Netzingers -- Explicit coquina que est optima medicina.

It was a busy day in the garden, despite a morning devoted to Thanksgiving potluck for church.  When we were coming out of Fern's house after dropping off her meal, Diana circled the large Nopale bush in the front yard of the complex.  A pad had fallen off, and before we could scoop it up, the owner came out and offered up the berries and some pads.  So we ended up with a loose pad, a branch, and a whole stem with a single root dangling down. 

The nopale pads we planted along the driveway, filling in a gap between the fig tree and the horseradish.  It was a dream fulfilled for Diana, who loved the large plant and drooled over it every time we went past it.  

The fruit I am planning to singe with a Sterno campsite burner we bought after the big ice storm.  I am pretty sure you need the prickles off before you stick it in your mouth.  

Originally we had planned to dig some holes for the coming shipment from Starks, so I set out to dig another hole for an Sharpblue blueberry on the southwest side of the house.  This is a boggy spot where the other blueberries grow the best.  

Then after that I drilled out a good size (4 gallons maybe) hole behind the the propane tank where a Issai hardy kiwi will go.  What I am thinking as the kiwi grows out I can clear the hedgerow for a trellis, running east to west.  I expect the plant, if it survives our strange winter weather, to range maybe 20-30 feet. 

I started clearing out a good-sized spot behind the tank, and whacked out a good bit of forsythia and honeysuckle, the twin demons of American gardens gone wild.  Machetes and mattocks were the order of the day.  I also moved a stake from a failed red raspberry planting to where one had come up again after getting squished under the falling pine tree.  

The ice storm of last January set the planting back, since all the clearing we had to do was multiplied by an order of magnitude. I had wanted to have the hawthorne pruned down to a sane 20 fet and have the hedgerow cleared by the end of the season, but here it is going on Thanksgiving week and the work is undone.  Everyone was set back by that disaster.

Diana mentioned that our hawthorne tree had fizzled out this year.  The fruit set, and then mostly all of it was immediately blasted.  I  resolved to do at least something on the hawthorne.  It looked like a
sad bundle of twigs with a few dead leaves pinwheeling in the wind.  So
I grabbed the loppers, a folding saw, and a ladder, ready to tame the thorny thicket of leaders, wild stems, and suckers.

There is only one way to prune a hawthorne: slowly and carefully.  The young branches sport mighty thorns - one left a hole in my knee last year and I have great respect for them.  I managed to cut down or lop out  four rogue stems and hundreds of suckers.  And I even found a few stray fruit clinging desperately to the branche, rock-hard unripe yet nicely intact.  They will have to blett or cure indoors for a good long time until they soften and release their sweetness and flavor.

It was dark when Diana came to drag me in.  I hung in as long as I could to the fading light from the sky, wrapped around thorny branches as I stood on top of the aluminum ladder.  There are still a couple stray leaders to come out, and plenty more suckers, for another day.  Now is the time to lick my scratches.