pick the easiest.  I simply shove my fingers into the soil a few inches from the base of the rose and then shove the banana peel down.  Cover it up, water it in, and done.  But that’s me.  Other people will tell you to bake the banana peels so they’ll break down faster or to use the whole banana and make it into a mash.  This seems like extra work, but that’s coming from a Floridian.  The Florida sun is hotter and more effective than any oven on Earth.  The heat literally melts everything we bury.  We have our bin, but that’s more for yard waste.  Most of our kitchen scraps go underground.  We use one square at a time and no matter how much we bury, we never dig anything up. It’s as unbelievable as a magician making his assistant disappear.  I want to know where the trap door is.  

This rose’s name is Strike it Rich; it’s a Grandiflora rose and the star of the garden - extremely disease-resistant.      

If I could give you one thing today, it would be the feeling of my backyard.  It’s 70 degrees without a cloud in sight, and Grandfather Grapefruit is wearing his intoxicating cologne of citrus blossoms.  The sweet smell is wafting from fence to fence filling every available nook and cranny in the yard.  With John here next to me, I’m exactly where I want to be today.  I hope you are too.  Happy Easter!

It’s Wednesday, so Luke and I headed over to Phillippi Estate Park for the farmers market.  I was on a mission to identify this plant:

On our first lap around, I didn’t see the Master Gardener’s Help Desk.  But I did stop at Nature’s Partner to buy some lettuce.  Peter Burkard owns the stand.  He grows and sells local produce, plants and honey - all organic.  Judging from his produce, he’s as good a source as any.  I pulled out my sprig and asked him to identify it.  He grabbed a leaf, snapped it in half, took a big whiff, and quickly said “Surinam Cherry.”  Even though I asked him to repeat it, by the time we were leaving I could only remember s…something…cherry.  These Rainbow carrots distracted me. 

I finally spotted the Master Gardener’s Help Desk on our way out, so I grabbed the sprig.  But neither of the two gardeners knew what it was!  I told them someone told me it was a cherry, and only then with the help of a book did they identify it as a Barbados cherry.  Google to the rescue!  After searching a bunch of images, it looks like Peter’s native nose wins this one.  It’s a Surinam cherry. 

Not when it comes to grapefruit anyway.  Check out my giant grapefruit:

I pulled three like this off the tree; I was excited to cut one open. 

But the lack of flesh was disappointing.  You get the same amount of fruit from a regular-sized grapefruit.  You only end up with more rind and membrane.  Although the membrane on its own is magnificent.  Sort of a strange comment about compost material, I know, but it was literally so soft I wanted to lay my head on it and take a nap. 

It probably would’ve bounced, but trade it for a Chinese grapefruit and you might get a dribble.  Sweeter than a typical grapefruit, some will grow as big as basketballs!  They’re also known as pummelos.

It’s ABC Wednesday again, and lucky me, one of my Hibiscus is blooming…

This is my favorite of the three Hibiscus in the garden; but after a little Googling, I’m drooling over the Roselle Hibiscus sabdariffa. 

Image source: http://www.ecotechindia.com/herbalextracts

The Roselle does it all - it flowers, provides fruit, and is thick enough to use as a hedge!  I’d love to eventually have an entirely edible landscape; the Roselle is on my list!  Its common name is the Florida cranberry because the fruit is tart.  I like tart, and there are plenty of recipes available online for syrups, juices, teas, jellies, and even WINE!

We’ve reached the point where the grapefruit are starting to drop faster than we can eat them.  It was time to get serious and make some juice.  We lured Mike over with dinner and put him to work.  Three people is the way to go because you have a picker, a cutter and a juicer.  With an assembly line like that you have gallons of juice in no time.  That is if you have these two essential items - a citrus picker and a citrus juicer. 

