About ten years ago, a lady down the road from me gave me a cutting from a bush in her yard. Miss Twin (yes, there were two of them and yes, they were twins..Vera and Eura..both "Miss Twin" to everyone that knew them!) did not know the name of the bush. She just always called it her "Fake Orange Tree". The bush did not resemble any citrus tree at all, it just made orange flowers that started as a round, orange-colored bud about the size of a marble and produced a small. orange fruit. There was never any thought to the idea that the fruit was edible..it was just there. I was delighted to get the cuttings and promptly went about searching for the identity of the bush. "Fake Orange Tree" just was not going to cut it with me! I searched high and low..asked everyone I knew..pored over piles of books..all to no avail. "Fake Orange Tree" began to sound like a pretty great name.
Then! Then today, I find the identity of the bush quite by happenstance. I was actually looking up how to make Hydrangeas flourish here in the Deep South where usually the heat and dry summers get the best of them. There on my computer screen pops up the ruffled orange flower of my "Fake Orange Tree"! I could not believe my eyes! Oh, Happy Day! It turns out that my bush is none other than a Pomegranate Tree! Whoa!!!! A Pomegranate Tree? Now that is curious! I would have never guessed even though now that I think about it, the little fruits do look like a small pomegranate. Now this is exciting to me..probably not to anyone else..but to me it is! I only wish that Miss Twin was still alive so I could tell her. We could sit at her kitchen table, drink a cup of coffee and discuss whether we should try to eat one of the fruits. Oh, how I miss her! A Pomegranate Tree...hmmmmm? Oh, and I did find out some great info on the Hydrangea Bush!
About the rest of the title of this post...that is not a misspelling or a typographical error. The garden is in full flour! Really! I read somewhere that ordinary, all-purpose flour will drive grasshoppers out of the garden. Those pesky Eastern Lubber Grasshoppers are back and they are back with a vengeance! We had no late freezes to kill the little suckers so now they are eating everything in sight. Nothing is safe from their chomping! Again, I researched. Without dumping a bunch of chemicals around on my property, I was pretty much doomed to letting the dirty, little rascals devour my entire garden. Then, a suggestion of dusting the plants with a thing coat of flour. It seems that it does not act immediately but rather as they continue to eat the now flour-coated plant, their mouths gets completely gummed. They cannot rid themselves of the paste and therefore cannot eat. Then they die. Death by flour! I decided that it was worth a shot. Son and I went out early this morning with our sifters and declared warfare on the munching monsters! We sifted flour on the Day Lilies, squash, pumpkins and petunias. We sifted flour on the cabbages, gloriosas, irises and cucumbers. We sifted flour on the water hyssop, beans,
tomatoes and peppers. Fifteen pounds of flour in the garden! It looks much like it snowed! The north wind carried the flour everywhere creating a fine dusting on all of the plants. Now, to wait..and hopefully find dead grasshoppers in a few days! So you see..the garden really is in "full flour"!
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