greening

This morning I got up early.
I wanted to see the news about the hurricanes and the earthquake in Mexico.


I ventured into the backyard for the first time in a few weeks, and picked some cherry tomatoes.



I neglected the vine all summer.

They are almost finished but I was able to save these.



I had a bumper crop of these tiny chili peppers.



Just one is enough to knock your socks off.

I don't know what I'll do with all these!





One sad thing I noticed is that all our citrus trees are sick.




At first I thought the leaves were curling because of a water issue, but it is worse.

It is a disease called citrus greening or Huanglongbing.

It is spread by a tiny bug called the Asian Citrus Psyllid.

The disease is a bacteria and has no cure.



Here's the Meyer Lemon:



It is called greening because the fruit from the tree stays green and tastes bitter.

It is really affecting the fruit industry. The price of oranges is going to be really high this winter.


I'm sad because this mandarin finally grew above my head and started making fruit this year:




It also got the Navel orange which is older than me.



We once had a bug called White Fly, but that could be cured by hosing the leaves off.

Apparently there is no cure for this new disease, but to cut them down and prevent further spread.

Comments

  1. Yikes!
    I lost my Satsuma tangerine last year. I had raised it from a 1 gallon can, and it was 5 foot high in a 20 gal.planter. Maybe it had your bug. It lost leaves then the branches dried up & were brittle. I stuck a jade plant in and it has gone crazy with such a big planter. TMI?

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  2. I looked into the disease and it's pretty widespread in SoCal.
    I'll keep you updated on what happens to the trees.

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