In My San Diego Garden and Kitchen

This is the most productive year for our Satsuma tangerines that we can remember. As with other fruit trees, it’s often difficult to sort the factors that might have led to the largesse. I’d favor weather conditions and busy bees, but who knows? The abundance is shared with family and neighbors and the Christmas package to our son’s family near Seattle included two dozen tangerines.

The navel oranges sweeten with the cooler nights and the harvest begins in earnest.

We begin the season of fresh squeezed orange juice with breakfast.

We harvested the last of the Jacaranda broccoli. I let the crowns spread a bit before cutting since I was overwhelmed with thirteen large heads within two weeks. My plan to stagger the Jacaranda and Premium Crop varieties did not work out as hoped.

Last week I blanched and prepped five pints of broccoli for the freezer. They’ll be handy for soups as I wait for the side shoots on the Premium Crop plants to develop. After harvesting the crowns, I doused the soil around the plants with liquid seaweed and fish fertilizer, anticipating the side shoots.

As my son, Tim left after the holidays, I sent him home with his garden favs along with bags of tangerines and oranges.

Here are a few of last week’s garden salads. The first cutting of arugula and the last red bell pepper makes for a celebration. With abundant broccoli, I opted for a chop salad with an olive oil and balsamic vinegar dressing—all atop a bed of arugula.

A red bell pepper and a reblooming iris in January—it must be Southern California!

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