For many years, fall was my time for planting, cleaning up the garden, and all the other things I couldn't do in the summer when it was too hot to work. I thought that this year would be the same, but not so. For one, we had extended hot weather into the beginning of autumn, so we couldn't do anything then. By the time it got cooler, I'd found other things to do.
Because I have not been as busy in the garden, I have enjoyed the bounties from my garden. Last week, we picked a record 2.5 lbs. from our olive tree (Olea europea), half a pound more than last year. The tree doesn't get any irrigation in the summer, except for the rare buckets of water thrown in to keep the surrounding plants alive. It produced enough to give us a small bottle of olive oil from the community milling.
For the last few weeks, I've been slowly picking pomegranates as they show signs of cracking and giving them away to friends and neighbors walking by. I've been enjoying watching each fruit get bigger and redder. I've been very careful not to pick too soon as they don't get more ripe once they're picked. I did learn that the cracking is actually a sign of uneven moisture, especially towards harvest time. After it rained one night, some fruit have suddenly cracked open where I can see thearils, which could lead to bacterial infection unless picked soon. I'm going to be busy processing these with my gadget (shown in the picture), and I need to think about who else has not gotten a pomegranate.