Keep the ladder in the garage, take a trip to Home Depot, and get yourself a fruit picker.  It’s the best, and you’ll get a killer arm workout reaching for those top branches!  The other necessity is a citrus juicer, not just any juicer will do.  Mine is an attachment for my Kitchenaid, but as long as it’s for citrus, it’ll do.  Here’s our payoff for all the hard work and sticky floors:

Who needs coffee?  The first sip of this grapefruit juice makes your eyes bulge!  But once your taste buds adjust, it’s perfect - smooth and refreshing.  I’ve had it with breakfast every day this week, but maybe I should be drinking it before bed.  Several holistic and organic sites advise drinking a glass of grapefruit juice before bed as a cure for insomnia.    

No more waiting until the weekend for fresh local produce - the Phillippi Farmhouse market is now open Wednesdays from noon until dusk.  It was supposed to open in November, but the county-sponsored market violated a county law - oops!  The county changed the law, and the market opened last Wednesday.  Oops again, I forgot!  I remembered today as did half the city.  It was packed - there had to be seventy-five cars in the parking lot with a constant stream of traffic coming and going.  Here are a few of the reasons why locals were slowing traffic on US 41 today:

My Sarasota strawberries are soaking in balsamic vinegar and brown sugar as we speak…mmm…vinegar and berries…weird and delicious!  I bought them from Bayside Farm - a family owned and operated Sarasota farm.  They were also selling sweet corn, bell peppers, green onions, and cabbage.  The tomatoes and avocados are from Brown’s Grove.  Although these aren’t them, Brown’s grows and sells heirloom tomatoes.  Look for those around May.  I went a different route with my tomato and lettuce buying today and bought some seedlings from Vision Horticulture.

The recent cold snap lightened their inventory, but they were able to save the Roma and grape tomatoes, romaine lettuce and collard greens.  Here are my two picks - romaine lettuce and grape tomatoes.

The seedlings were probably the deal of the day - 3 for $1.  But maybe not…my bag was pretty full for having only spent $10.

If you can get over there, definitely check this market out.  If you can’t, there’s always Saturday’s market downtown and Sunday’s market in Siesta Key Village.  For more information on the downtown farmers market, check out my latest article in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.

It’s grapefruit season again.  As long as the freeze didn’t do too much damage we’ll be eating grapefruit for the next three months.  It’s a real treat to have a food source like that in your backyard.   The juice is my favorite.  When they’re really ripe, it only takes two grapefruit to squeeze out an 8-ounce glass.

But how easy it is to forget the joy of that sweet, tangy juice when it’s your two-hundredth glass.  Getting rid of so many grapefruit can actually get tedious.  This is our third season with the tree; it’s time to move beyond the basic sugared grapefruit half and cup of juice.  Our first dinner of the season was Honey Orange Grapefruit Chicken served over a Grapefruit-Spinach Salad with Grapefruit Poppy Seed Dressing.

We all loved it - even John, who (gasp) doesn’t like grapefruit that much.  The dressing cut the tangy bite of the fruit, and the chicken had a tasty sweet and sour flavor from the blend of honey and grapefruit.  The original recipe was printed in Woman’s Day Magazine and is also delicious.

Honey Orange (or Grapefruit) Chicken

• 2 Tbsp. flour
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 4 skinless, boneless chicken-breast halves
• 2 tsp. oil
• 1 tsp. freshly grated orange or grapefruit peel
• 1/2 cup fresh orange or grapefruit juice
• 1/2 cup chicken broth
• 1 Tbsp. honey
• 1 tsp. minced garlic
• 1/4 cup chopped parsley

Mix flour and salt in a plastic food bag.  Add chicken and shake to coat.  Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat.  Add chicken and cook, turning once, 5 minutes or until golden and meat is opaque at center.  Remove to serving plate.

Put orange peel, juice, broth, honey, and garlic in skillet.  Boil 4 minutes or until slightly thickened.  Stir in parsley; spoon over chicken.

Poppy Seed Dressing

• Juice from 1-2 grapefruit
• 1/4 cup red wine vinegar
• 1 Tbsp. Dijon mustard
• 1 Tbsp. honey
• 1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 2 Tbsp. poppy seeds
• Salt and pepper