Saturday, December 1, 2012

Eve, the Transsexual Key Lime Tree

Can you water plants with beer?  I wonder that every time I have that last few sips from a warm and slightly backwashed can of crappy American beer.  I usually don't drink it fast enough to prevent the leftovers that get tossed, and I'm often sitting in my uber comfy rocking chair next to the winter rescued plants.  One of the plants is a bougainvillea that is going on about 4 years old, and the other is a key lime tree that we brought up from Florida, and he is 12yo.

The key lime tree is actually the offspring of the original, but it sprang from her roots, so really it is part of the same, just a touch smaller.  Kind of like the way Christians say that Eve was extracted from Adam's chest, but in root extraction form.  And I was god.  Hmm, now I will name my key lime tree Eve.  But I think Eve is a boy, the tree that is, so maybe he is a transsexual key lime tree.

 The original took a good 7 years before giving us any fruit, which was always just one or two limes after teasing us with about 8 million flowers.  Eve has yet to produce for us, which is pretty understandable seeing that he is a he.  Maybe I'm wrong though, maybe Eve really is a girl.  I think it takes a fruiting tree (is fruiting a word? well it is now... and spell check didn't correct it, so there.) about 9 or 10 years to bear fruit, so I'm not giving up on Eve.  Eve is pretty, whether we get a lime from him or not, and I love him for who he is.  See, proof that god loves transsexuals too.

So you can imagine my dilemma. Do I water these plants with backwash laced, beer leftovers?  If these were just normal throw away plants, I'd give it a swirl, but I don't want to damage them.  I should note here that I am far from a half way decent gardener.  I buy plants for my garden from the half priced rack, plant them in my sort of shady sort of not shady garden, and institute a survival of the fittest rule.  Every once in a while I water them, but really, if they can't hack it, then it's their problem.  It's a war of the roses.

Maybe I'll go out to the half priced, sad plant bin, buy one that looks a bit healthy, and feed it beer backwash.  OOhhh, that could be a school science project!  We'd have to call the beer 'liquid refuse' but  it could win!  At least I'd give it 1st place.  I can't wait until my kid gets to third grade...


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