Star Flowers of Natal Plum

Carissa macrocarpa 'Boxwood Beauty'

The pure white, simple flowers of Natal Plum have a wonderful fragrance, but it does not carry. You have to get in close to get a whiff. All parts of this plant are poisonous, except for the edible fruits, but only after they are ripe. I still haven't tried them--too scared!

The dwarf cultivar, 'Boxwood Beauty', is supposed to be thornless, but I can attest to the fact that it does have thorns, and they are brutal! To read more about this great little shrub, see a previous post about it.

Out My Back Door

"Bother me tomorrow, today I'll buy no sorrow
Doo, doo, doo, lookin' out my back door" *

And, out my front door



*Creedence Clearwater Revival
Lookin’ Out My Back Door (Lyric excerpt)

Maybe Tomorrow...

I don't keep a regular vegetable garden, but I do grow at least one container tomato plant every year. I patiently feed and water it for several months just to get a few fresh tomatoes. The red one should be ready to pick tomorrow. This year's tomato plant is an Early Girl VFF Hybrid, with 16 tomatoes in various stages of growth. Now that the temperatures are getting consistently above 95 degrees, the 16 tomatoes I have will be all I'll get this year.

Maybe in the fall...

I hope my Brown Turkey figs continue to grow and ripen so that by October I'll have some fresh figs. I pruned the fig back in late winter, just as instructed by the nursery, in order to promote fig production. The first year I decided to let it grow and got only a very few, very small figs. This year there are a lot of figs growing on the small tree, so maybe the pruning worked.

By fall, the pears from this Opuntia engelmannii should be ripe and ready to use for Prickly Pear Vinaigrette and maybe some Cactus Candy.